Kurdish Human Rights Project: The Ilisu Dam
Kerim Yildiz
KHRP
The Ilisu hydro-electric power project is part of Turkey's Southeastern Anatolia Project (GAP). The site is situated on the Tigris river, about 65 km upstream of the Syrian and Iraqi border. With a planned capacity of 1,200 MW, Ilisu is Turkey's largest pending hydropower project.
In September 1999, a fact finding team comprising three lawyers and a specialist in the social and environmental impacts of large dams visited Diyarbakir, Batman and Hasankeyf in south east Turkey on behalf of the Kurdish Human Rights Project. The purpose of the mission was to make site visits and to confer with elected officials, members of local organisations and those likely to be affected by the dam. Despite constant police surveillance and control, which severely restricted the delegation’s ability to conduct independent investigations as originally intended , recorded interviews were conducted with local politicians, lawyers, historians and a small number of project affected residents.
The mission also attended a public conference ... | 
