Adamu Walelign (Ph.D.) is an Emeritus Professor of English at San Diego City College, California, United States of America.
Introduction
Think of an ideal location for a consulate in Ethiopia, and chances are Dangila will not be the first name that pops into your head; yet, that is exactly where Great Britain opened a Consulate in 1925. Now, with friendly inhabitants, a temperate climate, and well-watered, verdant fields, Dangila was an amiable little hamlet, and Major R.E. Cheeseman, His Majesty’s Consul for North-west Ethiopia, had no complaints. But, why would a powerful Western government go out of its way to choose such a remote little “town,” given that, in those days, there were no modern bridges across the Blue Nile, there was no road connecting Addis Ababa to Dangila—access from the capital requiring mule-back travel for three weeks—and one’s best option from the exterior was to undertake a bone-jarring, fortnight-long mule-ride from Gallabat, on the Sudan-Ethiopia border? Answer—the water of the Blue Nile River!
As Sudan and Egypt’s colonial master at that time, Great Britain was keenly aware of the Blue Nile’s critical role in supplying its arid colonies with water, and it was no coincidence that Dangila, located only a short distance away from what is called Gilgel (Little) Abay, was not too far away from where this stream enters Lake Tana, before emerging as Abay, (Blue Nile), a short distance away. Cheeseman explored the region’s river network for six years and published Lake Tana and the Blue Nile: An Abyssinian Quest1 —a highly informative work which may have bolstered the British resolve to enact a treaty in 1929. This law would go on to garner instant notoriety, since it signified that, with the stroke of a pen, Britain had unilaterally revoked the basic rights of seven Upper-Nile African nations—Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, and the D.R. of Congo—to build dams of any kind on the upper Nile! What was particularly galling about this diktat, was that, despite being the sources of the two Niles, these nations had no say whatsoever in this or in the 1959 “treaty” which replaced it! Also, Great Britain did this in clear violation of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, whose ARTICLE 34 states: “A treaty does not create either obligations or rights for a third State without its consent,” while ARTICLE 35 states: “An obligation arises for a third State from a provision of a treaty if the parties to the treaty intend the provision to be the means of establishing the obligation and the third State expressly accepts that obligation in writing.”2 [Emphasis added by this writer].
Even after Britain was no longer on the scene, newly independent Sudan and Egypt showed no inclination, whatsoever, to relinquish these “treaties”. Far from it; they proved to be adamantine custodians of their veto power. In “Will Nile Water Go to Israel? North Sinai Pipelines and the Politics of Scarcity,” Bleier (1997) says: “Throughout recent history Egypt has exerted…control over the Nile... [Its] dominance over the Nile is a function...of colonial agreements, the shifting, yet timely…support from…superpowers, and the power of Egypt relative to the instability of the upstream states. [Thus], Egypt has been able to make unilateral decisions regarding out-of-basin use of Nile water”.3Hence, although they prevented the seven African nations from utilizing the rivers meaningfully, Sudan and Egypt felt free to build as many dams as they wished, which, over the years, enabled them to generate power and turn vast tracts of desert into lush plantations. To add insult to injury, Egypt unilaterally diverted the Nile to the Sinai, in order to sell Nile water to Israel! As the French say, the more things change, the more they stay the same, and nominally independent, North-East and Central Africa swapped Arab masters for European ones! In light of such travesties, this writer contends that these illegal, colonial-era edicts have severely crippled the legitimate developmental aspirations of the seven up-stream African nations for far too long, and should be revoked forthwith!
