KURDISH HUMAN
RIGHTS PROJECT (Press Release)
Press Release For Immediate Release: 13 November 2001.
Balfour Beatty withdraws support for the Ilisu Dam project.
Following vehement campaigns from environmentalists and human rights groups,
Balfour Beatty has today announced its withdrawal from the Ilisu Dam project.
The proposed Dam was set to destroy the town of Hasankeyf in Southeast Turkey,
an area of significant cultural heritage, leaving 78,000 local residents
homeless. Many believed the Dam was part of the Turkish government's wider plan
to ethnically cleanse the area of its Kurdish population. Those involved in the
Ilisu Dam Campaign (KHRP, Cornerhouse, Friends of the Earth and Mark Thomas),
also condemned the Dam for its disastrous environmental implications.
KHRP hopes the sustained campaign against the Ilisu Dam has sent a strong
message to British companies and the government about the ethics of export
credit guarantee dealings with regimes that have as appalling a human rights
record as Turkey. Executive Director of the Kurdish Human Rights Project and
Chairman of the Ilisu Dam Campaign, Kerim Yildiz, expressed his delight at the
news:
"There have always been very strong human rights and environmental grounds why
this project should not go ahead. Following Balfour Beatty's decision we now
call on the UK government to confirm that it will not back the controversial
Ilisu Dam."
FRIENDS OF THE EARTH (Press Release)
Immediate Release: Tuesday 13th November 2001.
DAM DAMNED! CAMPAIGNERS CELEBRATE ILISU DAM CAMPAIGN VICTORY.
Campaigners responded with delight today to the news that Balfour Beatty have
pulled out of involvement in the environmentally, politically and socially
disastrous Ilisu Dam. The Dam was planned for the Kurdish region of Turkey. It
would make more than 30,000 local people homeless, often without proper
compensation. It would drown dozens of towns and villages including the world
historic site of Hasankeyf. And it would help control water flows on the Tigris
river, threatening water conflicts with downstream states Syria and Iraq. The
League of Arab States has condemned the project. The Dam was to be built by an
international Swiss-led consortium. Balfour Beatty were seeking $200 million in
export credit guarantees from the British Government. Italian builder Impregilo
has also withdrawn from the consortium.
Commenting, FOE Director Charles Secrett said: "This is a tremendous win for
campaigners against a disastrous dam project. Balfour Beatty's very welcome
decision to drop out of the project shows the power of shareholder pressure and
publicity campaigns by groups like Friends of the Earth and the Ilisu Dam
Campaign. However, the Government has managed to avoid ever taking a clear
decision on this scheme. That means that companies seeking future export credits
can argue that no clear ethical precedent has been set. Balfour Beatty have
helped Mr Blair slip off the hook. The story of the Ilisu Dam project shows the
need for laws which require British companies to adopt clear ethical and
environmental standards in their work abroad as well as at home. Certainly,
backing such as export credits should never even be considered in cases which
involve such obvious environmental destruction and abuse of human rights."
BALFOUR BEATTY'S PRESS RELEASE BALFOUR BEATTY WITHDRAWS FROM ILISU DAM
PROJECT.
13th November 2001.
NO CLEAR PROSPECT OF RESOLUTION OF ENVIRONMENTAL, COMMERCIAL AND SOCIAL
COMPLEXITIES.
Balfour Beatty, the international engineering, construction and services group,
announces today that it has decided not to pursue its interest in the Ilisu Dam
project in Turkey. The decision follows a thorough and extensive evaluation of
the commercial, environmental and social issues inherent in the project. With
appropriate solutions to these issues still unsecured and no early resolution
likely, Balfour Beatty believes that it is not in the best interests of its
stakeholders to pursue the project further.
Commenting on the decision, Balfour Beatty Chief Executive Mike Welton said:
“Our determination to consider this project in a thorough and professional
manner has remained consistent since we were first invited to become involved.
We have followed all the appropriate steps to evaluate its viability and have
not been deflected from proper, professional processes."
"The urgent need for increasing generating capacity to meet Turkey’s development
needs and for social and economic development in the region remains. We have,
however, clearly reached a point where no further action nor any further
expenditure by Balfour Beatty on this project is likely to resolve the
outstanding issues in a reasonable timescale”.
