BY SOLOMON WASSIHUN
As the wind continues to gather strength, the blue sky gets grayer with each day. The vapor from water bodies caused by the searing heat of the current sunny seasons is building up to create mountains of clouds. The cool and wet sea breath is also much in evidence.
All these are tell-tale signs that the turbulent rainy summer season is on its way to our land in just under 3 months. As always we expect the summer with both hope and apprehension. The floods, the thunder, the biting cold, the endless power cuts, and the potential rise in cases of flu[ Corona], all threaten us. At the same time, we long for the sight of endless crop fields covered with lush green carpets and the taste of roasted corn on the cob.
Just like the summer itself, there is one additional thing that we expect with both hope and apprehension.- the filling of GERD. Will Ethiopia declare the successful completion of the second filling before we know it was even started, as has been the case in the first filling last year? Would the mounting tension of the showdown between Egypt and Ethiopia ebb out suddenly before it reaches its climax?
Ethiopian authorities have no doubts and misgiving about what would happen in the coming summer. They speak with a cool and confident tone when they discuss issues surrounding GERD. The Premier told the parliamentarians recently: “the GERD has several complicated financial, technical challenges. Nevertheless, we will deliver what we promised to our people. We will build our dam without causing harm to our Sudanese and Egyptian brothers.”
The statement made by the Deputy Premier and the Water Minister was even more bolder and reassuring. The Deputy Premier has underlined that the issue of the GERD was about securing the future of the present and the upcoming generation as well as asserting the country’s sovereignty that entitles it to enjoy an equitable share of the Nile.
The Ethiopian Water, Irrigation and Energy Minister also confidently stated that Ethiopia was on the schedule to conduct the second filling in the upcoming summer and would start running the first two turbines to generating power from GERD.
The Egyptian Foreign Ministry has deliberately misconstrued the aforementioned statements of Ethiopian authorities, asserting Ethiopia’s sovereign rights to the equitable share for the Nile, as an intransigent stance aiming to use the Nile without due consideration for the interest and benefits of lower stream countries.
The GERD project, which was officially launched exactly a decade ago next month[April], was originally set to be completed in five years. Ten years on, only 79% percent completion was achieved. The major culprit for the lag is none other than the alleged corruption and mismanagement of the project works at the time when TPLF was the nucleus of the federal government.
The delay in the execution of the project is costing the nation’s economy over a billion dollars per year. Accordingly, Ethiopia cannot afford to skip the coming rainy season without conducting the second round filling. However, both Sudanese and Egyptian authorities are demanding the signing of a conclusive agreement before the second filling is conducted.
This demand has no rationale and the legal basis. Ethiopia’s plan to fill the dam is based on the terms agreed on by DOP, the Declaration of Principles, signed by the tripartite in 2015. Plus the water filling process is something that goes along with the construction process. “Ethiopia is not required by any law as such to make any further deal before it can proceed with its water filling schedule which was started last year. ” says an expert who is a member of the Ethiopian negotiators’ team in the tripartite GERD talks.
Egypt and Sudan do not contribute a single drop of water to the Nile, and yet they shamelessly argue to maintain an obsolete and unjust colonial treaty that entitles them to use 100 percent of the Nile. When Ethiopia, the 86 percent contributor of the Nile, tries to accumulate over 7 years period a portion of Nile water they take in a single year, Egypt and Sudan began beating the war drum. When they see they have no legal and technical evidence to corroborate their endless lies, they walk away from the negotiation table.
The marathon GERD talks started in 2017, are still dragging on for years without a deal due to the fluctuating stances and unacceptable selfish expectations of Egypt and Sudan. After months of interruption, it is expected that the AU-led negotiation would soon be resumed under the leadership of DR Congo, which is the current chair of AU.
