Reveal the current negotiating tracks on the file of the Renaissance Dam, and Egypt's resort to the Security Council after the failure of American mediation, and then accept it through the African Union; The state of indecision and confusion that characterized the performance of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi in that crisis.
This situation is embodied in the absence of global and regional support for Egypt, and the pent-up disappointment in allies or friends, including countries such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE, Sisi's partner in the stance on the Libyan file, which have billions in investments in Ethiopia that you will not sacrifice for the sake of.
On the other hand, the Ethiopian Prime Minister Abi Ahmed appears confident and steadfast, after all the cards are in his country’s hands; The dam has become a reality and it will not be abandoned after billions have been spent on it and it will soon be filled, if not already.
The dam crisis also reveals the size, impact, and status of both men regionally and internationally, bearing in mind that Sisi came to power through a military coup against the first elected civilian president, while Abi Ahmed came through free and fair elections in light of a peaceful transfer of power.
While Abi Ahmed recorded a rare case in the history of his country, and even among the presidents of Africa and third world countries, by winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 against the background of addressing several files; First and foremost is making room for political freedoms inside the country, calming the ongoing conflict with Eritrea, and its role in the power transfer agreement in Sudan; Sisi is seen as the general who turned against the first elected civilian president in his country, and who currently supports the coup project in Libya with Saudi-Emirati investment.
This vast bonn, shown by the comparison both formally and objectively between the image of Sisi and Abi Ahmed internally and internationally, is getting wider in relation to the legal file of each of them; Violations of the former are difficult to confine with the testimony of human rights organizations at home and abroad, while the second commenced his duties by abolishing the state of emergency, releasing political detainees, acknowledging and condemning incidents of torture, and releasing detained journalists.
Where is the friend?
This paradox is reflected in one way or another on the negotiating power of both countries in the file of the Renaissance Dam, and the size of regional and international support for both parties, in what is considered a test of their regional and international weight, which this crisis reveals. Who is Egypt's allies? Who are Ethiopia's allies in the dam crisis?
In the African ocean, Egypt reaps the bitter harvest of neglect, and even neglecting its position there for decades, its current position in the continent is not the same as it was before, even the Nile Basin countries have the main lifeline of Egypt, just as Egypt turned its back to friends in Africa, managed These are also their backs to Egypt, after they found countries and powers pouring in promising investment opportunities in it.
This situation has been repeated since 1995, after the assassination attempt against the late Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Addis Ababa; During the years following the incident, Egypt completely turned its back on Africa, and in light of the Egyptian decline, the balance of power in the Nile Basin began to gradually tilt away from the downstream countries in favor of the upstream countries.
After 5 years, for the first time in its history; 4 of the upstream countries (Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, and Rwanda) met in May 2010 in Entebbe, and agreed on a new treaty to share river resources, and in the same week Kenya and Burundi joined the agreement, and South Sudan announced in 2013 that it would join, but had not yet joined.
The Nile Basin countries - with its blue and white branches - consider that the treaty signed to share the waters of the Nile, which Britain signed as a colonial country of Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania in 1929 with Egypt, and gave Egypt an acquired right to object to any water project taken by these countries and what this right includes of the veto other than It was fair, and this was followed by a 1959 treaty, each of which granted Egypt two-thirds of the Nile's water resources.
Most of these agreements were never signed by Ethiopia, and they see them as tools that the colonists used to distribute benefits between their colonies in Egypt and Sudan, in a process that deliberately marginalized the interests of the rest of the basin.
The African Union The African Union
was the first to record a regional and international reaction to the isolation of the late Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi by freezing Egypt's membership in the Union, on July 5, 2013, and in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa - where the headquarters of the African Union, which includes 54 countries - commented The Peace and Security Council of the Federation is a member of Egypt, attributing this to the "unconstitutional power grab" in Egypt, and the decision to suspend remained in place for about a year.
Sisi's Egypt, neither given its presence in the African Union nor outside it, was able to establish for itself a position through which it can impose the small part, thus ensuring its safety from a danger that affects its national security.
Ethiopian activity
On the other hand, Ethiopian diplomacy has neutralized the traditional allies of Egypt in the Horn of Africa, and since Abi Ahmed took over as prime minister in April 2018, he pursued a conciliatory speech and adopted a policy of yellowing problems with neighboring countries. In June 2018, he signed with the Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki a peace agreement in Asmara, which included the return of diplomatic relations, the opening of embassies, the opening of contacts between the two countries, the opening of Eritrean-Ethiopian airspace, the use of Ethiopia by Eritrean ports, as well as the cessation of all forms of hostile moves between the two countries.
This agreement neutralized the Eritrean side in the conflict between its Egyptian and Ethiopian allies, and Cairo lost an important pressure card as long as it wagered on it, as well as the eruption of the border dispute between the two countries again, impeding Ethiopia from completing the dam project.
