sample letter of protest regarding the ilisu dam project

Cc (addresses at the end): Prime Ministers of Germany, Austria and Federal Councillors of Switzerland;
Export Credit Agencies of Germany, Austria and Switzerland; Ministry of Culture, Turkey;
Maggie Ronayne, Lecturer in Archaeology, National University of Ireland, Galway.

Dear Prime Minister Erdoðan,

As an archaeologist (insert appropriate job title), I write to protest your intention to proceed with construction of the Ilýsu dam in southeast Turkey. This project has been the subject of local, national and international protest for many years because it is bound to have destructive impacts on many thousands of people, their environment, an internationally significant cultural heritage, and escalating war in the region.

An archaeologist who has been investigating the impacts of GAP and Ilisu since 1999 has, in a new report, documented a wide range of evidence showing the updated EIA for the Ilýsu dam to be no basis for any project. Maggie Ronayne’s review demonstrates that the EIAR Update is not really an assessment at all and has not collected the baseline data necessary to make a professional decision on whether the dam should proceed and on possible mitigation measures.

The report shows how the dam threatens to destroy thousands of years of culture and heritage and its survival into the future, first of all by targeting women and all in their care. It highlights women’s opposition to cultural destruction by dams and war; yet notes that women have not been consulted properly on this project. Ethnographic and ethno-archaeological proposals to ’salvage’ this culture are demeaning to the rural communities concerned according to this review and cannot possibly save culture.

The review reports that thousands of sites from the beginnings of human history to the present day would be submerged by Ilýsu’s reservoir, including potentially hundreds of large mounds dating from the Neolithic onwards. The timescale, personnel and budgets outlined for salvage works in your government’s plans are gross underestimates; most forms of cultural heritage affected have not been taken into account at all. The plan to just excavate parts of 40 mounds and parts of the historic town of Hasankeyf is entirely inadequate and the proposal to move some medieval monuments to the upper town or a cultural park, juxtaposing them with others from different periods is unacceptable and inadvisable given the nature of the materials. That is, even if residents wanted it, and many reportedly do not. The cultural park plans for the new Hasankeyf have not been agreed with residents and there is no clear management plan in place or strategy for avoiding rampant tourist development.

It remains illegal to flood Hasankeyf itself as it is a protected site under Turkish cultural heritage law; it is currently the subject of legal proceedings in the European Court of Human Rights.

Between 60-80% of the reservoir area remains to be surveyed for archaeological sites; indeed, the very area where you presided at a foundation ceremony for the dam’s construction on 5th August has not been surveyed at all and therefore it is a breach of international law including EU directives to proceed with any construction in the absence of archaeological survey and testing.

But survey and excavation to professional standards is not possible in this region according to local archaeologists themselves, given time, funding and personnel constraints and with a war escalating. In the report, archaeologists from the area have mentioned landmines, military control over what they do and the impossibility of maintaining professional ethics and standards due to the climate of repression in the southeast, e.g. the need to address threatened cultural destruction of Kurdish and Armenian heritage, for example. Work (by Ms Ronayne) over several years has shown that relatives, lawyers and archaeologists all believe that graves, including mass graves, of people disappeared during the war in the 1990s may well lie in the reservoir area. The professionals say they are unable to investigate due to restrictions by the State.

How can you proceed with the dam while all of these cultural impacts remain uninvestigated and when professional opinion is that it is not possible to do so? In particular, it is not possible to do so while you are prosecuting a war in the Kurdish region. Will you not be complicit, along with any other funders and backers of the dam, in covering up evidence for crimes committed in that war and involvement in further serious cultural destruction in the Middle East?

When the last consortium tried to build the dam, the World Archaeological Congress said that to go ahead would amount to ethnic cleansing; there is no reason to change this opinion today. As one whose profession is to protect human heritage, I urge that you halt this project.

Awaiting your response,

Emails:
To: rteakparti.org.tr
Cc: kulturkultur.gov.tr; InternetPostbundesregierung.de; poststelleauswaertiges-amt.de; wolfgang.schuesselbka.gv.at; infogs-evd.admin.ch; generalsekretaereda.admin.ch; ursula.rickliswiss-erg.com; Werner.schmiedoekb.at; thomas.wohlwilleulerhermes.com; maggie.ronaynenuigalway.ie

Recep Tayyip Erdoðan
Prime Minister of Turkey
Fax: 90 312 417 0476
rteakparti.org.tr;

Mr Atilla Koç
Minster of Culture and Tourism, Turkey
Tel: 90 312 309 08 50
Fax: 90 312 312 43 59
kulturkultur.gov.tr

Ms Angela Merkel
Chancellor of the German Federal Republic
InternetPostbundesregierung.de; poststelleauswaertiges-amt.de
C/o: German Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Tel: 49 030 5000-0
Fax: 49 030 5000-3402

Mr.Wolfgang Schüssel
Chancellor of the Austrian Republic
wolfgang.schuesselbka.gv.at
Phone: 43/1/53115-0

Ms. Leuthard Federal
Councillor of the Swiss Confederation
Tel: 41 031 322 21 11
Fax: 41 031 322 21 94
infogs-evd.admin.ch

Ms. M. Calmy-Rey
Federal Councillor of the Swiss Confederation
Tel: 41 031 322 21 11
Fax: 41 031 324 90 47
generalsekretaereda.admin.ch

Export Credit Agencies:
ERG - Exportrisikogarantie (Switz), Ms Ursula Rickli: ursula.rickliswiss-erg.com
ÖKB - Österreichische Kontrollbank (Austria), Mr Werner Schmied: werner.schmiedoekb.at
EulerHermes (Germany), Mr Thomas Wohlwill: thomas.wohlwilleulerhermes.com

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