Background to the Coming of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD)
Ethiopia, an independent nation throughout history, was never consulted on, nor felt obligated to abide by, these insulting edicts, so it pointedly ignored them and set about securing funding for dam-building purposes, but this proved to be an elusive challenge—thanks to Egypt’s persistent game of ‘whack-a-mole’ on Ethiopia’s applications. Try as Ethiopia did, Egypt successfully threatened, pressured, or cajoled, lenders of every stripe—from the World Bank to the African Development Bank— to reject Ethiopia’s loan applications. However, in 2011, Ethiopia launched the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), and its timing could not have been more auspicious: At the time, the Arab Spring was sweeping the Middle East, and Egypt was far too occupied with the bloody clashes in Tahrir Square to mount a coherent challenge to the project. Besides, the consensus was that the GERD would soon collapse, the assumption being Ethiopia’s funds would run out—a huge miscalculation! Suddenly, now that 80 per cent of the project is done, there has been a crescendo of demonization, orchestrated by Egypt and amplified by the West. The speciousness of the complaints runs the gamut—from a projected shift in the regional balance of power, to the reduction of water available to the riparian nations, the dam’s impact on the operation of Sudan’s dams, and so on.
What Is Fueling the West’s Sudden Hostility to Ethiopia--TPLF, GERD, the Unrest in Tigray?
Over the past year, Ethiopia has had to endure withering criticism from both Western political leaders and the ever-compliant Western media. Characteristically, these critics would deliberately distort the facts on the ground, conflate the GERD with ethnic unrest throughout the country and instability in Tigray, all in order to make Ethiopia a pariah nation, and justify sanctions or military attacks down the road. Now, to an unengaged observer, it might be baffling to see the E.U. and the U.S.—self-anointed champions of human rights—siding with Egyptian dictator El-Sisi, against Ethiopia, which has a legitimate right to build a dam on its river, the Blue Nile, to generate power. To untangle the mystery behind the relentless and highly choreographed demonization campaign against Ethiopia, requires casting one’s mind back to the late 1970s, when the Camp David Accord of 1978 was signed. Brokered by the U.S., it defused Egyptian/Israeli hostility, but also introduced a new player in African affairs--Israel! A key condition of this deal was that Egypt would supply water to Israel, yet not a single one of the seven Upper-Nile African nations was apprised of this Faustian pact! In “Will Nile Water Go to Israel? North Sinai Pipelines and the Politics of Scarcity,” Bleier (1997) reveals that, in a letter President Anwar Sadat wrote to King Hassan II of Morocco, Sadat had gushed about the key role he had played in cementing the deal, by pledging to supply water to Israel—a Middle Eastern, not an African, nation! “I have gone to the utmost extreme with Israeli Prime Minister Begin. As an incentive, I proposed supplying Israel with…Egypt’s share of the Nile water to be used in reclaiming the Negev with the condition that the Jerusalem and West Bank issues be solved.” 4 The upshot of this was that, unbeknownst to the African leaders, Nile water had been turned into a bargaining chip for settling age-old Arab/Jewish disputes! Based on this Accord, Israel and Egypt—along with U.S. encouragement—pressured Ethiopia to grant Egypt veto power over the filling and operation of the GERD—hardly a term a self-respecting, sovereign nation can accept, and Ethiopia resisted.
In addition, Ethiopia found itself caught in the cross-fires between two super-powers: It appears the U.S., belatedly realizing that China had outsmarted it in garnering clout in Africa—a continent Donald Trump had said consisted of “shit-hole countries,”5—started making last-ditch efforts to stem the tide of nations sucked by the Chinese vortex. (See Howard French, 2014, China’s Second Continent: How a Million Immigrants Are Building a New Empire in Africa).6 But these incoherent efforts have amounted to little more than flailing. In 2020, President Trump acted as if Ethiopia had suddenly blindsided the world with the GERD, which he claimed was going to steal “Egypt’s water,” for which reason he invited Egypt to bomb the dam.7 This marked a low point in international relations, but it has gotten worse under the current Biden Administration! To this writer, such bizarre dissembling on the part of the U.S. is reminiscent of a scene in Casablanca, where the police chief shouts, “I am shocked, shocked, to learn that gambling is going on here”—despite being a regular patron himself!8 The reality is that, whether Trump knew it or not, or cared, both the United States and Israel were early supporters of Ethiopia’s dam-construction aspirations. In “The Renaissance of Water” (2021) Gashaw states: “In conjunction with the United States’ Bureau of Reclamation, Ethiopia conducted the first feasibility study for a dam on the Nile in 1964, nearly half a century before construction would begin. During the 47 years following, Ethiopia fell victim to communism, revolution, secession, and rampant chaos [which] distracted [it] from wider efforts for economic development…”.9 [Emphasis added by this writer]
