Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) Mardin (Mêrdin) MP Beritan Güneş assessed the destruction caused by wind and solar energy projects and mining initiatives in the region, as well as procedural irregularities in legal processes and the exclusion of local communities from decision-making mechanisms.
Beritan Güneş said nature is no longer regarded as a living space but merely as a source of capital, adding that the activities carried out in the region are part of a broader policy of depopulation.
Beritan Güneş also highlighted the importance of social struggle against ecological destruction projects stretching from Mardin to Dersim, stating that a solution is only possible through an ecological paradigm.
What measures do you demand regarding the pressure that planned solar and wind energy projects in Mardin and Dersim (with a wind power project in Pülümür) could place on agricultural lands and natural habitats?
A policy of de-naturing is being carried out in Dersim, Mardin and across a significant part of Kurdistan. The government does not view nature as an “entity” but as a “resource,” and with its approval, all legal obstacles in front of these destructive policies, carried out by pro-government capital groups, are being removed one by one.
Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) processes are being reduced to ordinary procedures. In Dersim, in order to plunder nature, considered sacred by the people of Dersim, there are attempts to open a mining site in Pülümür. In Şırnak, almost nothing remains of the forests; trees are cut down every day through the cooperation of soldiers, village guards and capital groups. Nature is being torn apart with oil and mining fields, while “security dams” are effectively turning water into a weapon.
One of the main motivations behind the construction of dams and hydroelectric power plants, built to meet the ever-increasing energy demands of industrialism and simultaneously causing massive ecocide, is security and war policies.
Similarly, with the geothermal power project planned in Varto, citizens are being forced out of their villages and living spaces. Without confronting the reality of villages that were evacuated and burned during the 1990s due to war policies, it is evident that 30–40 years later the same aim of depopulation is being pursued through different methods. What was once carried out by military force in the 1990s is now being implemented under a legal framework through capital investments and profit.
When it comes to Mardin, solar and wind energy projects are being planned on agricultural lands and pastures; mining and quarry activities are creating artificial earthquakes, destroying underground water resources, putting historical sites such as Rabat Castle and the Mesopotamia Waterfall at risk of disappearance, and making the air unbreathable. There are also companies such as Eti Bakır and Cengiz Holding, particularly in Mazıdağı, that continue to pollute Mardin’s air, water and soil. As if the damage caused so far were not enough, new facilities are now being planned. In short, an all-out war is being waged against nature. To interpret these examples solely as ecocide would be to overlook the full scope of the issue.
Why?
These projects serve a broader policy of social destruction intertwined with ecocide. Citizens are being displaced from their lands, their means of livelihood, and are effectively forced into a form of exile by being deprived of clean soil, air and water.
Such an intricate issue cannot be addressed simply within the category of “preventive measures.” It is not possible to consider ecocide independently of capitalism, nor capitalism independently of authoritarianism. As Abdullah Öcalan has stated, the three pillars of capitalist modernity, industrialism, capitalism and the nation-state, must be understood as an interconnected whole.
We have a responsibility to conduct the struggle with this broader perspective in mind. However, in terms of immediate steps, the establishment of energy plants in living and production areas must be abandoned. Environmental Impact Assessment decisions should be taken and implemented through independent, scientific and transparent processes. Most importantly, the people must be granted the right to have a say over their own living spaces.
What kind of policy do you think should be developed against the possibility that solar and wind energy investments could negatively affect village life, migration and the cultural fabric of the region?
As I tried to say earlier, although solar and wind energy plants are presented to society under the guise of renewable and “clean energy,” what is crucial is where these facilities are built and for what motives. If, as in the case of Kurdistan, you erect these facilities in the middle of people’s living spaces and means of subsistence like barricades, this will create a domino effect: it will reduce agricultural production, deepen poverty, and lead to the displacement of citizens. In fact, this is already happening.
In this regard, without losing sight of the fact that the ecological paradigm must be the fundamental principle guiding all policymaking and implementation processes, the urgent step that must be taken is to abandon plans to build projects such as solar and wind energy plants on agricultural land and pasture areas.
Do you think the views and needs of local people were adequately considered during the planning of these projects, and how should the public’s right to participate in decision-making be guaranteed?
Of course not. We argue that democracy must be institutionalized in every sphere and at every moment of life. Therefore, in the case of any proposed quarry in a village or any solar or wind energy project to be established on pastureland, the first step must be to consult the citizens living there. Beyond consultation, the primary authority over decisions concerning a living space should rest with those who inhabit it.
However, none of the projects carried out in contradiction to the interests of nature, such as the examples we have tried to outline, has public opinion been sought. On the contrary, protests organized by communities across many regions against these ecocidal policies have been met with intervention; environmental activists have been detained and arrested.
To better understand the role assigned to the public while authorities exercise limitless control over nature, it may be useful to cite a concrete example. Within the scope of the Dicleres wind energy project planned across a wide area covering the districts of Derik, Mazıdağı and Kızıltepe, one of the legally required “public information” meetings was held in Derik. Yet in a district with a population of 61,000, the meeting was attended by only 15 people. In other words, even a symbolic mechanism for public participation is not being established. Ultimately, the public’s right to have a say must be guaranteed, and the people themselves must be recognized as the primary actors in all such processes.
What do you think about the triangle of government, judiciary and capital that emerges when looking at legal struggles, Environmental Impact Assessment reports and the companies behind these investments?
In Turkey, without losing sight of the longstanding deficiencies in democratic culture, there has been a systematic dismantling of institutions for many years. Almost every institution appears to act as if directed from a single center, disregarding both national and international legal principles and removing all obstacles in front of capital’s plunder of nature. Legal applications filed against these actions are, again as if by the push of the same button, either shelved or openly rejected before the public.
All of this, of course, takes place with the knowledge, supervision, and involvement of the government. In short, nature is reduced to a “resource” in the pursuit of capital’s profit, the government removes all bureaucratic and institutional barriers in its path, and the judiciary functions as a sword to suppress the reactions that arise against it.
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