Kenyan MP Recommends Threatening War on Ethiopia for Damming River

Jimma Times

Kenyan member of parliament representing Turkana central constituency, Ekuwe Ethuro, recommended the government to threaten war on Ethiopia for starting dam constructions at the Omo river. Local officials indicated the Kenyan Lake Turkana's survival is at risk because of Ethiopia's development operations up stream.

According to Kenyan media, the country's Water Minister is discussing with the Ethiopian government on how to solve this issue and reach a lasting agreement. The Kenyan MP, however, asked why the Kenyan government is not using Egypt's policy of putting pressure on Ethiopia by threatening to go to war if Ethiopia uses its water resources.

Through out the last century, Egypt has threatened war on Ethiopia over the Nile river flow, including threats by the Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1970 when Ethiopia proposed construction of a dam on its Lake Tana on the Blue Nile. The statements by the Kenyan MP come in a time when riparian countries like Tanzania have began to ignore colonial Nile treaties that favor Egypt, in order to build hydroelectric power and irrigation projects. Ethiopia contributes around 85 percent of the Nile flow, an amount that rises over 90 during flood period, but Egypt dominates the Nile resources.

NILE AND FAMINES

The Nile Basin countries are Uganda, Sudan, Tanzania, Rwanda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Egypt, DRC and Burundi. Egypt is the most downstream riparian country and Eritrea contributes relatively small to the basin area. While Uganda serves as a "bridge country" as a downstream for Tanzania and upsteam for Egypt, the Ethiopian highlands provide around 85% of the Nile flow. Despite these share of contributions to the river, Egypt dominates the consumption of the Nile resources and has repeatedly warned that it will use military force against the other Nile Basin countries, more aggressively so since the Unites States began subsidizing Egypt's armed forces with around $2 billion annual military aid nearly four decades ago. Egypt also benefits from colonial agreements created in early 1900s by the British adminstration in Cairo as well as from a 1959 treaty between Egypt and Sudan which gave 75% of the Nile resource to Egypt and banned large-scale development projects on the Nile river by riparian countries like Kenya, Tanzania and Ethiopia.

The Egyptian domination and the disproportional usage of the Nile has historically angered these African nations south of the Nile, particularly Ethiopia which has suffered from famines in 1973 and 1984 that killed hundreds of thousands Ethiopians and made the country's name increasingly synonymous with famine. The inability to use the Nile for large-scale projects has meant that Ethiopia's agriculture production, which over two-thirds of the population depends on, is at the mercy of erratic seasonal rains. The UN declared this year that another drought, due to a shortage of rain in Ethiopia, requires emergency food aid for over 10 million Ethiopians.

According to BBC, in his 1997 address to the United Nations, Ethiopian Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin said "Ethiopia will not achieve food security until it is no longer dependant on rain-fed agriculture."

"WATER WARS"

Many experts fear an escalation of conflict between Egypt and upsteam Nile countries like Ethiopia. Egypt has made various attempts to secure its grip on the Nile militarily, including Egyptian invasions and brief occupations in the 1800s of the then northern Ethiopian territories at Massawa and the eastern areas around Harar. Egypt also openly helped Somalia's invasion of Ethiopia in 1977, giving modern weapons, military advisors and aid to Somalia during what became known as the Ogaden War.

Former Egyptian Foreign Minister Boutros-Ghali warned in September of this year that the "most urgent problem" facing Egypt today is Ethiopian use of the Nile water. While relations have been less tense recently, Egypt has long succeeded in its policy of destabilizing Ethiopia as a way to weaken Ethiopia economically and politically from using its Nile water resources. During the time of Ethiopian leader Mengistu, Eritrean separatists received political and military support from Egypt while pre-existing ethnic tensions inside Ethiopia have also been exploited by Egypt for decades. Similar to the previous scenario during Mengistu, Ethiopia under Meles Zenawi today is occupied with fighting separatist movements which have weakened the state militarily, poltically and economically.

In addition, a United Nations (UN) Security Council report in 2006 stated that the Islamist movement in Mogadishu has received various forms of support from some Gulf states and Egypt. This Islamist movement led by Al Shabaab, which the American government linked to Al Qaida, also declared its expansionist intentions to annex eastern Ethiopia and eastern Kenyan territories that are populated by ethnic Somalis. A report in November of this year by the McClatchy Newspapers stated that foreigners led by Egyptian military experts "gave weapons instructions to younger fighters" and "enjoyed VIP status" in Al Shabaab military camps in southern Somalia.

Despite these developments, a 2005 BBC report said that more than Egypt's policy of destabilizing Ethiopia, what "prevents Ethiopia from exploiting the Nile waters is a lack of money. [And Ethiopian Prime Minister] Meles blames this on Egypt's long-term opposition to any international funding of large scale irrigation projects on the Nile."  For instance in 1990, Egypt was successful in blocking an African Development Bank loan to Ethiopia for water development project along the Nile.

Demographic and Security analyst Ronald Bleier suggested that one of the reasons for Egypt's successful domination of the Nile is its "timely alliance and support from global superpowers." Accordingly, Ethiopian scholars believe Egypt is recently seeking to make Israel a stakeholder in the future of the Nile river, which would further cripple Ethiopia's chances of getting international funding for large scale projects on the Nile, by influencing the Pro-Israel American foreign policy to block such vital funding. New Egyptian projects along the north Sinai are reportedly aiming to divert sections of the Nile water flow toward Israel.

Many are also not optimstic with the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI), an organization launched in 1999 to promote equitable utilization of the Nile between the various African nations. The NBI is believed to have ignored important problems and focused on minor issues, which could eventually create more mistrust among the Nile Basin states than there existed before the NBI was established.

The solution to this crisis, experts say, is an urgent international move to end geo-political hindrances to funding for the impoverished African states and establish upstream-downstream cooperation that would lead to peaceful and proportional exploitation of the Nile water. One Ethiopian observer told Jimma Times that "Ethiopia can not promise to ignore its biggest natural resource forever."

Ethiopian officials still say that they sympathize with the mostly desert Egypt's concern about losing its economic lifeline if Ethiopia uses its resources, but with over a million Ethiopians having already died due to famines and millions more seeking food aid this year, many believe it is overdue for an effective regional cooperation that genuinely solves the problem from its root cause. Without large-scale dam construction and major irrigation projects for the southern riparian states along the Nile river, analysts expect countries like Kenya and Ethiopia to feud over minor obstacles and smaller resources like Ethiopia's Omo river which feeds Lake Turkana.