BY STAFF REPORTER
Professor Adam Kamil Faris was born in 1961 in the North Wollo Zone of Amhara State. Orphaned at the age of seven he was raised by his elder brother who lived in Saudi Arabia. He pursued all levels of education, from elementary school to university level there in Saudi Arabia.
As he scored a good result in his secondary school leaving examination he was admitted to King Abdul Aziz University and studied bachelor’s degree in public administration and political science; later he studied master’s degree in the same stream from King Mohammad Al-Imam University.
He provides training in various institutions across the world. He has also presented more than 33 research papers about Ethiopia. He is also well known for his analysis and insightful discussions on current political development in the Middle East.
Ethiopian Press Agency has had a brief stay with Professor Adam recently and discussed current local and regional issues especially focusing on the issue of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) and Egypt’s attempts to put political pressure in Africa, especially the horn region: Excerpts:
How do you explain the current political development in East Africa?
It is difficult to believe that East African Politics is currently free from Egyptian influence. Especially concerning Egypt’s policy of destabilizing Ethiopia, it is likely to do things that can harm Ethiopia. It will also leave no stone unturned to destabilize Ethiopia and smear its name among the international community in a bid to deter the second round filling of GERD. They are aware that if Ethiopia accomplishes the second round filling it means Egypt’s plot is foiled as the dam will start to protect itself. Therefore they will do whatever is possible to hamper the second round filling. Hence they are rushing to deter Ethiopia from the second round filling through causing chaos and putting various forms of pressure. That is the reason behind the various international pressure against Ethiopia.
Unprecedented in its history, Egypt has changed its stance of turning away from African countries and is working to bring these countries by its side. It is working towards attracting the attention of the African countries through making promises. But it is putting the worst pressure on Sudan. By tampering with the
Ethio-Sudanese relation during the reign of Al Bashir, they have put Sudan under their influence. We have to see the case of Sudan from two angles. The first is the military wing. From Sudan’s objective situation the military wing has no acceptance. Especially the people have rejected the military alliance with Egypt which the government created to weaken Ethiopia. That is why they took to the streets to rally against Al Sisi when he arrived in Khartoum. Since the military is running out of its tenure on power, it intends to prolong its stay by stirring war. But since this plot has not gained acceptance of the people, the military has not plunged into war.
The civil administration has a positive outlook on Ethiopia. It is believed that the two countries would return to their usual strong ties as the civil authority takes over full political power. Both the civil administration and the people of Sudan believe that had Ethiopia not stepped in to rescue Sudan from the power strife, their country would have become one line Yemen or Syria. Hence it should be important to understand that the ongoing provocations are related only to the military wing.
Egypt is also engaged in another diplomatic struggle to bring Somalia and Somaliland
to its sphere of influence. Especially they are making negotiation to bring Somaliland to support their stance.
Egypt is stretching its arm in the politics of Africa. How do you see this?
I have lived in Egypt for many years. Many Egyptians do not know that majority of the Nile water originates from Ethiopia. What they know is that 60 per cent of the water they get is from rain. They never associate the Nile with Ethiopia. Egyptians boldly speak that Ethiopians have no power to maintain their national unity as they are divided into ethnic lines. Especially in collaboration with external forces, they have entered into a campaign of disintegrating Ethiopia to hamper the completion of the dam. They are vowing in their media that they would break Ethiopia into pieces.
When you take Sudan there always exists good people to people relation. But leaders that take power at various times tend to raise border claims when they perceive Ethiopia is weakened internally. Even Egyptian terrorists have ever allied with Sudan to assassinate former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak here in Ethiopia. If the assassination attempt succeeded it would have caused a rift between the people of Egypt and Ethiopia as smeared the image of the country globally. This terrorist campaign was plotted and spearheaded by both Egypt and Sudan. The factor that motivated them to do this was as they believed that the government at that moment was just newly taking over political power and has no strong security apparatus to thwart the terrorist operation.
When we look at Egypt, we can see that it has never moved its hands away from Ethiopia. It has always been striving to weaken Ethiopia. There is a lot of evidence that it is always behind the chaos and crisis in Ethiopia. They want to make the Nile their sole possession. Their researches mainly revolve around Nile and Ethiopia. So far they have carried out more than 560 researches on the Nile, but none of them deals with fair use of the river. A former chief of staff of the country has once said “We have to teach our soldiers that Nile water is like breast milk for Egyptians. Anyone who outs hand on it will pay a price.” It is also to be recalled that former UN Secretary-General; the Egyptian Boutros Boutros Ghali had been extensively coordinating Arab League member states to put pressure against Ethiopia and support rebel groups. I was able to witness their conspiracies as I used to live in the Middle East at the moment. Politicians that emerge in Egypt at different times use Ethiopia as a main political topic. When President Mursi was in power he had devised a plan to weaken Ethiopia by denouncing the GERD.
The plan includes taking advantage of the enmity that existed between Eritrea and Ethiopia so that Eritrea can attack Ethiopia, providing arms support to the Ogaden National Liberation Front, collaborating with Saudi Arabia to convince Ethiopia’s top investor, Sheikh Alamoudi to quit investment in Ethiopia, request Djibouti, which is a member of Arab League to stop providing port service to Ethiopia, as well as stirring sectarian violence. But he was thrown to jail before executing his entire evil plan.
After Al Sis took over power, he has resumed destabilizing Ethiopia devising various strategies. First, he has established a political and Security Council that he heads personally and directly overlooks Ethiopia’s affairs. Various influential people in this council are engaged in smearing the image of Ethiopia. With special attention to the Middle East, they work on tampering with Ethiopia’s ties with countries of the region. The campaign to convince Arab states that GERD is harmful not only for Egypt but for the whole Arab states. They use this strategy to gain military support from the countries.
The second is the technical division. The division embraces famous engineers of the country and mobilizes them to spread false information about the GERD that it has architectural defects and is likely to cause an earthquake in due course of time. By spreading such false analysis they are misleading many people. They have abounded the media of Arab States through the fake analysis made by their famous engineers who claim that the dam could cause an earthquake not only in Sudan but nearby Arab States.
The other section is the media wing. They deploy famous personalities to spread smearing reports about Ethiopia.
The fourth one is the military wing. In collaboration with the Sudanese military, they are trying to show up an upper hand position against Ethiopia. They have got permission from Sudan to get a terminal for their fighter jets. The military pact between the two countries is one of the indications for this.
In general, Egypt has been working to weaken Ethiopia for many years. Especially after a study revealed that water would be the major challenge to the Middle East, Egypt is misleading the countries of the region by spreading confusing information that Ethiopia is working towards causing water shortage in the Middle Eastern countries beyond Egypt.
On the other hand, the Middle Eastern countries mainly depend on the import of food items. To address their food demands, Arab States are engaged in agricultural works in Egypt. Taking this as an opportunity, Egypt is spreading propaganda that Ethiopia is irrigating Nile water to impede the production of food by these countries. Consequently, the countries who met in Kuwait have concluded that there is no better option than Nile water to alleviate their shortage of food and water.
This in turn is making the Arab states narrow their differences and campaign against Ethiopia. Therefore we should also close our differences, stop fighting each other on ethnic and religious lines and stand for the benefit of our country.
Thank you very much
Thank you, too
The Ethiopian Herald 27 March 2021
