“While we acknowledge Ethiopia’s right to development, the water of the Nile is a question of life, a matter of existence to Egypt,”
By Sarah
Mukabana
The latest breakdown in talks with Ethiopia
over its construction of a massive upstream Nile dam has left Egypt with
dwindling options as it seeks to protect the main source of freshwater for its
large and growing population.
Talks
collapsed earlier this month over the construction of the $5 billion Grand
Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, which is 60% complete and promises to provide
much-needed electricity to Ethiopia’s 100 million people.
But
Egypt, with a population of around the same size, fears that the process of
filling the reservoir behind the dam could slice into its share of the river,
with catastrophic consequences. Pro-government media have cast it as a national
security threat that could warrant military action.
Speaking
at the U.N. last month, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi said he would
“never” allow Ethiopia to impose a “de facto situation” by filling the dam
without an agreement.
“While
we acknowledge Ethiopia’s right to development, the water of the Nile is a
question of life, a matter of existence to Egypt,” he said.
Egypt
has been holding talks for years with Ethiopia and Sudan, upstream countries
that have long complained about Cairo’s overwhelming share of the river, which
is enshrined in treaties dating back to the British colonial era.
Those
talks came to an acrimonious halt earlier this month, the third time they have
broken down since 2014.
“We
are fed up with Ethiopian procrastination. We will not spend our lifetime in
useless talks,” an Egyptian official told The Associated Press. “All options
are on the table, but we prefer dialogue and political means.”
Egypt
has reached out to the United States, Russia, China and Europe, apparently
hoping to reach a better deal through international mediation.
The White
House said earlier this month it supports talks to reach a sustainable
agreement while “respecting each other’s Nile water equities.”
Mohamed
el-Molla, an Egyptian Foreign Ministry official, said Cairo would take the
dispute to the U.N. Security Council if the Ethiopians refuse international
mediation.
That
has angered Ethiopia, which wants to resolve the dispute through the tripartite
talks.
An
Ethiopian official said the packages offered by Cairo so far “were deliberately
prepared to be unacceptable for Ethiopia.”
“Now
they are saying Ethiopia has rejected the offer, and calling for a third-party
intervention,” the official added.
Both the
Ethiopian and the Egyptian official spoke on condition of anonymity because
they were not authorized to discuss the talks with the media.
The
main dispute is centered on the filling of the dam’s 74-billion-cubic-meter
reservoir. Ethiopia wants to fill it as soon as possible so it can generate
over 6,400 Megawatts, a massive boost to the current production of 4,000
Megawatts.
Ethiopia
said earlier this year that the dam would start generating power by the end of
2020 and would operate at full capacity by 2022.
That
has the potential to sharply reduce the flow of the Blue Nile, the main
tributary to the river, which is fed by annual monsoon rains in the Ethiopian
highlands. If the filling takes place during one of the region’s periodic
droughts, its downstream impact could be even more severe.
Egypt
has proposed no less than seven years for filling the reservoir, and for
Ethiopia to adjust the pace according to rainfall, said an Egyptian Irrigation
Ministry official who is a member of its negotiation team. The official also
was not authorized to discuss the talks publicly and so spoke on condition of
anonymity.
The
Nile supplies more than 90% of Egypt’s freshwater. Egyptians already have one
of the lowest per capita shares of water in the world, at around 570 cubic
meters per year, compared to a global average of 1,000. Ethiopians however have
an average of 125 cubic meters per year.
Egypt
wants to guarantee a minimum annual release of 40 billion cubic meters of water
from the Blue Nile. The irrigation official said anything less could affect
Egypt’s own massive Aswan High Dam, with dire economic consequences.
“It
could put millions of farmers out of work. We might lose more than one million
jobs and $1.8 billion annually, as well as $300 million worth of electricity,”
he said.
The
official said Ethiopia has agreed to guarantee just 31 billion cubic meters.
El-Sissi
is set to meet with Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, winner of this year’s
Nobel Peace Prize, on Wednesday in the Russian city of Sochi, on the sidelines
of a Russia-Africa summit. They may be able to revive talks, but the stakes get
higher as the dam nears completion.
The
International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank, warned earlier this
year that the “risk of future clashes could be severe if the parties do not
also reach agreement on a longer-term basin-wide river management framework.”
In
recent weeks there have been calls by some commentators in Egypt’s
pro-government media to resort to force.
Abdallah
el-Senawy, a prominent columnist for the daily newspaper el-Shorouk, said the
only alternatives were internationalizing the dispute or taking military
action.
“Egypt
is not a small county,” he wrote in a Sunday column. “If all diplomatic and
legal options fail, a military intervention might be obligatory.”
Anwar
el-Hawary, the former editor of the Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper, compared the
dispute to the 1973 war with Israel, in which Egypt launched a surprise attack
into the Sinai Peninsula.
“If
we fought to liberate Sinai, it is logical to fight to liberate the water,” he
wrote on Facebook. “The danger is the same in the two cases. War is the last
response.”
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