Narrator:

Poseidon. Acionna. Gods who ruled the waters of the ancient world. Now briefly exposed to the harsh light of day for the first time in 17 centuries, before being consigned to a watery grave. The modern Republic of Turkey now rules this land. A state determined on development at any cost. Even if it means sacrificing a rich past. Turkey is erecting its own monuments to history. A massive, 40 billion dollar dams project, now flooding vast tracks of the southeast for irrigation and electricity generation, but the masters of this grand vision are also generating controversy.

Officially, it's called the Southeast Anatolian Project, but everyone knows it by its Turkish acronym GAP. 22 dams on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. 19 hydroelectric plants. 7000 kilometres of irrigation channels. All to be completed in the next decade.

Today, the gate is finally being lowered on GAP's latest engineering feet. The Birecik Dam. The blocked waters of the Euphrates River will now start their slow, yet inevitable rise. Just upstream, the dam's completion triggers a new sense of urgency. For this is the ancient city of  Zeugma, hailed as a second Pompeii. A treasure virtually unknown outside the archaeological world. It was only last year, with the dam almost complete, this site started to reveal the full extent of its riches. Now Turkish and foreign archaeologists work around the clock to save what they can before the city is lost forever.

Speaker 2:

[foreign language]

Narrator:

A local museum now serves as warehouse for this priceless bronze statue of Mars, and more than 60 mosaics, all retrieved from just one small corner of the site. Some of the finest examples of this art form ever seen by the modern world.

Speaker 2:

[foreign language]

Narrator:

Zeugma was once home to 60.000 people, and an entire Roman Army legion. The team has unearthed just two villas, what other riches lie here is anyone's guess.

Speaker 3:

[foreign language]

Narrator:

But there's hope that half the city may lie somewhere above the water line. The Turkish Government is now promising to transform the area into an open air museum. The archaeologists have heard it all before in other sites flooded by GAP dams. The government professes ignorance of the site's significance, and offers to help once it's too late.

Speaker 2:

[foreign language]

Narrator:

As archaeologists scramble to save the past, the nearby villagers of [Belkis] attempt to salvage their future. For these farming families, it's their last day on land their ancestors have tilled for centuries.

Speaker 4:

[foreign language]

Narrator:

The Birecik Dam will eventually swamp 40 villages, 35.000 people, mainly ethnic Kurds, are being forced from their homes. Now, under the shadow of the dam wall, they remove steel beams and timber, anything that may be of use in rebuilding their lives elsewhere.

Speaker 5:

[foreign language]

Narrator:

They're assisted by sympathetic army conscripts. Mostly farm boys themselves. The villagers know that protest is futile, as the military's helping hand would soon turn to a clenched fist. GAP, they're told, will benefit the state. In Turkey, individual rights come a poor second.

Speaker 5:

[foreign language]

Speaker 6:

But you know, sure, people are, you know, are not very happy, because they have to leave their places, but the dam [inaudible] always liked that.

Narrator:

The dam comes first.

Speaker 6:

If dam, yeah, if you are building dam, this changing is happening. This is under construction.

Narrator:

There's not much sympathy at GAP headquarters. This project is about lifting Southeast Turkey out of poverty.

Speaker 6:

These dams are mainly going to produce energy.

Narrator:

Economic and social development at all costs. A policy ingrained by Kemal Ataturk, founder of the modern Turkish State, whose unbroken stare dominates every government office.

Speaker 6:

So this area is going to irrigate 1.1 million hectares, but-

Narrator:

1.1 million.

Speaker 6:

Million hectare, but eight on a 15.000 is going to come from Ataturk Dam. So it's a very big deal really. To [inaudible] project, their level was 47% of Turkey's average income, and after this project, it is going to be 70% of Turkey's people's average income. If we hadn't done any projects, it was going to be 25% of Turkey.

Narrator:

But this language of economics is a foreign tongue to people who'll soon be reduced to living in a mountain side tent. This family says local project officials stole most of their entitled compensation. For a government that wants to improve the lot of these people, it's a strange way to win hearts and minds.

Speaker 5:

[foreign language]

Speaker 6:

They're going to compensate, then they're going to take their money, expropriation money, and we are now are planning specific project, in Halfeti in Birecik Dam, they are planning a specific project for resettlement of people, and re-employment of people who used to live in the reservoir area.