An even darker explanation for the U. S.’s vilification campaign could also be proffered: Despite frequent statements of “grave concern about the fighting in Tigray,” the U.S.’s dogged determination to disparage Ethiopia has little to do with genuine concern over the fighting in Tigray, a crisis which the U.S. knows was instigated by the Tigray Liberation Front (TPLF), which Egypt, with American largesse, has been financing for many decades! No, the fact is that this deplorable campaign has everything to do with promoting the West’s exploitative, neo-imperialist agenda in Africa! When the GERD is completed, it is projected to be the biggest dam in Africa, until, perhaps, the DRC’s dam is built. With a storage capacity of 70 billion cubic meters (BCM) of water, it has enough power-generating capacity to propel Ethiopia to an unprecedented level of industrial prowess. Furthermore, with the rumored coming union of Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti and Somalia into a cohesive economic and political block, such clout would be a harbinger of genuine African independence. However, such an empowered Ethiopia/Africa does not jive with the West’s scheme of things—Africa must remain in the “shit-hole” category indefinitely! There is a good explanation for this:
It is a sad fact that the West has been adept at installing and propping up weak and corrupt African leaders, whose administrations are routinely beset by inter-ethnic strife, drenched in corruption, addicted to foreign aid, and/or weighed down by foreign debt. The key to this is the divide-and-rule formula which Great Britain perfected, with which a carefully appointed manipulator can foment, intensify, or tamp down ethnic-rivalry at will: This agent would dredge up ancient, long-forgotten and usually trivial slights or disagreements, blow them up out of all proportion, and egg one group or the other to avenge itself, thereby setting different ethnic groups at each other’s throats, as part of a hitherto fool-proof strategy for plundering the vast resources of Africa—arguably the wealthiest continent on Earth. The over-arching mission here is to keep Africa weak, and make it an “inexhaustible” source of raw materials, while at the same time turning it into a bottom-less dumpster for shoddy, and sometimes even toxic, manufactured goods!
A case in point is the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), a nation blessed with an abundance of the rarest of rare minerals and vast water resources, among other things, yet one that has struggled to provide a decent standard of living for its people. In his article, “DRC: How the CIA Got Patrice Lumumba,” Francois Soudan (2021) details how, on the pretext of stopping communism, the CIA ousted Congo’s popular prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, whom the U.S. deemed a communist, and someone who would interfere with the resumption of the rapacious plunder the Belgian colonists had practiced prior to independence. In Lumumba’s place, the CIA installed the highly malleable, but irredeemably sleazy strongman, Joseph Mobutu, who sent his many opponents to jail and/or executed them outright, robbed the Congolese people blind for decades and stashed the looted billions in secret Western bank accounts. His decades-long reign of terror, along with the perennial state of turmoil in the country, enabled predatory Western companies to continue the uninterrupted pilfering of Congo’s rare minerals—including the uranium which Belgium had earlier handed over to the U.S.—to be used in building the atomic bomb it dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki! Meanwhile, the Congolese people remain mired in deplorable poverty for decades!10 Thus, the rise of a stable industrial nation--like what Ethiopia is projected to be in a few years--would clash with this diabolical strategy!
The U.S.’s penchant for meddling in other nation’s affairs needs no further elaboration; what is not readily apparent to the casual observer is how Israel’s name fits into a discussion of African rivers. The reason, according to Bleier, is Israel’s covetous interest in Nile waters since before the founding of the State of Israel in 1948: “Zionist interest in the possibility of diverting Nile Water across the Sinai Desert began decades before the establishment of the State of Israel. As early as 1903, Theodore Herzel, the founder of Zionism, visited Egypt and authorized a technical report on the transfer of Nile water across the Suez Canal.”11 Elsewhere in the article, Bleier makes a direct connection between Ethiopia’s dam-building aspiration and Israel’s engineers and hydro-geologists. He says that, in the Mubarak era, “Israeli experts were helping to plan 40 dams along the Blue Nile. Stephen Lonergan, a Canadian based researcher reported in 1990 that ‘‘Egypt has complained of Israeli water engineers working in Ethiopia and Sudan, designing new irrigation systems which would reduce the flow of the Nile, Egypt’s only source of fresh water.”12
Will the GERD Adversely Impact the Operation of Sudanese Dams?
