Just as thousands of Egyptians have been assassinated in cold blood and the dreams of a nation that dreamed of freedom, dignity, justice and equality were buried alive, along with the first true democratic experience occurring in Egypt’s history; just as a coup was staged against the elected President Mohamed Morsi and tanks were brought in to govern Egypt, Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi continues his criminal plan by assassinating the River Nile, Egypt’s life line. He did so by signing an agreement stripping Egypt of its natural right to the Nile’s water and depriving it from its historical share of the Nile’s water as one of the Nile Basin countries.
This is the bribe that Al-Sisi presented to Ethiopia in order for it to recognise his coup, thus driving the rest of the African Union, which had refused to recognise him and cancelled Egypt’s membership to the body, to do so. This agreement, signed with Ethiopia in March 2015 gave Ethiopia the right to build the Renaissance Dam, thus subjecting Egypt to severe water shortages. This leads to dry land and thirst in the near future.
This shameful agreement was rejected by Irrigation Minister Mohamed Nasr Eldin Allam in 2009, during the rule of deposed President Hosni Mubarak, during a conference held in Congo’s capital city of Kinshasa. He refused to do so due to the lack of an explicit and clear clause guaranteeing the preservation of Egypt’s historical rights to the Nile water. By signing this agreement, Al-Sisi has lost Egypt’s last chance to resort to international arbitration in order to preserve the country’s right and protect it from an inevitable fate of drought or linking the Nile water to Israel, making it the strongest state economically in the area.
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Egypt is the state where the River Nile ends and brings its water and silt, making Egypt’s climate moderate and the best agricultural climate in the world in terms of soil and climate. This is not something Israel wants, nor does the Emirati sponsor that funded the coup with billions of dollars and supported Al-Sisi. We have found that the Emirati Zionist conspiracy state is buying land around the dam in order to establish investment projects in the name of Emirati investors. Moreover, the main funder of the dam is a wealthy Saudi man known as Mohammad Hussain Al-Amoudi, who was recently arrested in the arrest campaign that included princes and businessmen.
Once this agreement was signed, it was celebrated by all the shameful satellite channels, as well as Egyptian artists, acting as if it were a great achievement by Al-Sisi, Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia, in their never-ending negotiations, similar to those of the PA and Israel. Such negotiations are fruitless and only lead to more negotiations. This was the case until Irrigation Minister Dr Mohamed Abdel Ati announced the failure of the 17th round of negotiations regarding the Renaissance Dam, after having visited the dam himself and confirmed the imminent danger to Egypt. He informed Addis Ababa of the need of the Egyptian, Sudanese and Ethiopian political leadership’s involvement in the negotiations, after the debate between the negotiating sides turned into more of a political debate rather than a technical one. This request was made in accordance with the agreement signed by officials from all three countries, which stipulates that in the event that the irrigation ministers cannot reach a technical solution, then the three countries’ leaders must meet to support the negotiations and achieve what the irrigation ministers couldn’t.
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Hence, the fact that this meeting was not held either indicates foolishness or a deep desire to fail. The main objective of this meeting was to discuss the research methodology report, which the consultation offices are supposed to follow in order to reach results that clearly show the nature of the technical and climate damage to Egypt as a result of the Renaissance Dam. The question here is why have Sudan and Ethiopia rejected the methodology report? The answer is that regardless of whether the methodology report’s standards were excellent or if it meets the bare minimum standards, the inevitable result would be the same and would confirm the occurrence of serious damage to Egypt as a result of the Renaissance Dam.
This is a death certificate for the River Nile in Egypt at the hands of Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, who lost the land by selling the Tiran and Sanafir islands to Saudi Arabia and conceding the gas fields in the Mediterranean Sea to Greece as part of a disgraceful agreement similar to the agreement that signed away Egypt’s rights to the Nile waters.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.