www.bahraintribune.com For the people of Hasankeyf, this sleepy, once-mighty town on the banks of the River Tigris is a historic treasure: for those who want to build a massive dam here, it is a backwater in need of development.
“We have to stop the dam, our town will be destroyed,†said Hasankeyf’s mayor, Abdulvahap Kusen, a staunch opponent of the Ilisu dam project, which would swallow up more than 80 villages and hamlets by the time of its planned completion in 2013.
“Our valley is part of ancient Mesopotamia, where human history began,†he said. “When you visit our caves, you get a sense of how people lived millennia ago.†In the sun-baked valley, the minaret of a 14th-century mosque soars above a cluster of cottages and tombs. Locals say the waters will rise to the mosque’s speakers if the dam — set to be Turkey’s second biggest - goes ahead.
But Hasankeyf’s tranquility belies a long history of struggle between rival empires — and more recently between sharply differing visions of what Turkey’s priorities should be.
Opponents of the dam project say the valley’s unique archaeological heritage that includes Sumerian, Roman and Ottoman monuments must be preserved, and townspeople allowed to continue their ancient, unhurried way of life.
In a last desperate effort to halt a project due to start at the end of May, they have appealed to the European Court of Human Rights in the distant French city of Strasbourg. They are also urging foreign creditors to shun the project.
The dam’s supporters stress the need to regenerate the poor, southeastern region, create jobs, build modern infrastructure and provide much-needed energy for Turkey’s booming economy.
Uncertainty over the dam project — first mooted in the 1980s, begun, abandoned, now resumed — has scared away much-needed investment over the years, Hasankeyf’s mayor said.
“This is a natural open-air museum. We could make lots of money, but nobody wants to build hotels or restaurants because they don’t know what is going to happen,†said Kusen.
Nearly 1,000 km away in the Turkish capital Ankara, things are seen very differently. “This project will save Hasankeyf, not destroy it,†said Yunus Bayraktar, coordinator of the Ilisu dam and hydroelectric power plant project in a consortium led by his company Nurol, one of Turkey’s major construction firms.
Bayraktar says the $1.45 billion project will create 80,000 jobs and lure tens of thousands of tourists to an area hit hard by years of Kurdish rebel conflict.
“It will inject $373 million into the Turkish economy every year (with the energy generated).†The dam is part of a much bigger, decades-old strategy to harness the Tigris and Euphrates rivers — the Southeastern Anatolian Project (GAP) — that envisages a total of 22 dams and 19 hydroelectric power plants across the region.
Eighty percent of Hasankeyf’s historic sites, including 4,200 caves, are above the projected waterline of 64 metres and so will be unaffected by the dam, Bayraktar said. The monuments that would be submerged — including mosques, a hamam and the remains of an ancient bridge spanning the Tigris — will be transported to a purpose-built park and open-air museum nearby. The new lake created by the dam will be opened to water sports. Roads will be built to improve access.
The project allocates $31 million to protect Hasankeyf’s historical heritage — a key condition of the Turkish government for backing the scheme, Bayraktar said. A new town will be built to house those whose homes are lost. Residents who prefer to leave will receive compensation.
“Around 90 percent of the 3,800 people of Hasankeyf are currently unemployed,†Bayraktar said, adding that they would now get work in construction and later in tourism. |