Business Daily (Nairobi)
23 June 2009
editorial
Talks over the sharing of the River Nile waters have reached another dead end. Egypt, as widely expected, has refused to sign the long-negotiated agreement and still wants to retain its "historic right to use 5.5 billion cubic meters of Nile waters per year.
That means that the eight Nile basin nations of Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania, Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda will still be hostages to the 1929 and the 1959 treaties that were signed in Cairo before they became independent nations.
Today, it is apparent that the 1929 agreement signed by the British High Commission in Cairo and the Egyptian government cannot stand the test of times since it binds other nations that were not part of the agreement.
The simple logic that these were British colonies when the treaty was signed does not essentially tie them to the agreement.
More so, the 1959 agreement is off the mark since it was signed by Egypt and Sudan and gave Cairo absolute rights over the Nile because Sudan donated its share of the waters to Egypt.
And that is where the problem starts.
Egypt has been using the Nile waters to irrigate the desert - and exports some to the Comesa nations- but when Uganda tried to divert the same waters to Karamoja some years back, Cairo caused a diplomatic uproar and the donors fled.
Egypt still insists that no upstream project that touches on the Nile basin would be carried without their approval.
We believe that this colonial-era thinking should not be entertained and the Nile basin countries should take a united stand on the negotiations which are to resume next month in Cairo.
It is even more disturbing that Ethiopia, which is the source of the Nile, has no rights to use the waters without Cairo's permission, and several projects in the Blue Nile have yet to materialize because of this treaty.
We believe that in the same way Sudan demanded a review of the treaty in 1959 the same should be done today to the 80-year- old treaty.
The treaty ended up dividing the Nile waters between the two countries yet it is supposed to bind everyone else. That is gross.
Apparently, the East African nations have been unable to use the Lake Victoria waters for irrigation yet this reservoir is now known to only contribute some 15 per cent of its waters to the Nile.
So the logic that the lake is the source is today discounted since the White Nile is only but a small stream into the Nile proper.
The Nile nations must approach the negotiations with hydrological facts and should not be swayed by politics and threats.
For as it stands, the Nile treaty between Egypt and Sudan cannot stand the test of our times.
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This old agreement will not be kept when Ethiopia and other countries get stronger ecomomicaly .It is clear that Ethiopia has the right on nile and our goverment is gone use the nile in the future and we can defend ourselves. Noone accepts such a deal which force Ethiopia to remain in poverty.