Misplaced opposition to the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam

By Minga Negash, Seid Hassan and Mammo Muchie


I

The 1929 Nile water allocation agreement that was signed by Egypt and the United Kingdom (which excluded Ethiopia and nearly all other upper basin countries) allocated 48 billion (65%) cubic meters of water per year to Egypt and 4 billion to the Sudan. The 1959 agreement between Egypt and the Sudan raised the share to 55.5 (75%) billion and 18.5 billion cubic meters to Egypt and the Sudan, respectively. This agreement also excluded all the other upper Nile riparian nations. Egypt wants to keep the colonial-era agreements and the 1959 accord. This unfair allocation of the Nile water enabled Egypt to construct the Aswan Dam and the two countries never cared to consult the upper riparian nations. As argued by Badr Abdelatty, a spokesman for Egypt’s Foreign Ministry, Egypt wants to keep the status quo because it needs all the “assigned 55 billion cubic meters a year for vital use such as drinking, washing and sanitation needs” by 2020. This clearly indicates Egypt’s desire to secure its own Nile water-related benefits intact while at the same time denying other (Sub-Saharan) Nile riparian countries from using their own waters for alleviating poverty and enhancing sustainable development. Contrary to the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) that was formalized in 1999 that Egypt was a party to, it is now saying that any change to the colonial era agreement would be tantamount to affecting its strategic interests and repeatedly threatens to use all means available if Ethiopia continues to build the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). Egypt continues to escalate the confrontation despite

Ethiopia’s claim that the dam would have no appreciable negative impact on Egypt. Ethiopia, along with the other upper Nile riparian countries object the privileges that Egypt gave itself and consider Egyptian monopoly over the Nile waters as a violation of their sovereignty. In accordance to the 2010 Entebbe Agreement by the upstream countries, which included Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania, and now effectively Sudan and South Sudan), Ethiopia, therefore, insists on adhering to its plan and is forging ahead on constructing the dam.

In what follows, we use an amalgam of economics, history, law, security and environment factors to examine the Egyptian opposition to the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). We try to triangulate these factors hoping to contribute to the debate and gain insight into the current tension between Egypt and Ethiopia. We attempt to make a dispassionate analysis of the water sharing problem between upstream and downstream countries. Consistent with theory and real life cases, we surmise that water has been and continues to be the cause for conflict in a number of regions in the world and, unfortunately, water wars tend to be irrational, unsustainable and economically and socially destructive. Trans-boundary water sharing and pollution (environmental-ecological) problems are never resolved through hegemonies, militarism and ultra-nationalism.

​Dissenting voices against mega projects such as GERD are not new- the criticisms ranging from cost and scheduling overruns (as a recent study by Ansar, Flyvbjerg, Budzier and Lunn of Oxford University shows), to their impacts on population dislocation, corruption, transparency in awarding of contracts, the manner in which such projects are financed, social and environmental impacts in upstream and downstream countries and water security concerns. Hence, Ethiopians may legitimately ask questions and raise concerns about the manner in which the Government of Ethiopia is handling the project. In this article, however, we focus on trans-boundary environmental problems, the fair use of the Nile water and address Egyptian concerns. This is important because the construction of GERD has reignited the long standing explosive issue of the equitable use of Nile waters. We also believe the recent (counterproductive) Egyptian threats of war and various forms of diplomatic offensives require the attentions of scholars of substance and policy makers.

Egyptian worries and aspirations over the Nile River system however is historical and goes back to the days before the formation of the Egyptian nation/state even though the issue began to dominate the country’s political landscape with the generation of militarism and ultra-nationalism (from Gamal Abel Nasser to the late President Sadat’s 1979 threat of war and to the current leaders of Egypt vowing not to lose a “drop of water).” The recent political instability in Egypt must have made the trans-boundary water sharing problem a point of political opportunism. Reports indicate that Egypt may indeed be laying the ground work to “destroy the dam before Ethiopia starts filling it with water or risk flooding Sudan's flat eastern territories upon its destruction.” A WikiLeaks report is also known to have revealed that Egypt, in collaboration with Sudan, had plans “to build an airstrip for bombing a dam in the Blue Nile River Gorge in Ethiopia.” In its June 2013 analysis of Egypt’s military options, Straighter, a global intelligence organization indicated that the country does have military options against Ethiopia’s dam, but noted that distance will heavily constrain Egypt’s ability to demolish the work. The options, however, may include air attack from bases in the Sudan, Djibouti and Eritrea and/or sponsoring present day local “militants” to frustrate the construction of the dam. Obviously, Ethiopia is aware of the Egyptian options and its age-old aspiration to control the sources of the Nile River system. For example, on April 17, 2014, amid reports that Egypt was trying to woo South Sudan towards its dispute over Nile waters, the Voice of America reported that the President of South Sudan assured the Ethiopian authorities that the recently signed military and economic cooperation between Egypt and South Sudan would not allow Egypt to attack Ethiopia or allow subversive activities.

Egypt’s policy towards upstream countries is primarily driven by its interest on the water which aims at thriving at the misery of downstream countries, apparently without any form of substantive reciprocity. In contrast to the present day relationship between Egypt and Ethiopia, their ancestors, despite their limited knowledge of geography and hydrology, had a better understanding of the economics of water sharing. As the renowned historian Richard Pankhurst documented, the Turkish Sultan who ruled Egypt before the British, had “paid the ruler of Ethiopia an annual tax of 50,000 gold coins” lest the latter diverts the Nile. Nowadays, and not surprisingly, even the Egyptian Minister of Antiquities is against the GERD. In fact, institutional memories and abundant documents of the last sixty years indicate not only just the inconsistency, but also an immense level of damage that Egyptian foreign policy has done to Ethiopia and the Sudan. Egyptian interference in the two countries’ internal affairs has been largely driven by the Ethiopian and the Sudanese use of the Nile waters. For instance, Egypt objected the independence movement in South Sudan but promoted the separation of Eritrea and the creation of one of the most densely populated landlocked countries in the world. The international community is not unaware of these facts but Egypt’s strategic location and its pivotal role in the politics of the Middle East did not allow the powers to be to call a spade a spade. As of late, intergovernmental organizations like the African Union which were once mute about the behaviors of successive military rulers of Egypt, who often controlled political and economic power under the cover of phony elections and revolutions, have started to recognize the problems of the Nile River system. Ethiopia’s and the other upstream riparian countries’ rights to equitably share the waters of Nile is now an African agenda though key members of the Arab League continue to support the position taken by Egypt.

Ethiopia’s right to use the water that originates within itself would have included (and, in our view, should include), in addition to power-generating purposes, irrigation, water recreation and navigational services, flood control as well as water storage and supply. It is obvious, therefore, that dams provide valuable economic benefits. Just like any mega project, dams also involve several side-effects, which could be summarized as environmental and ecological, social (forced relocation of locals), economic and even political. Other concerns may include evaluating and managing the risks associated with dam construction as well as asking questions whether the product (GERD in our case) would provide the desired and needed benefits to stakeholders such as access to electricity. A reasonable framework of concern about dam construction, therefore, would include a thorough benefit-cost analysis, not just one-sided focus on the costs. This is our major concern in regards to environmentalists and some of their Ethiopian supporters who campaign against the 6000 MW dam.

The environmentalists refer to the GERD as a “white elephant,” despite the fact that the project’s leaked document, alleged to be prepared by International Panel of Experts (IPE) showing favorable financial and social benefits to Ethiopia and the Sudan. Environmentalists such as the International Rivers Network (IRN) need to, therefore, quantify the magnitude of the side effects of the project and should not rely on “covert” and “secondary” data. More importantly, rather than being the butterflies of potential conflict in the Eastern Nile region, they need to: (i) acknowledge Ethiopia’s sovereign rights to use its own resources in accordance to international law and without hurting downstream countries; (ii) identify mitigation strategies so that genuine concerns are addressed before the construction is finalized; and (iii) propose how the mitigation strategies are going to be financed. In April 2014, the California based environmental pressure group which is against any form of large dam that is proposed to be built in Africa and Asia leaked the 48 pages long confidential document that was prepared by International Panel of Experts (IPE) on Ethiopian Grand Renaissance Dam. Now that the confidential report is in the public domain, it allows everyone to put to test the concerns of both the friends and foes of the GERD.

II

The key features of the IPE’s report could be summarized as follows:- (i) unlike the options of smaller dams which would have included potential irrigation projects, GERD is an energy production project and any fear of large and permanent reduction in the flow of freshwater to downstream countries is unfounded; (ii) the filling up of the dam is planned, to be done in stages by taking into account rainfall patterns and the catchment area; (iii) both the financial and social cost-benefit preliminary analysis of the project on upstream and downstream countries are favorable and the expected damages on downstream countries are not insurmountable; (iv) the preliminary findings about the project’s side effects on Egypt is not sufficient and hence there is an information (hydrological) void, and much of the current allegations and threats are based on unfounded Egyptian fears; (v) work has progressed to the extent that, at the time of writing this article, the project has reached a degree of completion rate of 31% and the water diversion has been successfully carried out; (vi) the expected loss of water due to evaporation for the new project is not worse than what Egypt is currently losing from its environmentally unfriendly projects and poor water management; (vii) recent geological and hydrological studies have documented an abundant level of ground water in the Nile basin countries and hence downstream countries will not be thirsty if upstream countries build dams that generate electricity. It is clear, therefore, that Egypt’s no dam policy or stance against large energy producing dams in upstream countries is a misplaced opposition and therefore calls for a new thinking in Cairo.

As Professor Aaron Wolf of Oregon State University observes, there are about 261 trans-boundary rivers across the world and unless carefully handled a significant proportion of these rivers could be causes of conflict. Wolf documented that water has been the cause of political tensions between a number of countries, including but not limited to Arabs and Israelis; Indians and Bangladeshis; Americans and Mexicans, the Chinese and other downstream countries, Brazilians and Paraguayans and all the ten riparian states of the Nile River system. He observes that “war over water seems neither strategically rational, nor hydrographically effective nor economically viable.” In other words, there is little reason for a “water war” between Egypt and Ethiopia. The two countries can also learn from inter-basin development projects that are successful, such as the Colorado River Basin allocation between the US riparian states and Mexico, the Columbia River Agreement between the US and Canada and the numerous European collaborative projects and integrated river basin managements of the River Rhine. In particular, Egypt and Ethiopia could learn a lot from South Africa paying Lesotho to quench its increasing thirst from the Lesotho Highlands Waters Project. The framework for exploiting the Niger River Basin, the Zambezi River basin and the Nile Basin Initiative itself could serve as useful points of departure for cooperation.

