Tag: Hasankeyf

Turkey Condemns a Civilization to Death

Would a country sacrifice more than 550 historical monuments from various Mesopotamian civilizations to a dam? It appears Turkey is determined to do just that. It is no joke. The Ilisu Dam project — under discussion since 1958, approved in 1982 and accelerated by the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government in 2006 — will swallow Hasankeyf, a major juncture along the Silk Road.

A town now condemned to death, Hasankeyf has seen Romans, Byzantines, Persians, Artuqids, Ayyubids, Aq Qoyunlus and Ottomans come and go. The sites destined to bid farewell to the world include a 12th-century double-deck stone bridge with only four feet surviving, the El Rizk Mosque, the Mardinike Palace ruins, the Zeynel Bey Mausoleum, the Syriac Quarter, the Sultan Suleyman Mosque, the Koc Mosque, the Inn and the Arasta bazaar, a number of shops and kilns, and countless cave dwellings. The Batman Municipality organized the Hasankeyf Culture and Arts Festival for Oct. 18–20 to draw attention to the looming disaster.

A president unmoved by ancient civilization

A citadel perched atop 100-meter-high rocks on the banks of the Tigris marks the beginning of the story of Hasankeyf. There are 5,000 to 7,000 cave dwellings carved into rocks at the citadel and in the adjacent canyon. Until the 1970s, the settlement remained alive as an ancient “citadel town,” with its mosques, churches, cemeteries, tombs and markets frozen in time. In 1966, President Cevdet Sunay happened to pass through the region and was appalled. “How could people still be living in caves? Homes should be built for them immediately!” The townsfolk were moved into houses built on the grounds the citadel overlooks. The old town is now derelict, in ruins.

Decades have passed, but, unfortunately, many are still of Sunay’s mindset, belittling the civilization of a rock-dwelling community as “living in caves.” In 2009, Yasar Agyuz, a main opposition lawmaker, submitted a parliamentary inquiry, asking the government whether it would “sacrifice Hasankeyf to a dam with a lifespan of 40–50 years.” The Environment Ministry defended the plan to annihilate a civilization, stating, “The water will submerge only ‘the lower town’ where structures are [already] destroyed.” Hasankeyf Mayor Abdulvahap Kusen, though a member of the ruling party, raised heartfelt objections. “We would not exchange our caves even for villas. We are against projects that would destroy history and culture,” he said.

A view from the citadel at Hasankeyf. The ruins of the bridge and minaret will disappear if the project goes through.

Why is sightseeing banned?

The culture and arts festival gave me the opportunity to tour Hasankeyf before it is flooded and joins the mythical club of “lost cities.” Visitors arriving in Hasankeyf, 37 kilometers from Batman, are greeted by the Zeynel Bey dome, which is famous for its tiles. The essential part of town is on the opposite bank of the Tigris. We passed through the exotic souvenir market at the entrance and reached the gate of the old town, where the guard lazing in the security booth stopped us:

“Going up to the citadel is forbidden.”

“Why?”

“A rock rolled down last year, killing three people. There is a ban now because it could happen again.”

We thus decided to take a break at a café perched on the hill. Accompanied by Batman Municipality Cultural Director Yunus Celik, we sipped Turkish coffee, boiled on cinders, while taking in the minaret of the 600-year-old El Rizk Mosque, destined to go underwater.

One of the café’s employees, Bilal, explained that the minaret, where storks now nest, would be submerged up to the level of its balcony. He dismissed the reason for the citadel ban, offering another explanation: “If the place remains out of the public eye, there will be no public awareness. That’s why they don’t want tourists.”

The world of Ali the shepherd

Ali the shepherd dropped in at the café just in time. He instantly recognized us as Hasankeyf visitors barred from sightseeing and made an offer: “My house is on the citadel. If you wait for a while, I’ll take you there.”

Ali is the only person who continues to live in one of the cave houses that the state evacuated. He is also an officially accredited tour guide. The ban, however, has made his business a “clandestine” affair. “Let me first read your coffee cups, and then I’ll show you around,” he said, before vanishing into thin air.

