Photo: http://africanarguments.org "It is high time for Egypt to appreciate that the Nile is not Egyptian, but an African river. Egypt should not issue empty threats of war, but endorse Ethiopia's dam programme and work together with Sudan and South Sudan to ensure its full potential is realised. More than any other gesture in international politics, this would mark a return of Egyptian statesmanship and pave the way for a future of resource abundance and regional peace after centuries of confrontation." This is an opinion posted on the AL JAZEERA ENGLISH website and written by Harry Verhoeven completed a doctorate at the University of Oxford.
It further read "Ethiopia is a key ally of the US in the fight against terrorism and piracy in the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula; for both Sudan and the US, Ethiopian diplomatic efforts are vital to ensure that Khartoum and Juba do not go to war again and cooperate over oil exports. The site of the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is more than 1,000km from Egypt's southern border. That combination of diplomatic isolation and military obstacles - not to mention Egypt's domestic divisions and instability, which make war financially unaffordable - essentially mean that, despite Morsi's claims, not all options are on the table."
"What, then, is the alternative? Egypt, Ethiopia, Sudan and South Sudan have some of Africa's poorest populations and they face colossal challenges in reducing poverty, expanding public services and countering ecological degradation. As I outlined in a Chatham House report in 2011 regional integration would go a long way to help avoid the classic pitfalls of natural-resource development such as the resource curse." "Resource scarcity can trigger conflict, but it could also stimulate peaceful cooperation. Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan have much to gain from incremental closer cooperation and a grand energy deal that would put Ethiopia's water resources at the disposal of the region. For all of Egypt's apocalyptic rhetoric about Ethiopian selfishness, the little publicised truth remains that it will be cheaper to send the thousands of megawatts that the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam will produce to Sudan and South Sudan (and possibly to Egypt) than it will be ready to transmit the electricity to the Ethiopian highlands."
"Ethiopia's big push on the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is a logical consequence of a broader shift that has been underway for years and that a weakening Egypt has failed to stop. Construction of the dam began, not coincidentally, in April 2011, just two months after the overthrow of Mubarak, a watershed used by Meles Zenawi to symbolically usher in a new era of Nile Basin geopolitics. Wikileaks cables have since shown that Cairo had already threatened to bomb new hydro-infrastructure initiatives on the Blue Nile back in 2009-2010 but was told by Washington and Khartoum that this would be politically unacceptable, as well as logistically extremely challenging."
You have more interesting ideas if you follow the link by clicking it.
Comments Post a comment
I WAS VERY DISSAPOINTED IN DR.MORSIS STATEMENT ,'BOMBING ETHIOPIA TEH CAPITAL STATE OF ALL AFRICA????? THAT IS PROFOUDN MADNES, WHAT IS HE PROPOSING GOING TO WAR WITH ALL MEMBE STATES TO SATISFY SOEM VERY UNINTELLIGENT PEOPLE WHO ARE USING THIS AS POLTICAL Brinksmanship??? THIS WAS A VERY LOW CALL BY EGYPT... EGYPT SHOULD BE HAPPY TO SEE AFRICA MOVING FORWARD INSTEAD OF HANGING ON TO SOME OLD WEWSTERN PROPOGANDA DELUDED ASSERTIONS OF EH GYPTS RIGHT TO THE DAM!!! EGYPT IS AN AFRICAN NATION NOT A MID EAST SATE IT IS AFRICAN WILL ALWAYS BE AFICAN AS THE MID EATS IS ALSO AFRICA WE WILL NOT GO THERE.. TODAY WE SEE AN EMERGING AFRICXA AFTER BEING SYSTEMATICVALLY PILLAGED LOOTED PLUNDERED EXPLKOITE DENIED FEEDOMS UNDEREDUCATED UNDER DEVELOPED UNDER NOORISHED.. THE PLUNDER AND EXPLOITATION WAS OS EFFETCIVE THAT THE PEOPLE DEPENDED ON FOOD FORGETTING THEY HAD FERTILE ENOUGH LANDS THAT COULD FEED THE PLANET!!!!!!!! EGYPT WANTS TO RMEMBER THAT IT HOLDS MUCH OF BLACK AFRICAS STATUES MOMENTUMS OF GLORY IN ITS MUSEUMS IT MUST ALSO RMEMEMBE3R THAT SUDAN WAS EGYPT THER FIRST AND UNTIL MACEDONIAN CONQUORING OF NORHTERN EGYPT SUDAN AND MOST OF AFRICAWAS INDEED EGYP.. WE OWNT FORGET THE GENOCIDE OF CARTHAGE WHICH DEMOLISHED AND WIP[ED OUT THE ENTIRE POPULATION OF CARTHAGE.. BLACK HISTORY IS DEEPN THRUOUT THE MID EAST WHERE LENBANON PALESTINE JERUA SALEM WERE ALL BLACK CITIES BUILT TO IMMORTALISE THE BLACK MAN.. THESE GLRIES WILL BE RETURNED TO ITS RIGHTFUL OWNERS AND THE WORLD WILL AGAIN KNOW THE TRUTH OF AFRICAS PAST..... DR. MORSI MUST KNOW HIMSLEF AND STOP TALKING IKE A MUSK LIM BROTHERHOOD FANATIC WHOSE IDEOLOGIEWS ARE STUCK IN THE PAST... WHEN WE LOOK AT EGYUPT ANMD SEE AT HOW HE FAILED THE REVOLUTION BY ADAPTING THE MUSLIMS BROTHERHOOD MANIFESTO HE HEAS SUBJECTED THE PEOPLE TO FAILURE.. MORSI INSISTED THAT HE WAS AN IND3EPENDENT CANDIDATE AND WAS SUPPORTED BY THE MANY THEN HE SWICTHED AFTER BEINBG TOLD HE COULD NOT ABANDON THE PARTY... WHAT HE NEEDS TO DO IS RE EMBRACE THE NATION ALLYING HIMSELF WITH ALL THE PROTAGONIST OF THE REVOLUTION; GIVING TO ALL A FAIR SHARE OF THE POWER TTHEY FOUGHT FOR.. IRONY IS THAT ETHIOPIA WANTS TO GIVE TO THE MANY A FAIR SHARE OF POWER IN ELKECTRICITY SOEMTHING DESPERATELY NEEDED IN THESE NILE BASIN REGIONS IT WOULD BE INSTRUMENATL IF THE CONGO DID THE SAME AFRICA WOULD BE AT ITS BEST WITH CLEAN ENREGY.. AS THE AUTHOR SAID EGYPT HOULD BE INVESTING TIEM AND MONEY TO SEE THSI GREAT PROJECT GOING FORTH. GETTING IN AT GHROUND LEVEL WITH MONEY AD EVENSCIENTIST.. THIS WOULD BE A GRAND VENTURE FO EGYPT TO ALLY WITH THIER AFRICAN BROTHERS.. DO NOT FORGET THAT THE BLOOD OF AFRICA RUNS THRU YOUR VEINS... IN TODAYS WORLD THERE IS VERY LITTEL OF US WHOM ARE OF PURE STUCK AND BEING BLACK IS THE PUREST YOU CAN GET THAT IS FACT NOT THEORY OR WISHFUL THINKING!!!!!!!!!