Somalia
Despite the bloody history between Ethiopia and Somalia, and wars erupted between the two countries 5 times in the early twentieth century, relations have improved greatly recently, and Ethiopian forces have played a prominent role within the African Peacekeeping Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), and Mogadishu finds itself in urgent need of Those forces are in their war with Al-Shabaab, especially in the border areas with Ethiopia.
The Somali position was helped by the absence of the active Egyptian and Arab role in resolving the chronic crises of Somalia, foremost of which is the prolonged civil war, and the break-up of the Somali state into a group of regions, in exchange for an active Ethiopian involvement in these two files.
In exchange for the absence of Egypt, Abi Ahmed visited Mogadishu in June 2018, and he agreed with Somali President Mohamed Abdullah Varmago to enhance bilateral cooperation in various fields, and this was a starting point for developing economic relations between the two countries through joint investment in 4 Somali seaports, The landlocked Ethiopia benefits from the extended Somali beaches, as well as cooperation in other vital projects such as the construction of major road networks.
Djibouti
The neighboring port of Djibouti formed a major outlet for the huge Ethiopian market, and turned into a crossing for 95% of the Ethiopian incoming and outgoing, after Ethiopia became a country after the 1998-2000 war with Eritrea, and for this Ethiopia and Djibouti maintained close political, economic and military ties out of mutual interest, and profits were estimated Djibouti has more than a billion dollars a year used by Ethiopia in its ports, and has been a major source of the Government of Djibouti's treasury.
In addition to this cooperation in the field of electric energy and linking the two countries with infrastructure projects such as the 756 km railway, and works with electricity and connects Addis Ababa to the port of Doraleh in Djibouti, and it will play a vital role to shorten the duration of the trip, and also contribute to the continued rapid economic growth in Ethiopia.
Djibouti is one of the likely locations of the naval military base that Ethiopia intends to build with French cooperation, and the revival of the Ethiopian Navy through it. Ethiopia also supplies Djibouti with water through a project launched in 2017, and aims to deliver fresh water from the Ethiopian city of “Hedjala” to the region of Ali Sobeih "Djibouti, by pumping an estimated 100,000 cubic meters of water per day.
It was not surprising, then, that both Djibouti and Somalia rejected the Arab League’s foreign ministers ’decision in support of Egypt last March, as they reservations on the fifth clause thereof, which affirms“ the necessity of all parties to refrain from taking any unilateral measures, including Ethiopia’s abstention. ” On the start of filling the reservoir of the Renaissance Dam without reaching an agreement with the two downstream countries, regarding the rules for filling and operating the dam, because this procedure represents a clear violation of the Declaration of Principles agreement.
The American position The
administration of President Donald Trump was keen on observing the Ethiopian regime, and blocking a possible delinquency towards Russia, and while the United States reduced its support to all African countries, it strengthened its assistance to Ethiopia, which was visited by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo twice in a few months.
Last year, Egypt requested American mediation in the hope that the American role would be decisive, but the talks that it embraced, which lasted 4 months and collapsed last February after Addis Ababa refused to sign a US agreement based on an Egyptian initiative, said that the agreement obliges it to dry the dam reservoir. To low levels in times of drought, which means Egypt continues to receive the old share of water, which the Ethiopian government deems unjust. America was silent about the failure of the negotiations that took place on its soil, contenting itself with a vague statement whose words were carefully chosen to satisfy all parties.
The Security Council,
with Ethiopia insisting on the use of monsoon rains, to start filling the dam reservoir during the current July; Egypt resorted to the UN Security Council as a last diplomatic step, and transferred the file to it in the hope of accepting the principles contained in a draft agreement related to the mechanism of conflict resolution and mitigation of reservoir levels during the drought.
In a 3-page letter to the Council, Egypt requested an invitation to Ethiopia once again to hold talks for a "just and balanced solution", and urged it to refrain from unilateral steps, warning that filling the dam without agreement "poses a clear and present danger to Egypt, and repercussions threatening peace." And international security. "
In an interview, Addis Ababa told the Security Council that it was "determined to help lift our people out of extreme poverty." She repeated the accusations that Egypt was "trying to preserve its historical advantages in the Nile River, and tighten the noose on Ethiopia's efforts to establish future projects on the source." Ethiopia accepted the Egyptian demands to allow the recent talks to proceed, before Egypt escalated without needing to present the issue to the Security Council. ".
Evidence says that relying on the Security Council will not differ greatly on the results of Washington's mediation; America, China and Russia are the permanent members of the council, along with various European powers, who have interests in Africa, and the list of those seeking influence there goes on, and they will not sacrifice their interests to satisfy Sisi, who can only deny this, and he previously said that it is not the cause of the crisis, but a revolution Egyptians on January 25, 2011, forgetting that he was the one who signed the letter of intent in Khartoum, on March 23, 2015, which brought the situation to where it is today.