Bilal stepped in, offering to take us to the citadel via a clandestine route, so we breached the ban and sneaked in. Mi and Bizin, from Ali’s herd, joined us at the riverbank. I gave them these names: mi means “goat,” and bizin means “sheep” in Kurdish. We climbed the steps carved into the rocks and walked to the other side of the hill. To stop trespassers, the gate on the back side of the citadel has been encircled with a makeshift wall. Leaving Mi and Bizin behind, we resolutely climbed over the wall. The site is no longer a citadel, but rather a plateau of ruins.

Bilal pointed to the homes carved into the rocks at the citadel and the stone mosque and church. “There are at least 5,000 homes here. The water will rise to a height of at least 65 meters, submerging the homes in the valley. It will not reach the homes on the citadel, but they will eventually melt away because the rocks are so soft,” he said. Bilal showed as around the palace, the Ulu Mosque (converted from a church), a building that he described as the place where “the first-ever coins were made” and a mausoleum, where he said a prayer. He explained how residents used to get jars of drinking water up the hill with the help of a pressure mechanism.

As we climbed down from the citadel, Mi and Bizin were waiting for us. We went on climbing in the valley, where the mosque and church were. At a tomb carved in the rocks, we quaffed water that we drew from a well. Mi and Bizin were not forgotten.

Beyond the citadel, cave houses dot both banks of the valley. Pointing to a place in the middle that used to be a marketplace, Bilal said, “That was my grandfather’s barber shop.” He then returned to the subject of the rock that fell from the gate the Ayyubids had added to the citadel. “An excavation was under way. They were using sledgehammers, and the owner of the café up there warned them that a rock might roll down, but they didn’t listen. Then a rock did hurtle down and killed three people,” Bilal recalled.

As we finished our tour, completing a full circuit of the citadel, Bilal gave us a piece of advice: “If the officials ask any questions, don’t mention the citadel. Just tell them you went to the mausoleum to pray.” When we reached the entrance, it was Bilal who had to mollify the officials. There were no questions for us, nor for Mi and Bizin! The brief expedition into history left me profoundly shaken.

Why locals are uneasy

So, what happens next? Western financial institutions had managed to disrupt the Ilisu Dam project for a time, by refusing to grant loans for the dam after the issue was taken to the European Court of Human Rights. The current, ongoing construction, however, is financed through domestic funding. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has set 2014 as the deadline for completion.

Thus, the countdown for the people of Hasankeyf has begun. They have two options: to migrate or to move to a housing complex erected by the state Housing Development Administration (TOKI) along the skirt of the Raman Mountains, opposite the old town, an area spared from flooding. TOKI claims it has built the new Hasankeyf in the style of Artuqid architecture.

The locals are exasperated by life in a place deprived of investment for decades, first because the area was an archaeological site off-limits to construction, and then because of the anticipation that the area would be flooded anyway. “Incidents of snake and scorpion biting are commonplace here, but there is no doctor. Life is unbearable. The flow of tourists has died down since the citadel was closed,” Bilal said.

A shop which was used as a hairdresser existed in the community.

Initially, most Hasankeyf residents saw the dam project as a savior. For them, it meant cash and jobs, but the expropriation payments for their properties have been a disappointment. In addition, as construction has advanced, they have come to realize what a treasure they are about to lose. On Oct. 10, Hasankeyf residents held a demonstration blocking the bridge.

“My shop was valued at 7,000 Turkish lira [$3,500] and my house at 20,000 Turkish lira [$10,000]. They want me to move to the TOKI complex. The price of a house there is 180,000 Turkish Lira [$90,000]. So, they are telling me to contract a debt of 160,000 [$80,000],” grumbled a shopkeeper in the historic bazaar.

