Nile River row: Could it turn violent?
Jul 7, 2010 08:59 EDT
africa water | burundi | DRC | Egypt | Ethiopia | kenya | Nile |
Sudan | tanzania | Uganda
The giggles started when the seventh journalist in a row said that his
question was for Egypt’s water and irrigation minister, Mohamed
Nasreddin Allam.
The non-Egyptian media gave him a bit of a hammering at last week’s
talks in Addis Ababa for the nine countries that the Nile passes
through.
Allam bared his teeth when a Kenyan journalist accused him of hiding
behind “colonial-era treaties” giving his country the brunt of the
river’s vital waters whether that hurt the poorer upstream countries
or not.
“You obviously don’t know enough about this subject to be asking
questions about it,” he snapped before later apologising to her with a
kiss on the cheek.
Five of the nine Nile countries — Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda
and Kenya — last month signed a deal to share the water that is a
crucial resource for all of them. But Egypt and Sudan, who are
entitled to most of the water and can veto upstream dams under a 1929
British-brokered agreement, refused.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo and Burundi have not signed yet
either and analysts are divided on whether they will or not. Six Nile
countries must sign the agreement for it to have any power but Egypt
says even that wouldn’t change its mind. The five signatories — some
of the world’s poorest countries — have left the agreement open for
debating and possible signing for up to a year.
Tensions were clearly still running high after two days of
negotiations in Addis and despite grinning around the table and
constantly referring to each other as “my brother”, the ministers
always seemed in danger of breaking into bickering.
When the Sudanese water minister said his country was freezing
cooperation with the Nile Basin Initiative — the name given to the
ten-year effort to agree on how to manage the river — Ethiopia’s water
minister loudly protested to the media that his Sudanese colleague had
not revealed that during their private meetings.
Highlighting the seriousness of the issue, Egyptian Foreign Minister
Ahmed Abul Gheit and International Cooperation Minister Fayza Abul
Naga, arrived in Addis Ababaon Wednesday to again meet Ethiopian Prime
Minister Meles Zenawi.
It’s no surprise that the spat is getting a lot of press in both
Ethiopia and Egypt.
“Egypt is a gift of the Nile,” people like to say in a country that
worshipped the river as a God in ancient times. “If Egypt is a gift of
the Nile, then the Nile is a gift of Ethiopia,” Ethiopians shoot back
with growing confidence.
And they have a point. More than 85 percent of the waters originate in
Ethiopia, which relies on foreign aid for survival and sees hydropower
dams as a potential cash cow and central to its plans to become one of
Africa’s only power exporters.
But Egypt is not for turning. Almost totally dependent on the Nile for
its agricultural output (a third of its economy) and already worried
about climate change, it is determined to hold onto its 55.5 billion
cubic metres of water a year, a seemingly unfair share of the Nile’s
total flow of 84 billion cubic metres.
The Egyptians point out that they don’t benefit from rains like the
upstream countries. Everybody, it seems, has valid points. Nobody is
budging. Now some regional analysts are even saying the row could turn
into the world’s first major water war and similar thoughts are being
expressed in cafes from Cairo all the way upriver to Dar es Salaam.
So what next? The nine countries are due to meet again in Nairobi
sometime between September and November. But where is the way forward?
Who will blink first? And who really should? Could this bickering turn
violent?
***
http://twitter.com/malonebarry
PHOTO CREDIT: A girl looks at water from the Nile flowing from a pump
in the Manshiyet Nasser shantytown in eastern Cairo May 18, 2010.
REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
Jul 7, 2010 08:59 EDT
africa water | burundi | DRC | Egypt | Ethiopia | kenya | Nile |
Sudan | tanzania | Uganda
The giggles started when the seventh journalist in a row said that his
question was for Egypt’s water and irrigation minister, Mohamed
Nasreddin Allam.
The non-Egyptian media gave him a bit of a hammering at last week’s
talks in Addis Ababa for the nine countries that the Nile passes
through.
Allam bared his teeth when a Kenyan journalist accused him of hiding
behind “colonial-era treaties” giving his country the brunt of the
river’s vital waters whether that hurt the poorer upstream countries
or not.
“You obviously don’t know enough about this subject to be asking
questions about it,” he snapped before later apologising to her with a
kiss on the cheek.
Five of the nine Nile countries — Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda
and Kenya — last month signed a deal to share the water that is a
crucial resource for all of them. But Egypt and Sudan, who are
entitled to most of the water and can veto upstream dams under a 1929
British-brokered agreement, refused.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo and Burundi have not signed yet
either and analysts are divided on whether they will or not. Six Nile
countries must sign the agreement for it to have any power but Egypt
says even that wouldn’t change its mind. The five signatories — some
of the world’s poorest countries — have left the agreement open for
debating and possible signing for up to a year.
Tensions were clearly still running high after two days of
negotiations in Addis and despite grinning around the table and
constantly referring to each other as “my brother”, the ministers
always seemed in danger of breaking into bickering.
When the Sudanese water minister said his country was freezing
cooperation with the Nile Basin Initiative — the name given to the
ten-year effort to agree on how to manage the river — Ethiopia’s water
minister loudly protested to the media that his Sudanese colleague had
not revealed that during their private meetings.
Highlighting the seriousness of the issue, Egyptian Foreign Minister
Ahmed Abul Gheit and International Cooperation Minister Fayza Abul
Naga, arrived in Addis Ababaon Wednesday to again meet Ethiopian Prime
Minister Meles Zenawi.
It’s no surprise that the spat is getting a lot of press in both
Ethiopia and Egypt.
“Egypt is a gift of the Nile,” people like to say in a country that
worshipped the river as a God in ancient times. “If Egypt is a gift of
the Nile, then the Nile is a gift of Ethiopia,” Ethiopians shoot back
with growing confidence.
And they have a point. More than 85 percent of the waters originate in
Ethiopia, which relies on foreign aid for survival and sees hydropower
dams as a potential cash cow and central to its plans to become one of
Africa’s only power exporters.
But Egypt is not for turning. Almost totally dependent on the Nile for
its agricultural output (a third of its economy) and already worried
about climate change, it is determined to hold onto its 55.5 billion
cubic metres of water a year, a seemingly unfair share of the Nile’s
total flow of 84 billion cubic metres.
The Egyptians point out that they don’t benefit from rains like the
upstream countries. Everybody, it seems, has valid points. Nobody is
budging. Now some regional analysts are even saying the row could turn
into the world’s first major water war and similar thoughts are being
expressed in cafes from Cairo all the way upriver to Dar es Salaam.
So what next? The nine countries are due to meet again in Nairobi
sometime between September and November. But where is the way forward?
Who will blink first? And who really should? Could this bickering turn
violent?
***
http://twitter.com/malonebarry
PHOTO CREDIT: A girl looks at water from the Nile flowing from a pump
in the Manshiyet Nasser shantytown in eastern Cairo May 18, 2010.
REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
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