Under normal circumstances, Sharaf’s visit to Addis would only
generate long yawns from journalists. No respectable editor would run
it as a story in independent media. The state media would have their
exclusives. The multitude of MOUs to be signed, the generous promises
to be made, the lofty goals to be declared, and the champagne glasses
to be raised “to the long friendship between the two sisterly
countries” would make ideal headlines for government newspapers and
leading prime time news for their electronics counterparts. The
delegation would then wearily make its way back home. And all of
course will be swiftly forgotten. It’s an established ritual.
But there is undeniably more to the rite this time. The international
media are seriously asking if the world’s first water war is in the
making after Meles’ dramatic announcement of plans to build Africa’s
largest dam on the Blue Nile. Most expect the answer to depend on the
outcome of Sharaf’s visit.
US-educated Sharaf is a man of contradictions. He resigned from
Mubarak’s cabinet in protest but still refuses to disclose his
specific reasons. He was a leading member of the ruling National
Democratic Party (even after the resignation) but joined the
revolutionaries in Tahrir Square. On Israel he is proudly unlike
Mubarak. “I am against normalization of relations with Israel in any
area,” he told a newspaper last year. His views on the Nile issue are
less clear, but his Irrigation Minister, Hussein al-Atfy, has
threatened war against Ethiopia.
The proposed dam, dubbed the Millennium Dam, will have the capacity
to produce 5,250 MW of electricity. This will make it the largest in
Africa. But maybe not for long. If the Grand Inga Dam is ever built
on the Congo River with the proposed 52 generator units and 39,000 MW
capacity, the grandiosity of the Millennium Dam will be greatly
diminished. Unlike Ethiopia’s dam, the international community is
earnestly pondering ways to finance the Congolese dam. And even now,
China’s Three Gorges Dam in Hubei, the world’s largest, has a
generating capacity of 22,500 MW, dwarfing the Millennium Dam’s
projected power. The Itipu Dam at the border of Brazil and Paraguay is
second with 14,000 MW.
But whatever the strides in other parts of the world, the implications
of the proposed Millennium Dam are indeed significant to Ethiopia.
5250 MW may be peanuts to the Chinese, but it is huge by African
standards. This is enough power to sustain half a decade of double
digit economic growth for Ethiopia’s tiny economy with extra for
electricity export. The dam’s estimated reservoir of 67 billion cubic
meters of water is twice as large as Lake Tana , the nation’s largest.
The potential for the kind of large-scale commercial farming the
nation really needs could hardly be underestimated.
Naturally, the instinct of patriotic Ethiopians is to greet news of
such a dam with enthusiasm. And this was exactly how they reacted,
their intense antipathy towards autocratic EPRDF notwithstanding. But
there was also concomitant suspicion about the timing of the
announcement.
The announcement came in the immediate aftermath of the Eritrean
fiasco for Meles Zenawi, who had desperately tried to steal the
thunder from the Arab uprisings by bluffing war against Ethiopia’s
former province. It was hard not to suspect a new ploy considering
what was at stake for Meles if protests were to break out.
But for the Egyptians, the timing raised a thoroughly dissimilar
— and alarming — possibility. Here they are in the midst of an
exciting but difficult transition to democracy, where the weakening of
the state was recently amply exemplified by sectarian violence between
Christians and Muslims, and Ethiopia, source of 85 percent of Egypt’s
fresh water, suddenly unveils a plan to build a gigantic dam on the
Nile River. It was hard for them not to suspect that Ethiopia was
trying to take advantage of their momentary weakness.
Indeed, whatever the original motive of Meles (I personally suspect
the former rather than the latter as the primary impetus) now is the
best time for Ethiopia to negotiate with Egypt. And not because of the
ephemeral weakness the Egyptians suspect but rather because of the
dominance of moderates in the transitional government. If any deal is
possible between the two nations, this is the opportune moment.
But for some fantastic reason, Meles acceded to a request by a
visiting 47-member Egyptian delegation to defer real negotiation over
the Nile until a new government is elected in December. Ethiopia will
thus not ratify the Cooperative Framework Agreement, which was
hammered out over eleven years of negotiations between nine Nile basin
countries to ensure equitable distribution of water.
“Ethiopia, having seen the current situation in Egypt, where they need
to establish their own government and go through a democratic process
of electing their president, sees that it is sane and wise to wait for
Egypt and give her time,” said Ethiopia’s Ambassador to Egypt,
Mohamoud Dirir Gheddi. (By contrast, Meles endorsed Eritrea’s
secession when Ethiopia still had a transitional government in the
1990s.) “Six months or a year because we need to stabilize, we need
to finalize our revolution,” delegation leader Mustafa el Gindy told
the media.
What prospects do the elections hold?
A Pew (an American firm) poll conducted between March and April of
this year (after Mubarak’s fall) shows that 62 percent of Egyptians
believe that Egyptian laws should follow the teachings of the Quran.
71 percent of Egyptians also have no misgivings about Islamic
fundamentalists, Pew’s survey reveals. (This of course doesn’t mean
they are for terrorism, though.) The implications are obvious. I will
not detail them here. The only hope is in the military blocking the
accession to power of extremists, which is uncertain at this point.
None of this is of course lost to Meles Zenawi. He is capable of
calculating at a higher level. And thus the question: why is he doing
what he is doing? Is he setting up this nation once more?
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