ADDIS ABABA — Ethiopia, being the source of 85 percent of the total Nile waters flow, claims that it could self-support its hungry people off foreign food aid if granted to irrigate from the Blue Nile river.
However, a 1929 treaty between Egypt and Britain, the then regional power, awarded most of the Nile’s water to Egypt. Veto power over upstream projects as well.
Despite the fact that Ethiopia generates the lions share to the river, the horn of Africa’s nation uses only less than 1 percent of it because Egypt resists any attempt from Ethiopia to launch any large scale irrigation project and warns that any attempt to adjust the river’s status would be regarded as an act of war.
With devastating drought year-to- year endangering the lives of millions of people in Ethiopia and in the East of African region in general, Ethiopians now strongly argue that it is time that the ’ancient’ treaty must be reviewed.
Binyam Tekle is an Architect and an Environmentalist at a University and a research institute in Ethiopia. He argues that Egypt is a hidden factor to food crises in the east African region.
“Why do we always blame rain short or aid short to food crises in Ethiopia, while next door we have a major contributor to food shortage in Ethiopia-Egypt?” Binyam told Sudan Tribune.
“Unless the old, unfair treaty is soon reviewed by the international community and Egypt accepts to loosen its current rigid stand, once off hand the strain could lead to wrong but dangerous direction,” he added.
In recent years failing rains have constantly made crops in Ethiopia impossible to grow as much as the country needs to outreach the increased food need of its 80 million people, Africa’s second most populous country.
“People in some East African countries entirely depend on Nile water for their annual supply to agriculture when rainfalls luck, so increasing water demand could lead to political tensions in the entire region, unless new compromise is reached for fair distribution” said researcher Endashaw Belay.
“To realize a peace full united Africa, countries must be able to jointly work together to solve own problems and in this case Nile states must have political will to reach comprehensive consensuses despite what past treaties.”
Many analysts say that Egypt is blocking any funds to Ethiopia’s Nile project. Though Ethiopians might be tempted to circumvent the anachronistic arrangement, they can’t. Egyptian officials work behind “closed doors” to block funding for upstream projects, according to David Shinn, former US ambassador to Ethiopia.
Nile states have sought to re-negotiate the old treaty but Egyptian officials have stalled it for years. (Source: Sudan Tribune)
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA — Tens of thousands of people are lined up starting early Sunday morning to buy tickets for Teddy Afro’s concert tonight.
This concert, which will be held at the Addis Ababa Stadium, will be the first one for Teddy since he was released from prison last August.
The popular singer was thrown in jail for 2 years by the Woyanne tribal junta after being falsely accused of hit-and-run accident which claimed the life of a homeless man.
A symposium is being organized in honor of the great Ethiopian writer, public servant and patriot Haddis Alemayehu in Washington DC, Saturday, October 17, 2009.
Ato Assefa Gebremariam, one of the organizers of the event, informed Ethiopian Review that the event will be held at Howard University’s College of Engineering, 2366 6th Stree NW, Washington DC.
The symposium will also celebrate Ato Haddis Alemayehu’s 100th birthday.
The family and friends of Ato Haddis invite every one in the Washington DC area to join them in celebrating his life and achievements. (For more info write to: [email protected])
Haddis Alemayehu (15 October 1910 – 6 December 2003), was a Foreign Minister of Ethiopia and novelist. His Amharic novel Fiker Eske Mekaber (Love to the Grave, 1968) is considered a classic of modern Ethiopian literature.
He was born in the Endor Kidane Miheret section of the city of Debre Marqos, Gojjam, the son of an Orthodox priest, Abba Alemayehu Solomon.
As a boy, he began his education within the system of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, including at the monasteries of Debre Elias, Debre Worq, and Dima.
Later, he moved to Addis Ababa where he enrolled at the Swedish Mission and later at the Ras Taffari Makonnen school for further education. He was eventually awarded an honorary doctorate by Addis Ababa University. (Source: Wikipedia)
ADDIS ABABA — A coalition of eight Ethiopian opposition parties presented a common manifesto for the planned June 2010 general elections.
