Mirna Fahmy – Diplomatic Inside
Political diaspora and the high intended ambition that might pose the thousand-year Nile River that has been naturally free to experience a trembling status quo.
Existing for almost 30 million years, the Nile River was traditionally thought to be the world’s longest river, as it is approximately 4,100 miles (6,700 kilometres), benefiting eleven riparian countries, namely Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda.
The Nile River provides fertile soil for agriculture along its banks. The river used to serve as a major “highway” through Egypt for ships carrying goods from one city to another during ancient times.
In reference to many historical books and records, Egypt is the country that has received the most benefit from the Nile River since ancient times. It is downstream of the Nile where, through its two delta branches, which are Damietta and Rosetta, the Nile empties into the Mediterranean Sea.
In search of the real almighty God and worshipping his blessings bestowed upon this country, ancient Egyptians depicted a deity for the Nile referred to as “Hapi,” the god of fertility and the Nile. He represents the blessing of the annual flooding of the Nile, which fertilised the surrounding crops and helped keep the Egyptian civilisation alive.
Based on the Nile flooding that outlines the state’s agricultural seasons, the ancient Egyptians set up their oldest 365-day calendar, comprising 12 months with 30 days and a 13th month with five days. Corresponding to our widely used calendar, the Egyptian new year starts on September 11. This year in 2024, the 6266 year was just kicked in. It is known as well as the Coptic year, as the Copts still use this calendar but with a different year that matches their martyrdom era that was oppressing them since the Roman Emperor, Diocletian.
The beginning:
For thousands of years, people living across the Nile from the 11 basin countries would use all the water sources that are pumped out from the Nile without the consideration of any fee or cost that might threaten their civilizations. The concept of the share for which country of the basin shall take a great portion of the Nile was introduced by the colonial interests of Great Britain, which took over the region, including Egypt, in 1882.
To protect its financial interests in the country, especially Egypt’s regular supply of cotton imports, Britain discovered it needed to secure sufficient cotton imports from Egypt to supply its textile industry in Manchester. The colonial power wanted to protect Egypt’s irrigated agricultural sector, which was vital for its economic interests.
The Nile river has two sources: the Blue Nile and the White Nile, which meet in the Sudanese capital Khartoum before continuing northwards into Egypt. The Blue Nile emerges from the east in Ethiopia’s Lake Tana, while the White Nile appears from around Lake Victoria, existing in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania.
In 1890, Britain declared the entire Nile Valley its exclusive sphere of influence to prevent other European powers from acquiring territories in the basin. After occupying Sudan in 1899, Britain extended its geopolitical interests to include Sudan because of its potential for cotton cultivation to supply the British textile industry. Sudan has the largest portion of the Nile basin, covering 1,900,000 km² (730,000 sq miles).
The need to regulate water usage among the countries sharing the Nile River has become a tactical matter for Britain, inciting them to draw up a series of “International Water Laws” known as “Nile Treaties” that shall favour Egypt in its share of the Nile while largely ignoring the rights and needs of upstream countries like Ethiopia.
The early treaties, such as the 1891 Anglo-Italian Protocol and the 1906 Tripartite Treaty, that are sought to secure Britain’s interests in Egypt and Sudan often restricted upstream countries from utilising their water resources without Egypt’s consent, effectively denying them sovereignty over their own water systems.
In 1929, an agreement was set out between Egypt and Britain (representing Sudan as it was under the Kingdom of Egypt, which was a British colony) that allocated 48 billion cubic metres of Nile water annually to Egypt and 4 billion to Sudan. It granted Egypt significant control over upstream projects, allowing it to veto any construction that could affect its water supply.
Following Sudan’s and Egypt’s independence from the British empire, a 1959 agreement was allocated, increasing Egypt’s allocation to 55.5 billion cubic metres and Sudan’s to 18.5 billion cubic metres, while completely excluding other riparian states from any water rights. This treaty reinforced Egypt’s control over the Nile and established a framework that did not account for the needs of upstream nations like Ethiopia, which contributes a substantial portion of the Nile’s flow.
The sparks of the tensions:
As a reaction to Egypt’s High Dam project and the 1959 treaty between Egypt and Sudan, the Ethiopian government declared in 1956 that it would reserve the right to utilise the Nile waters originating in its territories. Ethiopia sent an official note to diplomatic missions in Cairo emphasising this right.
