BY SOLOMON DIBABA
Egypt has so far left no stone unturned to stop Ethiopia from completing the construction of GERD. Underestimating and miscalculating on Ethiopia’s capacity to start the construction of the dam, Egypt perceived Ethiopia’s right to use Abay River to generate its own electricity for itself and Africa from a colonial mentality it inherited from the 1929 and 1959 colonial agreements.
During the reign of the Mohammed Mursi regime, Egypt boasted and bragged to use everything possible to stop Ethiopia to use its own water to generate electricity and threatened to use its air prowess to bombard the construction site. Having failed on this dangerous plan, later on Egypt turned to Donald Trump who unsuccessfully tried to intimidate Ethiopia by threatening a US ally in the Horn of Africa that Egypt can bombard GERD. Simultaneously, Egyptian media prepared a campaign of unprofessional and opportunistic propaganda barrage of hopeless misinformation on Ethiopia.
On the other hand, Egypt tried to use ethnic based democratic but sometimes shrewd demands from ethic based groups like TPLF to ignite a prairie fire into the existing conflicts. The big mistake that Egypt is now making is that it hopes that ethnic conflicts would ultimately weaken Ethiopia and that Ethiopia will have no chance to complete GERD. The peoples of Ethiopia are daily shattering this Egyptian assumption by increasing its contributions towards the completion of the dam.
Egypt has repeatedly underestimated AUs capacity to resolve the disagreements on the negotiation table in a diplomatic and legal manner as a strategy to take back the issue to the US administration and UNSC again, never learning from its past wrong strategy and failing to understand the technical reality on the ground.
Egypt embraces pan Arabism instead of Pan Africanism is showing far less interest in the socio-economic developments in the Horn of Africa.
Egypt seems to ignore equity and joint use of the waters of the Abay primary because of the obnoxious stance it pursues on international regulations concerning trans-border Rivers. Position that AU holds on cross Border Rivers has so far not changed and the AU Charter is still in place but Cairo tries to beat on the same tune by mixing politics with mere use of the waters of the Nile. From the beginning to date, Egyptian rigid positions on sharing the Abay waters have always been an obstacle to resolving the stalemate on the river as if the Nile starts from the Aswan Dam or Lake Nassir.
The point is, with 78% of its completion and with the second filling of GERD Egypt is left only with one hopeless card, to continue to support in every manner the ethnic conflicts in the country which is now being resolved by the peoples of Ethiopia themselves. Egypt needs to be wise enough to stop finding ways for delaying tactics and return to the negotiating table instead of persuading the UNSC or its members with veto power to employ carrots and sticks policy on Ethiopia primarily because the peoples of Ethiopia are building GERD from their own coffers.
Sudan is historically, politically and culturally far more closer to Ethiopia than Egypt. It is also important to note that countries in the Persian Gulf have made peace with Israel contrary to the Egyptian interest of the Horn of Africa.
Egypt indeed is not concerned about the construction of GERD only but concerned about the international rights that Ethiopia holds to harness the waters of the tributaries of Abay. While Despite Egypt’s lobbying at the power corridors of the major powers of the world and contrary to the position held by the former US President Donald Trump, they seem to stay neutral on the issue of GERD supporting further bilateral negotiations.
Egypt’s attempt at arm twisting Ethiopia to sign an unequal and irrational treaty on GERD is another attempt to partially reinstate the colonial agreements on the waters of the Nile in total favor for Egypt.
Ethiopia firmly believes and acts on peace and territorial integrity of all the neighboring countries and has demonstrated this before all countries near and afar and the nation demands the same from all sovereign countries, the neighboring countries included.
The three negotiating countries face socio-economic problems that demand their joint efforts. The Abay could provide excellent opportunities for multiple sets of development programs that can benefit the peoples of their respective countries.
In the usual afterthoughts by the Sudanese authorities, Sudanese Irrigation and Water Resources Minister Yasser Abbas recently said Addis Ababa’s apparent determination to fill the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) without first reaching an agreement with Khartoum and Cairo. However, Sudan should remain mindful of the fact that it is not Ethiopia but Sudan and Egypt who are dragging their feet on negotiations by repeatedly boycotting the discussions aimed at reaching agreement and that no one can deter Ethiopia from refilling the dam in July with no security threat to either Sudan or Egypt.
The Ethiopian Herald 12 February 2021