Located on the confluence of the Blue and White Niles, Khartoum, and other parts of Sudan, are vulnerable to periodic flooding.13 In addition, with Ethiopia’s rugged topography, almost all its rivers rush down steep canyons with enormous force. The resultant erosion of fertile top-soil is a detriment to Ethiopia, but, normally, a God-send for Sudan and Egypt. However, sometimes, one can have too much of a good thing, and the accumulation of silt over time can wreak havoc on the holding capacity of a dam. The GERD, far from being a threat to Sudan, should be treated as a blessing, on three counts: The reservoir will not only hold back excess rain water—thereby removing the threat of flooding—it will also keep the excess water in a cooler storage area than anything Sudan has to offer. It will also radically reduce the amount of silt which flows to Sudan—sparing its dams the risk of being chocked by silt. In other respects, Sudan will be a direct beneficiary of GERD-generated electricity!
Will GERD, in Fact, Reduce Water Available to Down-stream Nations, Especially Egypt?
Water scarcity is not a figment of anyone’s imagination, but pointing fingers at one project is a case of barking up the wrong tree, and looking for simplistic solutions to problems which require well thought-out responses. With Sudan and Egypt relying heavily on the Nile, it is easy to sympathize with their anxiety about any project with the potential to disrupt water supply, but the GERD poses no such threat. First, as President Yoweri Museveni pointed out, in a recent interview with an Egyptian journalist for the Kings of the Nile You-tube channel,14 the main function of GERD is to generate power, and power generation has negligible impact on water flow, since the water is channeled back to the mainstream. Museveni went on to point out that the alternating ‘seven-years of feast, and seven-years of famine’ which, according to the Bible, frequently plagued Egypt, was mainly because the Nile, like any other river, is subject to the vagaries of climate change. A corollary to this contention is, if the weather was unpredictable in Biblical times, surely, it is even more so now, thanks to global warming. Here in America, we can bear witness to its horrendous ramifications by looking at recently taken pictures of Lake Mead, on the Hoover Dam, which show how it has become a sad shadow of its former self, looking like a collection of puddles--due to global warming.15 Sadly, this phenomenon is merely a microcosm of all the local reservoirs which have already gone dry or will do so in short order.
There are also nature-instigated causes of water loss which demand attention. In the same interview with the Egyptian journalist, President Museveni admonished the riparian nations not to behave like a greedy dairy farmer, whose exclusive focus is on the amount of “milk he gets from a cow, but cares nothing about the up-keep of the cow”.16 If all the Nile Basin nations do not work in concert and look after the health of the catchment areas which nourish and sustain the Nile in the face of urban sprawl, intense deforestation, global warming, and natural wear-and-tear on structures, there may be even less water to fight over. Nile water levels are going down without nefarious human interference, but due to many complicated reasons, one of which is erosion of the dams, thanks to millennia-long wear and tear, which has been undermining the volcanic lava that blocked the outlet of the lake in the first place. After examining Lake Tana, Cheeseman (1968) observed: “…[S]ince the reign of Fasiledes…lake [Tana] has gone down six feet. There can be only one explanation: the sill formed by lava-flow which dammed the old valley of the Blue Nile at Chara-Chara…is being eroded away comparatively rapidly, and the lake-levels are consequently falling, a process which, if allowed to continue, must eventually drain the lake”.17 Such a down-ward trend needs all stakeholders to pool all their resources and come up with well thought-out, actionable, and lasting solutions.