Notwithstanding the above, Egyptian politicians often argue about “historical rights” and connect the water issue with the civilizations of the antiquities on the Nile delta and forget about the history of the formation of nations and states. Evidently this stance is self-serving in that it ignores historical tensions between black people in the region (present day Sudan, South Sudan, Niger, Eritrea and Ethiopia, among others) and the race controversy in the African origin of humanity and the history of the Nile Valley (see for example Martin Bernal’s Black Antenna, 1987; Anta Diop, among others). The politics of the Nile River system thus has an Africa-Arab dimension and hence sensitive to Pan Africanist and Pan Arabism agendas. Hence, if a conflict between Egypt and Ethiopia erupts, it is more than likely to have spillover effects on the rest of Africa.

Like most of the post colony states of Africa, modern and independent Egypt was created out of the ashes of colonialism (see for example Achille Mbembe and Samir Amin, among others). Britain’s colonial interest on the Nile dam at Lake Tana (main source of Abay/Blue Nile) is the foundation of Egypt’s historical and legal claims to the water. Britain’s interest however was primarily driven by its desire to irrigate its large cotton plantations in the Anglo Egyptian colony of the Sudan and supply its factories which were located in the United Kingdom. Modern day cotton plantations in Egypt are entirely dependent on the soil that gets exported by the river primarily from Ethiopian highlands. In a series of short articles, Dr. Yosef Yacob documented the history of colonialism in the region and indicated how Emperor Menelik (1844-1913) and Emperor Haile Selassie (1892-1975) managed to escape Britain’s colonial ambitions over the Ethiopian highlands. He also revealed how Emperor Haile Selassie was visionary in that he successfully resisted Britain’s encroachments on Lake Tana by hiring an American engineering company to construct the dam and trying to finance the project through the issuance of debt securities in the United States. In other words, had the Emperor’s wishes were realized, the GERD would have been built a long time ago. We have yet to see any reasonable criticism of Dr. Yosef Yacob's treatise by those who oppose the construction of the dam.

The next leg of the Egyptian opposition is international law. Here too the argument collapses before it faces the scrutiny of legal scholars. Egyptian officials often refer to the 1929 colonial era agreement and the 1959 agreement signed between Egypt and the Sudan (both former British colonies) that Ethiopia was not party to and had never consented to. First, it is important to note that colonial treaties have no direct relevance for resolving Africa’s contemporary problems. The Nile basin countries have already rejected it. Thus, the dominant view is that trans-boundary assets belong to the post-colonial states and the new states have to agree how to share their jointly owned assets. Second, Ethiopia was and is an independent state and it was not a party to the 1929 and 1959 agreements. Historical records also indicate that Britain, Egypt and the Sudan conspired and excluded Ethiopia from the negotiation. In this respect, Wuhibegezer Ferede and Sheferawu Abebe, writing on the Efficacy of Water Treaties in the Eastern Nile Basin, Africa Spectrum, 49, 1, 55-67 (2014) outline two approaches that evolve from the principles of international law. The authors show the fundamental differences between upstream and downstream countries in that upstream countries (Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea and South Sudan) appear to favor clean slate policy while downstream countries (Sudan and Egypt) favor colonial treaties. Notwithstanding the preference of one or another form of legal principle, Egypt’s insistence on colonial treaties collapses simply because Ethiopia was not a colony of Britain or indeed any other European power.

III

Now that we have seen Egypt’s historical and legal arguments falling apart, the next step is to examine the third foundation of the Egyptian stance - the environmental aspects of the dam. Previous literature indicated that carbon emissions and contaminations of rivers that cross national boundaries are examples of trans-boundary environmental problems. Hence, policy formation requires enforceable global treaties, sound national policy and the examination of advances in a number of disciplines. Furthermore, investments in big national projects such as stadiums, mineral extraction, oil and gas, canals, big dams, highways, and big architectural projects add behavioral and political dimensions to the science, technology and the economics of such undertakings. Most of the finest buildings and stadiums that host world cup games were and are being constructed in that national pride. And behavioral and emotional factors dominate financial arguments. In other words, national projects by their nature have behavioral dimensions and may not be captured by the paradigms of rationality and net present values. Time will tell whether the Ethiopian dam is different.

The mainstream literature on environmental economics focuses on welfare measurement, sustainability, technological change, externality and green accounting. The world commission on environment and development (aka the Bruntland Commission, 1987), for example, states that “sustainable development is meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. Consistent with this understanding, the Nile River system has both trans-boundary and non-trans-boundary features for the riparian states and hence Egypt, in theory, may have a cause for concern. This concern can nonetheless be resolved through international instruments and institutions and bilateral relations that are based on mutual respect and trust. The international convention on the protection and use of trans-boundary and international lakes which was signed by nearly 40 countries does not provide the base for resolving disputes, and worse, no country from Africa (including Egypt) has actually ratified it. It nonetheless can be another point of departure. The United Nations Environmental program could also be a facilitator. Furthermore, as noted earlier, Africa has frameworks for inter-basin development. The Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) has been a major institutional development which enables all riparian states to collaborate and act as equal members. Egypt’s effort to undermine this agreement is a mistake.

Other features of the leaked report of the International Panel of Experts covers the main factors of the project. Among other things, it confirms that: (i) GERD is economically feasible; (ii) the design meets international standards, subject to minor “corrections”; (iii) the contractor is reliable and has extensive international expertise and reputation in building large dams; (iv) the environmental impact study within Ethiopia is adequate and the trans-boundary effect on the Sudan is favorable and controls flood; and (v) the section on trans-boundary effect on Egypt requires additional study using complex models and actual data rather than reliance on desk work. In short, the authors of the 48 pages-long confidential report did not say that they expect a catastrophe and the vanishing of the Egyptian nation if the project gets completed. In short, Egypt is not in any imminent danger. This conclusion has ramifications for the multilateral institutions that refused to finance the project. In summary, Egypt’s opposition to GERD is indeed misplaced. Its return to the negotiation table and the African Union and the ratification of the Nile River Basin Cooperative Framework and Convention on the Protection and Use of Trans-boundary Watercourses and International Lakes are avenues for resolving the sticky problems of water sharing.

Dam! White Elephants in Ethiopia?

The Self-made Egyptian and IRN Attorney, spoke out again, it is laughable! These people do not know what they are doing let God forgive them, I am not sure why he is sabotaging the Ethiopian oppositions, do we Ethiopians listen to this crap? he is support the number one Ethiopian enemies, the worst part he is representing the Ethiopian national transitional committee ENTC or whatever you call them, these people they must be in a day dreaming, they cannot achieve their goal by sabotaging the Ethiopian interest. Or they are under estimating the Ethiopian people conscious. Now I start believing that these people are getting paid from Egyptian government and they do not want any good thing to happen in Ethiopia, as long as their personal financial interest is secured and Dr Alemayehu G Mariam is an Ethiopian Muhammad Shamsaddin

AL MARIAM'S COMMENTARIES

DEFEND HUMAN RIGHTS, SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER

Last week, in a bizarre display of faux outrage and indignation, the regime in Ethiopia unleashed its big “experts” to go after International Rivers, an organization that has been leading the global struggle to protect rivers and the rights of indigenous communities that depend on them for nearly three decades. International Rivers, headquartered in Berkeley, CA., is committed to promoting sustainable use of water and rivers throughout the world. The organization has done extraordinary work in Africa, Asia and Latin America to “prevent destructive dam development, promote effective flood management practices, reform the policies and practices of international financial institutions, and advocate water and energy solutions that are sensitive to human rights and environmental sustainability.”
The regime’s nameless, faceless and conscienceless “experts”, hiding behind the anonymity of “professional Ethiopians well versed with and advising on GERD Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam related issues”, unloaded a torrent vituperative diatribe against International Rivers in the vintage style of their late hate master of name-calling, cheap shots and put-downs, Meles Zenawi. In a hatchet job polemic entitled, “A Proxy Campaign against Ethiopia?”, the “GERD national panel of experts” (“GERD experts”) jumped on International Rivers like a pack of hungry junkyard dogs on a squirrel.

The “GERD experts” took no prisoners in demonizing and hyperbolizing International Rivers. They moaned that International Rivers is “ this self- appointed ‘guardian’ of all rivers of the world, [and] has been leaving no stone unturned in its effort to subvert Ethiopia’s efforts to develop its water resources and lift its vast and growing population out of poverty.” Whoa! IRN, the Poseidon (the mythical Greek god of seas and waters)!

The GERD experts came out swinging. No more kid gloves. It’s going to be all bare knuckles. “Apart from being amused, the NPOE [National Panel of Experts] so far had chosen to ignore IRN’s anti- Ethiopia lobbying which is driven by an ideological, if not fanatical-messianic mission to ‘protect [the world’s] rivers and … to stop destructive dams’. IRN is accuser, police, judge and jury all rolled into one. IRN determines for countries, particularly for developing and poor countries like Ethiopia, how to do water resources development projects the ‘right’ way.” Dam! Can “IRN” do all that? Who could have suspected “IRN” was the world’s “riverine policeman”?

“GERD experts” proclaimed, “IRN is the high priest that communes with God the Almighty and determines what is the most environmentally appropriate, most efficient and economical, and most beneficial for local, national and regional not only flora and fauna but also human communities too. What paternalism!!... IRN, the all-knowing God of water resources development, is angry that Ethiopia did not observe its commandment of good water resources planning…” Hot diggity dog! IRN, the Divine! IRN the “Omni Potens”. IRN, the Godhead!

“GERD experts” declared a “water war” on International Rivers: “It would be unconscionable for us as professional Ethiopians well versed with and advising on GERD related issues to keep on looking at these people with bemusement and indifference when they peddle, clearly siding with Egypt, distorted, unsubstantiated and hostile mercenary propaganda against GERD and the Ethiopian people…. In all its ranting does IRN feel obliged, even if to feign decency, neutrality and disinterest, to mention Ethiopia’s need and desperation. By the way, is not Sudan a downstream country? Why does IRN shut up about Sudan’s identification with and support for GERD?!!!!!!!!! Why does IRN dwell and fight exclusively for Egyptian interests.” How deflating to learn that “IRN”, “the high priest that communes with God the Almighty”, is actually nothing more than an Egyptian stooge and puppet?

Who (what) is this divine, police, judge and jury all rolled into one, superpower and Egyptian stooge called “IRN”?

Why is “IRN, the all-knowing God of water and the high priest that communes with God the Almighty” angry at the regime in Ethiopia? How is the wrath of “IRN, the all-knowing God of water” being visited on the regime in Ethiopia?

The “GERD experts” claim that “IRN” is angry at them because they have rejected “IRN’s discouragement of the idea of dam building in Ethiopia”. The regime refuses to accept “IRN’s message that Ethiopia should stop being ‘provocative.” “IRN” is angry because “Ethiopia will not change the parameters of the project!” “IRN” is angry because it has failed as a “lobbyist for its Egyptian paymasters.” “IRN”, the “all knowing God of water and the high priest that communes with God the Almighty” is angry because its “concern is Egypt’s water security, not Ethiopia’s poverty, water, energy and food insecurity!”