Before he disappeared, Ali the shepherd also expressed apprehension. “Fourteen thousand lived in the caves until the 1970s. Now I’m the only one. My parents lived with me until 2008. I was promised a house and jobs for my family, but none of the promises materialized. I’m accustomed to the history and climate up there. I can’t give it up,” he said. Ali believes there are still two ways to save history. “The bend and the dam lake could be kept away from Hasankeyf, or two dams could be constructed instead of one in order to have a lower water flow,” he said.

The Wise Men group that Erdogan formed as part of the Kurdish peace process has also recommended that the project be stopped or modified. “It should be taken into account that if Hasankeyf is declared a world historical heritage site, the revenues it will generate will far exceed the dam revenue. Thus, at least decreasing the water retention level must be considered to save the historical and natural riches,” the group said in a report on the issue.

The government, however, rules out investment in Hasankeyf’s heritage on the pretext of terrorism. The people of Hasankeyf counter that the area is free of “terrorism.” Radikal correspondent Serkan Ocak, who’s familiar with the issue, told Al-Monitor, “Some 10 to 15 year ago, the idea was to flood the caves and the passages on the grounds they were used by the PKK [Kurdistan Workers Party]. In order to save Hasankeyf, a proposal was made to build five small dams instead of a large one, but no one ever lent it an ear. They launched the construction even though the impact of terrorism has significantly subsided.”

Erdogan’s promise that the monuments would be relocated is met with a bitter smile among the locals. Hasankeyf is not just tombs and minarets. Moreover, experts have warned that moving the monuments would amount to smashing them into smithereens. As someone just back from Hasankeyf, I would only add this: The rock-dwelling civilization is silently crying out. It is high time to hear its voice.

By Fehim Taştekin
AL Monitor

October 31, 2013
Land before time – south-eastern Turkey

Land before time – south-eastern Turkey

Story and photos by LOUISA LIM
louisa@thestar.com.my

Where time stood still: The writer in front of the Mausoleum of Zeynel Bey in Hasankeyf.

Even to adventurers, south-eastern Turkey is terra incognita. However, those who dare tread its lesser-known roads will be greatly rewarded – with pistachios, smiles and soul-searing sights.

THE red flag appeared in the periphery of the world news section of a local daily: “Car bomb kills one, wounds 18 in south-eastern Turkey.”

But I knew it was too late to turn back. My flight and hotels had been booked and, besides, hadn’t I always longed to go on an exciting adventure before I hit the big Three O?

So it was with no small degree of trepidation that I set off on a bus ride through one of the world’s last tourism frontiers, southeastern Turkey (or Turkish Kurdistan, if you like). Bordered by Syria to the south and Iraq to the southeast, this landlocked region is PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) territory and a no-man’s land.

For nearly two decades, this was the epicentre of the Kurdish rebellion. Coupled with harsh weather, Third World infrastructure and scant tourist facilities, southeastern Turkey was off-limits to travellers and Turks from Western Anatolia.

Until recently, that is. Security levels are improving.

The New York Times listed Kurdistan as No 34 on its list of 41 places to travel in 2011 (it beat Budapest and Miami). However, this has had little effect on tourism numbers – only hardy backpackers and die-hard adventurers trickle in by the handful.

As my bus wound its way around the barren wilderness punctuated by the occasional desiccated shrub, I saw Mother Nature flaunt her assets. Around me were sheer sandstone cliffs dropping precipitously into nowhere and deserted hilltop citadels tinted golden by the unrelenting sun.

Harran, one of the world’s oldest continuous inhabited spots, where traditional mud brick ‘beehive’ houses still stand.

Sand soon gave way to concrete as the bus rumbled past rows of unsightly apartment blocks that scars nearly every town, signalling that we were close to Urfa, one of Southeastern Anatolia’s largest towns. Nearby was an army checkpoint, surrounded by menacing barb wires and sandbags piled high – an intimidating sight even to the bravest soul.

Nonetheless, I waved at the weary-faced soldiers, curious to see how they would respond. They waved back, all smiles.