Also, such regional coordination is imperative because a nation going it alone will lack the wherewithal to produce outcomes of a caliber commensurate with the magnitude of the problem in question. A case in point, vis a vis the Blue Nile, is the advent of the water hyacinth, called (እቦጭ) Iboch, in Ethiopia, a prolific weed which has begun taking over whole sections of Lake Tana and sucking up the water and killing off the creatures living underneath. That this problem is not confined to Ethiopia can be seen from the eye-catching title of Philippa Ambrose’s article, “Water Hyacinth Chokes Lake Victoria” (1997).18 The efforts of local officials have so far failed to control this highly invasive weed, but with international cooperation, it has been shown that this problem can be turned into an opportunity, since countries like Indonesia have shown that this plant can be turned into various by-products like biofuels.19 Without a concerted effort, however, this ravenous weed could cover enough of the lake to prevent the outflow of the Abai!
Moreover, corruption, lack of foresight, budget constraints, or the dearth of skilled personnel may induce strapped nations to settle for simplistic solutions which may turn out to be even worse than the problems the solutions were designed to address. For instance, as early as the 1990s, says Bleier, environmental experts had told Egypt, that its reclamation efforts had become environmental and technical disasters. “Typically, these Nile diversion projects are very expensive and…the investments currently spent on desert reclamation could be put to better use in the fertile delta area. Sorely needed are drainage systems to save the lands that are currently being lost to salinization and to the rise of the underground water table…”.20 There are measures that can be taken, like providing alternatives to cutting of trees, or bushes for fuel; producing sufficient cattle feeds—to prevent over-grazing, soil erosion, and the release of carbon; planting trees—to counter-act desertification, and rendering designated areas off-limits to home builders—to forestall loss of seepage of rain water—and so on, but such measures call for regional cooperation!
Equally importantly, a nation with precarious water availability, like Egypt, would do well to put a check on population growth, since there is a Malthusian equation at work here. Nearly a quarter of a century ago, Bleier had warned: “The case of the Nile Basin is an excellent example of the impact of population growth, resource scarcity, human suffering and turmoil, authoritarian governance, the creation of refugees, the spread of environmental stress and inefficient and unjust economic practices…Egypt’s rapidly growing population—currently more than 63 million people (1996) and growing at a rate of 2.0% a year—is dangerously pressing against the natural limits of land and water.”21 Today, twenty-five years later, Egypt’s population is estimated to be no less than 100,075,480—cause for serious concern!
Over all, before Egypt can legitimately complain about water shortage, it should adopt mitigation measures—chief among which is controlling loss—which do have a tangible impact on water sustainability. The old maxim, “waste not, want not,” which enjoins individuals to live within their means, is an apt credo which applies to nations as well, since they need to set a good example in husbanding resources prudently. Yet, at present, the Nile is being over-stretched to cover ever larger areas with water needs, stressing this finite resource beyond its limit. Particularly worrisome is the fact that the Nile has been diverted from its natural confines in Africa to meet the demands of people in the Gaza Strip and the Negev Desert in Israel. As Gashaw points out, since the late 1990s, Israel “has acquired a steady flow of Nile water that Egypt has continued to supply, despite initial geopolitical concerns. Indeed, likely on account of this steady flow of vital water, Israel currently prioritizes its relationship with Egypt…over Ethiopia…”22 Moreover, it is worth pointing out that Egypt does have alternative sources, such as its Sinai aquifers, and there are measures it can take. According to the article, “Egypt Seeks Alternatives to Possible Nile Water Loss from Ethiopian Dam,” by Ahmed Gomaa (May, 9 2021), Egypt can rehabilitate and reline canals and drains for better water flow, build and maintain pumping and lifting stations, desalinate sea water, and urge farmers to use modern irrigation systems in dryland and old lands to reduce water waste, since traditional practices consume the largest proportion of the Nile waters.23
What Should the Next Steps Be: Saber-Rattling, or Cooperation?
