BY FITSUM GETACHEW
Ethiopia is marking the twelfth year anniversary of the beginning of the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, GERD, on the Abay (Nile) River. A lot has been said about the GERD especially by those who oppose its construction. However, those people do not seem to understand the stance of Ethiopia and why it has become an issue of life or death for its people. Many economic indexes show that Ethiopia is one of the poorest countries in the world, and yet it has several untapped resources that should and can be used to extricate its people from abject poverty and backwardness.
By many parameters Ethiopia is registered as a poor country and this has its own reasons not least the kinds of government it had been led by. It has a population of more than one hundred twenty million by latest estimates and it is bound to increase by about two to three percent every year which means that there will be two to three million people more every year if current trends continue. However, the economic growth has not matched such population increment because of a variety of factors. Among others the utilization of the resources the country avails has not been efficient and maladministration has been rampant for decades.
Earlier there was the monarchy which had its own limitation as it never involved the population in the kind of choices it may want followed by a military dictatorship that lasted for years. Conflicts with neighboring countries and internal clashes among various groups and factions have kept the government in power busy and resources were used to build the defenses and armed forces of the country rather than engage in a serious economic planning and development. For years the country has been engaged in internal clashes on various fronts costing the nation not only its human resources but also the scarce economic resources available and this has affected the growth of the country limiting it to very low standards.
Various other countries with similar or even less resources in many African countries have done better than Ethiopia and achieved a certain stage of development that has helped liberate their people from poverty and backwardness. Some decades ago the level of development of Ethiopia was more or less similar to those in the Far East such as Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, Taiwan etc. and yet these countries have made tremendous progress in their economies by using their resources and potential to the maximum thanks to good governments that involved the people to work hard and attain the projected economic goals. Evidently they did not have the security problems Ethiopia had and hence did not waste resources in useless fights here and there.
Ethiopia is a country composed of various ethnic groups speaking different languages and enjoying their own beliefs, customs and cultures and this may have contributed to adversities in the population in the attempt to integrate them to the center and try to form a unique cultural and linguistic reality which has of course created animosities among the various ethnic groups. However, with the emergence and adoption of the federal system, attempts have been made to accommodate the needs and aspirations of all nationalities composing the country even if there are still various forms of opposition to the central or federal government and this has incurred its own costs on the nation as a whole.
Be that as it may, the Ethiopian government has tried to engage in a vast economic planning that would eventually liberate the country from the level of poverty it is found and one of those plans is the industrialization of the country as well as the expansion of the agricultural sector by using all the potential available. With this in perspective Ethiopia had to use one of the least used of its potentials and that is the Nile or Abay River.
The Abay River has never been used due to various factors not least the international pressure Egypt has managed to exert so that Ethiopia could not avail of loans and concessions from the international financial institutions or friendly governments to exploit the potential of the water of the Nile. For decades the Ethiopian government has tried to secure the necessary financial muscles to build a huge dam on the Nile so that it can produce huge hydro power and not only use it for its industrial purposes but also for the homes of millions of Ethiopians who have lived in the dark for ages.
This Ethiopian project however was never supported by the international community due the clouts that Egypt enjoyed in the international diplomatic relations because it lobbied that no nation should grant Ethiopia the financial support it needs to harness the potential of the river Nile by building a huge dam. As a poor country Ethiopia could not avail the resources necessary to build such dam and the project although already conceived in the mind of Ethiopians, it was forced to remain a dream for years.
Many decades passed and there arrived the time that Ethiopia could in fact raise the necessary funds on its own and twelve years ago in March it began the project. In the meantime it began to enlighten all those who may have a stake on the Nile waters about the intentions of the project and how it should be implemented. A detailed account of the project was presented to the international community as well and it was decided that Ethiopia would not resort to foreign assistance for the completion of the project. In other words the GERD was identified as a totally Ethiopian project constructed with the resources of Ethiopians only.
