Mesopotamia is the Greek word for the land between the rivers. The Tigris and Euphrates, the cradle of humanity. The development of culture and civilisation are directly connected to these most abundant of Near Eastern rivers. Babylon and other proud cities arose on their banks, from which powerful kings, like Nebuchadnezzar, ruled the then known world.

This is where the first techniques for the storage and deployment of water were developed. The remains of this culture are nowadays often sunk beneath modern types of water management - gigantic reservoirs. 

The South-east Anatolian dam project (GAP)

The Turkish, Syrian, Iraqi triangle.

The waters of the biblical rivers Euphrates and Tigris are borderless.  Their sources are in the Anatolian Plateau in eastern Turkey. The Euphrates flows through Turkey's southeast, Kurdistan, crossing Syria and Iraq before it joins the Tigris, which flows through Iraq from the north to the south on its way to the Persian Gulf.  For Syria and Iraq, the rivers are vital water resources for energy, irrigation, and drinking water. The first dams were also constructed here.   30 years ago Turkey began one of the largest Hydroelectric and irrigation projects in the world on the upper course of both rivers.  The Atatürk Dam on the Euphrates is the heart of the 40 dam mega-project involving many of the rivers' tributaries.

The Atatürk dam was built after the Keban and the Karakaya. The Birecik and the Karkamis, directly on the Syrian border, came after.Further dam projects were built on the Tigris.The Ilisu power-station will complete the project on the Syrian-Iraqi border. They plan to irrigate 1,7 million Hectares for export-oriented agriculture; to stay undependend of imported Electricitiy and to eine bis dato völlig vernachlässigte Region, hauptsächlich bewohnt von Kurden und Arabern, in eine industrielle Moderne zu katapultieren.

Kemal Atatürk, the legendary Turkish statesman, developed the idea of a „lake of humanity". Süleyman Demirel is both father and midwife of GAP. As prime minister and president he was Turkey's most powerful politician for about 40 years. "This wonderful project on the Euphrates will make a large contribution to the prosperity and happiness of Turkey."

The GAP dams were built during a ruthless war that was waged against the Kurdish PKK in this region.

The last important building block was the Birecik dam, operational since 2001. It was built and financed by an international consortium led by the German Philipp Holzmann AG and guarantees its investors fixed income from energy production for 15 years. Financial risks are vouchsafed by guarantees from the German, French, Austrian and Swiss governments.  

1. Insufficient compensation for the people

Turkey bears the costs of disappropriation and re-settling the inhabitants. Between 1998 and 2000 47 villages and small towns were gradually flooded.  The mainly Kurdish communities are now scattered; many families are separated. A completely new life began for more than 30.000 people. People who had lived for centuries in this region, cut off from modern life, self-reliant, using Nature's resources. Apricots, plums, figs, nuts, pistachios, olives and various cereals thrived here on fertile earth.

The harvest was either sold, or used for their own purposes.  Compensation did not reflect acquisition loss but solely the property size listed in the land registry, and the land that their families had for generation tilled and harvested was often not actually registered in their names, but belong to some other larger land owners who they, until now, had never seen nor heard of.  For others the estimation of their properties was just to low.

" No one got more than 3,100 Euros in compensation. There were houses here with much land, 1,000 m2  and more. They only got 950 Euros, sometimes only 560 Euros.

In countless court hearings revaluation for fairer compensation classification for the concerned landowners was ruled in their favor.  But the Turkish government simply didn't to pay.

Compensation payments from the Turkish government were also not what they promised they would be before the flooding of the valley reached its highest level.  Entire villages fell into ruin because residence still hadn't left their homes when the floodwaters flowed over the banks.

The first installment of government compensation had reached most of the people, but was within 4 months used up. Many have not yet received the 2nd and 3rd installments even today. The wait could be long.

Sechmus, a lawyer from Urfa, represents many of the Atatürk Dam refugees who, after 15 years, have not received the whole amount.

Owners of properties along the banks of the artificial lake that were left untouched by the flooding were not compensated at all, even though no one can live there.  The foundations of the buildings become waterlogged and the walls begin to sag.

The settlement lands lie high up among the barren cliff tops of the former Euphrates river valley where there is no possibility for agricultural or any other type of acquisition.