The “GERD experts” claim to have exposed “IRN’s” diabolical strategy to destroy the regime’s plans to build dams in Ethiopia: “Stage 1: Dissuade them! True to its anti-dam creed, IRN did its best to discourage the idea of dam building in Ethiopia in the first place… IRN never loses opportunity to lobby for its Egyptian paymasters… Stage 2: Smear campaign. When its dissuasion tactic failed and GERD implementation proceeded on with earnest, IRN had to embark on … a smear campaign… IRN, the all-knowing God of water resources development, is angry that Ethiopia did not observe its commandment of good water resources planning… Stage 3: Create Alarm! IRN, noticing that its dissuasion and smear campaigns did not achieve its goals of stopping GERD at its inception or planning stages, embarked desperately to create alarm among the international community and downstream countries the fervor of which the Egyptians might envy. Stage 4: Conduct a Stop Them Campaign! IRN, realizing its preceding three maneuvers did not yield any meaningful result, had to come to the open, reveal itself and launch its outright and blatant campaign against the GERD…”

“Cry ‘Havoc!’, and let slip the dogs of water wars…”

In Julius Caesar, Shakespeare wrote, “Cry ‘Havoc!’, and let slip the dogs of war”. The regime in Ethiopia is crying “Havoc!” and letting slip its dogs of dam wars on “International Rivers Network”. I am very familiar with the work of International Rivers and the extraordinary accomplishments of that organization in protecting rivers and indigenous people throughout the world. I am not only awed but also humbled by the tenacity and unrelenting efforts of International Rivers to call international attention to the plight of the indigenous people of the Omo River Basin (ORB) in southwest Ethiopia. A few weeks ago, I expressed my deep gratitude (and confessed my own shame) to International Rivers and the other human rights organizations who have spoken up in defense of the defenseless people of the ORB. When I and millions of other Ethiopians kept silence in the face of the regime's crimes against humanity inflicted on the people of the ORB, it was International Rivers, among others, which stood up and spoke for them and suffered the slings and arrows of that ruthless regime, as they are doing right now. I publicly confessed in my commentary, “The Race to Save Ethiopians Damned by the Dam”.



It is painful for me (frankly, I am ashamed) to admit that two years after I wrote that [a previous commentary], we [Ethiopians] are still on the sidelines watching while the international human rights and environmental organizations are still doing all of the heavy lifting for us and keeping up the race to save our people. I find myself asking the same questions over and over, without answers: Is it fair to have the international human rights and environmental organizations doing all of the heavy lifting for us in the ORB? When these organizations show so much care and concern for our people and our country, why are we so manifestly unconcerned? Why is that we do not join and support the organizations speaking up for our people? Why is it that we do not come to the aid of these organizations and defend them against the slings and arrows of a vicious regime that slanders them and scandalizes their good works? …How can we justify to future generations that they owe their legacy of environmental conservation and protection of the indigenous peoples of the ORB to the tireless efforts of international organizations [such as International Rivers]? I ask my readers to think about these questions.

Now the regime has loosed its cackle of hyenas on International Rivers, but International Rivers is not intimidated. They struck back at the “GERD experts”. “Ethiopia’s government turned its sights on International Rivers after we published a leaked report by the international panel of experts charged with reviewing project documents for the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). Our summary of their report describes a number of outstanding concerns raised by the non-binding panel, including the inadequacy of the hydrological-impacts study (a key document for understanding how the dam will affect people and ecosystems downstream).”

International Rivers expressed dismay over “Ethiopia’s wild allegations.” It declared that “International Rivers does not take funding from any government institution, including Egypt. We are not ‘taking sides’ – we are impartial when it comes to critiquing destructive river projects and poor river management around the globe…”

International Rivers almost fell for the regime’s old tricks of putting their opponents on the defensive with bogus and outrageous accusations. The regime leaders perfected their art of war by demonization, labelling and slander when they practiced their infantile Marxism in the bush. Their style is to pump out a bunch of cockamamie, baseless and preposterous allegations and watch their opponents scamper to defend against them. They would label, tar and feather and tattoo their opponents and critics in their organization with outrageous accusations and lies to shut them up. Predictably, International Rivers did not take the regime’s bait to engage in pissing and mudslinging contests. International Rivers did not lower itself to the gutter. They are well aware of the old adage about “never wrestling with a pig in the mud. You get dirty and the pig loves it.”

Who are the “GERD experts”? What makes them “experts”?

If “A Proxy Campaign against Ethiopia?” is the proof of the expertise of the “GERD experts”, they have proven beyond a shadow of doubt that they are experts at insults, cheap shots, insolence, fear and smear, sneering and jeering and calumny. They have certainly not proven that they are experts in a field of knowledge or subject matter. Not only are the self-proclaimed “GERD experts” not experts, they do not even know what an expert is! An expert is someone who is “widely recognized as a reliable source of technique or skill whose faculty for judging or deciding rightly, justly, or wisely is accorded authority and status by their peers or the public in a specific well-distinguished domain.” Who are these nameless and faceless “professional Ethiopians well versed with and advising on GERD related issues”? Why do they not identify themselves by name, subject matter of expertise and institutional affiliation? What are their academic and professional credentials? What is their training, education, publication or work experience to buttress their claim of expertise?

Experts do not wear a veil on their faces, sit in the shadows sniping and broadcast to the world that they are “experts” and “professional Ethiopians”. Real experts do not challenge their opponents to pissing contests. Real experts step out into the open and debate the issues with other experts in public forums. Real expert have no problems presenting their credentials for scrutiny and challenge. Real experts deal with facts, evidence and logic, not emotions, fantasy and defamation campaigns. Real experts overwhelm their opponents with carefully conducted research and analysis, not insults and mud laden innuendos.

What self-respecting “panel of experts” would issue a public statement and say the following about an organization that is widely and internationally recognized for its riverine experts:



IRN is the high priest that communes with God the Almighty and determines what is the most environmentally appropriate…



IRN, the all-knowing God of water resources development, is angry that Ethiopia did not observe its commandment of good water resources planning…



IRN’s concern is Egypt’s water security, not Ethiopia’s poverty, water, energy and food insecurity!... Oh, international financiers beware! Do not put your money there. What shameless partisanship of IRN. Should we be accused if we suspect payment under the table?



It is obvious that in its desperation the IRN has been forced to come out and show its true color: a proxy for Egypt masquerading as an international environmental group fighting for the health of rivers!!



In all its ranting does IRN feel obliged, even if to feign decency, neutrality and disinterest, to mention Ethiopia’s need and desperation. By the way, is not Sudan a downstream country? Why does IRN shut up about Sudan’s identification with and support for GERD?!!!!!!!!!



Why does IRN dwell and fight exclusively for Egyptian interests, harps on their real or imagined and fabricated fears, while not uttering a single word about the waste incurred via the High Aswan Dam…



IRN never feels obliged to mention a single merit of GERD. It is a taboo!



IRN has no boundaries of shame. It accuses the IPOE members of ‘keeping silent”! Should every sensible human being on the face of the earth turn into a corrupt IRN partisan activist?

The foregoing statements sound like the “thugspeak” we have heard for nearly a quarter of a century, not expert testimony. Those statements originated in the minds of whack bush cadres, not self-respecting experts.

Temper tantrums and name calling are a poor substitute for a rigorous fact-based refutation of another expert’s opinions. Experts do not prove their cases by moaning and groaning, bellyaching, griping, grousing and whining. Experts do not engage in teeth gnashing, mudslinging and finger wagging. Could it be that the “GERD experts” are really “no experts” but mindless apparatchiks and cadres who will say and do anything to earn their daily bread from their paymasters?

Whenever the regime is confronted with the truth, its natural and predictable response is to squirm, fidget, squiggle and “Cry Havoc!” That is what the regime is doing now. The “GERD experts” said, “the straw that broke the camel’s back, so to speak, happened on March 31, 2014 when IRN posted on its website a piece entitled “ GERD panel of Experts Report: Big Questions Remain”. Manifestly, the regime must have been stung by International Rivers’ analysis of the so-called “leaked Experts Report”. That is why they are squealing like a stuck pig. They are shadowboxing and swinging (in the shadows), but no one can fight the truth. Correction. Only Meles could do that. When the European Union Election Observer Group in May 2010 caught Meles Zenawi with his hands in the ballot cookie jar, he attacked the Group with a torrent of insults straight from the gutter describing the months-long work of that Group as “trash report that deserves to be thrown in the garbage.” In August 2005, Meles, following the electoral drubbing of his party by a coalition of opposition parties in May, unleashed his wrath on European Union parliamentarian Ana Gomes and her election observer group. “We shall, in the coming days and weeks, see what we can do to expose the pack of lies and innuendoes that characterise the garbage in this report.”

The “GERD experts” are taking a page out of the Meles Zenawi “Book of Fear and Smear” to smear and create fear about International Rivers. “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” Not so for the regime in Ethiopia. “When the going gets tough, the regime gets in gear to jeer, sneer and smear.”

The “GERD experts” are “experts” just like their spiritual master Meles Zenawi. Everybody knows Meles was an expert on everything. He was an expert on the economy, politics, society, federalism, military strategy, international relations, whatever. Meles, the “expert”, was a “graduate” of a distance learning program called “Open University (OU)” in England. OU has an “open entry policy” where traditional admissions requirements are suspended for students to take undergraduate and graduate courses. What are the credentials of the “GERD experts”? Will they ever step out of the shadows and step into the public forums so we can see them and “learn” from their expertise? So here is the challenge to the “GERD experts”: Step up, show your faces, put your credentials on the table and openly join the debate, or shut the hell up!

Being called “alarmist”, “in the pay of Egyptian paymasters, “smear”-mongers, “anti-Ethiopian lobbyists”, “mercenary propagandists against GERD and the Ethiopian people”, “shameless partisans”, etc. by the regime’s “GERD experts” is like being called ugly by a frog

The regime called International Rivers all the names in the book. It is obvious that International Rivers’ analysis of the leaked report has made the regime madder than a nest of hornets. They accused International Rivers of being called “alarmists”, “in the pay of Egyptian paymasters”, “smear”-mongers, “anti-Ethiopian lobbyists”, “mercenary propagandists] against GERD and the Ethiopian people, shameless partisans, “a proxy for Egypt masquerading as an international environmental group fighting for the health of rivers”, etc. Being called these names by the faceless, nameless and conscienceless “GERD experts” is like being called ugly by a frog. International Rivers should not be surprised by all of the name-calling and mudslinging. The paymasters of the “GERD experts” are supreme experts in mudslinging and name-calling. They call Diaspora Ethiopians who disagree with them “extremist Diaspora”. “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice!”, proclaimed Barry Goldwater.

