Wll Egypt and Sudan resort to war to secure their water rights in the Nile River? This is the question being raised by many people in and outside the two countries after the Security Council failed to adopt a firm stand on the Grand Ethiopia’s Renaissance Dam (GERD) conflict.
Actually, both Egypt and Sudan are not in favour of launching war against their African neighbour simply because it would lead to long-term enmity with the Ethiopian people who would believe that such a war be directed against their development project rather than against their government’s stubbornness and attempt to turn the Blue Nile into an Ethiopian lake, which would cause thirst of the Egyptian and Sudanese people.
However, the two countries might be forced to take such harsh option if the international community including the UN Security Council failed to convince Addis Ababa to abide by international law and norms that regulate the establishment of hydraulic projects on the international rivers.
The issue here would not be limited to the launch of a large or minor military operation to partially or completely demolish such a gigantic dam, but it would signal start of the water war age, which various international experts warned of decades ago.
The large number of shared rivers in the world, combined with increasing water scarcity for growing populations, and climate change led many politicians to warn of the possible eruption of water wars. In 1995. For example, former World Bank Vice-President Ismail Serageldin said that ‘the wars of the next century (21st C.) will be about water.
The World Bank official had built his calculation on the growing number of hydraulic projects being implemented by many upstream countries for irrigation or electricity purposes and sometimes for pure political goals at the expense of the legal rights of the downstream countries, which have already been suffering from dramatic drop in the flow of water into their river courses and canals. In some cases, riparian countries managed to settle their differences and turn these rivers to a source of co-operation rather than cause of conflict as was the case in south African countries that signed a number of river basin agreements late in the 20th century. Unfortunately, this was not always the case as many countries aim to exploit their locations as upstream countries to control water flow to the downstream countries in clear violation of the international laws. Iraq whose main rivers emerges from Turkey and Iran is a case in point.
Early this week, Iraq accused Iran of reducing water flow from rivers shared by the two countries, in violation of international law, which endangers Iraq’s agricultural sector and in some cases the supply of drinking water to the population.
Minister of Water Resources, Mahdi Rashid Hamedani said on Sunday that water flow from Iran to Iraq has completely stopped and Baghdad considers to lodge a complaint with United Nations entities for breach of international laws and inflicting damage by cutting off rivers flowing across the border.
Iran was accused last year of cutting off two main tributaries flowing into Tigris River also in the peak of summer, denying much needed water for two dams in Iraq.
Iran claimed to be suffering from terrible water shortage itself while it continues to build more dams on the many tributaries running into its territories. Despite the good political relations between both countries, Iran is utilising the water weapon to affect the policies of the Iraqi government.
Iraq as well as Egypt are semi-desert countries. therefore, both of them relay on the river water for irrigation as well as for urban and industrial development. This is why their river valleys were the cradle of the oldest civilisations in the world.
The river water is the life blood of people of both countries. So, it is unacceptable to allow any foreign power to control or suspend the flow of the rivers into their territories. The question here is not whether or not they would go to war to protect their cause of life but when and how they would do it?
Therefore, the International community should act to resolve this critical issue with real depth and justice apart from the narrow interests that could trigger fierce water wars at different parts of the world. This is why timey action is so critical.
