STRUGGLES

SAVE HASANKEYF, STOP THE ILISU DAM
This article was first published on the Corporate Watch website on 20 September
2015 to coincide with World HasankeyfDay.
The stunning, ancient town of
Hasankeyfstands on the banks of
the Tigris river in north Kurdistan
(the part ofKurdistan within the
borders ofTurkey). Hasankeyfis
12,000 years old but it is set to
vanish forever under a 121 square
mile artificial lake when the Ilısu
dam is completed. The dam will
displace up to 78,000 people, the
majority ofwhom are ofKurdish
origin. Another 30,000 nomadic
people will also be directly affected.
199 villages will be completely or
partially flooded.
The residents ofHasankeyfand
surrounding villages don't know when the
waters will come. Some say that they could
be flooded by March 2016, while others
believe that the project will be completed
within three years. The dam is currently 90%
complete.
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Tragically, the same region already has a
devastating recent history. In the 1990s,
whole villages were either burnt down by
Turkish security forces or forcibly expelled.
Thousands ofpeople were killed or
disappeared. 1 By the mid-1990s, more than
3,000 villages had been wiped from the
map. 2 The pretext for these actions was to
clear the PKK guerillas out ofthe villages but
many say the main aim was to expel Kurdish
people from their homeland and destroy
Kurdish culture and traditions.
There are now roughly 3,000 residents living
in Hasankeyf. Many people have already left
because ofthe uncertain future ofthe area
and because there are now barely any
employment opportunities. Once a thriving
tourist destination, visitors flocked to the
town to visit the ancient ruins and to marvel
at Hasankeyf's 5,000 caves, which, until
recently, were inhabited for thousands of
years.
When Corporate Watch travelled to
Hasankeyfearlier in 2015, residents told us