19.03.01: Publication of a
new report :"The Ilisu Dam, The World Commission On Dams And
Export Credit Reform"
A major new report on the Ilisu Dam has been released by The Corner
House, The Kurdish Human Rights Project, Campaign An Eye on SACE,
WEED, Pacific Environment and the Ilisu Dam Campaign.
Eight Export Credit Agencies, including Britain's ECDG, are currently
considering support for Ilisu, which is planned for the Kurdish region
of SE Turkey. The project has been widely criticised for its environmental
and human rights impacts.
In response to growing pressure from the public, NGOs and parliamentarians,
the ECAs attached four conditions to their support for the project
which the Turkish government must meet before export credits are issued.
The report, which follows a Fact Finding Mission to the region, concludes
that the four conditions have yet to be met and that the prospects
that they will be in the future is remote. Whilst the social, political
and economic rights of the Kurdish majority in the region remain unrecognised
- and indeed repressed - there can be no confidence that the Turkish
authorities will abide by the conditions. Serious concerns also exist
over the capacity - and will - of the ECAs themselves to monitor and
ensure compliance.
Even if met, says the report, the four conditions leave many key concerns
(particularly those relating to transparency and human rights) unaddressed
and would fail to bring the project up to evolving international best
practice.
The report asesses the extent to which the project currently complies
with the new guidelines for dam projects recently announced by the
World Commission on Dams. It concludes that Ilisu violates each and
every one of the WCD's major policy recommendations - and would continue
to do so even if the four conditions were met in full.
The report identifies a range of corporate governance failures in
the practices and procedures of the supporting ECAs that have contributed
to the controversy over the dam. In particular, the lack of common
mandatory standards have encouraged a "ad hoc" approach
to project financing that works to the detriment of affected communities
and industry alike. The OECD Working Party's proposals for ECA reform
- particularly its emphasis on "benchmarking" - will exacerbate
rather than remedy this deficiency.
The report also considers the implications of the projects for the
new environmental and human rights procedures that have been adopted
by a number of participating ECAs, notably Britain's Export Credit
Guarantees Department and Germany's Hermes. It argues that continued
support for Ilisu would be in breach of both the spirit and letter
of the new procedures and would signal "a fatal lack of purpose
in reforming" the supporting ECAs.
The Summary of the report is appended below. The full text of the
report, which documents the extent to which Ilisu fails to meet international
standards, is available by email from The Corner House (cornerhouse@gn.apc.org).
Hard copies of the report 115 pp) are available for £5 (pounds
sterling) from The Kurdish Human Rights Project (khrp@khrp.demon.co.uk)
SUMMARY
Few infrastructure development projects have caused as much international
controversy in recent years as the proposed Ilisu Dam in the Kurdish
region of Southeast Turkey. Scheduled for construction on the River
Tigris, some 65 kilometres from the Syrian border, the dam is intended
to generate 3,600 gigawatt-hours of peak hour electricity a year and
is Turkey's largest planned hydroelectric project. The dam forms part
of the giant Southeastern Anatolia Project (known as GAP after its
Turkish name, Guneydogu Anadolu Projesi), a network of 22 dams and
19 power plants: it would be built by a consortium of European and
US companies for the Turkish government's State Hydraulics Works Department
(DSI). Financial backing is being sought from the export credit agencies
(ECAs) of the companies' respective national governments, with Britain,
Switzerland and the USA signalling provisional approval. Once constructed,
the $2 billion dam would be transferred from DSI to the State electricity
company, TEAS, which would then be responsible for its operation.
CONCERNS
Concern over Ilisu has centred largely on the failure of the project
to meet international standards for infrastructure projects involving
forcible resettlement and shared rivers. As planned, the dam would
flood an area the size of Manchester, submerging or partially submerging
some 183 villages and hamlets and the ancient town of Hasankeyf, a
site of international archaeological significance. Yet, at the time
that the project was provisionally approved by supporting ECAs, no
resettlement plan had been drawn up for the estimated 78,000 people,
mainly ethnic Kurds, who will be potentially affected by the dam.
Nor had there been any consultation whatsoever with affected people
or their elected representatives: indeed, until late 1999, local Mayors
had not even been informed that the project was going ahead. The dam's
environmental impacts were also largely unassessed: although the companies
seeking contracts for the dam had commissioned an Environmental Impact
Assessment [EIA], independent reviews had revealed it to be wholly
inadequate. Moreover, despite fears that the dam could adversely affect
the water quality of the River Tigris, disrupt downstream wetlands
and irrigated agriculture, and exacerbate the potential for regional
conflict over water between Turkey and its neighbours, Syria and Iraq,
there had been no consultation with downstream states, as required
under international law.
THE FOUR CONDITIONS
In response to growing pressure from the public, NGOs and parliamentarians,
the ECAs attached four conditions to their support for the project
which the Turkish government must meet before export credits are issued.
The four conditions, announced in December 1999, are as follows:
1. Draw up a resettlement programme which reflects internationally
accepted practice and includes independent monitoring; 2. Make provision
for upstream water treatment plants capable of ensuring that water
quality is maintained; 3. Give an assurance that adequate downstream
flows will be maintained at all times; 4. Produce a detailed plan
to preserve as much of the archaeological heritage of Hasankeyf as
possible.
