Ethiopia and Egypt share
the Nile with 9 other riparian states. While the Nile and its tributaries
naturally have their source upstream, Egypt, at the mouth of the river, has a
near-total monopoly of use. Egypt’s desire to control this vital resource led
it to adopt an outwardly aggressive strategy of control and manipulation. While
in the 19th century this was expressed in expeditions to colonize upstream
states, the 20th century took more diplomatic, political, and economic
maneuvers mixed with the threat of the use of force as well as establishing a
fait accompli by constructing megaprojects. This strategy helped Egypt to
remain at the helm of the monopoly of the use of the river while countries
upstream, for lack of capacity, scant policy focus, or for fear of Egypt’s
coercive force remained docile or limited their protest to only diplomatic
appeal. This violent hegemonic control had particularly affected Ethiopia. The
attempts by Egypt to undermine Ethiopia’s possible desire and capacity to
utilize the waters had made the relationship between the two countries tense
and rife with mistrust. As a result, a dam being built by Ethiopia to generate
electricity, the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), couldn’t be seen
simply as a project for development by either side. For Egypt, GERD is a threat
to its monopoly on the use of the Nile. For Ethiopia, apart from its economic
importance, the GERD is seen as liberation from Egyptian sponsored subversion
and sabotage. The underlying conflict is between change to Egyptian violent
hydro hegemony and a fair water-sharing deal. This has made negotiations on the
GERD unnecessarily more political than technical. Thus, reaching a
comprehensive agreement will require the political will to accept that the Nile
is shared water resource and not an exclusive property of lower riparian
states. Without such political will, technical negotiations will bear no
fruit. Will Egypt accept change or continue to attempt to perpetuate
injustice by “all means possible”?