Shameless partisanship? The “GERD experts” bemoan International Rivers. “What shameless partisanship of IRN. Should we be accused if we suspect payment under the table?” I was thinking the same thing about Clare Short, Chairwoman of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative a few weeks ago. A few weeks ago, Short fell on the sword for the regime in Ethiopia trying to get it admitted into her “Club”. Her lobbying on behalf of the regime was so outrageous and offensive that she caused severe internal strife and a major rift in that organization. Truth be told, I had similar doubts. Had “there been payment under the table” for Clare Short for her to fall on the sword for the regime? I am just askin’.

Smear campaigns? The “GERD experts” accuse International Rivers of smear-mongering. Who put out those two fear and smear docutrash dramas called “Akeldama” and “Jihadawi Harekat” scandalizing Ethiopian Muslims? “Akeldama” began with a somber proclamation on the arrival of a bloodbath doomsday in Ethiopia: “Terrorism is destroying the world. Terrorism is wrecking our daily lives, obstructing it. What I am telling you now is not about international terrorism. It is about a scheme that has been hatched against our country Ethiopia to turn her into Akeldama or land of blood. For us Ethiopians, terrorism has become a bitter problem….”

Demonization and vilification campaigns? “The “GERD experts” accuse International Rivers for undertaking a “fanatical-messianic mission” to vilify the regime in the name of protecting the world’s rivers. How about the regime’s fanatical and diabolical orchestration of a full-court press demonization and vilification campaign against Atse Menelik II, the Nineteenth Century Ethiopian emperor whose centennial is being celebrated this year (Ethiopian calendar). By demonizing Menelik and smearing his name, the regime tried to re-write, miswrite, overwrite and un-write Ethiopian history and replace it with the hagiography (tale of sainthood) of Meles Zenawi.

Mercenary propaganda? The “GERD experts” accuse International Rivers of fabricating “unsubstantiated and hostile mercenary propaganda against GERD and the Ethiopian people.” Which mercenary propagandist made the following statement in 1990 when asked about Ethiopian unity: “We look at this from the viewpoints of the interests of Tigray first, and then Ethiopia as a whole. We would like to see Eritrea continuing to have a relationship with Ethiopia. We know that Tigray needs access to the sea, and the only way is through Eritrea. Whether Eritrea is part of Ethiopia or independent, we need this access and, therefore, must have close ties. There are many Tigrayans in Eritrea. They are concerned. They don’t want to be treated as foreigners there…” Which mercenary gave away (and steadfastly refused to accept) Ethiopia’s outlet to the sea? Without an outlet to the sea, the much vaunted “Growth and Transformation Plan”, the brain child of Meles Zenawi, is today stuck in first gear and spinning its wheels in a quagmire of corruption and mismanagement.

Egyptian proxy? The “GERD experts” accuse International Rivers of being “A proxy for Egypt masquerading as an international environmental group fighting for the health of rivers!!” Who unleashed the proxy war in Somalia in 2006 causing the deaths of tens of thousands of Somalis and displacement of hundreds of thousands? In May, 2007, Meles told Al Jazeera, “We did not fight a proxy war on behalf of the United States. Indeed, the United States was very ambivalent about our intervention, once we intervened of course the United States and much of the international community was supportive….” However, a Wikileaks cable from June 2006 contradicts these statements.

White elephants in Ethiopia!

The problem in the dam debate is not the drivel and jabber of faceless, nameless and conscienceless “experts”. It is not even the machinations of “leaders” who have the ethics of hyenas and leadership qualities of snakes (in suits). The problem in Ethiopia is what to do about white elephants. A “white elephant” is an idiom for wasteful vanity projects that are “valuable but burdensome possession of which its owner cannot dispose and whose cost (particularly cost of upkeep) is out of proportion to its usefulness or worth.”

Dam ventures in Africa have largely proven themselves to be “white elephants”. Africa’s “Big Men” love big projects. Kwame Nkrumah built the Akosombo Dam on the Volta River, at the time dubbed the “largest single investment in the economic development plans of Ghana”. The adverse environmental consequences over the past several decades have been documented. Mobutu sought to outdo Nkrumah by building the largest dam in Africa on the Inga Dams in western Democratic Republic of the Congo (Zaire) on Inga Falls, the largest waterfalls in the world. In 2011, the entire board of DRC’s national electricity company was fired over frequent and recurrent power disruptions! Last month, the World Bank approved a $73 million grant to help the DRC develop an expansion of the Inga hydroelectric dam.

In the Ivory Coast, Félix Houphouët-Boigny built the largest church in the world, The Basilica of Our Lady of Peace of Yamoussoukro, at a cost of USD$300 million. It stands empty today. Self-appointed Emperor Jean-Bedel Bokassa of the Central African Republic (CAR) built a 500-room Hotel Intercontinental at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars while millions of his people starved. Today, exactly 20 years after the Rwandan Genocide, CAR is in the throes of communal and sectarian warfare described as mass “ethno-religious cleaning.” Moamar Gadhafi launched the Great Man-Made River in Libya, dubbed the world’s largest irrigation project, and proclaimed it the “Eighth Wonder of the World.” Ugandan dictator Yuweri Museveni built the Bujagali dam which was completed in 2012. The backflow from that dam has submerged a huge area of cultivable and settled land forcing migration and resettlement of large numbers of people.

Is GERD (a/k/a Meles Zenawi Memorial Dam) a white elephant?

Is GERD an Ethiopian white elephant? Dam right, it is! In my commentary, “Ethiopia: Rumors of Water War on the Nile?”, I argued that GERD/MZMD is the white elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about openly and earnestly. Meles, like all of his predecessor African dictators suffered from delusions of grandeur. Like his brethren African dictators, Meles wanted to have a big project that could immortalize him as the little “Big Man” of Africa. By undertaking white elephant projects, Meles sought to attain greatness and amass great fortunes in life and immortality in death. He only managed to amass mass contempt in life and in death. To be sure, he had a “dry run” on immortality when he commissioned the construction of Gilgel Gibe III Dam on the Omo River in southern Ethiopia which has been dubbed the “largest hydroelectric plant in Africa with a power output of about 1870 Megawatt.”

Like all of the African white elephants, the so-called GERD is a vanity make-believe project principally intended to glorify Meles posthumously, and magnify his international prestige while he was alive diverting attention from the endemic corruption that had consumed his regime as documented in the a 448-page World Bank report, “Diagnosing Corruption in Ethiopia”. Meles sought to cover his bloody hands and clothe his naked dictatorship with megaprojects and veneers of progress and development. Meles was the little “Big Man” of Africa with a Napolenoic complex. He sought to overcome his complex by making outrageously bogus claims of 11-15 percent annual economic growth and launching big dam and infrastructure projects.

Amused by the mudslinging of the “GERD experts”

It is amusing and fun to see the regime’s brain trust swinging wildly from the shadows. In all sincerity, I appreciate the fact that the “GERD experts” came out to defend their paymasters. They have every right to that. A dog must never bite the hand that feeds. Those who disagree with the regime also have every right to criticize it. It would be great to have open, civil and structured debates about a whole range of issues with the regime and its representatives. But the regime does not want earnest debates. It wants to engage its opponents and critics in pissing contests and mud wrestling matches. We will not lower ourselves into the gutter and they refuse to rise up to the surface and face public scrutiny. Such is the current stalemate!

No reasonable Ethiopian would disagree on the fact that Ethiopia’s hydrological resources should be put to proper use to serve the needs of the people. However, the regime must realize that it is not the only and exclusive stakeholder in determining the fate of Ethiopia or use of its natural resources. In as much as the regime accuses International Rivers of being the “high priest that communes with God the Almighty and determines what is the most environmentally appropriate”, it is doing exactly the same thing. They regime presents itself as the clergy of “high priests who commune with God Almighty”on the economic, social, political and cultural development of Ethiopia. To slightly modify what I have always said, “Preaching the need for pluralism in determining the economic, social, political and cultural development of Ethiopia to the regime’s “high priests who commune with God Almighty” is like preaching Scripture to a gathering of blind and deaf-mute Heathen.

George Bernard Shaw said, “Never wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.” Though I am rather amused by the regime’s efforts to drag International Rivers into a mud wrestling match, I am glad to see International Rivers declining the invitation for a mud fest in the regime’s quagmire. International Rivers should be proud for its global achievements over the past three decades. They should keep doing what they have been doing – fighting for the rights of indigenous peoples, protecting international rivers and winning the hearts and minds of ordinary people and policy makers alike the world over. International Rivers is no “high priest that communes with God the Almighty and determines what is the most environmentally appropriate” for the world; but thank God there is an International Rivers that will speak up and stand up for environmental justice in the eyes of man and God. There is no doubt the regime and its dogs of dam water wars will continue their efforts to drag International Rivers into their quagmire for another round of mud wrestling, a re-match, in the foreseeable future. My only advice to International Rivers is: “Stick to the rivers; leave the gutter to the experts!”

Thank you International Rivers for speaking up and standing up for Ethiopians in the Omo River Basin!

To be continued…

To be critical of you -- you certainly could have edited yourself down quite a bit. You will certainly improve your punch when you condense.

Having said that, I think you're on the right track in bringing this matter to light. The economics of giant public works projects in Third World countries has long been a scandal of large proportions.

Personally, I've spent many an hour with a United Nations rural development specialist, and he tells me that for projects like this -- over 99% of the costs (and benefits) go to financiers, bankers, construction firms, government bureaucrats of all stripes, and corruption.

So, I'm sure that International Rivers is totally justified in its position and that the Ethiopian government is in the wrong.

But then, Ethiopia is also guilty of a whole host of other sins. And each of these sins has to be examined succinctly.




old new lefty

April 21, 2014 02:24 AM

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A Proxy Campaign against Ethiopia? -Response by GERD National Panel of Experts

International River Network (IRN): “GERD Panel of Experts Report: Big Questions Remain, Monday, March 31, 2014”


-Response by GERD National Panel of Experts

For so many years now the IRN, International River Network, this self-appointed “guardian” of all rivers of the world, has been leaving no stone unturned in its effort to subvert Ethiopia‟s efforts to develop its water resources and lift its vast and growing population out of poverty. This is manifested most glaringly in its incessant negative campaign against the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), initiated from the very first days when the idea of water resources development on the Abbay was floated, including even through the Nile Basin Initiative.

Apart from being amused, the NPOE so far had chosen to ignore IRN‟s anti-Ethiopia lobbying which is driven by an ideological, if not fanatical-messianic mission to “protect [the world‟s] rivers and … to stop destructive dams”. IRN is accuser, police, judge and jury all rolled into one. IRN determines for countries, particularly for developing and poor countries like Ethiopia, how to do water resources development projects the “right” way. For these “backward” countries, IRN is the high priest that communes with God the Almighty and determines what is the most environmentally appropriate, most efficient and economical, and most beneficial for local, national and regional not only flora and fauna but also human communities too. What paternalism!!

