Page 34 - Nile Explorer Issue 006

Special Report

Scramble for the Nile waters:

Presidents Museveni and Al Sisi at a meeting in Kampala - File photo

Egypt mulls over ratifying the NBI.

n terms of the years African countries In May 1929, Egypt and Great Britain, the other countries along the river.
Ihave been independent, Egypt, leads which was the colonial master of the The new treaty emphasized a provision
them all, except of course for Ethiopia upstream riparian States of Kenya, from the 1929 agreement, that, Egypt
and Liberia---the former, being the only Uganda, Tanganyika, and Sudan at had the right to veto any construction
country that couldn’t be colonized due the time, signed a pact on how to use projects that could impede the flow of
to strong resistance by the indigenous the shared Nile water resources. Two water into the Nile.
people, and Liberia, which was a place agreements, from 1929 and 1959, have
for freed slaves from the Americas. guided the use of the Nile River north The Nile is the longest river in Africa
By the 17th century AD, the scramble of Ethiopia until independence of the and the disputed longest river in the
for and partition Africa by European upstream riparian states in the 60s. The world—as the Brazilian government
countries had begun in earnest, and 1929 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty was signed says that the Amazon River is longer
this continued until around 1905, by by the United Kingdom, the colonial than the Nile— The Nile, which is about
which time all the lands and resources power in much of East Africa at the 6,650 km (4,130 miles) flows north
of the continent of Africa had been time, and the monarchical Egypt— river with its basin covering eleven
completely divided and colonized by which was under British occupation— countries: Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda,
European countries. And water was to allocate water rights along the basin. Burundi, the Democratic Republic of
one of them. It is within this context According to this treaty, Egypt and the Congo, Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea,
that Egypt and Ethiopia are embroiled Sudan were guaranteed an annual South Sudan, Republic of the Sudan,
in a simmering water ‘cold’ war with supply of 48 billion and 4 billion and Egypt In particular, the Nile is the
Egypt, that has over the years, drawn cubic meters, respectively, out of an primary water source of Egypt and
in several other African states over the estimated annual yield of 84 billion Sudan.
sharing of the Nile water. Egypt got its cubic meters of Nile water. Another This background and the geo-location
independence in 1922, being the first agreement in 1959 between the United picture, in relation to the 11 riparian
African Country to do so, having been Kingdom and independent Egypt countries, is important, just as is,
under the British protectorate, since increased Egypt’s share to 55.5 billion the arguments emanating from both
the end on the Ottoman Empire. cubic meters and Sudan’s to 18.5 billion sides of the divide. Using the Colonial
cubic meters, with the rest shared by
treaties signed between the colonies
34 | The Nile Explorer 006