From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Sat Jun 05 2010 - 06:30:24 EDT
East African nations to challenge colonial Nile treaty
East African nations facing increasing droughts are poised to rip up a
colonial treaty brokered by the British which gives the lion's share of the
Nile's waters to Egypt.
By Mike Pflanz in Nairobi
Published: 9:24PM BST 045 Jun 2010
Under the 1929 accord, which still stands in international law, none of the
other nine countries in the Nile basin can tap the river's bounty without
Cairo's permission.
And because 95 per cent of Egypt's water supplies come from the world's
longest river, that approval has rarely been given despite soaring demand
for water across Africa.
Now Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania have agreed a new pact to
share the Nile's waters more fairly and removes Egypt's veto.
The Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi and Eritrea are mulling following
suit.
But Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak - who has threatened in the past to go
to war with any country tampering with the Nile - has so far refused to sign
up, claiming that protecting water supplies is an "issue of national
security".
The 1929 Nile Waters Agreement between Egypt and Britain, representing its
East African territories, gave Egypt 55.5 billion cubic metres of the Nile's
84 billion cubic metres total flow. Sudan got the rest.
At the time, rainfall in countries to the south was regular and heavy enough
to support demand. Now, populations there have soared to 200 million, and
weather patterns have changed.
"Everyone knows that we are now all faced with climate change," said
Stanislas Kamanzi, Rwanda's minister for environment and lands.
"Ours is one of the most vulnerable countries, 80 percent of our agriculture
relies on rain-fed irrigation. We can no longer predict that we will receive
regular rainfall, so we can't predict our crop production.
"We need to use the resources in our waterways and lakes for irrigation."
Until now, Egypt has used its diplomatic clout to lobby Western finance
institutions to deny loans to any 'upstream' Nile nations wanting to build
large water-harvesting projects.
But China is now the dominant investor in Africa, and Cairo has less
influence there.
Beijing has already funded an Ethiopian hydroelectric dam.
"Egypt in their hearts know they are in a difficult position, but they will
try to delay any upstream development as long as they can," said Ashok
Swain, an international water conflict expert at the University of Uppsala
in Sweden.
"The China factor has complicated things. Their engagement may have given
the upstream countries the confidence to show that their patience with Egypt
is running out."
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