Until now we did not find it worthwhile to get into polemics with what we thought were basically misinformed and misguided IRN campaign. That is, until now. But now we are compelled to revise our stance toward these people. The straw that broke the camel‟s back, so to speak, happened on March 31, 2014 when IRN posted on its website a piece entitled “ GERD panel of Experts Report: Big Questions Remain” in which IRN explicitly called on Ethiopia to halt the construction of GERD!!

It would be unconscionable for us as professional Ethiopians well versed with and advising on GERD related issues to keep on looking at these people with bemusement and indifference when they peddle, clearly siding with Egypt, distorted, unsubstantiated and hostile mercenary propaganda against GERD and the Ethiopian people. It would take pages and pages to show the intense partisan nature of IRN in its entirety. However, the next few paragraphs suffice to illustrate our concern and to show a clear pattern of IRN‟s growing hostility toward Ethiopia. IRN‟s campaign against GERD and Ethiopia happened in four overlapping but discernable distinct stages:

Stage 1: Dissuade them!

True to its anti-dam creed, IRN did its best to discourage the idea of dam building in Ethiopia in the first place. IRN put forth whatever argument to dissuade decision makers. Arguments included those dams of a GERD scale would drain the national budget, would distort priorities, would be difficult to fund, etc. Here is one quote from their website:
“The US$5 billion scheme [GERD] is out of scale for such a poor country; the current cost estimate equals the country’s entire annual budget. The costly project is monopolizing government funding for the energy sector, leaving many worthy projects that would directly address the nation's high energy poverty underfunded.”

IRN, in a piece titled “A Tale of Two Dams: Comparing Ethiopia‟s Grand Renaissance to Hoover” and “drawing lessons” from „follies‟ of the Hoover Dam, offered advice to Ethiopia: do not repeat USA‟s mistakes! We will not go into the contentious and invalid arguments, to say the least, put forward and better ignore IRN‟s unsolicited advice. What is interesting is the poison that is wrapped in the package of IRN‟s advice. Read on:

“Ethiopian engineers recently compared the Grand Renaissance Dam to Hoover as a project that can lift a struggling nation out of poverty, and a project whose accomplishments will go down in history. Yet the darker lessons from Hoover’s long history might be equally relevant for Ethiopia to review. Consider: The mega dam model is a dinosaur. Ethiopia would be better off leapfrogging over it to a more modern and efficient system, and find less provocative ways to assert its interests over the Nile waters” (emphasis added)
IRN‟s message is not only that Ethiopia should not build big dams. The message is also that Ethiopia should stop being “provocative”. IRN advises Ethiopia to assert its right other than through being provocative i.e. other than through deciding to build GERD. To IRN, Ethiopia‟s decision to build GERD is provocation!! So much, for IRN‟s “advice”!

When the above tactics fail, IRN, referring to an expert (which it conveniently pluralizes), sheds crocodile tears by stating that Ethiopia is wasting its scarce resources on oversized projects like the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. Here is another quote from their website:
“Ethiopia’s Biggest Dam Oversized, Experts Say Date: Thursday, September 5, 2013.
In May, Ethiopia diverted the Blue Nile to begin building its largest dam project to date, the 6,000 MW Grand Ethiopia Renaissance Dam (GERD) – a move that angered Egypt, which fears its water supply will shrink over the many years it will take to fill the huge reservoir. Besides the tensions this huge project is causing politically, there is growing concern that the dam will not produce nearly as much power as it has been designed to.” (Emphasis added)

Again, IRN never loses opportunity to lobby for its Egyptian paymasters. Not only does IRN talk about the “oversize” of GERD, but also about the Egyptians‟ negative emotions over GERD: anger and fear!
In yet another alarmist piece related to GERD, IRN bemoaning “Ethiopia's Dam Boom”, fabricates outrageous white lies:

“International Rivers is monitoring dam planning in Ethiopia, working to keep international donors from investing in the worst projects on the drawing boards, and sharing knowledge about better alternatives and the legacy of Ethiopia's past dams with international civil society.
Water for irrigation from large reservoirs is mostly earmarked for large-scale agricultural producers – and increasingly, for foreign agricultural developments taking advantage of a government-sponsored land leasing program. (Emphasis added)

Alas, IRN has nothing factual to show, in any of the GERD plans, to substantiate its claim that GERD is an irrigation project!! We should not dwell on this any longer for the facts speak for themselves.
Stage 2: Smear campaign
When its dissuasion tactic failed and GERD implementation proceeded on with earnest, IRN had to embark on what we may term its Stage 2 tactics: a smear campaign. Here IRN does all it can to find any fault – big or small, real or imagined- with GERD in a bid to discredit it in the eyes of the world, particularly funders. Here is one quote from an IRN piece of 06/07/2013 with an eye catching alarmist title “Why has the Nile become a Battleground?:
“This week, Ethiopia announced it was diverting the flow of the Blue Nile to begin building the huge Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. Within days, water-stressed Egypt – a downstream Nile Basin nation – called for Ethiopia to halt its work on the giant new dam. Why is the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam causing such strife? In addition to Egypt’s fears that it will reduce its lifeline of Nile waters, the tensions have been fanned by the project’s “SAD” planning process: • Secretive: Although it is Africa’s biggest dam project and will have lasting impacts on its longest river, it has been developed under a veil of secrecy. • Autocratic: The dam will impact Ethiopians and downstream neighbors, yet its planning process has been top-down and unilateral. The public and dam-affected people have not been given a meaningful opportunity to critique the project or process. • Dismissive: Ethiopian government officials have flatly stated they will not make changes to the project, and have asserted that the project will not have impacts on downstream countries
4 | P a g e
The dam poses a number of risks to these downstream neighbors; one reason for the growing tension is that these risks have not been properly analyzed. Egypt has virtually no other sources of water for its people, and is already making do with less water per person than the international average. By at least one estimate, the Grand Renaissance reservoir could evaporate 3bn cubic meters of water a year – three times Egypt’s annual rainfall, and enough to meet the basic needs of up to half a million people. The reservoir could take 3-5 years to fill, reducing Egypt’s water supply by up to 25%.
However, damming off a shared river in a secretive and unilateral fashion is a provocative approach to resolving conflict in a water-stressed basin such as the Nile. Says Mohamed Allam, former minister of irrigation and water resources in Egypt: “This is not just about Egypt and Sudan. International rivers are governed by laws and conventions, in accordance with which any action that affects water quotas requires advanced notice and guarantees against possible harm.” The Nile situation is not an isolated incident. Ethiopia is being similarly aggressive over the development of the shared Omo River, where it is building the controversial Gibe III Dam and developing large-scale plantations. These developments threaten Kenya’s Lake Turkana”. (Emphasis added)
IRN, the all-knowing God of water resources development, is angry that Ethiopia did not observe its commandment of good water resources planning.
Oh, GERD planning is too “secretive” concludes IRN. As if Egypt shared hers with us! IRN can dream all
it wants. But we deal in and with the real world.

GERD planning is autocratic says IRN – it was not discussed with its neighbors!
GERD planning is dismissive judges IRN – since Ethiopia will not change the parameters of the project!
Oh GERD is wasteful condemns IRN - It will evaporate 3 BMC of water annually, equivalent to a non-existent Egyptian rainfall! IRN is making this fabricated statement, while keeping mum on the 10-15 BMC annual evaporation loss the Egyptian High Aswan Dam is causing in the middle of the Sahara Desert! How “fair” of IRN!!

Oh yes, GERD is provocative, says IRN, referring to Mohamed Allam, of all people, a former Egyptian Minister hostile to Ethiopia and eternal defender of the self claimed Egyptian quota.
Oh yes, GERD is harmful bemoans IRN, because it is going to affect Egypt, which has no other source of water, which is making do with less water per person.

Oh, dear IRN folks, need we tell you that of all African Countries, surely of all Nile Basin countries,
potable water, while an Ethiopian girl of sixteen has to go on average 6 kilometers each day back and forth to fetch a gallon of water from a river or a dug hole!! How “fair” of IRN! IRN, as usual, never missed this opportunity to work on and provoke friendly and neighboring Kenya! As far back as Mach 2004, IRN, in a cynical piece on the Nile Basin Initiative titled “Can the Nile States Dam Their Way to Cooperation?” in the part which discussed the Tekeze Dam had “warned”:

“Ethiopia has reportedly neglected to formally consult with downstream Sudan and Egypt on the scheme, a decision which could further strain relations between the countries”
Oh IRN folks. What do you say to the appreciation Sudan is heaping on Ethiopia for the positive impact of that dam!!

Stage 3: Create Alarm!
IRN, noticing that its dissuasion and smear campaigns did not achieve its goals of stopping GERD at its inception or planning stages, embarked desperately to create alarm among the international community and downstream countries the fervor of which the Egyptians might envy.
IRN first attempted spinning or otherwise amplifying a conspiracy theory about GERD thus:
“The project’s launch came in the midst of the Egyptian revolution, which some observers believe was intended to take advantage of the more powerful nation’s confused political state at a time when the issue of who controls the Nile is heating up.”

IRN also “psychologized” Ethiopia‟s decision to build the GERD thus:
“Egypt has long held the majority rights to the Nile – a situation that especially angers Ethiopia, which is the source of 85% of the river’s waters.”
Be that as it may, the worst is that IRN seems to wish any conflict, violent or otherwise, between Egypt and Ethiopia is better than seeing the GERD completed. Here is another one:
“While there are no known studies about the dam’s impacts on the river’s flow, filling such a huge reservoir (it will hold up to 67 billion cubic meters of water, and could take up to seven years to reach capacity) will certainly impact Egypt, which relies almost totally on the Nile for its water supply. Development Today magazine reports that the Nile flow into Egypt could be cut by 25% during the filling period. Many fear the project could set off a water war in the region, and indeed, in mid-2013, tensions flared dramatically. Climate change could increase the project’s many risks. The potential for conflict is probably the main reason international funders have shown no interest in supporting the project.”
Again IRN‟s concern is Egypt‟s water security, not Ethiopia‟s poverty, water, energy and food insecurity! And then the allusion to conflict, referring to Many” (whoever they are!) who fear the almost inevitable conflict and war that would follow if Ethiopia proceeds with GERD. Oh, international financiers beware! Do not put your money there. What shameless partisanship of IRN. Should we be accused if we suspect payment under the table?

Stage 4: Conduct a Stop Them Campaign!