Once the stomping ground of Prophet Abraham, Urfa is replete with biblical and Quranic lore and ancient Islamic edifices. Its proximity to Syria also means that the city radiates a distinctly Arabic vibe. With the muezzin’s call to prayer as background track, women clad in hijab and burqa and mustachioed men in keffiyeh (loose robes) clutching prayer beads go about their daily lives.

As the only East Asian around, I felt as conspicuous as a human on a planet filled with eight-legged ETs. Then I saw a little girl staring open-mouthed at me.

“Mama, too-rist!” yelped another little girl, tugging urgently at her mother’s shirt-sleeves.

“Merhaba (Hello)!” greeted mother and daughter in unison, eyes sparkling with curiosity. Witnessing the scene, another local ambled over with some apple-flavoured tea and watched in amusement as I gingerly took a sip.

Ancient wander

Just like the centuries of visiting pilgrims before me, I started by paying my respects to the great prophet in Golbasi, one of the few green lungs in the city. Golbasi isn’t just any park however – this was the place where Prophet Abraham and monotheism was born.

The story goes like this: Nimrod, the local Assyrian King, received a prophetic dream that a child would be born who would overthrow his rule. As a result, he had every baby in his kingdom killed except for Abraham, who was hidden in a nearby cave. When Abraham was discovered years later, Nimrod tried to cast him into a burning pit. But God saved Abraham by turning flames into water and the firewood to carp.

A boy selling simit, or Turkish-style pretzel, in the Urfa’s historic bazaar.

These days, it is considered auspicious to feed the thousands of sacred carp that still live in the pools in Golbasi.

Then I dove headlong into Urfa’s bazaar, with its tangle of narrow streets lined with copper craftsmen and chain-smoking vendors who hawk everything from spices and sheepskins, to jeans and ceremonial costumes. Built in the mid-16th century by Suleiman the Magnificent, the bazaar is the go-to place for bargain-loving locals.

Wandering past the bedesten (a covered market built during the Ottoman period), where fabrics were sold, I found myself in a busy courtyard filled with the click-clacking sounds of dice and backgammon being played by tea-swilling men. A boy walked among them, balancing a large tray piled high with simit, or Turkish-style pretzels, on his head.

Everything is delightfully antique in these parts, and Urfa and its surroundings are no exception. Six miles from there is Göbekli Tepe, one of the most startling archaeological discoveries of our time: massive monoliths that the National Geographic described as “vaguely similar to Stonehenge, except that Göbekli Tepe was built much earlier and is made not from roughly hewn blocks, but from cleanly carved limestone pillars splashed with bas-reliefs of animals – a cavalcade of gazelles, snakes, foxes, scorpions, and ferocious wild boars.”

As my tour guide Uraz Nehir and I straggled up the hill where Göbekli Tepe is situated, we began talking about the PKK and their crippling effects on the region’s economy.

“There were talks of ceasefire, but the fights resumed five or six months ago,” said Nehir, a fiercely patriotic and progressive Ankara-born Turk in his 20s.

“Many Kurdish themselves do not approve of the PKK. Too many innocent lives are lost; people just want to live normally.”

Nehir, who has visited this region a few times, claimed tour guides are paid extra money for tours to southeastern Turkey because of the “long bus rides” and “unpredictability”. Thankfully, our journey was disrupted only once when the UK government issued a warning on one of the highways we were supposed to take.

It was reported that the PKK had been rigging the highway’s petrol kiosks with explosives. Consequently, we had to take a 10-hour detour.

“If there is a fight, we change our route. So far, nothing bad has happened and I’m still alive,” he said. “Don’t worry!”

Disappearing act

Pointing to several foreign archaeologists excavating under the cloudless sky, Nehir said, “The oldest history in the world is written in this part of Anatolia. That’s what makes it so special.”

My heart skipped a beat. Here I was, at – some say – the original site of the Garden of Eden.

In the opinion of Klaus Schmidt, the German archaeologist who has been working here more than a decade, Göbekli Tepe was the site of the world’s first temple.

From there, we travelled to Mount Nemrut National Park, home to the monuments of an ancient megalomaniac. The views from the bus were breathtaking.

