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Al-Ahram Weekly 10 - 16 February 2000 Issue No. 468 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 10 - 16 February 2000 Issue No. 468
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Focus Profile Travel Books Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Water, water everywhere
By Abdel-Azim Hammad
For the first time since 1949, Egypt has developed an independent, explicit water policy, declared last Saturday by the Ministerial Committee for Irrigation and Water Resources, which is chaired by President Mubarak and consisting of the prime minister and nine ministers. Egypt's new water policy emphasises cooperation among the 10 Nile basin countries in the development of shared water resources. According to the statistics presented to the committee by Egyptian Minister for Irrigation and Water Resources Mahmoud Abu Zeid, 94.9 per cent of the total water furnished by the Nile is lost or unused. The countries of the Nile basin thus have a vast opportunity to increase their supply of Nile water; increased supply in turn, should mitigate the likelihood of armed conflict over water resources. All countries, particularly Egypt, which depends on the Nile for 96 per cent of its water needs, would stand to benefit greatly from this arrangement.
Even if cooperation prevails, however, Egyptian strategy must take into account the possibility of various forms of intervention that could trigger tension. When, for example, there is a threat to Egypt's quota of Nile water -- and such threats are generally motivated by political disputes that have more far-reaching implications than a simple matter of water -- Egypt must have recourse to a credible military deterrent. As recently as 1995, President Mubarak had to threaten recourse to armed force in response to Al-Turabi's threats to cut off the flow of Nile water into Egypt. On another occasion, former Minister of Defence Field-Marshall Abu Ghazala warned that tampering with the course of the Nile in a manner that would curtail Egypt's water supply is tantamount to a declaration of war. When Ethiopia (under Mengistu Haile Mariam) posed a danger to the supply of Nile water, Salah Bassiouni, then Egypt's ambassador to Ethiopia, declared that the country lies within Egypt's strategic security zone. He added that any Nile basin country that jeopardises Egypt's water quota would force the Egyptian military to expand its definition of Egyptian national security.
Although there have only been a few instances in which Egyptian officials have had to use the military card to guarantee this country's quota of Nile water, it is now clear that this option is a permanent feature of Egyptian strategy. In this context, too, we can understand, at least in part, why Egypt firmly opposes the partition of Sudan and the creation of an independent state in the south.
In spite of these principles, however, Egyptian policy has emphasised its preference for cooperation and its faith in the success of consensual frameworks for water resource development. Egypt was instrumental in establishing the Association of Countries of the Nile Basin and has worked assiduously to enhance its efficacy. To promote cooperation further within this framework, it has also formed the Ministerial Council for Nile Basin Countries. Egyptian diplomacy has assiduously avoided being drawn into wars of words such as those occasionally initiated by Ethiopia over matters concerning the Nile. Simultaneously, Egypt has availed itself of all possible means to improve its bilateral relations with all the countries of the Nile basin, including Ethiopia. While the framework agreement for Egyptian-Ethiopian relations remains little more than ink on paper, Egyptian-Ugandan relations have made marked progress. With regard to the civil war in Sudan, Egyptian diplomacy has refused to contest the mediating role of the Inter-Governmental Authority for Development (IGAD), despite the divergent views and interests it represents; instead, it has proposed the Egyptian-Libyan initiative to balance and complement IGAD's role. Moreover, for years now Egypt has maintained open channels of communication with the Sudanese Popular Liberation Front. Not only has it allowed it to open a representational office in Cairo, it has invited its leader, John Garang, to the Egyptian capital on several occasions. By maintaining such communications, Cairo hopes to influence future settlements to ensure the best interests of all concerned parties.
In East Africa and the Great Lakes region, Egyptian diplomacy has assiduously sought to maintain its impartiality, offering to play the role of honest broker. Egypt has repeatedly acted as an intermediary in the dispute between Ethiopia and Eritrea, and played peacemaker in Somalia, Burundi and the Congo.
Egypt's African diplomacy has served to enhance regional cooperation as a whole. The priority it has given to African development through cooperative frameworks is reflected in the African Development Fund, which was formed under the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Egypt's membership in COMESA.
Egypt has also adopted dialogue and understanding as the best ways of coping with changes in the political and regional configuration in East Africa and the Great Lakes region. Among the most significant developments in this region is the general trend in Uganda, Ethiopia and Eritrea away from the legacy of Arab/Islamic culture, and towards European-American plans that sometimes conflict with Arab interests. US backing of the principle of autonomy for southern Sudan and Clinton's project for the Horn of Africa are two examples of this trend. Experience has always shown that Egypt was right to remain aloof from such developments. The disputes that erupted between certain candidates for membership in the Clinton project, such as Ethiopia and Eritrea, and within such countries as the Congo, for example, have effectively postponed its implementation indefinitely.
Apart from the fact that confrontation always exacts an exorbitant cost in human lives and financial resources, Egypt's emphasis on peaceful cooperation in order to secure its quota of water from the Nile is based on the conviction that there are very practical reasons for cooperation to succeed. Current disputes over the Nile are focused on less than five per cent of the Nile Valley's total water potential; this fact should drive home what great vistas of development lie before us. The Jongli Canal, for example, has successfully recycled swamp waters in southern Sudan, and is a model that can certainly be emulated elsewhere. Egypt has submitted a proposal to Ethiopia for cooperating in water recuperation and exploitation; according to Foreign Ministry sources, the Ethiopian government is considering it seriously. Ethiopian plans to obstruct or reduce the flow of flood waters to Egypt -- the gravest threat to Egypt's water security, as long as the possibility of blocking the other branch of the Nile is still purely theoretical -- are highly impractical, which gives further importance to the Egyptian proposal. Ethiopian terrain is some 3,000m above sea level, rendering the gradient of the riverbed relatively steep; this would make the construction of large dams an extremely costly prospect. Simultaneously, the balance of powers in the region is tilted in Egypt's favour, meaning that projects likely to jeopardise Egypt's welfare have few chances of success.
In discussing possible recourse to confrontation in securing our water needs, there remains the frequently repeated question of Israel's schemes for the Horn of Africa and the African Great Lakes area. Obviously, such plans conflict with Egyptian and Arab interests in general. Nor is their existence debatable. The question, therefore, is how to deal with them. As I understand it, Egypt's policy on this point encompasses several interrelated principles. Above all, it is essential not to leave the field open to Israeli influence. Egypt must intensify its political and economic activity in the region through various cooperative endeavours. Because of its geographic and historical ties within the region, Egypt stands a greater chance of establishing closer bonds of friendship and cooperation than does Israel. Of course, a permanent peace settlement for the Middle East would bring substantial changes to the Middle Eastern countries' foreign policy objectives and mechanisms in the Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes region. In this regard, it is important to reaffirm that access to Nile waters must not be extended beyond the countries of the Nile basin and, above all, that the issue is not up for discussion in the multilateral negotiations.