IRN, realizing its preceding three maneuvers did not yield any meaningful result, had to come to the open, reveal itself and launch its outright and blatant campaign against the GERD.
In a June 2013 piece titled “Why has the Nile River Become a Battleground?” the IRN speculated:
“But what if Ethiopia refuses to engage? Some believe the International Court of Justice should be called in. – a move that Ethiopia rejects. Others hope Ethiopia’s major donors will use their diplomatic leverage to intervene. . . .” The article further urged that “Western donors have thus far mostly stayed out of the debate on Ethiopia’s dam building. Yet Ethiopia is one of the world’s largest recipients of foreign aid. The US has been the largest donor to the country, through a range of programs. Ethiopia has been receiving $3.5 billion on average from international donors in recent years – a critical portion of its national budget. This assistance explains how such a poor nation can afford to build costly dams and irrigation infrastructure without dedicated funding. Western donors such as the United States have a responsibility to step up diplomatic pressure on Ethiopia …”
IRN‟s maneuverings and multifaceted campaigns notwithstanding, the GERD progress has continued unabated, almost a third complete, thanks to the whole hearted and unequivocal support for and rally of the Ethiopian people behind their project! IRN seems to have gotten desperate. There is nothing more telling of this than its latest piece, dated March 31, 2014, apparently based on a “leaked” IPOE report, full of lies and distortions, entitled “GERD Panel of Experts Report: Big Questions Remain.” Here is an extensive quote from that piece:

“The mega dam is being built on the Blue Nile in Ethiopia, near the Sudan border, and has created conflict with Egypt over its downstream impacts; the experts' study confirms Egypt’s concerns that the project’s impacts could be significant and are not well understood. Egypt has called for mediation if further studies are not allowed; at this writing, Ethiopia had refused, and was continuing with dam construction.

…. It is also clear that there is precious little oversight on Africa’s largest dam project to date. While the international panel has brought a type of oversight, it may be too little, too late – and with too little teeth; it seems the panel does not have a continuing role in ensuring best practices as construction proceeds. The panel’s report is almost a year old at this writing, yet its members have been mostly silent since their report was completed (as far as we know, none of the panelists have made public statements about the project). The Egyptian and Ethiopian governments continue the war of words, while at the same time construction on the mega dam proceeds, and questions raised by the panel remain unanswered. Going forward, International Rivers recommends

construction on the project be halted until all necessary studies recommended by the panel are completed, and a process is in place for ensuring public accountability on the project. Given the panel's findings, Egypt’s call for mediation in the process is reasonable, and donor governments and international bodies should support such a process” (emphasis added)
In the first place the IPoE did not have an “oversight” role as erroneously stated by IRN. The IPoE‟s role as defined by the three Ministers of water affairs of Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan is “ mainly facilitative, focused on promoting dialogue and understanding around GERD related issues of interest to the three countries so as to build trust and confidence among all parties.”
We appreciate the response to the biased IRN article posted on hornaffairs.com by Mr Danieil Berhane entitled, “ Anti=dam group doctors report, joins Egypt to stop Ethiopia’s dam” (April 6, 2014 hornaffairs.com). We invite readers to read this article for a line by line rebuttal to the IRN unsubstantiated and distorted writing entitled, “GERD Panel of Experts Report: Big Questions Remain,

Monday, March 31, 2014”
We would however like to pose our own BIG QUESTIONS to IRN:
Where in the IPoE report do the IRN experts find recommendation of the IPoE that states to stop or delay the GERD until the recommended additional studies are conducted??! Where in the report do the IRN experts find a statement that states “the experts' study confirms Egypt‟s concerns that the project‟s impacts could be significant and are not well understood.” ??!

What is peculiar with the panel‟s recommendation to conduct “a full transboundary environmental and social impact assessment … conducted jointly by the three countries.”, since theTransboundary Environmental and Socioeconomic Impact study conducted through the initiative of Ethiopia and based on desk study requires more data and information from the downstream countries??!

The desk study has clearly shown that all expected downstream impacts can be mitigated and thus the more detailed recommended studies will not change the major findings of the desk study. Other studies done by the Eastern Nile Technical Regional Office of the NBI have also confirmed that changes in hydrological conditions due to GERD are all manageable. Thus these additional studies do not necessitate the delay or stopping of the construction of the GERDP .

Instead of sowing seeds of mistrust with your unsubstantiated writings among the people of Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan, we offer our humble advice to appreciate the most obvious benefits of the GERDP for the downstream countries that may assist you to be rational and refrain from propagating irresponsible and biased information.

1. The energy generation from the GERD will enhance regional and economic integration such as through power interconnectedness, regional cooperation, trust and confidence building
2. Due to regulated and increased flows a longer period of navigation on the Nile River downstream HAD will be possible. This will have important benefits for the tourism sector by extending the present touristic period
3. The HAD reservoir capacity loss due to sedimentation will be reduced since the GERD Reservoir will store substantial quantity of sediments.
4. With GERD operating upstream, average annual HAD losses will be 9.5 BCM/year instead of 10.8 BCM/year in case of HAD alone. Losses by evaporation, decrease by 12% comparing to HAD alone situations
5. With GERD there will be increased flood control and due its routing capacity there will be better flood control downstream of HAD and Risk of HAD overtopping will be eliminated.
6. With GERD, the total storage capacity along the Nile River will significantly increase in the long term. This will reduce the risk due to hydrological variability with sequences of dry and wet years.
7. The GERD will regulate the flows of the Blue Nile and this will support flows arriving at HAD.
8. The GERD will reduce negative impacts on population and infrastructures in Sudan caused by recurrent floods.
9. The GERD will capture sediment, protecting irrigation canals and equipment from damages caused by sedimentation.
Conclusion

It is obvious that in its desperation the IRN has been forced to come out and show its true color: a proxy for Egypt masquerading as an international environmental group fighting for the health of rivers!!
In all its ranting does IRN feel obliged, even if to feign decency, neutrality and disinterest, to mention Ethiopia‟s need and desperation. By the way, is not Sudan a downstream country? Why does IRN shut up about Sudan‟s identification with and support for GERD?!!!!!!!!!

Why does IRN dwell and fight exclusively for Egyptian interests, harps on their real or imagined and fabricated fears, while not uttering a single word about the waste incurred via the High Aswan Dam (HAD), via the Toshka project, etc?
By contrast, IRN never feels obliged to mention a single merit of GERD. It is a taboo!
IRN has no boundaries of shame. It accuses the IPOE members of „keeping silent”! Should every sensible human being on the face of the earth turn into a corrupt IRN partisan activist?
The IRN! The IRN that resides in California, USA, whose activists never have endured or experienced what it means to go thirsty or hungry for days; the IRN, if it had all the power to do so would have halted all water resources development projects all over the developing world.
Or, is it only in Ethiopia?

Consider this: Prior to1950 large scale dams worldwide did not number more than 5000. By 2000 large scale dams were more than 40,000. As of 2006, they stood at over 50,000. IRN‟s campaigns notwithstanding, big dams are there to grow, especially in the developing world. So, given these trends what is IRN talking about, except to single out a single country, Ethiopia, and treat it as pariah and discourage its progress? Ethiopia never forgets the pains it had to bear due to its geography. Ethiopia has endured centuries of invasions and subversions by powers from far and close that aspired to control the headwaters of the Nile. Ethiopia has been prevented physically from accessing its water resources by keeping it busy with wars, direct or proxy wars. IRN‟s anti Ethiopia campaign is but a continuation of that history - by another means, that is.

Be that as it may, we condemn IRN‟s unfair and biased support for Egypt in its disagreements with Ethiopia contrary to its own mission state. We categorically reject IRN‟s paternalist and condescending advice to Ethiopia to accept its proposal and halt construction of GERD. What more do we need to prove our contention that IRN is doing ethically dubious job and propagating proxy campaigns against Ethiopia on behalf of Egypt.
We would like IRN, all friends and foes to know that the Ethiopian people are determined to develop their water resources and the construction of GERDP will not stop or delayed for a second.
***

Ethiopia: The Clash of Pax Britannica and Pax Africana Over the Nile River

By Nurye Yassin, 1 March 2014


opinion

Egypt's incessant insistence on its singular utilization, use and development of the Nile River remains a mantra, lingering on in north-eastern Africa as Egyptian politicians, opinion makers, academics and media continue to insist on the sacrosanctity of the exclusive entitlement of their country to the Nile waters.

This, of course, was implanted under the shade of the Pax Britannica, long gone except in Egypt. Equally, it is an insistence that appears incompatible with the Pax Africana to which the upstream states subscribe and which promotes the equitable and fair, mutually beneficial usage and development of the Nile for all present and future generations. Implementation of the Pax Africana use of the Nile, however, is under pressure from the diplomatic and political armory of Egypt's version of the Pax Britannica, which in theory offered Egypt full utilization of the River Nile under colonial-era agreements of the last century.

Egyptian presumptions about its control of the Nile waters are currently filling the output of its media, academia and politics and in its international relations as the Nile Basin countries leap into forging on an agreement that benefits all. They have also been sparked off by the launch of Ethiopia's Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam Project (GERDP), a central element in Ethiopia's efforts to escape from the repeated and painful experiences of famine, poverty and instability. Ethiopia's successful efforts to encourage fair share and utilization of the Nile waters have reactivated the selfishly unilateral illusions of Egyptian politicians, intellectuals and journalists even in this age of multilateralism. The Renaissance Dam has become the spark to encourage the politicians to try to revitalize the inviolability of their supposed 'acquired' and 'historical' rights.

They appear, regrettably, once again to have started another hydro-diplomatic and political campaign with the objective of trying to persuade European countries and international financial institutions to refuse any technical and financial support to the GERDP. A source from the Egyptian Government told the Al Monitor paper on February 19 that "Egypt will continue its international escalation and all options are open to us to protect our share of the Nile waters." He added that "more negotiations with Ethiopia only waste time and directly threaten Egypt's water security." Egypt has also launched a strategy of trying to encourage Arab countries to denounce the construction of the dam. One example of this came when Mohammad Abdel Motalib, the then Egyptian Irrigation Minister, vilified the Turkish Foreign Minister's recent visit to Addis Ababa. He went on to compare Turkey's Ataturk Dam with the Renaissance Dam, adding that the Ataturk Dam had left the Syrians and Iraqis thirsty. Egypt is planning not only to internationalize its anti-Dam campaign but also Arabize it to alienate Ethiopia in its friendly diplomatic, political and economic relations with the Arab world.

Egypt's moves to block funds and technical support to the development of the Nile and its tributaries are nothing new. Over the last century, diplomatic intrigues supplemented by colonial attitudes and Cold War rivalries, helped Egypt disrupt and prevent the Lake Tana projects in the early 1930s, the Abbay master plan studies (1958-64), the Gilgel Abbay project in the 1960s, the Tana Beles development project of the mid-1980s and a number of other proposed water development projects in Ethiopia. These efforts to disrupt and destroy development projects continued even during the periods when the peoples of Ethiopia were suffering from the disastrous droughts and famines of the 1970s and 1980s when millions starved and died. The concerns of Egyptian politicians for people have never extended beyond their own borders. Attempting to block financial and technical support was not the only strategy employed by previous Egyptian governments. Haggai Erlich, Professor of Middle Eastern and African History, has noted that President Nassir consistently deployed a hydro-political and geopolitical strategy to weaken Ethiopia and destabilize the country.