There have been plans for a dam on the Blue Nile that have been in the works since 1964, when a feasibility study by the US Bureau of Reclamation proposed four major dams, none of which were actually built. Then, later on, in the following decades, Ethiopia constructed three hydropower dams—Finchaa, Tekeze, and Tana Beles—without consulting Egypt and Sudan. While these dams did not cause significant harm to the downstream countries, they represented a shift towards unilateral development of Ethiopia’s Nile water resources.
All the Egyptian presidents disapproved of the building of a huge hydropower dam on the Blue Nile in Ethiopia, which waters Egypt’s Nile, as it might decrease the water flow to both Egypt and Sudan. They all vowed explicitly that they will use force if their water flow to Egypt is tampered.
“International law must be respected in the management of transboundary rivers,” Egypt’s president Abdel Fattah El Sisi said in a TV statement. Al Sisi has assured that food security and poverty are results of multiple factors; on top of them is the water paucity because of either artificial or natural causes.
When the Arab spring erupted all over the Arab countries in January 2011, including Egypt, that led to the usurpation of Egypt’s president Muhammed Hosni Mubarak at that time, Ethiopia took the chance of Egypt’s drowning in political turmoil to rebuild its dam. On April 2, 2011, then-Prime Minister Meles Zenawi laid the foundation for the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). The dam is located on the Blue Nile in the Benishangul-Gumuz region of Ethiopia, about 500 km northwest of the capital Addis Ababa.
GERD is currently 94% complete, with the final concrete expected to be poured by September 2024. The dam’s reservoir has been filled in four stages between 2020 and 2023.
On Monday, March 23, 2015, leaders of Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan met in the Sudanese capital Khartoum to sign an agreement that is expected to resolve various issues arising out of the decision by Ethiopia to construct a dam on the Blue Nile. The Khartoum declaration, which was signed by the heads of state of the three countries—Abdel Fattah al-Sisi (Egypt), Omar al-Bashir (Sudan), and Halemariam Desalegn (Ethiopia), has been referred to as a “Nile Agreement,” and one that helps resolve conflicts over the sharing of the waters of the Nile River.
In the agreement, in the Principle of Confidence Building part, “Priority will be given to downstream countries to purchase power generated from GERD.”
The part of the Principle of Dam Safety assures that “Ethiopia shall in good faith continue the full implementation of the Dam safety recommendations as per the IPoE report.”
In the final parts, it is stated that “the three countries shall cooperate on the basis of sovereign equality, territorial integrity, mutual benefit, and good faith in order to attain optimal utilisation and adequate protection of the River.”
The escalations:
Besides the $450 million that the government raised internally, Ethiopia received a notable grant of $1 billion from the Exim Bank of China, which has been instrumental in financing the dam. This support highlights China’s interest in infrastructure projects across Africa, positioning itself as a key partner in Ethiopia’s development. Also, the dam’s construction contract was awarded to the Italian company Salini Impregilo, which has been involved in the project since its inception in 2011.
Concerns escalated more when Ethiopian Defence Minister Aisha Mohamed Musa discussed with UAE Minister of State for Defence Affairs Mohammed bin Mubarak bin Fadel enhancing military and defence cooperation to serve common interests and distinguished relations between them after Egypt sent its troops to Somalia to settle some peace in the Horn of Africa, where Ethiopia is involved.
Following that, Ethiopia told the Security Council that “we are ready to dissolve the dispute around the Nile, and Egypt has to get rid of its aggressive approach.”
Recently Major General Abbas Kamel, head of Egyptian intelligence, and the Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdel Aati visited Eritrea to discuss developments in Somalia with President Isaias Afwerki.
The Somali Foreign Minister Ahmed Moallim Fiqi confirmed to the Al Arabiya channel that his country will ally with anyone who will help it defend its sovereignty in the event of war with Ethiopia and prevent it from annexing Somaliland territory to the Ethiopian sovereignty.
Endlessly to say, the waters of the Nile have been a source of life in the region throughout history. In one of the most populous and strategic areas of the world, encompassing Egypt and the Horn of Africa, the future of politics, security, and the economy will always be susceptible to being shaped around the sharing of the Nile’s waters. In addition, external forces such as the African Union, Gulf Arab states, Western powers, and China that most of them have huge investments in Ethiopia, will constantly involve multiple negotiations in the region over Nile waters.