From: Biniam Tekle (biniamt@dehai.org)
Date: Fri Jul 02 2010 - 08:05:25 EDT
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/07/02/the_threat_of_a_water_war/
Robert I. Rotberg
The threat of a water war Egypt and Sudan draw battle lines with upstream
nations over access to the Nile
By Robert I. Rotberg
July 2, 2010
NATIONS FIGHT over water, especially when access is curtailed or threatened,
and there are the ingredients for a battle over the 4,100-mile long Nile
River. Egypt and Sudan have counted on the abundance of the Nile’s
life-giving flow. Now upstream nations want to keep more of the abundance
for themselves. Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Congo, Burundi, and
Rwanda are asserting their rights to more of the river’s relentless flow.
Washington needs to intervene to forestall hostilities between the
countries.
Britain conquered Uganda and Kenya in the 19th century in part to protect
the precious Nile waters from being diverted away from their critical
possession of Egypt, the Suez Canal, and the Red Sea route to India. Without
the yearly sustaining floods of the Nile, agriculture and settlement in the
valley of the river from Luxor to Cairo and Alexandria would have been
impossible.
When Britain in the 1920s controlled all of the waters of the Nile, bar
those sluicing down the Blue Nile from Ethiopia, it signed a pact that gave
Egypt and Sudan rights to nearly 75 percent of its annual flow. This 1929
agreement was confirmed in 1959, after Egypt and the Sudan had broken from
Britain but while the East African countries were still colonies.
A new 2010 Cooperative Framework Agreement, now signed by most of the key
upstream abutters, would give all riparian states (including the Congo,
where a stream that flows into Lake Tanganyika is the acknowledged Nile
source) equal access to the resources of the river. That would give
preference to large scale upstream energy and industrial, as well as
long-time agricultural and irrigation uses.
Egypt and Sudan have refused to sign the new agreement, despite years of
discussions and many heated meetings. Given climate change, the drying up of
water sources everywhere in Africa and the world, Egypt, which is guaranteed
56 billion of the annual flow of 84 billion cubic meters of Nile water each
year, hardly wants to lose even a drop of its allocation. Nor does Sudan,
guaranteed 15 billion cubic meters.
About 300 million people depend on the waters of the Nile. The upstream
countries, with still growing populations, believe that their socio-economic
development has long been unfairly constrained by Egypt’s colonial-era lock
on the river. Ethiopia and Uganda have not been able to support agricultural
schemes. Nor have they been able fully to harness the river or its
tributaries for industry and power. Both have suffered from major
hydroelectric shortages in recent years.
Egypt has declared the continued surge of the Nile waters a “red line’’ that
affects its “national security.’’ There is discussion in Egypt about the use
of air power to threaten upstream offenders, especially if Ethiopia becomes
too demanding. In theory, Ethiopia could divert much of the Blue Nile to its
own uses. Or Ethiopia and others could charge Egypt for water that has
largely escaped modern pricing.
Egypt is sufficiently disturbed by Ethiopia’s potentially aggressive water
designs that it has recently made friends with Eritrea, Ethiopia’s arch
enemy. In 1998, Ethiopia and Eritrea went to war over slices of
insignificant mountainous territory. Although the shooting ended in 2000, a
peace settlement handed down by the World Court in 2006 has still not been
observed by both sides. If Egypt attacks Ethiopia, Eritrea might join in.
Egyptian generals claim that Israel is on the other side, helping the
upstream nations by encouraging their thirst for water and by financing the
construction of four hydroelectric projects in Ethiopia.
All these issues provide conditions for a war over water. Washington,
Egypt’s largest donor, has significant leverage to de-escalate tensions and
mediate between the haves and have-nots. After all, Washington supports both
Egypt and Ethiopia lavishly and militarily. It needs to demand that all
sides stand down.
*Robert I. Rotberg directs Harvard Kennedy School’s Program on Intrastate
Conflict and is president of the World Peace Foundation. *
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