Whilst, on paper, these conditions would go some way to meeting the
concerns of critics, there are considerable doubts whether they can
or will be met in practice. One concern, highlighted in a recent report
by a World Bank consultant hired by the ECAs to assess the Turkish
authorities' draft resettlement plan, lies in the lack of institutional
capacity within Turkey to undertake a resettlement programme to international
standards. Another relates to the ability - and will - of the ECAs
themselves to monitor compliance, the rigour with which they will
do so, and the political leverage available to them should the Turkish
authorities renege on the conditions.
More intractable are the implications for compliance of Turkey's well-documented
repression of the Kurdish majority in the region, its abject failure
to abide by previous commitments to curb human rights abuses against
the local population and its racist policies of enforced assimilation
of ethnic Kurds into mainstream Turkish society. Indeed, continuing
human rights abuses are central to the controversy over Ilisu. Human
rights violations - relating to intimidation - have already been documented
in connection with the dam and whilst intimidation, torture, denial
of freedom of expression and repression remain the norm in the area,
the prospects of a just outcome to the project remain distant, if
not unattainable.
THE FACT FINDING MISSION AND ITS REMIT
In October 2000, an international Fact Finding Mission of Non-Governmental
Organisations from the United Kingdom, the USA, Germany and Italy
was established under the aegis of the Kurdish Human Rights Project
and the Ilisu Dam Campaign. The Mission was charged with:
1. Assessing the progress being made by the Turkish government in
meeting the four conditions laid down by the ECAs; identifying the
institutional and other problems that remain outstanding; and evaluating
the prospects of their being resolved; 2. Assessing whether or not
the conditions, even if met, are sufficient to bring the project into
line with evolving international best practice. The Mission was explicitly
charged with reviewing Ilisu in light of new guidelines developed
by the World Commission on Dams; 3. Identifying corporate governance
failures in the practices and procedures of the supporting ECAs that
have contributed to the controversy over Ilisu; assessing the extent
to which these failures will be addressed by new procedures under
consideration by the OECD's Working Group on Export Credits; and proposing
corrective action; 4. Evaluating whether or not continued support
for Ilisu could be justified by the UK government in the light of
new procedures being developed by the UK Export Credit Guarantees
Department (ECGD) as well as by the other governments' stated commitments
to reform their ECA's guidelines in order to take account of environmental,
social and developmental criteria.
The Fact-Finding Mission visited the Ilisu region from 9th-16th October
2000. The Mission met with affected people, prominent municipal officials,
lawyers and local professional associations relevant to the project.
Throughout its time in the region, the Mission was followed by state
security police, who also sat in on one interview uninvited. Security
police also attended a press conference held by the Fact-Finding Mission
on its return to Istanbul, threatening that the press conference was
illegal.
Members of the Mission also attended the launch of the World Commission
on Dams (WCD) in November 2000, conducted informal interviews with
a number of Commissioners and with leading members of the WCD Forum,
the 68-member consultative group set up by the WCD and consisting
of key representatives from government, the private sector, multilateral
development agencies and affected communities.
THE MISSION'S KET FINDINGS
The Mission's main findings are set out in this report. The Mission
confirms earlier concerns that:
- Conditions in the region make a fair and just resettlement to international
standards unattainable; - Well-documented failures of past and current
resettlement projects in Turkey, acknowledged by the Turkish government,
have still to be addressed in any substantive way; - Doubts still
exist as to the true number of people who would be potentially affected;
- Consultation with the affected people in the Ilisu area has been
piecemeal, inadequate, biased in its format and constrained by an
air of intimidation. Some key consultations which are reported to
have taken place have in reality not occurred; - Host communities
have not been asked to draw up resettlement plans and their budgetary
requirements have not been assessed, in contravention of World Bank
standards; - The adequacy of the socio-economic surveys required to
meet international standards has been questioned; - Lack of capacity
and institutional fragmentation render a coherent resettlement programme
unachievable. Major institutional reforms will be necessary before
there can be any confidence that resettlement will be carried out
to international standards. There is also a need to overhaul existing
compensation procedures; - Planned sewage treatment facilities in
upstream towns are inadequate to ensure water quality in the reservoir
area, either because they will not cover the entire population or
because they are still at the feasibility stage; - The downstream
impacts of Ilisu may be underestimated because no comprehensive analysis
has been undertaken of the cumulative impacts of both Ilisu and its
companion downstream dam at Cizre. The two projects are independent
but have been wrongly represented as separate and unconnected. Because
Cizre is an irrigation dam, water fed to it by Ilisu will be largely
lost to downstream flow. - Time and financial pressures on investigations
and salvage of the archaeological wealth of the affected area render
such rescue efforts reckless, haphazard and contrived. More important,
efforts to salvage archaeological resources are limited to artefacts
and cannot extend to the thousands of caves in the area, even though
the cave civilisation is the essence of the irreplaceable treasure
that is Hasankeyf.