The coalition said it will field candidates in the elections.
The Forum for Democracy and Dialogue, an amalgam of eight parties, unveiled their 65-page manifesto in Addis Ababa on Saturday.
“We have agreed to move this country forward. For the last 150 years, political change has only come through the barrel of the gun. We want to break that tradition and change power through the ballot box,” said one of its leaders, Gezachew Shiferaw.
Ato Gizachew said the manifesto is based on the programs of all eight parties.
“We hope on that basis to be able to lead in unity.”
The coalition chairman Professor Merara Gudina said the new forum mirrored “Ethiopia’s multi-ethnic composition” with representatives from Tigray to the Somali border.
The new coalition has appealed to the government “to negotiate genuinely with us on the modalities of the coming elections” that should be “free, fair and transparent” and monitored by observers from the European union, Merara continued.
The forum, or Medrek as it is known in Amharic, has called for the “release of political prisoners”, notably Birtukan Mideksa, who has been jailed since December 2008, Merara said.
The forum said last month that almost 200 of its supporters had been arrested amid what it called a campaign of government harassment.
The issue currently blocking talks between the government and Medrek is the drawing up of rules governing the conduct of the electoral campaign.
Meles also said last month that international observers would likely be invited for the polls.
At least 200 people were killed when police brutally repressed riots after the opposition refused to accept Meles’ victory in the last elections in 2005. (AFP)
ADDIS ABABA — Ethiopian Prime Minister tribal warlord Meles Zenawi accused Eritrea on Saturday of sowing havoc in the region and reiterated calls for sanctions over Asmara’s alleged support for Somalia’s rebels.
“It is going on and on with its creating havoc agenda. The character of this regime is not changing,” Meles told parliament.
He said that Ethiopia Woyanne has done its best to establish a dialogue with the government of Eritrea.
“We believe in dialogue, we have actually knocked on the door many times and they haven’t responded,” he said.
Ethiopia Woyanne accuses Eritrea of backing Islamist rebels fighting to overthrow the Somali transitional government, which Ethiopia Woyanne is helping to prop up. Eritrea denies the accusations.
The African Union and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), a six-nation regional grouping, have also called for sanctions against Asmara in recent months. [These vampires should sanction themselves out of power.]
“The evidence (of Eritrea’s involvement) is definitive, the need (for sanctions) is undeniable,” Ethiopia’s foreign ministry said in a statement on Saturday.
“Every day the crisis worsens. Neither the region as a whole, nor Somalia in particular, can afford the consequences of failure. Peace and security issues affect domestic as well as regional considerations and all the IGAD states need a solution in Somalia, and quickly.” (Source: AFP)
ADDIS ABABA – As many as 6.2 million Ethiopians need emergency humanitarian assistance due to severe drought, an official from the Oxfam charity said Monday.
[Yesterday, the tribal junta in Ethiopia that is led by the Tigrean People Liberation Front (Woyanne) has claimed that the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) has grown by 10 percents.]
The Ethiopian government puts the number in need at 5.3 million. Pastoralist communities in the country’s southern Borena area have been particularly hard hit by the lack of rain.
[Borena is one of the most fertile areas in Ethiopia. The problem in Borena is not drought. It is the ethnic-apartheid based agricultural policy of Meles Zenawi’s regime that is causing food shortages in regions of Ethiopia that are fertile.]
“Some 6.2 million Ethiopians hit by two-year recurrent drought are facing starvation and need emergency assistance,” Abera Tola, head of Oxfam America in east Africa, told Reuters.
Oxfam warned last week that severe drought is driving more than 23 million east Africans in seven countries towards severe hunger and destitution.
It said the worst affected nations were Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia and Uganda, and that the situation was being exacerbated by high food prices and conflict in some areas.
(Reuters: Reporting by Tsegaye Tadesse; Editing by Daniel Wallis)