Squat trees grew wildly in a river valley of spectacular proportions, and the occasional villager plodded by, leading his donkey. We stopped at a safe bend, and Nehir strode over to one of the bushes to grab – it seemed – a fistful of flower buds. It was only after he handed some to me that I realised that we were standing next to a cluster of pistachio trees.

The Turks call pistachios fistik, which is also slang for “hot babe” – a testament to how much they love it.

We arrived at Mount Nemrut after braving a bumpy, dusty and – to cap it all off – winding road up the mountains. Looming before us was the immense burial mound of King Antiochus, with its array of gigantic marble heads severed from their stone bodies. To reach the site, one had to climb for another mile on foot, but there were also donkeys at the foothill one could hire for a fee.

Intent on incinerating the calories from my two-week diet of kebab and baklava, I opted to scale the heights of the 50m super-structure. Soon, I came face-to-face with the big, broody heads that I had found so strangely compelling, even in photographs. The sun was starting to set, casting a rosy glow on the deities, among them Greek Gods, eagles, lions and the king himself.

One travel guide describes the Nemrut ensemble, which includes reliefs, a cave cistern and ruins of columns, as “one of the most awesome sights in all of Anatolia.”

It would be a shame if these edifices didn’t last. According to several media sources, Hasankeyf, for one, is destined to vanish beneath the waters of the Ilisu Dam, the largest hydropower project in Turkey, slated to be completed next year.

The proposed dam will flood an area from Batman to Midyat, drowning the historic site and several other archeological treasures, displacing 37 villages.

The Washington Institute, however, was optimistic over the project, claiming that the dam was imperative for counter-terrorism purposes.

“This area is pierced by canyons that run for tens of miles and are hundreds of feet deep. In fact, it would not be exaggerated to describe these canyons as sort of a ‘PKK highway’,” said its website.

And when it’s completed, the Ilisu dam would flood these canyons, blocking this “PKK highway”.

But these fierce rebels did little to ruin my amazing trip so far. We decided to celebrate our journey in a meyhane, a traditional bar playing Kurdish music.

The Turks are known to enjoy an occasional pint and jive, and anyone who can snap fingers and swivel their hips are welcome on the dance floor. As I boogied with my newfound friends, my worries evaporated, replaced by irrepressible feelings of joy.

January 21, 2013
Turkey’s riverside refugees

The ancient Turkish city of Hasankeyf fights for survival as a new damn is planned.

By Constanze Letsch, / Contributor / June 17, 2011

A minaret juts upward from the El Rizk mosque, built in 1409 (foreground, r.) near the remains of a medieval bridge that crosses the Tigris River. When the proposed dam is filled, only about the top 12 feet of the minaret will be above water. Jonathan Lewis

Hasankeyf, a city overlooking the Tigris River in the Southwestern Anatolia region in Turkey, prides itself on being the oldest inhabited settlement on earth. Having withstood the trials of millenniums and the occupation of civilizations from the Romans, Byzantines, Assyrians, Arabs, and Mongols to the Ottomans, all of whom left their mark, the ancient town now faces the threat of being flooded.

The construction of the Ilisu Dam, officially designed to improve the economy in Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish southeast, would see the end to more than 6,000 years of permanent settlement and the relocation of 50,000 residents.

Firat Argun, who runs a guesthouse by the banks of the river, rallies against the construction of the dam. “Our roots are here, much like those of a tree,” he says and gestures around him. “This is the only place where I am at peace.”

His ancestors migrated to Hasankeyf from Baghdad 300 years ago, and like many local residents, he cherishes his Arab identity. His father and mother both grew up in one of the thousands of caves that dot the cliffs surrounding Hasankeyf where people used to live until the 1970s, when Süleyman Demirel, then prime minister of Turkey, ordered the construction of public housing and the relocation of the cave dwellers.

“The government declared Hasankeyf a protected historic area in 1978,” Mr. Argun says. “We were not allowed to move even a single stone. How can they now come and flood the whole town?”