The former independent fishers and farmers must now seek seasonal employment on the plantations of the larger landowners, who through better irrigation because of the dam project are the obvious winners.

Increased poverty, rapid decline in standard of living, up to 70% unemployment, poor sanitation and a lack of fresh drinking water are consequences that accompanies every dam project.

The over 30.000 up-rooted people in the building of the Birecik dam are desperate given the lack of prospects in their situation.

That is why other refugees try their luck in larger cities of the regions or in places where, since the beginning war with the PKK, they have too many people but too few homes and employment positions.

Having grown up in a farming tradition as unskilled agricultural labourers and mostly illiterate, they have few chances here. Work at home, like peeling pistachios, is often the only source of income.

Whether it is in Batman, Diyabakir, Sanliurfa or Ganziantep, the ring of ghettos everywhere is increasing. This is why the mayors of these cities fear every new dam project.

2. Dangerous irrigation

a) Consequences to the nature 

Hopes were raised when the 26 kilometer Sanliurfa Tunnel was opened.

Water from the Ataturk dam can now be piped into the Harran plain - a fertile but very arid region reaching as far as the border with Syria. With this water they want to create the Garden of Eden. "By irrigation alone the agricultural output will grow by 445%, the output per Hectare by 209%. We'll create jobs for 3,800,000 people."says Mustafa H.Aydogdu, Regional Director of GAP administration, Urfa.

Before the artificial irrigation they grew water-retentive cereals, lentils and chick-peas for home-consumption. Not as a way to increase profits. Since the coming of the water, the state pays premiums for growing cotton for export. Now cotton is grown on 90% of the whole irrigated area. The method of the open-channel irrigation used here involves flooding the cotton fields several times in the summer. The consequences are catastrophic.

By extremely high temperatures, large amounts of water evaporate leaving only salt behind.

One sixth of the area already irrigated is salinated.

If they don't change the method of irrigation, for example by using Drop Water Irrigation or less "thirsty" agricultural crops - the fields of Harran will be salinated in about 15 years.

With open channel irrigation, 60% of the water will evaporate in these arid areas.

By using Drop Water Irrigation up to 90% of the water reaches the crops.

Drop Water Irrigation is expensive because it is extremely high maintenance.

Even though the Turkish government does not lack the experience, in one of the

Larger construction sites, the Scukorowa fields, they were able to reactivate one of their salted grounds due to immense financial expenditures. This was the same for the Harran fields.

Quick results in the project were far more important to former Prime Minister Tansu Ciller. This ignorant attitude towards these environmental issues PM. Ciller shares with many others in the world.  70% of the worlds available freshwater is being pumped into their agriculture. 

Here on the plain, not far from the Syrian border, live mainly Kurds and Arabs. The vast majority are landless, working in seasonal jobs or as tenant farmers. From May to October they work with the whole family on their rented field. At the end they receive 30 to 40% of the harvest, which, for sometime now, leaves very little left over.  Because of the immensely large area the artificial lakes occupy and the irrigated areas, the humidity of the region has increased dramatically.  The national authorities responsible do not argue that this will have catastrophic results on both man and the environment. 

Atilla Yazar, President, Chamber of Agricultural Engineering in Urfa says: "The Euphrates used to flow to Syria in a narrow bed. After the damming it's the 3rd largest lake in Turkey. The related evaporation has caused plant-diseases to spread. We now have everything on the Harran plain that we know from other irrigated areas - everything from the white-fly to the pink caterpillar, green caterpillar, spiney caterpillar and thrips." The only way farmers see of fighting the new threat is by using more pesticides. This in turn diminishes their earnings and the seeping drainage water contaminates both the ground water and the rivers. 

Dr.Ethem Şahin, GP and President of th

b ) Conquences for the people

e Health Union is working in the regional Capital Urfa. Since the Dam buildings new parasitic illnesses are appearing in Urfa due to the increase in humidity. Malaria and a disease that was previously totally unknown in the area - Bilharzia. This is a disease from humid, tropical areas. The workers walk bare-foot on the irrigated fields and are thus infected. Bilharzia is a dangerous worm disease, which has also accured in the irrigation projects on the Nile. Insufficient hygiene allows the germs to enter the general water- and nutrition cycle via sewage.  We are looking at ticking time bomb if the necessary emergency examination and medical treatments procedures are not made available in time. 

