BY FITSUM GETACHEW
It is now ten years since the construction of the GERD has been launched. Through these years the project has undergone several phases, several controversies and equally many diplomatic rows and negotiations, at times hopeful at others discouraging. It is clear that the GERD for Ethiopia is a matter of sovereignty, a matter of survival as a nation of more than 110 million people and it is a matter of development.
It has been said again and again that there are no valid and accepted international legal principles or practices that would prevent or prohibit Ethiopia, the source of more than 80 per cent of the waters of the Nile, from developing its water potential. This would be a natural right to any nation who finds itself in that position and there cannot be an exception when it comes to Ethiopia!
Unfortunately there seems to be many people out there not realizing or accepting that we are in 2021 and not in 1959 and the times for fairy tales are done and dusted. Ethiopia is a sovereign nation that cannot ask a favour, or need a recommendation or approval from any other nation to develop its own natural resources.
As much as the river is undeniably transboundary, nevertheless, this does not and cannot mean that Ethiopia is legally bound to ask for permission any country to develop the potential on the waters of the river, provided it does not inflict any harm on the downstream countries. And there are rules for this arrangement to which we need to stick.
The Nile originates in Ethiopian highlands and has been flowing towards the Mediterranean Sea passing through the deserts of the Sudan and Egypt bathing them with abundant water and fertile soil. This is a natural gift and we all need to be grateful for that.
We have seen that both of these downstream countries have taken the freedom to construct as many dams as they wanted, without ever consulting or asking for the opinion of Ethiopia who ‘incidentally’ also has an undeniable stake in the waters.
Because anything that is built along this mighty river would be the business of all countries who live in the basin. They all have a stake and not only the two countries who happen to rely most for their needs.
However what is often noted is the arrogance and selfishness of these countries provable while watching what they did first and foremost when they sealed a ‘treaty’ with their colonial masters excluding totally Ethiopia from the pact.
And now they have the moral courage to claim that on the basis of that treaty they have an exclusive right on the water! Relying on international practice on transboundary rivers there cannot be any restrictions that are legally viable preventing Ethiopia, the origin of the river, from building a hydropower dam crucial for its people’s lives. As much as Sudan and Egypt, Ethiopia needs power to run its expanding development projects, investment schemes and industrial parks.
With a population of more than 110 million of whom more than 60% do not have any access to power and more than half of the population without clean water, it would be criminal for any government not to capitalize on its natural resources such as the Nile to change this stark reality.
Even UN international covenants on economic and social rights demands that governments engage to develop and change the lives of their citizens by exploiting their countries’ natural resources!
The development of the Nile waters in Ethiopia has been in the strategic policy document and plans of the Ethiopian government for decades; but it could not take off due to several factors of which the most important has been the fact that the country was too poor to engage in such very costly project. If it was to launch such project, it would need huge financial commitment which was never available.
Hence, beginning from imperial times, Ethiopia tried to garner the necessary resources approaching not only international development partners but also international financial institutions for grants, concessions or loans.
We have come to learn that these partners declined to listen to Ethiopians’ pleas alleging several factors of which the influence and recommendations of Egyptian authorities were the most decisive ones.
Egypt has mounted a huge campaign on the issue of the Nile arguing that trying to develop any project along the water of the Nile would amount to declaring a war against it because according to their narrative the Nile is only materially a part of Ethiopia, but historically and naturally, it belongs to Egypt!
This is the narrative that every Egyptian and every friend, ally or partner of Egypt assert. This is incredible because no one knows wherefrom such facts can emerge. It is so to say tantamount to saying ‘close your eyes and let me cheat you!
Anyone who has some familiarity with geography and history would not fail from realizing how flawed such reasoning is. For years Egypt has always been anxious about Ethiopia’s projects and plans on the Nile. It can imagine that there is no acceptable rule that would prevent Ethiopia from developing its waters which is a part of its sovereign rights. In fact, we learn from history that Egypt and other alien forces have tried several times to ‘control what they like to call ‘the source of the Nile’.
Egypt has never come to terms with the fact that the Nile is essentially an Ethiopian river even if it has always been Egypt and Sudan who have exploited it to their wishes and dreams in monopoly. They have never made any attempt to put themselves in the shoes of Ethiopia, the main source country of the water.
And it is a pity that the issue has never been taken seriously from the point of view of sharing the resource and adopt a win-win stance rather than on of might and intimidation and the like.
They being only downstream countries they have never made any attempt to recognize at least a part of the resource to Ethiopia continuing with their narrative of being ‘natural owners’ of the water or even more absurdly referring their rights to an invalid treaty they signed between colonial powers and colonized countries, namely Egypt, Sudan and UK, monopolizing the resource in total disrespect and disregard of Ethiopia.
Egypt still refers to this Tripartite Treaty as the origin of its rights while Ethiopia has never recognized the legality of such pact. Nowhere in the world could such a treaty ever have any chance of being acceptable while it does not even consult Ethiopia. It was of course an outrageous treaty on which Ethiopia had no say at all.