It was Nassir who first came up with the idea of a mythical, Eritrean Arabism, to encourage support for turning the Red Sea into an Arab sphere of influence as well as gaining control of the sources of the Blue Nile, after his equally imaginative idea of creating and leading a State of the Union of the Nile Valley collapsed. The government of President Sadat followed the idea up, requesting Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Kuwait and others to accept the responsibility of supporting the Eritrean revolt. The effect was to force any attempts at a development agenda in Ethiopia into necessary issues of security and defense. Professor Daniel Kende, using global intelligence sources, has also given details of the way Egypt committed itself to supply light and medium arms and explosives, military intelligence and expertise to the Government of Eritrea during in Ethiopia-Eritrea war during Mubarak's time in power after Eritrea invaded Ethiopia in May 1998. Destabilizing Ethiopia, in fact, was a central element in Egypt's strategy to extend its 'acquired' and 'historic' rights and avoid sharing the use of the Nile upstream. Planting his belligerence stance to solely marshal all the affairs of the Horn of Africa, President Isayas Afework has been struggling to weaken Ethiopia's march towards peace, stability and prosperity, according to a 2008 Chatham House Report. Based on his intransigent strategic goal, he expressed his support for Egypt's claim to 'historical rights' to the Nile waters through his Foreign Minister, Osman Saleh, and Advisor, Yemane Gebreab, in April 2013.

The recent high level exchange of visits and meetings between Eritrea and Egypt entail the stratagem to outfox Ethiopia's fight against poverty and instability and outwit upstream countries' efforts to replace the 'historical rights' of Egypt with a more reasonable and equitable utilization of the Nile waters. Nassir's Pan-Arab revolution did not confine its anti-Ethiopian policies to Eritrea. In addition to trying to undermine Ethiopia's geo-political interests in the Red Sea, it was also directed towards the Indian Ocean, encouraging the concept of 'Greater Somalia' in order to annex Ethiopia's Somali-speaking region and to encourage Somali nationalists to claim Harar, already known of course as one of the holiest places of Islam and the political center for the activities of Ahmed Gragn in the 16thcentury. The continuing effect of the conflicts and incursions from Somalia in the 1960s and 1970s, and subsequently, had a major impact in weakening any attempts by Ethiopia to eradicate poverty, drought and famine in the later part of the last century. Egypt, it might be added, took no interest in the effect its policies have also had on the lives of millions of Somalis as well as Ethiopians. In the 1960s, Emperor Haile Selassie expressed his apprehension over President Nassir's behavior, noting that "the Somalis would have never dreamt of such an idea without being incited by Nassir." President Nassir's successors have continued in the same approach, supporting President Siad Barre, and more recently stirring up various Somali extremists to oppose and attempt to destabilize Ethiopia.

The effects of all this can be seen throughout the Horn of Africa, in civil-wars, inter-state conflicts, drought, famine and other catastrophes. The main goal of Egypt's strategy in destabilizing Ethiopia as well as subverting its efforts to get funds for development of the Nile or indeed other projects has been to sustain the colonial treaties of Pax Britannica and its 'water imperialism'. This meant that the strategy is also directed against any efforts by other upstream countries to develop and use the Nile waters as part of the decolonization process and their own development. The result is a major fault line between Egypt, acting as promoter of the unjust use of the Nile River originally implanted by the British Empire, and Ethiopia and other riparian countries, the promoters of the Pax Africana's view of equal and fair utilization of the Nile under which all the peoples of Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, and all other upstream countries can find, discuss and find solutions to any disagreements over the use of the river.

It is particularly disheartening for upstream countries and for Ethiopia, of course, that Egypt persists in its outdated political and diplomatic efforts to try to internationalize water development projects. It stands in vivid contradiction to the concept of the Pax Africana that aims to promote and assist in the full engagement of Africans, all Africans, in the development of Africa's strategic efforts to maintain peace, stability, security and prosperity. As Ethiopia has persistently demonstrated, it believes in the pivotal role of 'genuine' dialogue and discussion to address the concerns of lower riparian countries over the GERDP. It immediately and unconditionally accepted implementation of all the recommendations of the International Panel of Experts' report, including the suggested studies for a hydropower model and on trans-boundary environment and socio-economic impact issues. At the same time, it is pushing ahead with the construction of the dam in a spirit of mutual development and mutual help based upon trust. The essence of Ethiopia's position is firmly established in a way that any disagreement over sharing of usage of the Nile River should be worked out and resolved by Africans themselves rather than by others from lands far beyond the Nile Basin. Ethiopia indeed is implementing the concept of 'African solutions to African problems.'

What has also proved disappointing to Ethiopia and other upper riparian countries is Egypt's continued conceptualization of the term 'security'. Egyptian politicians and intellectuals seem content to view 'security' as a matter of their own self-interest and 'right', for Egypt, and Egypt alone, to exploit the waters of the Nile solely and eternally. There is no room in this view for any upstream country to share in usage of the river. This characterization of the concept of 'security' hardly conforms to contemporary views of global interdependence. No nation today is sufficient to itself. Interdependence is the norm in the present world affairs. Mr. Jian Zemin, former Chinese President, identified the concept of 'security' with shared visions, interests and benefits of countries in his report to the CCPC. He emphasized that the new and emerging security concept of the 21st century was something cemented by 'mutual benefit, equality and coordination.' Such a new security vista rightly places collective benefits and joint developments higher in a century in which, to quote the late Dr. Kinfe Abraham "'mutual trust is the basis; mutual benefit is the objective; equality is the guarantee; and coordination is the means". Unhappily Egypt appears determined to reject this new approach, consistently returning to the old colonial agreements which claim to uphold the exclusive vision, interest and benefit of the Nile Waters for Egypt.

This underlines the fault line between the Pax Britannica and Pax Africana, a fault line with seriously detrimental social, environmental, economic and security repercussions for all the peoples of the Nile Basin. Egypt's strategy, indeed, can only encourage further inequality, exclusion, state fragility, socio-economic malaise, depletion of water resources and other problems for the region and the whole of the Nile Basin. Water security as defined by Egypt remains in opposition to Ethiopia's right to development, negating fundamental human rights and the sanctity and dignity of the lives of Ethiopians and of millions of East Africans residing along the banks of the Nile River. It infringes upon Ethiopia's sovereign rights to develop, utilize and use its resources within its own territories, resources that include the Blue Nile, Tekezze and Baro-Akobo rivers - as long as these do not have any adverse impact on lower riparian countries. Ethiopia's current aim is to terminate the current unjust, unequal and colonial status of water development along the Nile within the framework of mutual benefit and mutual trust and of fair share and usage.

It is a desire shared by all the other riparian states without exception. Even British imperialists eventually began to question the full ownership of the Nile that they had given to Egypt, raising questions in the 1950s about the future of British East Africa's future water supply and equal entitlement of Nile usage. One of the questions was: what would be the future of the British East Africa with the increasing water demand and equal entitlement of the Nile for their development? Egypt's historical rights have been thoroughly questioned with sound reason by Poet Laureate Tsegaye Gebre-Medhin, who poetically identified the Nile River as "the blood of Ethiopia, the mother of the Cush, the introducer of civilization to the world [born] from the rays of the ancient creature born of the womb of Cush." Ethiopia, the cradle of humanity, developed its first civilizations along the waters of the Nile and its tributaries. Other examples multiplied: the Nubians of Meroe in the Sudan, the Aksumites in Ethiopia, the Pharaonic empires of Egypt, the Makondes of Tanzania and many others erected their temples of African civilization along the river, recognizing the River's sustenance and fertility and its provision of mutual interdependence, human dignity and love for future peoples. What Egypt, above all, as one of the oldest civilizations in Africa and the World, should remember from its historic experience is the importance of genuine shared vision, of the interests and benefits of present and future generations. It should draw the lesson that its own water security must encompass the security and interests of upper riparian countries, not dwell on short-term political or supposed diplomatic gains. Now is the most critical time for the countries of the Nile Basin. According to recent security studies, African states are threatened by continuing high levels of poverty, increasing youth population, unemployment, over-rapid urbanization, inequality, exclusion, conflicts, climate disruption, environmental degradation and other dangers. There is almost universal agreement that greater integration and enhanced partnership are the imperative necessities to enable Africa to resolve these challenges in the years ahead.

The Nile Basin is no exception to this reality. It is home to 20 per cent of the people of Africa. There is no alternative. Egypt, like Sudan and all the other upstream countries, must realize genuine cooperation and continuous discussion, based on the priorities of African Renaissance, including development of comparative advantage, development of infrastructure, bridging the technological divide, human development and consolidation of the peace, security and stability of Africa, is the way to resolve disagreement. The result will provide for greater economic, social, political and cultural integration with a myriad of benefits as well as create a win-win atmosphere in the Nile Basin. Forging partnerships, encouraging mutual benefit, equality, coordination, and a shared vision is the way to heal and replace outdated water imperialism, replace the Pax Britannica with a Pax Africana, and finally erase the unnecessary though deep-rooted fear, suspicion and mistrust still existing in Egypt.

Ed.'s Note: The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of The Reporter.

The Hypocrisy of the West

By Messay Kebede

The West is deploring the referendum in Crimea and threatening to apply economic sanctions against Russia, believed to be the instigator of the unfolding Ukrainian crisis. Some Western politicians even go the extent of advocating direct military aid so that Ukraine can oppose military resistance to the Russian aggression. The referendum, which is supposed to lead to the reintegration of Crimea into the Russian Federation, is characterized by the West as illegal. From what I was able to gather, the reasons why the referendum is considered illegal include the followings. (1) Ukraine is an independent and sovereign country; (2) the referendum takes place with a strong presence of Russian military force in Crimea; (3) the referendum does not offer Crimea the choice of remaining within Ukraine.

What beats everything is that the West did not raise any concern about legality when Eritrea seceded from Ethiopia in 1993, even though all the reasons enumerated to contest the referendum in Crimea were also present in Ethiopia. Thus, ( 1) Ethiopia is an independent and sovereign nation; (2) the referendum was conducted in the presence of the victorious EPLF army; (3) The choice to remain part of Ethiopia under a new political arrangement was not offered to Eritreans, nor was Ethiopia given the opportunity defend its legitimate position and interests, except through the TPLF government. The latter had no legality other than the power of arms and was already dead set to expel Eritrea from Ethiopia as a dangerous rival to the TPLF hegemony in Ethiopia. Yet, though conducted under such faulty conditions and in direct violation of the sovereignty of Ethiopia, the referendum was declared “fair and free” by the UN Observer Mission.

One thing is sure: we Ethiopians should remember the Western condemnation of the Russian initiative. If, as says the West, the conduct of a referendum in a situation preventing free expression and in an independent and sovereign country is illegal, then undoubtedly the rejection of the referendum in Crimea equally questions the legality of the Eritrean secession. The flaws that make the secession of Crimea illegal are also those that disqualify the Eritrean referendum. This is not to say that Ethiopia should start a war to recover Eritrea, but that it is not compelled to accept its independence so long as it believes, now in accordance with the West, that the referendum was illegal.