In a recent Tweet, Egyptian President, El-Sisi asserted: “We do not want to go to war with anybody, but we will not allow anyone to touch a drop of Egypt’s water”.24 This bellicose message, is a mirror image of what earlier Egyptian leaders had said, and it is regrettable. According to Bleier, in the wake of an assassination attempt on President Mubarak in 1995, then Foreign Minister, Amr Musa, responding to Sudan’s Islamic Leader Hassan al-Turabi, told him not to ‘play with fire,’ and former Information Minister Safwat el-Sherif said Egypt ‘rejects hollow threats [on water] from, the Sudanese regime. Any [Sudanese] wrongdoing or infringement will be met with full force and firmness.’ Finally, former Water Resources Minister Abdel-Hadi Radi also said that any agreement setting Nile water shares was a ‘red line that can never be crossed.’”25 Issuing such messages might boost the status of leaders in the esteem of their subjects, but it is hardly worthy of neighbors who, out of necessity, are stuck with each other forever. Beside the military threats, the current frenetic attempt to isolate Ethiopia diplomatically, or foment unrest throughout the country, will not usher in lasting solutions. This is all a case of barking up the wrong tree. What is at stake is a diminishing cross-frontier resource, and the sensible option is to weigh the fundamental interests of all stakeholders, define the challenges going forward, find equitable solutions, and pool all resources to coordinate mitigation efforts.
This writer does not pretend to be privy to what Ethiopia’s level of defense-preparedness is, or claim to know what is in each Ethiopian’s heart. He is not in a position to speculate on how the various combatants would fare, should the Egyptians and Sudanese instigate an all-out military dust up. And, as a person who will not be directly affected by any conflagration which may erupt as a result of the current beating of war drums, he considers it to be the height of hypocrisy to advocate war. Yet, as a concerned citizen of the world, he considers it his solemn duty to caution against resorting to adventurist bravado by anyone. With $1 billion+ per year, and the latest in military hardware Egypt has been receiving for more than 4 decades, some Egyptian leaders may be spoiling for a fight, against what they probably see as an adversary beset by all kinds of challenges. However, it is worth noting that, notwithstanding its myriad challenges, a nation with its back against the wall—which is what the coordinated demonization campaigns and the boastful military threats will lead to—will be a desperate nation indeed! Time and again, Ethiopia has stared into the abyss and stiffened its spine, and, if need be, it will do so again; this proud nation of 110 million people will not sully its sterling reputation for standing up to invaders and submit to naked aggression. In the 1930s, when the entire world turned its back on Ethiopia, and Italy deployed modern warplanes, tanks, and even nerve gas and unleashed a five-year reign of terror, its citizens rose to the challenge with whatever crude weapon they could muster. Even now, with all the ethnic unrest Egypt and Sudan have fomented, and the war against the terrorist TPLF which the U.S. is exploiting in this demonization campaign, I have little doubt that Ethiopians will rise to the occasion!
Before engaging in a game of chicken, Ethiopia’s two Arab neighbors would do well to note that the GERD is a source of pride for millions of patriotic Ethiopians, whose contributions—in the face of unrelenting Egyptian and Sudanese sabotage—have helped to make this project a reality. Also, as Cheeseman’s map shows, the Blue Nile has scores of tributaries, which can be dammed at minimum expense, so anyone reckless enough to start a war would do well to count on a protracted engagement.26 The sane alternative is to discard a zero-sum-game mentality, which is comfortable with the equation that, for Egypt and Sudan—and Israel—which contribute nothing to these rivers— to live in the lap of luxury, the seven African nations have to continue to be mired in appalling poverty, when they could share in the bounty which their rivers provide these nations! All concerned nations need to work on maintaining, if not increasing, the amount of water which even minor tributaries contribute, because global warming, urban sprawl, wanton destruction of trees, etc. are threatening to dry up streams which used to be bountiful and life-giving. It would be the height of madness to fight over dusty waterbeds! These are the stark choices!