2002/2003 the drinking water doesn't just have Salmonella, Typhus and Paratyphus. There are also germs of dysentery, of bloody diarrhoea. 90% of these diarrhoea illnesses are due to the dirty water. Dr Sahin has noticed a terribly high child-mortality rate in the area of his clinic. Nearly 15%.

The numerous consequences come as no surprise to the authorities as special clinics for fighting tropical diseases were already implemented in the initial master plan of the GAP project.  However, solutions to these questions will first be addressed when the last dam project, the Elisustaudam on the Tigris, is completed. 

The construction will be finished in 2013. The phase of „cultural and social affairs" starts afterwards, says Mustafa H.Aydogdu, Regional Director of the GAP administration, in Urfa..

Were the GAP reservoirs really built for the people of this region?

Eser Karakaz, Professor of Economics in Istanbul says, the GAP investments were politically motivated. They wanted to get the most important sources of water for Syria and Iraq in their hands.

As a political and or military bargaining tool? 

3.Disregarding agreements over boarder-spreading rivers 

According to international law detailed first hand information and consultation for the beneficial cities downriver are fundamental principles on projects involving border-spreading rivers. They are regarded as firm customary law.  This is reflected in the numerous contracts and agreements between Turkey and her neighbors.  The ESPOO convention for Environmental compatibility tests of Border-spreading context, the UN convention for Non-navigable use of Border-spreading water routes, and the ruling of the International Court of Justice on the bilateral Friendship Treaty between Turkey and Iraq 1946, all helped these principles to be recognized as legal codes.  Turkey promised to regard, uphold and abide by these principles; international standards set by the World Bank.  

One further principle in the regulation of international rivers is the equal usage for all neighbors.  For example, the International Court of Justice confirmed a ruling of Arbitral Award in 1997. Various arguments from Turkey's officials show however, they raised the exclusive right to the sources of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers.  President Demirel explains, "Water is like oil.  Whoever owns the well owns right to it, and no one can challenge it"          www.weed-online.org 

Consequences for Syria 

During the 1991 Gulf war, Turkey reduced the water supply to Iraq. 

Repeatedly Turkey threatened Syria with the damming of the waters, and began negotiations over flow rates, should Syria continue to give refuge to the PKK.  This brought many warlike conflicts between Turkey and Syria dangerously close.  Even when Turkey assures that the minimum quantity of water would flow into its neighboring countries, does not mean that they would not use the dam as a tool for extortion during times of conflict.

Syria and Iraq sent petitions to the participating companies before construction of the Birecik Dam began.  Without the Euphrates water, Syria cannot live. Syria has very little water in comparison to Turkey. The smallest amount of rainfall in the Turkish Harran-plain is the highest a few kilometres further south beyond the Turkish-Syrian border. Since the Turkish dams were built, Syria has already lost half the Euphrates water. There is a quantitative guarantee from Turkey, to keep this amount coming through, but only as a yearly average. In Summer, when the Turkish South-East is being irrigated, Syria doesn't get enough to water its own fields.

The Euphrates provides half the population with drinking water. The irrigated fields along the river are the kernel of Syrian agriculture. Corn, wheat, barley and even rice grow here. And even here thirsty cotton is cultivated. Mainly for export, like in Turkey.  In future the area of cultivation is to be doubled. But the irrigation projects on the Euphrates are endangered even now. If too little water comes from Turkey, the pumps are dry.

The rivers flowing from Turkey to Syria are heavily contaminated. It collects the water drained from the Turkish Harran plain as well as urban and industrial sewage. The Syrian farmers have no choice other than to pump the contaminated drainage water onto their fields. If they continue using this salty water for several years, the soil will be useless. The salt on Syrian fields doesn't just come from the Turkish Harran plain, though. Agriculture here has relied on artificial irrigation for ages. Open channel irrigation is traditional in Syria and standard in many places.  The high degree of evaporation here means that salt has always been left on the ground. 22% of the land in Syria is salinated now.  But since there's hardly any other land to cultivate, the salt is washed out of the earth with large amounts of water and back into the Euphrates to the next neighbour down-river, to Iraq.

The water-table in Syria has sunk deep, most wells are dry.