Narrator:

This is the new Halfeti. GAP's model town. The residents of another community, uprooted by the Birecik Dam. Sited on an exposed ridge line, where the baking summer heat hits the 40s. The beloved riverside orchids of the old town replaced by fields of stone. These people consider themselves lucky. They were paid their full compensation, just enough to buy these shoddily-built homes. Lucky, but not happy.

Speaker 7:

[foreign language]

Narrator:

Much of Southeast Turkey is still an armed camp. A legacy of the 15 year guerrilla war between the government and Kurdish separatists, led by Abdullah Ocalan. Since Ocalan's capture last year, the conflict here has all but ended, and GAP projects have accelerated, now free from the threat of attack. The people of this region are ethnic Kurds, an identity never really recognised by the state. Perhaps that explains why GAP is so nonplussed of the plans to flood this place, Hasankeyf, regarded as the cradle of Kurdish culture. An ancient town on the banks of the Tigris River, that has been home to a dozen civilizations.

Amine:

[foreign language]

Narrator:

Hasankeyf is protected by two United Nations Heritage Preservation Conventions. Orders that GAP will ignore in building another dam to provide jobs and economic security, but Hasankeyf's 5000 Kurdish residents will be evicted.

Point out to me how high the water is gonna go, when the dam is built.

Amine:

[foreign language]

Speaker 6:

Together with energy production, also we are going to protect the area from being destroyed.

Narrator:

How can you do that when you flood the area? How can you also protect it?

Speaker 6:

You can take the pictures. You can, you know, get some documents out of this, and you can excavate, and you know, get some, if there are, some treasures to the grounds, and you can just prove that this [inaudible] over here was.

Narrator:

So this is the entrance to the palace. Local Tourism Officer Amine says only the higher reaches of the town will escape the flooding. The castle ruins, and some cave dwellings. This is quite literally living history. Amine and his family occupied one of the 5000 caves of this area, right up until 1970.

And [inaudible] from the dam.

Amine:

Yeah. Yeah. Water.

Narrator:

From our vantage point, we see a few hardy shepherds who, even today, continue to live in the homes of their ancestors. Their livestock herded into adjoining caves.

Amine:

[foreign language]

Narrator:

Alienating villagers and archaeologists is one thing, but GAP is also making dangerous enemies of Turkey's downstream neighbours.

Murat Cano:

[foreign language]

Narrator:

Human Rights Lawyer Murat Cano says Turkey's generals now have the power to turn off the tap, in effect, creating a strategic weapon every bit as menacing as a nuclear bomb.

Murat Cano:

[foreign language]

Narrator:

500 kilometres downstream from Hasankeyf lies Baghdad, capital of a nation cursed with a tyrannical leader, economic sanctions, drought, and now dangerously-low river levels. Once it was called [Masupatemia] the land between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates. The Tigris should now be surging with melted snows from Turkey's mountains, instead, it has dropped to its lowest level in living memory.

So this time of year, normally we should be underwater here.

Speaker 10:

Yes. Right. The highest should hit that boundary. That line.

Narrator:

Yes. Up to the house.

Speaker 10:

Adjacent to the house. Yes.

Narrator:

Yes.

Speaker 10:

And now, see the difference? This is-

Narrator:

So this is only, what? 30-40% of what used to normally [crosstalk]

Speaker 10:

Right. Around. Yes. I would say around 40% of what it should be, this time of the year.

Narrator:

Iraq squarely blames the GAP project, as do Turkey's other Arab neighbours. All are further infuriated by recent news that the Turks are now selling fresh water to Israel in a deal that will eventually reap 100 million dollars a year. Every country in the arid Middle East now faces the problem of soaring population rates, and finite water supplies, and there were growing fears that the failure to adhere to international water rights may eventually lead to a regional war.

Speaker 10:

I don't think a country like Turkey, that consider themself as an advanced country, and part of European community, would allow a disaster like this happen. This disaster will affect the region, the whole region, not only Iraq.

Narrator:

But GAP insists that Turkey's neighbours get their fair share.

Speaker 6:

As far as fertility. Turkey has got more fertility in the lands. As far as waters, water is pouring from Turkey. As far as construction, construction start in Turkey years ago. As far as our think, I don't think that we are being unfair.

Narrator:

Poseidon, god of the sea has been rescued from Birecik Dam's rising waters. He is powerful, violent, and vengeful, yet helpless in stopping those who follow a modern faith. The creed of economic development.