Last year under the leadership of South Africa, the then Chair of AU, there was 7 round of meeting among the tripartite counties, but all these meetings were terminated by the Sudanese. Among the three negotiating parties, the one that is exhibiting a drastic change in its stance regarding the negotiation is Sudan. It easy to discern the fact that the Sudanese, who had been taking the middle ground in the negation process, are now completed dragged into the pharaoh’s pocket serving the Egyptians’ will.
To put it simply, Sudanese authorities appear to be compromised by the political deception and financial corruption plots of the Egyptians. In the trilateral negotiations, Sudan and Egypt are now united, although each has its own goals and objectives. Suffice to say, the upcoming rounds of negotiations would be a debate between Ethiopian and Egyptian arguments.
The shameful move made by the Sudanese authorities to become subservient to the Egyptian’s will has been met with growing public criticism by Sudanese experts and the majority f the Sudanese population. It is undeniable fact that the majorities the Sudanese population is supportive of GERD, and appreciates the potential benefits it brings to them.
Apart from lowering the risk of the annual Nile floods in the rainy season, there are several b benefits the Sudanese get from GERD. Salman Ahmed, a prominent Sudanese scholar on water resources has recently commented: “the GERD would enable Sudanese farmers to irrigate their lands with the steadily flowing Nile throughout the year, and can get harvests three times a year like the Egyptians. At present, Sudanese farmers can make harvest only once a year. Moreover, with GERD, Sudanese could easily harness the Nile and make more water banks. Currently, Sudan has only 10 BCM, while Egypt has 160 BCM water storage. Sudan also enjoys easy access to cheap electric power from GERD without making heavy expenditures on infrastructure investments.”
In total disregard to the interest of their people, The Sudanese leadership appears to take the role of a vehicle[camel] for the Egyptians’ policy of jeopardizing Ethiopians dream of quenching their thirst for power that they use to lift themselves out of the quagmires of poverty.
The Egyptians knew very well that the second filling stage of the dam one of the most decisive steps in the realization of the dam project. They are currently resorting to every means to impede the filling process even by destabilizing Ethiopia by encouraging Sudan to do so and by supporting domestic rebel groups. However, despite the plots and provocations to distract them from their GERD schedules, Ethiopians, over the last 3 years, have so far remained steadfast, pushing ahead on the construction work in the field and the negotiations in the diplomatic arena.
For the negotiation to succeed this time around Egypt and Sudan should recalibrate their expectations per the defined scope of the GERD negotiations. The GERD talk is about a dam being built on the Ethiopian river, Abbay [Blue Nile] on Ethiopian soil and financed by Ethiopians. From the start, what all negotiating parties set out to reach was an amicable agreement on the filling and operation of the dam.
From the start until now, Ethiopians’ stance has not wavered from the set objective. However, Egypt and Sudan are trying to derail the negotiation away from its scope and to reshape it to something like a blue Nile water-sharing negotiation, a vast subject that requires the involvement of all Nile riparian states under CFA, Co-operative Framework Agreement.
The Egyptians want the GERD negotiation to assert what they call their ‘historical rights’ claiming 55.5BCM of the Nile water. The more appropriate term for their selfish claim would be ‘Colonial rights’ bestowed upon them by their colonial masters, the Europeans. That may partly explain why Egypt and Sudan are shying away from the AU-led negotiation, and insist on a new negotiation platform, “the quartet” which involves the Europeans. It is quite bewildering to see that, Egypt and Sudan, who are African states and members of AU, trust the EU and US more than AU, what a shame!
A senior Ethiopian government official has slammed the quartet option saying: “.it is wrong to propose an alternative negotiation platform while the AU-led negotiation is still on. Even if the ongoing negotiation ends without result, it is stipulated in the DOP that the next step would be the negotiation among the leaders of the tripartite countries.”
Bottom line is, whatever the form the negotiation might take, be it a quartet, tripartite, duet, or whatever the diplomats wish to name it, Ethiopia’s stance will remain the same – it will not compromise its sovereign rights to have a fair share of the Nile, and to finalize its dam project.
The Ethiopian Herald April 1/2021