Every Ethiopian was hence invited to contribute their share for the completion of the project and now even if twelve years are a lot of years to complete such a project and originally it was planned to be terminated in seven years, it has finally reached ninety percent of completion. This flag ship project is seen as a symbol of the unity and sovereignty of the country, a symbol of African capacity to do things on their own and something that brings a paradigm shift in the minds of Africans. There cannot hence be any power on earth that could stop it without resorting to outright aggression or military assault whose consequences cannot be imagined. The result could very easily be devastation and destabilization of not only the countries involved but also for the entire geopolitical reality of the Horn of Africa and beyond.
A few days ago we came across a statement that was released by the government of Egypt which has created a sense of anger and anxiety among Ethiopians. The statement was made on purpose when the GERD is preparing for the fourth filling of water when the next rainy season comes around June. Such declaration implies that apparently Egypt still continues with its stance that the Nile is its exclusive property and that Ethiopia can use it only under the terms that will be dictated by Egypt. And this is of course not only absurd but also extremely dangerous in the current world. In fact the Ethiopian government has immediately responded to such statement as a violation of international norms and highly provocative. Egypt seems to remain fossilized with the nineteenth century mentality when military might be able to change the face of the world with a few highly militarized countries calling the tunes that were to be played across the globe.
The current geopolitical scenario is completely changed and no country can impose its will on another one without incurring in a dangerous and vicious cycle of violence with other members of the international community condemning it. Ethiopia is a reputed country for its respect of international norms and practices and with the use of the Nile it has abided by all those norms that regulate trans-boundary rivers. It also realizes that it has the obligation to use its resources to the maximum and help its people come out of poverty. And to do this it cannot wait for any approval from any country; and no country in the world can prevent it from using its sovereign powers over its own resources.
The history of Ethiopia tells us that it has never submitted to foreign dominion. History books are full of incidents with attempts to conquer the source of the Nile so that foreign powers could control and use it as they wished. But all those attempts have been thwarted by the heroic resistance of Ethiopian patriots. In fact Ethiopia is the only African country that has resisted colonization with success paying all the sacrifices necessary. This is a state of mind deeply inculcated in the psyche of Ethiopians and if there are attempts to prevent Ethiopia from using its river by abiding by all the international norms used to regulate trans-boundary rivers, they are destined to fail. The recent attempts to encroach on this sovereign right of Ethiopia by Egypt can only be considered an Egyptian nightmare but also a very dangerous game as it violates international norms engraved in the UN, AU and other international conventions.
Ethiopia acknowledges the anxiety often expressed by Egyptians on the usage of the Nile water considering its vital importance to it. But it must also realize that the Nile is equally a matter of life or death for Ethiopians given the current economic situation it is in. The monopoly of the water by Egypt is a bygone mentality that is unacceptable in the 21st century and Egyptian politicians must wake up from their slumber and stop the rhetoric of war and threats against a sovereign country in order to maintain their hegemony over the water. It is easy to predict that the consequences of any military endeavor could produce disasters not only in Ethiopia but also in the entire African continent and the world at large.
It must be known that Ethiopia has presented a win-win proposal on the fair and equitable distribution of the water of the Nile and the GERD is tuned with this proposal. No one has the intention to stop the river from flowing following its usual course and the three previous fillings of the dam have demonstrated the fallacy of the claims of certain Egyptian authorities which try to use this issue politically. Invoking national security does not convince anyone in the international community and Ethiopia has also rejected the recent resolution released by the Arab League on this issue as deplorable and disappointing.
The Ethiopian government has once again called all stake holders to come to the table and negotiate on how to use the river equitably and fairly rather than engaging in warmongering and threats. The recent statement by the Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs that regarding the GERD “all options are on the table” is only another reflection of the stubborn stance of Egypt that refutes the fair and reasonable use of the Nile water without harming any one. With the application of the principle ‘African Solutions to African problems’ Egypt should rather engage with the concerned bodies seriously rather than try to internationalize the issue and continuing to present their case to the UN.
The Declaration of Principles on the Nile signed between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia a few years ago must be implemented without any conditions, and Ethiopia is operating by respecting strictly the terms of this tripartite agreement. Egypt must come to its senses and engage in peaceful negotiations without intimidations of the use of force or any other similar methods such as creating chaos in Ethiopia by supporting opposition groups in the country and abroad or helping them wage a war against the federal government or even financing terrorist groups to destabilize the country.
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD TUESDAY 28 MARCH 2023