The complex environmental and social issues which the project involves have been
the subject of intensive study. A comprehensive environmental impact report,
funded by the contractors and involving many months of intensive investigative
work, was completed and published earlier this year. This study was carried out
by a team of international experts to the best available international standards
as defined by the US Ex-Im Bank and the OECD.
The report details the principal social and environmental issues associated with
the dam’s development and construction and offers recommendations to the dam’s
proponents, the Turkish General Directorate of State Hydraulic Works (DSI). Its
recommendations set clear benchmarks which require substantial actions on the
part of the customer and other Turkish government departments and agencies.
Commercial discussions between the DSI and the consortium of which Balfour
Beatty is a part have also been under way for a considerable period. The parties
have, however, been unable to agree in some areas and a number of commercial
issues remain unresolved.
Given the substantial difficulties which remain to be addressed, including
meeting the four conditions set by the Export Credit Agencies, Balfour Beatty
believes the project could only proceed with substantial extra work and expense
and with considerable further delay. Accordingly, in concert with its
international partner in the civil engineering joint venture, Impregilo of Italy,
it has decided to withdraw from the project.
FIRM'S WITHDRAWAL FROM DAM PROJECT WELCOMED
By Amanda Brown, Environment Correspondent, PA.
Green campaigners were today celebrating the decision of a development company
to pull out of a dam scheme in the Kurdish region of Turkey.
Friends of the Earth said it was delighted by the withdrawal of Balfour Beatty
from the Ilisu dam project, which the campaign group said was ``environmentally,
politically and socially disastrous''. Mike Welton, chief executive of Balfour
Beatty, said the company's determination to consider the project in a thorough
and professional manner had remained consistent since it was first invited to
become involved.
He added: "We have followed all the appropriate steps to evaluate its viability
and have not been deflected from proper, professional processes.
The urgent need for increasing generating capacity to meet Turkey's development
needs and for social and economic development in the region remains.
We have, however, clearly reached a point where no further action nor any
further expenditure by Balfour Beatty on this project is likely to resolve the
outstanding issues in a reasonable timescale."
FoE director Charles Secrett said the move was a tremendous win for campaigners
against a disastrous dam project. The decision by Balfour Beatty showed the
power of shareholder pressure and publicity campaigns by groups like Friends of
the Earth and the Ilisu Dam Campaign, he said.
He added: "However the Government has managed to avoid ever taking a clear
decision on this scheme.
That means that companies seeking future export credits can argue that no clear
ethical precedent has been set. Balfour Beatty have helped Mr Blair slip off the
hook.
The story of the Ilisu Dam project shows the need for laws which require British
companies to adopt clear ethical and environmental standards in their work
abroad as well as at home.
Certainly, backing such as export credits should never even be considered in
cases which involve such obvious environmental destruction and abuse of human
rights."
Friends of the Earth said the Dam was planned for the Kurdish region of Turkey
and would make more than 30,000 local people homeless, often without proper
compensation. It would drown dozens of towns and villages including the world
historic site of Hasankeyf. And it would help control water flows on the Tigris
river, threatening water conflicts with downstream states Syria and Iraq. The
League of Arab States has condemned the project. The dam was to be built by an
international Swiss-led consortium. Italian builder Impreglio has also withdrawn
from the consortium.
Labour MP Ann Clwyd who played a leading role in the campaign against the dam
project welcomed news that Balfour Beatty had pulled out.
She said: "I hope the British Government will now withdraw from its
consideration of support for the project and that it will make the announcement
this week. Up to 70,000 Kurds would be affected by the proposals, local culture
would be lost, hundreds of archaeological sites would be drowned and the
neighbouring countries of Syria and Iraq have not been consulted about its
effect on them. The International Development Select Committee, along with three
other select committees of MPs have all recommended the Government withdraw from
the project.
The Ilisu Dam is bad for human rights, bad for the environment, bad for regional
peace and bad for Britain. ``The Government should make its views clear that
there can be no British backing for such a controversial project."
CHANNEL 4 NEWS - SPECIAL REPORTS.
Broadcast: November 13, 2001.
Reporter: Jonathan Rugman.
The controversial Ilisu dam project in Turkey is not going ahead - at least for
the time being.
The British civil engineering firm Balfour Beatty has pulled out of the
consortium which holds the contract to build the hydro-electric dam, citing
"environmental, commercial and social complexities."
