Travellers:
Eleonora Iannotta
Laura Laureti
Luca Saltalamacchia

Period:
11-13 July 2008

Visited areas:
Diyarbakir
Batman
Hasankeyf/Ilisu

1. PROGRAMME

11 July 2008

• Meeting with lawyers of Baro of Diyarbakir.
• Meeting with lawyers of IHD (Turkish Association for human rights, Diyarbakir).
• Meeting with a lawyer in Diyarbakir who is assisting an evacuee of Ilisu in a legal proceeding in Turkey.

12 July 2008

• Meeting with a journalist in Batman involved in the campaign against the Ilisu dam.
• Visit to Suczeken village (Hasankeyf) and interviews of families that will be evacuated.
• Visit to Ilisu village. Police did not allow us to interview the villagers.
• Meeting with a lawyer in Batman who is assisting Ilisu people in legal proceedings (around 40) before Turkish courts.

13 July 2008

• Meeting with GOC DER (Turkish Association for internal refugees, Diyarbakir)
• Meeting with TUHAD FED (Turkish Associations for prisoners, Diyarbakir).

2. AIMS OF THE VISIT

Ilisu Dam – Civil proceeding against UniCredit: the visit was aimed at

(i) collecting information on the Ilisu project useful for a legal proceeding against UniCredit to be proposed in Italy;

(ii) identifying people available to start the legal proceeding in Italy.

3. MAIN ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE MEETINGS

(i) Information collected:

• DSI has published and distributed a brochure describing the Ilisu project in which it is clearly stated that the dam will not be useful for the local population. The new brochure confirmes that the Ilisu dam is not built for the benefit of the Kurdish people;
• the building of the Ilisu dam will take around 7-8 years. Then, a further 2 years will be necessary to fill the reservoir with water. In order to complete the project and start to produce energy, the Turkish government must therefore wait around 10 years;
• as of today, Ilisu and Karabyir are the only villages where the Government has started the expropriation procedures. In Ilisu around 100 houses and 600 lands have been appropriated;
• the compensation granted by the Turkish government to the evacuees takes into account the value of the expropriated goods, but not collateral/moral damages, such as difficulties in starting a new life elsewhere, finding new jobs, etc. The evacuees are mainly villagers who do not know cities. The greatest damage they will suffer derives from their transfer from villages to cities, which will radically change and destroy their previous life;
• up until now, the amounts granted by the Government to the evacuees of Ilisu are higher than the standard compensation (even if they do not consider collateral/moral damages). This is a strategy adopted in order to keep civil society quiet. However, amounts fixed for the following expropriations will be lowered.

(ii) People available to start legal proceedings in Italy against Unicredit:

• a lawyer in Batman is following around 40 proceedings for Ilisu people before the courts in Batman, while a lawyer in Diyarbakir is assisting an Ilisu evacuee before the tribunal of Diyarbakir. These cases will be of use for legal action in Italy. The lawyers will outline our proposal to their clients and, if they accept, will provide us with all the documentation necessary for the Italian action (eg. title of ownership, act of expropriation, etc.).
• Villagers of Suczeken have agree to start the legal proceeding in Italy against UniCredit. However they have not received the act of expropriation yet (pursuant to the information currently available, they will not be evacuated in the short term). In the meantime, we are studying the possibility of starting legal action in Italy before the expropriation/evacuation is executed.
• We are further evaluating the possibility that legal action against UniCredit be proposed as well by people residing in Siria and Iraq, who will suffer damages in relation to the reduction of the water flow of the Tigris river in their lands. The journalist in Batman has contacts with Associations/people in Iraq that may be interested.