The remains of an early medieval bridge that once provided the only passage over the river to Silk Road travelers still withstands the currents of the Tigris today. The Zeynel Bey Mausoleum on the north banks of the river dates back to 1473, when the Turkic tribe of the Ak Kuyunlu made Hasankeyf its capital. With its Kufic patterns of glazed turquoise tiles covering the walls, the tomb is one of the few examples of Central Asian architecture in the Anatolia region.

More than 300 historical sites lie scattered in and around Hasankeyf, many of which remain unexplored and will be lost once the dam is finished.

Last July, in an overly hasty excavation of some archaeological sites using heavy machinery, a cliff collapsed and killed a man, according to Berne Declaration, a Swiss nongovernmental organization. After the accident, the authorities closed down the main historical site, which includes a Byzantine castle perched atop a cliff overlooking the Tigris. It was reopened last month.

Despite the dam’s ongoing construction, the Ministry of Culture tendered for maintenance work on several historical sites last year, including the mausoleum and a medieval hamam, or public bath. Ali, a bricklayer from the nearby town of Batman, says: “I know that all of this will be flooded,” pointing toward a low wall that has just been covered with cement. “So I am not sure why I am doing this.”

via Turkey’s riverside refugees – CSMonitor.com.

June 18, 2011
Turkey’s Great Leap Forward risks cultural and environmental bankruptcy
Turkish government’s rush to build dams, hydro and nuclear power plants angers villagers and environmental campaigners
- Fiachra Gibbons and Lucas Moore in Ankara
  
  guardian.co.uk, Sunday 29 May 2011 18.56 BST
  
  Article history
  
  Work was halted on a massive dam project in Hasankeyf three years ago after the ancient city was flooded. Campaigners fear the government will go ahead with the dam regardless. Photograph: Alamy
  
  Every springtime Pervin Çoban Savran takes her camels and sheep up into the Taurus mountains of southern Turkey, following the same routes along the Goksu river that Yoruk people like her have taken for more than 1,000 years. To many Turks these last nomadic tribes are symbols of the soul of their nation.
  
  Their way of life – and that of millions of small farmers – is being threatened by Turkey’s Great Leap Forward, one of the most dramatic and potentially devastating rushes for economic development and prosperity Europe has seen in decades.
  
  Thousands of dam and hydropower schemes are being built on almost all of the main rivers in a pharaonic push to make Turkey a world economic power by the centenary of the republic in 2023.
  
  The ruling AK party, expected to win a record third term in next month’s elections, is forcing through a series of gigantic public works projects that include three nuclear power plants – despite Turkey being one of the most seismically active nations on earth.
  
  The first plant, a prototype Russian reactor on the Mediterranean coast near the port of Mersin, is close to a highly active faultline. A second, Japanese-built, plant will soon follow on the Black Sea near the city of Sinop.
  
  Prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan raised eyebrows across the world last month by promising to cut a 40-mile canal between the Black Sea and Marmara to relieve the dangerously overcrowded Bosphorus strait, an idea even he calls his “crazy plan”.
  
  He has since topped that by revealing a blueprint for two new cities to relieve earthquake-prone Istanbul. Critics say they will only further extend Europe’s largest megalopolis, home already to nearly 17 million people.
  
  It is Erdogan’s declaration that Turkey’s rivers must no longer “run in vain” and 100% of its hydroelectric potential be harnessed over the next 12 years that has environmentalists most worried. They claim that the rush for hydropower is likely to be even more damaging to Turkey’s delicate ecological balance, where desertification and depopulation are already problems.
  
  Hundreds of private companies have been given extraordinary latitude to evict villagers, expropriate private land, clear state forests and steamroller normal planning restrictions to meet the target of 4,000 hydroelectric schemes by 2023. Protestors claim licences have been granted on highly favourable terms, guaranteeing investors four decades of clear profit.
  
