By David McDowall, Author of 'A Modern History of the Kurds'

Ilisu: the economic and political context

The main focus of opposition to construction of the Ilisu Dam has been on the direct impact on the people and environment of the area that will be flooded, and the impact on downstream states. The wider context raises major questions concerning the wisdom not only of the Ilisu Dam but the whole GAP (South East Anatolia) project with its intended 22 dams on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Put simply, Ilisu makes no developmental sense for people of the region, and it cannot help heal the wounds of war, only exacerbate them.

The economic background to Ilisu and GAP

The east and south-east are the most neglected parts of Turkey. Per capita income in the south-east is barely 42 per cent of the national average, and barely one quarter of the average income in the richest regions in the west. GAP aims to raise regional per capita income by 10 percentage points, to 53 per cent of the national average. Yet the south-east still receives less that 10 per cent of the national development budget. Neglect is longstanding and institutionalised, partly as a result of Turkey's longstanding determination to crush all expression of Kurdish identity. Although it is the mother tongue of most of the rural population, Kurdish is not allowed in schools. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the drop-out rate is high, especially for girls. In the mid-1980s average literacy was less than 50 per cent compared with a national average of 77 per cent. Enrolment statistics in the south-east tell their own tale: only 70 per cent enrol at primary level, only 18 per cent proceed to the secondary cycle, and only 9 per cent complete it. The pupil:teacher ratio in the south east is only 41:1 compared with a national average of 31:1. Such facts contradict official claims of concern.

Then there is the question of land-ownership. A major feature of GAP is the development of capital intensive agriculture and agro-industry. Yet the State has always baulked at vitally needed land reform in the south east. The last time it backed off was in 1978. The reason is simple. The landlord class largely control the vote of their villagers, useful in offsetting the dissident vote that finds expression in the region's towns. Neglect of land reform means, according to GAP's own master plan, that 8 per cent of farming families still control over 50 per cent of the land, 41 per cent hold 5 hectares or less (barely subsistence level), while 38 per cent have no land at all. GAP has little or nothing to offer this 79 per cent.

In such conditions the capital required for this massive project will come either from entrepreneurs living elsewhere in Turkey or from abroad. In short, the indigenous population is unlikely to benefit from the investment opportunity or have the education and skills to benefit from the projects.

Predictably, the population of the south-east was never involved by GAP's planners. An opinion poll in 1998, 10 years after GAP's inauguration, established that only 42 per cent of the regional population were aware that GAP was a 'development' project. No fewer than 10 per cent of respondents believed GAP was a TV Channel. Only 11 per cent had any long or short-term expectations of GAP. Thus the most fundamental ingredient of development, full local participation, has been missing. Local people feel powerless in the face of something they either do not want or know nothing about.

Ilisu and the War

Ilisu Dam comes at the end of a bitter 15-year war with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). During that war the security forces emptied approximately 3,500 villages and hamlets, almost half the Kurdish rural habitat. They made no provision whatsoever for the overwhelming majority of the estimated 2.5 million evicted. Diyarbakir's population increased from half a million in 1990 to 1.5 million by 1995, mainly squatters. In terms of numbers, the depopulation is equivalent to emptying all Wales. During these operations the security forces acted with great barbarity, abducting, torturing, raping and killing non-combatants including women and children. Their conduct was so bad that the Council of Europe made an unprecedented condemnation of a member state in June 1999, condemning Turkey's 'repeated and serious human rights violations'. The European Union has also made repeated statements of concern regarding Turkey's brutal treatment of the Kurdish population of the south-east. Although the PKK has abandoned the guerrilla war, the security forces continue to torture Kurdish civilians. In this context, the Ilisu Dam project promises the dispossession of another 25,000 or so people, adding to the overall displacement caused mainly by war but also by GAP dams.

The prospect is that depopulation will become a permanent feature, first as a result of war, then by the 'improvements' planned over the heads of the people. It is a process reminiscent of the Clearances that followed suppression of the 1745 Jacobite Rising. The Clearances devastated the Scottish Highlands during the nineteenth century and are still bitterly recalled in Gaelic as 'the Great Driving Out of the Gaels'. The Highlands have never recovered either socially or economically. It is a particularly sad irony therefore that a Scottish firm, Balfour Beatty, is in the van of a similar process for the Kurds.

Ilisu, Europe and the Future

It takes no great insight to recognise that economic regeneration of the south-east primarily requires:

(i)	village and agricultural rehabilitation after the war;
(ii)	major resources in education in order to bring literacy levels up to the national average, an objective which almost certainly requires Kurdish medium education at primary level.
(iii)	Small-scale business and industrial development in which local people are the major stake-holders, and which can develop employment opportunities to halt the drift of migrants westwards.
(iv)	Above all, these measures all require local community participation.

There is no indication that any of these developments will take place. The prospect is of hydro-electricity to fuel industrial development primarily elsewhere, financial profits that will be realised by those living outside Turkey's south-east or even abroad, for example for Balfour Beatty; and permanent depopulation leading to the creation of an ever greater slum-dwelling class of disgruntled people, most of whom are Kurds.

In theory Turkey could be a member of the EU by 2010, and almost certainly will be by 2020. European Union members face two important dangers. The Kurdish war that has just ended arose from two interlocking problems: repression of Kurdish identity and economic marginalisation. There is no evidence yet that Turkey is willing to accept Kurdish and other non-Turkish identities in public life, and its continuing serious human rights abuses are evidence of that. Nor is there any evidence that Turkey recognises the kind of economic policies necessary to bring its Kurdish minority into productive relationship with the rest of Turkey.

The average gross reproduction rate in the Kurdish south east is 2.75 per cent compared with a rate of 1.49 per cent for the Turkish regions of Turkey. The average age among Kurds is 15, among Turks it is 35. Kurds were about 19 per cent of the population in the mid-1970s but are probably 23 per cent of the population today and are bound to increase proportionately. Kurdish national sentiment will not disappear. Turkey must open its eyes, abandon denial and tackle the problem.

Today hundreds of Kurds fleeing torture and persecution seek asylum in the EU. Unless Turkey can solve the political and economic grievances of its Kurds, Europe faces twin dangers on Turkey's admission into the Union: a politically unstable Turkey with periodic outbreaks of serious political violence, and a much greater (and uncontrolled) influx of disgruntled migrant Kurds than hitherto. In such a context, UK support for Ilisu is at best an irrelevance and at worst simply exacerbating an already substantial humanitarian and economic problem. Britain, and other EU members, must be persuaded to take the long view, helping Turkey to meet the real needs of its people.

[Sources: Statistical material is extrapolated mainly from Turkey, Prime Ministry State Planning Organisation, The South East Anatolia Project (GAP) Final Master Plan Report (four vols, Ankara 1989, 1990); Turkey, State Institute of Statistics, 1991 Statistical Yearbook of Turkey (Ankara, 1992). The opinion poll statistics on GAP were cited by the Turkish Chamber of Architects and Engineers 'A Study in Diyarbakir of social problems resulting from forced displacement of people in the region', quoted in Kurdish News Bulletin, 9-15 June 1998.]

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