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The Guardian : March 1, 1999
By Paul Brown, Environmental Correspondent

Britain Backs Controversial Dam £1bn Turkish Scheme Threatens Kurd Lands

A project to build a dam which will wipe out scores of Kurdish towns and villages and destroy a site of international archaeological interest is to be underwritten by the British government to the tune of £200 million.

Balfour Beatty, the company which was the lead contractor in the ill-starred Pergau Dam project in Malaysia, is being supported by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) in its bid to build the Ilisu dam in Turkey - despite the fact it would contravene both the Foreign Office's ethical policy and Foreign Secretary Robin Cook's recently announced environmental aims.

The proposed dam is on the Tigris River, 40 miles upstream of the Syrian-Iraq border, in the heart of the Kurdish populated area. It will produce hydro-electricity and will be used for irrigation. Demand for electricity is increasing by 8 per cent a year in Turkey and frequent power cuts are inhibiting economic growth.

The reservoir will flood 52 villages and 15 towns, including Hasankeyf, a Kurdish town of 5,500 people and the only town in the region of Anatolia which has survived since the Middle Ages. The town was awarded archaeological protection by the Turkish government in 1978.

Tony Juniper, of Friends of the Earth, said: 'We have to stop this project before the British government is party to fermenting war in the Middle East, destroying part of the homelands of the Kurdish people and major environmental destruction.' The World Bank has refused to have anything to do with the £1 billion Ilisu dam project. The bank believes the project violates the UN convention aimed at preventing border disputes and wars between states that share water resources. Turkey was one of three countries which opposed the convention when it was passed by the UN General Assembly in 1997. The danger is that Ilisu could be used for political blackmail: Turkey could stop the flow of fresh water into Iraq and Syria simply by closing the dam's sluices.

When the Turkish government failed to get the backing of the World Bank it appointed a Swiss hydro-electric company, Sulzer Hydro, and ABB Power Generation, a Swiss-Swedish company, to organize the project. They approached Balfour Beatty to head the construction consortium. Work is due to start later this year.

Sources at the Foreign Office were said to be furious that the DTI was going ahead with the project without consulting them. Last night a Foreign Office spokeswoman said the DTI was the lead department on the project but 'we support and encourage them to ensure environmental concerns are taken into account in assessing all projects and have encouraged them down this track'.

The World Bank's refusal to back the project meant that private banks regarded the project as too risky and the international consortium of construction companies in nine countries headed by Balfour Beatty, Impregilo (Italy), Skanska (Sweden) and three Turkish companies had to find governments which would underwrite the project. They have submitted applications for export credit guarantees to nine countries, including Britain's Export Credit Guarantee Department (ECGD), which is part of the Department of Trade and Industry.

Balfour Beatty was at the center of the Pergau dam battle in Malaysia. That project became mired in controversy after Britain ignored warnings that the project was unsuitable on environmental grounds and gave a large chunk of its aid budget to build the dam, because Malaysia was buying arms from British manufacturers.

Balfour Beatty says it is too early for anything but preliminary environmental assessments to have been made and they should not be published. The company said no contracts had yet been signed.

A spokesman for the ECGD said: 'We have been working together with a number of export credit agencies for some time in assessing this project. We still have an open mind and have not made a final commitment.'

Tony Juniper, who is campaigns director of FoE said: 'This project is a disgrace. It will further add to the risk of conflict in one of the most unstable parts of the world. The whole thing makes nonsense of the Foreign Office's ethical and environmental polices.'

Two weeks ago, when launching his green Foreign Office policy, Mr Cook said: 'The prospects for peace in the Middle East would be enhanced if the region's fresh water were properly conserved. 'We strengthen our environmental policy by having a foreign policy that stands up for democracy, human rights, accountability and openness. If people have no voice, their leaders have no interest in the environment.'

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