Recently, strict penalties follow the construction of so-called "free" wells.  Anyone who has one of these licensed wells on their property may sell the water, for the lowest prices that are defined by the state.  

To get drinkable ground water they have to drill 500M down.

Often they come across water with a high salt content making it un-enjoyable.  Areas such as Khabour are already completely exhausted. 

Coming from Turkey the most important tributary of the Euphrates in Syria. Four years ago it was still the main artery of an intensively farmed agricultural area. Nowadays 30,000 people are left literally high and dry. State water-transporters provide the region's communities with treated Euphrates water day and night. The price is purely symbolic. They are not allowed to use the water for agricultural irrigation, however.   The cause of the drying up is put in very diplomatic words by Dr. Abdul Aziz Almasri, responsable for international water negotiationen in Syria: " For the last 5 years we've been suffering from a drought in Syria. At the same time our friendly neighbour, Turkey, has drilled many wells in the Harran plane that have dried out the sources of the Khabour. So it's both the lack of rain and the many wells that cause the drying up of the Khabour."

Since the decrease in water reaching here from Turkish sources by natural means, it's also been sold in plastic bottles. Short supply means a high price. Nestle-Water is a joint-venture with the the Turkish multi-corporation Koc. The Turkish Water Authority sees nothing wrong in trading drinking water. Anyone who needs water can buy it. 

4. The building of the Ilisu Dam on the Tigris.

a.) The destruction of archeological treasures.

The Euphrates is for Syria, what the Tigris is for Iraq. The water is still reaching the neighbouring country relatively unhindered. Now the construction of the so-called " Ilisu dam " just before the Iraqi border will erect the second largest valley-barrier of the GAP project. Then it will be possible to control this tap for Iraq completely. 

The plan is to flood the valley up to the mountain face with the Ilisu dam. At least 52 villages and small towns will sink. Up to 78.000 people will have to leave their homes. The historical town of Hasankeyf will disappear for ever. Once an important centre of trade, at the crossroads of old caravan routes between India, China and the Mediterranean. Here Assyrian, Kurdish and Selchuk culture were nurtured. One of the first Islamic clerical schools is to be found here. This 13th century bridge was for a long time the highest of its kind and the only crossing of the Tigris. 

The last years a unique international protest movement has grown against the flooding of this valley. Certain European firms have pulled out of the consortium. Even the World Bank refuse to finance the project. The Turkish Water Authority and the European multi-corporation VA-Tech, however, are holding on to the construction of the dam. They want to start as soon as possible.  

b) Social consequences of the region.

For approximately 40 years the first plans for the dam were developed. 

Since then not a single Lira has flowed into the infrastructure of the region.

Every development would simply suffocate and die here.  The residents have for generations remained in perpetual state of waiting.  No one dares to build anything large, because tomorrow could mean; "Leave! The valley is being flooded".  The valley is poor. For the women, daily life is hard and tiresome.  Employment possibilities in the Tigris valley are mainly in agriculture; dominated by mostly the women. There are a few who find calm in the promise of a large compensation settlement, hoping to have an easier life and a better future in the city.  However relocation and compensation policies for the Euphrates is an entirely different matter, and the people in the valley no nothing of this.

For link see:  insufficient compensation.  

The neighboring areas' main city Batman adamantly rejected the dam.  The city is bursting at the seams with refugees, after 15 years of military aggression between PKK and the Turkish army.  Over 2 million inland refugees have dispersed themselves the region.  The official unemployment rate of 70% followed the collapse of the tobacco industry.  The oil refinery is the only large employer of the region. There is a lack of sufficient universities and technical institutes i.e. in schools there are already up to 100 students per classroom, living space, drinking water supplies and sewage disposal etc. Tens of thousands of refugees through the Dam building would bring on catastrophe, and cause more military unrest and conflict in a region which is already in a explosiv mood.

Europe will share responsibility for the social, ecological and political consequences of this dam too, particularly the governments of Germany and Austria. Without their export guarantee-tees there'll be no building here. .... The Tigris water is still flowing free and unhindered into Iraq. The Syrians know what it means when your "friendly neighbour " controls your vital arteries. The Iraqis live in fear.

Water a weapon. Water a commodity. Water - a human right?