Ethiopia’s parliament
this week voted to push ahead with the country’s controversial Blue Nile
hydroelectric dam project. The move is bound to raise the political
stakes even higher following threats earlier this week by Egypt that it
would go to war over Ethiopia’s plan to build a $4.7-billion dam on the
great river.
Egypt claims that construction of the dam in Ethiopia will cause grave detriment to its supply of fresh water and spell ruin to its economy.
Most of Egypt’s 85 million people live on the banks of the Nile and the country relies on the river for over 95 per cent of its fresh water supply. For millennia, Egyptian civilization has depended on the bountiful Nile - the world’s longest river, stretching more than 6,500 kilometers from its source in Central Africa to its outlet in the Mediterranean Sea, just north of Egypt’s capital, Cairo.
The Nile comprises two tributaries: the longer White Nile originates in Burundi or Rwanda (still a matter of dispute among geographers) and it meets with the Blue Nile coming out of Ethiopia. The meeting point is near Khartoum, the capital of North Sudan, and thence the Nile flows on to Egypt. However, it is Ethiopia’s Blue Nile that provides more than 85 per cent of the downstream water of the Lower Nile.
That is why the construction of the mega dam in Ethiopia has apparently provoked so much alarm in Egypt. Ethiopia’s Blue Nile hydroelectric project - the biggest in Africa - has been on the drawing board for several years, initiated by the country’s late prime minister, Meles Zenawi, who died last year. At the end of last month, Ethiopia began diverting the water of the Blue Nile to enable construction of the dam.
Egypt has responded now with dire calls of national emergency, led by its president, Mohammed Morsi. This week Morsi said that his country reserved the right to militarily defend its vital national interests.
“All options are on the table,” he said, adding that any drop of water lost would be replaced by Egyptian blood. Morsi has since toned down the war rhetoric towards Ethiopia.
But, nevertheless, the relations between Africa’s second and third most populous countries remain extremely fraught, especially in light of the latest move by Ethiopia’s lawmakers to push ahead with the dam. Some Salafist members of Egypt’s parliament have even called for covert sabotage of the dam, which at this stage is about 20 per cent complete. Those calls prompted the Ethiopians this week to summon the Egyptian ambassador in Addis Ababa to explain his country’s declared baleful intentions.
Ethiopia’s concerns will have only been underscored by talking points released also this week by the Pentagon-aligned think-tank, Stratfor, which weighed up Egypt’s options of military sabotage, including air strikes and demolition by Special Forces.
So, what is going on here? Nobody is denying that the Nile is a vital national interest for Egypt. But it seems a reckless and outrageous leap of hysteria by Egypt to launch threats of war against Ethiopia over the issue.
Ethiopia’s prime minister, Hailemariam Desalegn, has vowed that the Blue Nile hydroelectric scheme is not intended to adversely affect the flow of water to Egypt or Sudan. His view is supported by a recent study conducted by technical people from Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia, which concluded that there would be no significant long-term reduction in downstream water supply as a result the dam.
However, without presenting contrary expert evidence, Egypt’s Morsi asserts that his country’s water supply will be curtailed by 20 per cent - a reduction that would indeed be catastrophic for the already drought-prone North African country. But this is the big question: is Egypt’s supply of fresh water really threatened? The scientific study so far would say not.
That raises the further question: why is president Morsi making such a big deal about Ethiopia’s Blue Nile project? The answer may be less to do with Ethiopia diverting water and more to do with Morsi diverting political problems within his own country.
Later this month, on 30 June, there is a mass opposition rally planned in Cairo to mark the first anniversary of Morsi taking office. The Muslim Brotherhood president has seen a very rocky first year in power, with many Egyptians not happy with his policies since he took over from the ousted dictator Hosni Mubarak.
Top of the popular grievances against Morsi is his support for Salafist extremists in NATO’s covert regime-change war in Syria; his continuing collusion with Israel in its oppression of Palestinians; and, domestically, Morsi has been accused of doing little to improve the living standards of Egypt’s majority of impoverished workers and
families.
Morsi’s belligerent rhetoric over Ethiopia’s Blue Nile project has sought to divert internal opposition to his government into an international dispute with a neighbouring African country.
In his fiery speeches recently, Morsi has been working the crowds with jingoism and nationalism, stressing that Egyptians are “at one” over their claimed rights to the Nile water. The obvious theme here by Morsi is to convince Egyptians to put aside their objections to his dubious governance and to focus instead on an ostensible external enemy - Ethiopia.
Let’s look at the issue from Ethiopia’s point of view. The Blue Nile is geographically a national resource of Ethiopia. It originates from the country’s northern highlands, which drain into Lake Tana, one of Africa’s largest lakes. From there, the Blue Nile meanders northwards on its long journey to the Mediterranean.
The river might be more accurately called the Brown Nile because of its muddy colour owing to the fertile minerals and organic matter that it leaches from the Ethiopian land. This is partly why the Nile has sustained Egypt’s agriculture for millennia - it is a river of natural goodness courtesy of Ethiopia’s rich soil.
But the way Ethiopians see it - and they have just cause - is why should their country not be the first beneficiary of the powerful and fertile water of the Nile?
After all, ask Ethiopians, does Egypt give away its natural oil and gas wealth to other countries for free? No, so why should Ethiopia permit its primary water resource to be freely accessed by others at the cost of its own pressing development needs?