However, Ethiopia did protest against this treaty but no one heeded it because of the principle of the law of the mighty. It was days when might was right! However, no one in their right or sound mind would subscribe to such principle today! The result would be a disaster and we have enough disasters in our ‘neigbourhood’ to create a new one!
International financial institutions hence declined to support any projects in Ethiopia that would involve even remotely the development of the Nile waters. The long of Egyptian diplomacy and its clouts could very easily be perceived!
Ethiopia in the meantime continued to leave the issue for another day while it continued to work on other less cumbersome projects using all the means it could avail.
It did build some dams on its other rivers but with the vast population it has and with the level of power needs to provide some decent existence for its population, the Ethiopian government postponed its plans on the Nile for a later date.
Ten years ago the former prime minister Meles Zenawi launched the project with the placing of the foundation stone on the GERD and announced that unlike in other major development projects, this one would be built with the financial resources of the country by raising funds from every Ethiopian.
The plan was to finish it in seven years. We all know that several unexpected things have taken place in the country that delayed the project putting it even at risk of halting completely! Sudan and most notably Egypt have been trying their best undercover to create a situation around this project which would prevent it from seeing the light of day while in the open they advocate for negotiations and present a whole set of absurd and unacceptable conditions!
While presenting several reasons for objecting to such project, Egypt has also gone to the extent of thinking of launching an attack against the dam. A few of its generals have been discovered threatening just that! More significantly it has at the same time continued to disseminate false propaganda that Ethiopia is trying to kill Egyptians by blocking the water of the Nile.
This may have brought it some sympathy from naïve politicians because Egyptian engineers know exactly that this is not at all the case nor is it the intention of Ethiopia. The issue is one of hegemony over the water that is ‘the life line’ of Ethiopia as well!
Unpopular Egyptian politicians use this issue to appeal to the emotion of their people and Egypt’s allies have been promoting further discord in the issue which incidentally has been assigned to the AU to deal with it amicably.
Getting the facts straight, first of all Ethiopia has no intention of blocking the waters of the river, but to use some for the dam after which the flow would continue unhampered. Secondly, it has declared all its plans openly and the project has been technically scrutinized and studied by experts so that it has all the guarantees necessary for the protection of down stream interests. Ethiopia has also presented a plan regarding the schedule of filling the dam with water.
Last year, it filled the first phase of the water while the second phase is scheduled for this rainy season just as the plan prescribes. Repeating the same story over and over again does not make it wrong or right because the issues are clear and on the table and Ethiopians need to stick to the plans because they have significant financial implications that would destroy the economy of the country! Every day’s delay are quantifiable in terms of losses for Ethiopians that cannot be borne! Until now because of the delay in the construction Ethiopia has lost millions of dollars and we do not believe this is not known by our neighbours and others.
Ethiopia had to review its plans due to all these factors some internal some external but it cannot commit suicide by letting go such a flagship project from completing as per the revised schedule. Meanwhile the tenth anniversary of the launch is now and the filling of the second phase will take place around May to September period and Ethiopians have continued to support the project with all their resources available. They know that the GERD is more than a simple dam!
Ethiopia is committed with all its resources to continue with the project despite the continuous attempts by down stream countries and some partners of Egypt and Sudan trying to stop Ethiopia from carrying on with the project.
This of course would only lead to a major confrontation the consequences of which cannot be fathomed today. We have repeatedly asserted that for Ethiopia this project is one of ‘to be or not to be’. Ethiopia would abdicate to its survival if it accepted the terms and conditions of what transpires from a colonial mentality.
It is high time that Egypt and its allies accept the hard truth that only a win-win solution can be accepted by Nile basin countries on the way the Nile waters are shared and used, not on the basis of ‘dictatorial treaties’ signed in colonial times.
Egyptians and others would rather be advised to come to their senses and stop trying to interfere in the internal affairs of a sovereign country and ‘threaten the use of force’ or any other covert influence so that Ethiopia refrains from using its natural resources in a legitimate manner, respecting and complying the rules of international law!
We need to repeat to all our friends in Egypt and Sudan. Ethiopians have a solid reputation for respecting international law and practice. They do not have any intention of blocking the waters of the Nile. And they have been doing everything after revealing every detail on the project. Ethiopia cannot accept to be ruled by colonial pacts and it cannot commit not to develop its natural resources to change the lives of its citizens.
While it pays every attention not to inflict any damage to down stream countries that rely on the water for their livelihood, it cannot at the same time however forfeit its rights and obligations to use or exploit its resources to the best of its abilities. After all there are all the conditions met except the stubborn stance of Egyptian politicians not to allow anyone except them to use the water. To talk of exclusive rights in such circumstance is really to go against the times!
The Ethiopian Herald March 23/2021