Over all, Ethiopia has no nefarious agenda to withhold water from the riparian states. All that it wants to do, is just “wet its beak”, to borrow an expression from Mario Puzo’s classic, The Godfather—a fair and equitable share of the Nile water! What this bastion of African independence objects to is being tied to colonial-era edicts which constrain it from building anything bigger than miniscule (3-7 meters) earthen structures on minor tributaries. Although not many might know this, the Blue Nile has been stripping Ethiopia’s highlands of all their vitality for millennia, leaving nothing in return; it is about time this river earned its keep in Ethiopia! Thus, creating obstacles to the completion of a dam which promises to relieve Ethiopia of perennial poverty—just so Egypt and Sudan can maintain lush plantations for wealthy Arab nations, or give Egypt free rein to supply water to far-off Israel—is an outrageous travesty! It is not Ethiopia’s fault that Anwar Sadat signed a secret deal, declaring: “As an incentive, I promised supplying Israel with a part of Egypt’s share or the Nile Water to be used in reclaiming the Negev with the condition that the Jerusalem and West Bank issues be solved” 27
References:
1 R.E. Cheeseman, Lake Tana and the Blue Nile: An Abyssinian Quest, new impression, Frank Cass and Company Limited, 1968.
2 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, 1969
3 Ronald Bleier, “Will Nile Water Go to Sinai?: North Sinai Pipelines and the Politics of Scarcity,” Middle East Policy, September 1997, Vol V, No 3, pp. 113. https://mepc.org/journal/will-nile-water-go-israel-north-sinai-pipelines-and-politics-scarcity
4 Bleier, Ibid., p. 114.
5 Donald Trump, “President Asks Why the U.S. Would Want Immigrants from Shithole Countries,” January 12, 2018, You Tube. https://youtu.be/e-Odk4n_KeY
6 Howard W. French, China’s Second Continent: How a Million Migrants Are Building a New Empire in Africa, New York, NY, Alfred A. Knopf, 2014.
7 Donald Trump, “President Trump Says Egypt May Bomb Ethiopian Dam, You Tube,” October 4, 2020 https://youtu.be/eFpXz-Xbse4
8 Casablanca, “I am shocked, shocked that Gambling is going on here,” 1942 https://youtu.be/SjbPi00k_ME
9 Amen Gashaw, “The Renaissance of Water,” Harvard International Review, January 8, 2021. https://hir.harvard.edu/the-renaissance-of-water/
10 Francois Soudan, “How the CIA Got Patrice Lumumba,” The Africa Report, January 13, 2021. https://www.theafricareport.com/58653/drc-how-the-cia-got-under-patrice-lumumbas-skin/
11 Bleier, Ibid., p. 113
12 Bleier, Ibid., p. 114
13 Flooding in Khartoum https://twitter.com/i/status/1404892615036784643
14 Yoweri Museveni, Interview on “Kings of the Nile,” You Tube, May 2021 https://youtu.be/wZVoug4W53k
15 Museveni, Ibid
16 Cheeseman, Ibid., p.108
17 Phillippa Ambrose, "Water Hyacinth chokes lake Victoria." Marine Pollution Bulletin 34. 6 Jun1997
18 Anthony Rodriguez and Martin Odero, “Converting Water Hyacinth to Briquettes: A Beach Community Based Approach”. International Journal of Sciences: Basic and Applied Research, https://gssrr.org/index.php/JournalOfBasicAndApplied/article/view/124
19 Bleier, Ibid., p 115.
20 Bleier, Ibid., p. 114
21 Gashaw, Ibid.
22 Ahmed Gomaa, “Egypt Seeks Alternatives to Possible Nile Water Loss from Ethiopian Dam,” https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2021/05/egypt-seeks-alternatives-possible-nile-water-loss-ethiopian-dam
23 Abdel Fattah El-Sisi’s tweet, You Tube, April 8, 2021 https://youtu.be/w9db6iz6XfA
24 Bleier, Ibid., p. 116
25 Cheeseman
26 Bleier, Ibid., p. 114
27 Qtd. in Bleier, 1997
The article represents the author’s viewpoint. You can contact the author through the Horn of Africa Insight at info@hornafricainsight.org.