  The Turkish Water Assembly, an umbrella group researching the impact of the push for more power, argued that 2 million people could be displaced by the hydropower schemes alone. They accuse the government of riding roughshod over human rights, and Turkey’s commitments to preserving its extraordinary biodiversity and cultural heritage, in the name of energy security.
  
  Campaigners fear Ankara is also determined to press ahead with the massive Ilisu dam project on the Tigris river, which was halted three years ago after an international outcry over the flooding of the ancient city of Hasankeyf.
  
  The Ilisu dam is dwarfed by the $4bn Beyhan project on the Euphrates, also in the Kurdish south-east, where fears of the forced evacuation of the local population evokes bitter memories of the mass clearances of Kurdish villagers by the Turkish army during the war with the Kurdish separatist PKK in the 1980s.
  
  Demonstrators intent on converging on Ankara from five corners of the country are still being prevented from reaching the capital after a week-long standoff with riot police outside Ankara. Many, like the Yoruks, had been walking for two months as a part of the Great March of Anatolia, a movement sparked by anger at the hydro plans but which has come to embody growing anxiety that the country is being despoiled in the rush for growth.
  
  While the neo-liberal reforms of the moderately Islamist AK party have been credited with firing the country’s runaway growth, the gulf between the rich and poor has widened dramatically, and corruption has increased.
  
  The Turkish government insists it must act radically to safeguard the decade-long boom, with growth this year predicted to top 7% despite the worldwide downturn.
  
  Energy, however, is the achilles heel of the so-called Anatolian tiger, with industry heavily dependent on imported gas from Russia and Iran. Despite making itself the hub of a network of pipelines serving Europe from Russia, Central Asia and Iran, Turkey is even more at the mercy of Moscow and Tehran – a fact dramaticallydemonstrated four years ago when Iran turned off the tap and sent fuel prices in Istanbul soaring overnight.
  
  Erdogan has so far been withering of critics of his Great Leap Forward, accusing them of holding Turkey back. He argued that the hydro projects will bring thousands of jobs to the underdeveloped east, irrigate barren land and reverse the wave of migration to the more prosperous west.
  
  “All investments can have negative outcomes,” he said. “But you can’t give up just because there can be some negative outcomes. We cannot say that there will be no earthquake, but we will take all the precautions.”
  
  After the Fukushima disaster in Japan, his energy minister Taner Yildiz caused consternation by claiming that nuclear power was no more dangerous than staying single, citing studies showing married people tend to live four years longer. Alcohol and smoking posed more danger than nuclear power, he claimed, prompting comparisons with former president Kenan Evren’s claim after Chernobyl that “radiation is good for the bones”.
  
  Tourism minister Ertugrul Gunay appeared to break ranks, warning that “if the hydroelectric energy projects are carried out in a reckless manner, cutting out each brook, levelling each mountain and destroying forests just to be able to produce a few watts of energy, tourism would be an impossible dream”, particularly in the Black Sea region.
  
  His comments came as laws were being drafted to allow nature reserves to be handed over for hydroelectric projects. Still more worrying to campaigners has been the official reaction to the legal morass the plans have created, with almost 100 lawsuits filed in the last two years. Of the 41 cases so far heard, judges have halted 39. Work has often continued in defiance of the courts with the protection of police and gendarmerie.
  
  Each hydro scheme is allowed to take 90% of the water out of a section of river, leaving the remaining 10 % as “lifeline support”. After the water travels through the turbines, it is returned to the river, but farmers say much of the water is either lost, polluted or has had the “life taken out of it”.
  
  For Yoruks such as Pervin Çoban Savran it is their very survival that is in question. “Nobody in parliament has shown any interest in our cause,” she said. “They don’t love life, only money. These dams are bringing about our end. Our culture is being destroyed.”
  
  Hydroelectric projects on the tributaries of the Goksu river have already severelydamaged traditional pastures, she said. “It has affected us very quickly. But in the end, everyone else will suffer too.”
  
