Editor’s Note – Reports that Meles Zenawi has sold Ethiopian rights over the Nile to Egypt have been circulating for a long time. The regime in Addis has definitely kept the matter confidential. When Zenawi secretly ceded Western Ethiopia’s fertile farmlands to Khartoum, it was Sudanese papers that uncovered the deal. Zenawi later rushed to deceive the Ethiopian public by saying, “The Sudanese have been patient for a long time; what they took is farmlands that Ethiopia had occupied as its own.” Concerning the upper riparian states of the Nile, the following report (Sudan Tribune: June 26, ’09) confirms Zenawi has all along been behind Egypt against those African countries that are seeking legal action against Cairo’s monopoly over the Nile.
KHARTOUM – Sudan will not be part of possible legal action against Egypt being pursued by some Nile basin countries, an official has said.
The independent Al-Akbar newspaper said that the UK-based Guardian newspaper reported that parliamentarians from 11 African Nile basin countries are considering file a lawsuit against Egypt regarding the 1929 and 1959 agreements that gave it exclusive right on the usage of the longest river in the world.
The 1929 agreement signed between Britain and Egypt states that no project on the Nile would be undertaken by any basin countries that would impact the volume of water reaching Egypt.
Legal experts say that the agreement is binding to Ethiopia, Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo despite the fact that most of these countries were not independent at the time.
Thirty years later Sudan and Egypt amended the agreement that enabled the construction of the Aswan dam close to the borders between the two countries.
The 11 countries will reportedly also add Britain to the case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) asking for compensation losses incurred because of these agreements.
The move reportedly came after Egypt refused to sign a framework agreement in the Congo last month saying it amounts to its “historical right” in the Nile water.
The Egyptian Al-Ahram Weekly newspaper said that Cairo asked that other signatories “explicitly approve Egypt’s right to 55.5 billion cubic square meters of water annually; that no projects on the Nile be implemented without Egyptian approval, and that Convention articles be amended only on a unanimous vote”.
However, the stipulations put forward by Egypt were deemed unacceptable by other countries.
The 1959 agreement between Egypt and Sudan states that no projects are allowed on the Nile by any other country without its consent.
An unidentified Sudanese official at the Water Resources and Irrigation Ministry emphasized to Al-Akhbar newspaper that neither his government nor Ethiopia will join the effort to sue Egypt.
He added that Sudan under British rule in 1929 and thus was not a party to the first agreement and noted that it is up to the political leaderships not the parliamentarians to take such a step.
Egypt is extremely sensitive to any talk about modifying its share in the Nile water with some officials saying that this amounts to a declaration of war warranting military action.
Yesterday the editor in chief of the semi-official Al-Ahram daily Morsi Atallah wrote a column saying, “Nile water is a red line”.
“Egypt will not forfeit its historical rights…will move to defend these rights if any attempt is made to touch Egypt’s share and no one inside or outside should be surprised” he wrote.
Please be aware that Melles Zenawi has already signed an agreement in 1993 which is still hidden from the public. Egypt Information State Service has appreciated Melles Zenawi as an Ethiopian leader that played a key role to improve Ethio-Egyptian relationship. The agreement disclosed this week is the following::
The cooperation framework signed in Cairo early July 1993 between President Mohammed Hosni Mubarak and the Ethiopian Prime Minister, that time, Meles Zenawi played a major role in improving the Egyptian-Ethiopian relationship. This framework included cooperation between Egypt and Ethiopia concerning Nile water as the following:
Both countries have committed not to implement any Nile water activity which might cause harm to the interests of the other.
The necessity to protect the Nile water.
Respecting the provisions of the international law.
Consultation and cooperation between the two countries with object to es-tablish projects for increasing the flow of water and reduce waste quantities.
Therefore, it is a dead issue for Ethiopia in the future to claim that it has the right to utilize its water resources without Egypt’s consent. Our people should be aware of Melles’s un-beliavable historical crime that ranges from signing the Algers ageement to the Nile water agreement and upto the Sudanese-Ethiopian secret border demarcation; that all are hidden not only from the public but also from the so-called parliament.