Surprising as it may seem, the West is saying that the feeling of the concerned people does not matter as much as the legality of the process. Even if Crimeans in their majority want to be part of Russia, they cannot do it in violation of the national sovereignty of Ukraine. Of course, what explains the application of different criteria is that Russia is a rival superpower while Ethiopia is a poor and weak country. Everything must be done to stop the expansion of Russia. By contrast, nobody should lose sleep over the fragmentation, in direct violation of its national sovereignty, of a country as weak as Ethiopia.

The Ethiopian Ordeal in the Middle East: How can we end it?

By Fekade Shewakena

In Ethiopia we have a habit , I am not sure if I can call it a culture, of going through an agonizing massive problem and forgetting about it once we get the feeling that we are through it. We simply hope the problem will go away and not come back again. We don’t seem to have a “never again” collective mentality as many other people do after going through horrifying ordeals following natural or manmade disasters. We often leave it to God or government and refuse to investigate why something bad happened to us in the first place and find ways to stop it from happening again. Consider the famines we went though in the past. After having gone through a devastating famine and the arrival of aid or the next rains, life seems to turn to “normal”. We refuse to go back and examine how it could have been prevented, learn from the experience, and make adjustments for the future. The result is often another famine down the line that is even more devastating. I lost count of how many large scale regional famines we have had let alone the more localized ones that occur more frequently. At present it seems we have succeeded in distributing the regional famines into geographic ubiquity and in the process succeeded in hiding it. We keep eluding ourselves that we have controlled it but people continue to suffer. What is even more disturbing is, whenever we cared to solve the problem, we often prescribe the problem itself as the solution. International food aid and invitation of charitable NGOs are the major solutions we still seek. In the process we produced a culture of dependency on aid and charity at the cost of innovating our way out of the problem. As a result our food insecurity problem keeps persisting. Consider also another devastating experience we have in Ethiopia that we simply refuse to learn from and make changes. Throughout our history we go through destructive internal conflicts to solve political problems. Moments after one is solved, often militarily, the ground is set for another round of conflict. At the end of the conflicts we don’t do the needed deliberations and plans that will pull us together to build a conflict free society. When we do, as the TPLF/EPRDF tried to do at the end of the derg era in 1991, it was exclusionary and self serving. We all remember so much talk about ending wars. We were told we ended the Ethio-Eritrean war once and for all. But look what we have done only seven years later. There was talk about solving the problem of “nations and nationalities” in Ethiopia. What we see now is a compounded problem of ethnic hostility and conflicts of various levels perhaps more than any other time in the recent past history of the country. I am afraid we are going to do the same thing with the current problem of massive labor migration, better be called slave trade, of Ethiopians to the Middle East and the harrowing ordeal Ethiopians face in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East.

There may be enough blame to go around for the current problems. Ultimately we Ethiopians own this problem and each one of us have some responsibility to share. If we fail to realize this fact, the problem is not going to be solved both in the short and long term. We Ethiopians should understand that the Saudis did not create the problem. It is foolish to expect them to solve it for us. They are solving their own problem the way they know how – through a barbaric way. We may even thank them for paying for the cost of returning many of our citizens and helping the incompetent rulers of Ethiopia cope with this massive problem.

It is also good that we stop lying to ourselves. The suffering we witnessed in Saudi Arabia is only the peak in an ongoing suffering that we Ethiopians including officials of the government were watching for years with willful blindness. The real culprits in this problem are we Ethiopians particularly the Ethiopian authorities who allowed this slave trade to go on for more than a decade. The officials were more concerned about the remittance these slaves send back than the humans themselves. Let’s stop pretending that we don’t know about the magnitude of the problem Ethiopians go through in the Middle East. We do know. Who hasn’t heard of an Ethiopian maid throwing herself from a high-rise building or the widespread rape of Ethiopian maid servants or the many on whose faces was thrown boiling water or oil by their masters, the mentally disturbed returnees, maids who were denied of their wages and those who committed suicide to end their ordeals. Painful reminders like the dragging of Alem Dechaasa in front of the Ethiopian Embassy in Beirut and her tragic suicide happened not in the distant past. There are books written about this problem and I remember seeing a movie about the problem of Ethiopian maid servants in the Middle East made about a decade ago. We know about the problem full well.

Yes, Ethiopians around the world are rightly outraged at the horrendous crime perpetrated by the Saudi Arabian government and its vigilantes against Ethiopians. The savage killings the gang rape of helpless Ethiopians by the Saudi Shabab, and the savage beating are hard to bear for a once proud people. I am only surprised that nobody hasn’t burnt down the Saudi embassy in Addis Ababa or harm any of their many economic interests elsewhere in the country. Perhaps it takes a decent and cultured people not to have done that; or is it that we have completely forgotten how to be angry? Saudi Arabia may have a 21st century wealth and economy thanks to their fossil oil, but this is a country where backward institutions of medieval culture still operate. There are many people there who operate on a 15th century mindset and with very little sense of human rights or human dignity. This is a country where people are still punished by stoning. We should not forget that this is also the country and a culture that supplied most of the beasts that flew airplanes carrying innocent travelers on to buildings packed by innocent people in New York. The Saudis, and to a large extent, most middle Easterners have a visceral hatred towards Ethiopians as anyone who has experienced living with them would tell you. A lot of it is racism. We know they have all kinds of derogatory pejoratives with which they refer Ethiopia and Ethiopians. We now know that they were doing anti Ethiopian propaganda on their media prior to the carnage in Riyadh. Some of it has to do with the fact that Ethiopia is a predominantly Christian country living at peace with its large Islamic population. That in part explains why the violence of the Saudi police and the youth vigilante was targeted against Ethiopians more than the immigrants from many other countries. I sincerely doubt that they do this because of commitment to their religion as some would claim. The Saudis did not discriminate between Muslim and Christian Ethiopians when harming them. If it had to do with their religion, I would think that they would have been reminded of the words of the Prophet Mohammad about the story of the First Hegira and the respect for Ethiopians in the Koran before they lay their hands on a single Ethiopian.

Can this Misery be turned into an Opportunity?
The tragedy that took place in Saudi Arabia can be turned into an opportunity to work through a solution and avoid a larger scale problem. Why not? Some of the greatest achieving countries around the world are those that have taken misfortunes as opportunity for rethinking and changing their reality. I challenge all Ethiopians, particularly the educated elite and the officials of the government to organize conferences to discuss this serious problem and come up with measurable recommendations over time and mechanisms to implement solutions. The regime, if it is not willing should be pressured to do so. Anger and feelings of shame are good in as long as they lead toward solving problems. I for one am sick and tired of listening to these painful and shameful stories over and over again.

There is no question that the Ethiopian authorities who have tolerated and, in many instances, oversaw and supervised this massive slave trade have the most to account for this crime. Their response to this massive tragedy is also disgraceful and disrespectful to a once proud people and country. Ethiopia is the only place where Ethiopians were unable to demonstrate and express their anger at the way their fellow Ethiopians were treated in Saudi Arabia. Perhaps that may be the reason why the Saudis were emboldened to do their crime on Ethiopians with a sense of impunity. If there was even a semblance of democracy in Ethiopia there could have been a lot of officials that could be fired from their jobs for incompetence and insensitivity. A parliament of a democratic Ethiopia would have grilled these officials before firing them and would have set up a fact finding commission to find out details. But this is Ethiopia where the government never makes mistakes, you know. But at the end of the day, this does not exonerate the rest of us, the Ethiopian elite in particular, and all of us born in this unfortunate country, from responsibility. Let’s not forget that we are also responsible for owning this kind of regime that has little respect for the survival, dignity and pride of its people. There is some truth to what some political scientists say – “people deserve the governments they have”. We own the Woyane as much as we own these terrible problems. We cannot end this and other problems only through blaming. It is possible that we may have a solution that the government may refuse to impermanent. I think it is better to have some idea of the solution even if it is not implemented.

Let’s begin by asking these tough questions:

Let’s use these national conferences to ask some serious questions and work hard to find answers. How did we come to this disgrace in less than a generation? Why are young people making life and death decisions looking for work elsewhere including in hostile societies even when they have the information that it is full of high risk gamble? What can we do to stop it? What is leading families to send their teenage daughters and sons to slave in the Middle East? Is it poverty? Hasn’t Ethiopia been always poor? What kind of poverty does lead people to shade their sense of dignity and pride? What has changed in Ethiopia that should not have changed? Why were Ethiopians studying abroad eager to return back to their country at the end of their studies until the 1980s? Why wasn’t better life a lure then? Why are our best and brightest people leaving the country in mass? How much is the country losing monetarily through losing its educated manpower? Can we stop outmigration? How can we use it to the benefit of Ethiopia and Ethiopians if we cannot stop it? How did some poor countries keep their best and brightest from going to the West? Why have we become number one in the world in terms of losing its educated people through labor migration to the West? Is Ethiopia incapable of carrying its growing population? Should we reexamine the land holding system in the country? Does the current landholding system have anything to do with the problem and the solution? What are we doing in the education area? Are we educating our youth for a better future for themselves and the country? What real and latent resources do we have to make full employment of the population? What about the ethnic federalism? Why is the problem of the returnees from the Middle East different from the unemployed still living in the country? What has this problem to do with the lack of democratic culture? Why are other countries with poor population and serious economic problems not opting to leave their countries in massive numbers and migrate to other countries? What should we open up? What should we close? What is the role of religious institutions in helping our society? What is the private sector employing a minuscule proportion of the population? What is unique in Ethiopia that disproportionately leads its young to become so hopeless in their own country? When did the word “sidetegna” stop being an insult to an Ethiopian? I am sure you can add more tougher questions to this list. I know these questions are easy asked than answered. But we have no alternative than face them.

The Ethiopian authorities should stop covering their rear end by coaching traumatized returnees at Bole airport to give testimony about their work and the “life saving work” of their despicable embassy in Saudi Arabia on television. It could have been laughable if it was not painful to watch these traumatized people being coached and used by the government media for this silly purpose. Currently the government is trying to do some quick fixes and some lip service to chase the problem from the public arena.

Those of us who spend energy demonstrating at Saudi Embassies around the world should spend some energy to pressurize the officials ruling Ethiopia to respond to our demands for both the short term and lasting solutions. I suggest that we demand the government set up an independent commission to examine what happened to Ethiopians in the Middle East, to find out the number of people that died, those that are hurt and the many that are missing and languishing in the prisons of countries in the Middle East. There should be a comprehensive and lasting solution to this problem. Keep protesting and demanding and don’t go back home without getting the end of this misery in sight. How much is the life of an Ethiopian worth? Shouldn’t it be better than that of dogs?

(The writer can be reached at Fekadeshewakena@yahoo.com)