  ‘They want to turn us into slaves’
  
  “They killed me when they took my land,” said Sinan Akçal, a tea grower from the spectacular Senoz valley on the Black Sea. He has watched his local court order the cancellation of the hydropower project his land was expropriated for no less than three times. But each time the Turkish environment ministry, which originally rubber-stamped the project without an environmental impact assessment, overrides the court ruling – and work on the dam continues.
  
  In the meantime, large swaths of forest above the valley have been felled, triggering landslides and soil erosion.
  
  “They’ve taken my land and they’ve offered me 15,000 lira [£5,800]. I didn’t take it, and I won’t take it,” said Akçal, 54. “They just want us to go to the cities and turn us into slaves. But what does 15,000 lira get you in a city? In a year the money will run out.
  
  “Where I come from, people don’t have a lot of arable land, but we grow corn, potatoes, tea and vegetables and we have everything we need. I don’t need huge amounts more of electricity, it is not going to benefit us. My mother is 84, and she can’t live anywhere else.”
  
  He added: “The talking is going nowhere. Again and again we went to court – again and again the courts sided with us. But they didn’t stop, they just kept on working, cutting trees, dirtying the water. In total we have counted 25,000 dead fish in our stream.”
May 30, 2011
Turkish dam threatens town that dates back to the bronze age

Turkish dam threatens town that dates back to the bronze age

Hasankeyf has survived drought, war and empire, but it could be flooded out of existence within a few years

* Constanze Letsch in Hasankeyf

* guardian.co.uk, Friday 20 May 2011 17.48 BST

Hasankeyf and the Tigris river

Hasankeyf has 'housed all the civilisations of Mesopotamia', but now faces being submerged by a dam project. Photograph: Bulent Kilic/AFP/Getty Images

It is one of the oldest continuously inhabited settlements on Earth, a town on the banks of the Tigris that dates back to the bronze age.

Over the years it has survived the rise and fall of empires, drought, war and the harsh vicissitudes of nature.

But Hasankeyf is facing the prospect of being flooded out of existence as Turkish authorities seek to speed up a dam project in south-east Anatolia that will raise the level of the river by 60 metres (200ft).

“Hasankeyf has housed all the civilisations of Mesopotamia,” says Idris Turan, a local guide. “Romans, Byzantines, Assyrians, Arabs, Mongols and Ottomans – they have all passed through here and left their marks on the town.”

The remains of a medieval bridge, one of the largest of its era, still withstand the currents of the Tigris.

On the northern bank stands the 15th-century Zeynel Bey mausoleum, with its kufic tiles of glazed turquoise.

More than 300 historical sites lie in and around Hasankeyf, many of them unexplored.

Activists, both local and international, are fighting for the town, but the Turkish government is pressing ahead. Germany, Austria and Switzerland withdrew financial support for the Ilisu dam in July 2009, citing concerns about the social and environmental impact, but the government was able to secure domestic financing for the €1.1bn project.

In October 2010, the villagers of Ilisu, 60 miles downriver, were relocated to new, state-built homes.

At the inauguration ceremony, the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, ordered the opening of the dam to be brought forward from 2016 to 2014.

Pointing to the dust clouds rising from a construction site across the Tigris, Ömer Güzel, a shop owner and activist, says: “That’s where the new town of Hasankeyf is being built.

“It feels like we will be buried alive and all we can do is sit and watch them dig our graves.”

All is not yet lost. In March 2011, a court in Diyarbakir ordered an assessment of Hasankeyf’s cultural value and the damage the dam might cause.

The investigation was brought about by the determination of a sole plaintiff.

Murat Cano, a lawyer, has been fighting the dam since 2000 on the basis that it violates a Turkish law for the preservation of historical sites and the European convention on the protection of the archaeological heritage.

“The ministry of culture has no feasible plans on how to move and protect the historical monuments,” Cano said.

“They are not even sure which monuments will be relocated. If the assessment report is written to international preservation standards, the Ilisu dam project will be scrapped.”

via Turkish dam threatens town that dates back to the bronze age | World news | The Guardian.

May 21, 2011