And how. The proposed site - in the heart of Turkey's Kurdish war zone in the
South East of the country - lies mere 40-miles from its borders with Syria and
Iraq. The dam would have submerged several villages.
Two years ago, our correspondent Jonathan Rugman was the first journalist to
reach the site. This is his report:
Its long been the dream of Turkish engineers to dam the river Tigris near the
village of Ilisu. Not only would local Kurds here been forced to leave their
homes, but 42 other villages would have been emptied along with the stunning
town of Hasankeyf, leaving only the top of a minaret above water.
Turkish archaeologists have been racing to rescue what they could and when we
visited the town two years ago the townspeople told us they were bitterly
opposed.
Today the construction firm Balfour Beatty bowed to such concerns. Its own
environmental impact assessment concluded that nearly 60,000 people would be
affected by the dam and admitted that local consultation was at a very basic
stage. In a statement the company explained why its pulling out: "The decision
follows a thorough and extensive valuation of the commercial, environmental and
social issues....with appropriate solutions to these issues still unsecured and
no early resolution likely, Balfour Beatty believes that it is not in the best
interest of its stakeholders to pursue the project further."
Balfour Beatty wouldn't talk on camera - it's been turning down our requests for
more than two years - but a spokesman told us that it and its Italian partner
had dropped out because environmental complexities had made the project too
expensive and that there'd been no progress on signing a contract with the
Turks.
Tonight a Turkish source close to the negotiations in Ankara gave us a slightly
different version of events: "Balfour Beatty was fed up with the uproar in
Britain, it was tired of it. Maybe they could see that Turkey is in economic
crisis and can't fulfil its promise to pay for the resettlement of displaced
people. Other European firms won't be interested now and the Ilisu project may
not go ahead."
The so-called uproar in Britain included protests secretly filmed inside this
year's Balfour Beatty annual general meeting.
The pressure group Friends of the Earth bought the company's shares, sold them
for a thirteen thousand pound profit, and then used the money to fund its
campaign against the company.
THE WORLD ARCHAEOLOGICAL CONGRESS.
Press Statement 14 November 2001.
Withdrawal of Support for Ilisu Dam Project.
The World Archaeological Congress (WAC) welcomes the withdrawal of Balfour
Beatty and Impreglio from the Ilisu dam project and ECGD's subsequent
confirmation of UK government withdrawal. In its displacement of up to 78,000
mostly Kurdish people and its destruction of their cultural heritage, the Ilisu
dam would have amounted to a form of ethnic cleansing in which governments and
companies would have been complicit.
This is a significant victory for the campaigns against this dam project,
including campaigns by the World Archaeological Congress, other national and
international heritage organisations, archaeological branches of trade unions
and hundreds of individual archaeologists.
These campaigns have repeatedly shown that the fourth condition set by the
export credit agencies to 'save as much of the archaeological heritage of
Hasankeyf as possible' was not being met. WAC has consistently pointed out that
no amount of time or money could ensure that this condition would be met given
wider economic, social and political circumstances in the region. Any
expectation that it could be otherwise in a situation of gross human rights
violations including repression of Kurdish people's language, cultural forms and
history under a state of emergency was unrealistic. In any case, the condition
itself was utterly inadequate given the extent of cultural heritage that would
be inundated by the reservoir as a whole. Balfour Beatty's statement is
testimony to the fact that the wider conditions prevailing in the region and in
Turkey generally have not been and cannot be resolved by the GAP project.
However, WAC does not consider this statement to be sufficient as a response to
the questions raised by Ilisu and the GAP project as a whole.
We urge governments considering involvement with other such projects in Turkey
to come out in the open regarding their stance on the human rights, including
cultural rights, of affected people. WAC also welcomes Balfour Beatty's
statement regarding the need for a thorough and professional approach. WAC would
wish to make it clear that these professional processes, for archaeologists, do
not begin with salvage excavations and budgets for them. Rather, the priority
must be full and fair consultation to establish the economic, cultural and
social rights of all the women, children and men affected by such projects. They
must be the ones to decide the basis on which their heritage and cultural forms
may or may not be used, moved or studied. In situations where that cannot occur
- and Southeast Turkey is a clear example of this - there are cultural heritage
grounds for halting a dam project.
Professor Martin Hall President, World Archaeological Congress.
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