THE MISSION'S CONCLUSIONS
The Mission concluded that: - The four conditions imposed by the ECAs
have yet to be met - and the prospect that they will be met in the
future is remote. Whilst the social, political and economic rights
of the Kurdish majority in the region remain unrecognised - and indeed
repressed - there can be no confidence that the Turkish authorities
will abide by the conditions. Serious concerns also exist over the
capacity - and will - of the ECAs themselves to monitor and ensure
compliance. - Even if met, the four conditions leave many key concerns
(particularly those relating to transparency and human rights) unaddressed
and would fail to bring the project up to international standards.
The project violates each and every one of the WCD's major policy
recommendations and would still be in breach of WCD standards even
if the four conditions were met in full. - The history of ECA involvement
in the Ilisu project reveals major deficiencies in current ECA practice
and procedure. In particular, the lack of common mandatory standards
have encouraged a "band-aid" approach to project financing
that works to the detriment of affected communities and industry alike.
The OECD Working Party's proposals for ECA reform - particularly its
emphasis on "benchmarking" - will exacerbate rather than
remedy this deficiency. - Continued support for the Ilisu Project
is in breach of both the spirit and the letter of the new Business
Principles adopted by the ECGD. Ilisu is thus a litmus test of the
ECGD's commitment to the new principles: proceeding with the project
would signal a fatal lack of purpose in reforming the ECGD and in
embracing the principles of sustainable development, as espoused by
the UK government. Support for the Ilisu project would also conflict
with the German government's intention to reform the Hermes guarantee
system according to environmental, social and developmental criteria,
stated in its coalition agreement. Granting a guarantee for the Ilisu
dam would discredit all such reform efforts.
THE MISSION'S RECOMMENDATIONS
In the light of its findings, the Mission will be pressing the ECAs
involved in Ilisu to refuse export credit support for the project.
In addition, it urges the Turkish Government to consider alternatives
to large dam projects like Ilisu that would not impose increased hardship
or threaten internal displacement of its Kurdish citizens and other
minorities. Alternatives to Ilisu exist - for example, by addressing
the 15-25% electricity losses through poor transmission. The Mission
also urges the Government to respond to calls for peaceful, political
solutions to the Kurdish question.
More generally, the Mission recommends a deep reform of current export
credit agency practice. In particular, it urges ECAs:
1. To adopt the proposals set forth in the "Jakarta Declaration
for Reform of Official Export Credit and Investment Insurance Agencies,"
which is supported by over 300 NGOs worldwide; 2. Accordingly to adopt
mandatory, legally-binding standards, with accompanying "positive"
and "restrictive" screening procedures, that would weed
out projects that did not meet international environmental, development
and human rights standards prior to their being considered for support
and ensure compliance with those standards once support has been approved;
3. Adopt the Report of the World Commission on Dams and endeavour
to ensure that all future hydropower contracts in which they are involved
comply with the Set of Guidelines for Good Practice (contained in
Chapter 9 of the Report). At a minimum, companies seeking support
for projects involving dams should be required to explain why specific
WCD principles and guidelines are held to not be applicable and attach
this explanation as an appendix to the project's Environmental Impact
Assessment; 4. To undertake and make public a human rights assessment
of any project for which export credit support is being considered,
detailing the extent of compliance by the national government with
international human rights agreements and standards.
14.11.00 : Ilisu :Dam donors
may have to quit
By Kevin Brown, Industry Editor Published
European governments will have to withdraw taxpayers' support for
the controversial Ilisu dam in Turkey because it breaks all seven
of the key principles for dam building to be set out in an international
report on Thursday, campaigners claim.
The report of the World Commission on Dams, set up in 1997 by the
World Bank and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature,
will be launched in London on Thursday by Nelson Mandela, the former
South African president.
The report will set out a new framework for decisions on dam building
in developing countries based on five core values - equity, efficiency,
sustainability, participatory decision-making, and accountability.
It proposes seven strategic policy principles to guide governments:
gaining public acceptance, comprehensive options assessments, taking
account of existing dams, sustaining rivers and livelihoods, recognising
entitlements and sharing benefits, ensuring compliance with decisions,
and sharing rivers between countries.
More than 100 environmental and human rights campaign organisations
will issue a joint appeal to governments and international institutions
to back the report, which says that many dams fail to deliver promised
benefits.
However, the strongest immediate pressure will be on the British,
Swiss and Italian governments, which are considering requests for
export credit guarantees amounting to more than $700m (£486m)
from companies seeking to build the Ilisu dam on the Tigris river.
Campaigners claim the largely Kurdish local communities have not been
consulted, that Turkey has not considered alternatives, and that neighbouring
Iraq and Syria have not consented. Turkey denies all these claims.
In a letter to be sent on Thursday to Stephen Byers, the trade and
industry secretary, Friends of the Earth will claim that continued
government support for the project would be tantamount to rejection
of the report.
Tony Juniper, policy director, said FoE would go to court to stop
British participation unless the government withdrew support for a
$315m export credit sought by Balfour Beatty, the UK construction
company.
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