 |
 |
 |
 |
| Search |  |
 |
 |
a river runs through it environmental agencies say water tables are on the wane globally, and especially in the middle east. could the region’s most precious commodity be the source of future conflicts? by adam morrow for at least a decade, stern warnings have surfaced regarding the role water would play in the middle east’s next major conflict. in the early 1980s, boutros boutros-ghali, egyptian foreign affairs minister under president sadat, said that “the next war in our region will be over the waters of the nile.” in 1991, shortly before he was appointed un secretary-general, he repeated that “the next war will be over water, not politics.” observers have long pointed out that, given regional water shortages, conflicts will become increasingly intertwined with hydro-political issues. an article in the geographical review in july 1993, “the litani river of lebanon,” tells how “more forcefully than ever, politicians and analysts assert that the next casus belli in the middle east will be over the control and use of water.” the article asserts that “security of water supply is becoming at least as important as territorial security.” if current events in the region – with respect to both the nile and other river systems – are anything to go by, the article’s gloomy predictions could be right. according to an august 6 report by the earth policy institute (epi), a us-based organization for raising environmental awareness, the world is incurring a massive “water deficit,” which “is largely invisible, historically recent, and growing fast.” unlike burning forests or invading sand dunes, the report says, “falling water tables cannot be readily photographed. they are often discovered only when wells go dry.” over the last 50 years, world water demand has trebled, reflecting population growth, the commercialization of agriculture and the spread of diesel- and electrically-driven pumps, which consume much more water than their primitive hand- or animal-powered counterparts. while the problem is global, it is most acute in the arid middle
east. in yemen, for example, the water table is falling by about
2 meters a year, with groundwater being mined at such a rate that
some observers expect entire segments of the rural economy to disappear
within a generation. in iran, villages in the eastern half of the
country were abandoned in the 1990s as wells ran dry. in the last two months, two potentially explosive water disputes have erupted. one pits longtime antagonists lebanon and israel against each other over the waters of the wazzani river. the other concerns the riparian states of the nile and the proposed country of “new sudan.” in both cases, the regulations governing water sharing were devised in the 1950s by outsiders – in the first case by americans, and in the second by the british. lebanon’s wazzani: blood for water the potential water conflict that has made headlines most recently is the wazzani river dispute. a lebanese project, aimed at diverting water from the minor hasbani river to parched villages in the south of lebanon, caused a storm, prompting israeli prime minister ariel sharon to declare the issue a “casus belli.” despite israeli posturing and us pressure, lebanese president emile lahoud on october 16 cut the yellow ribbon on the wazzani springs pumping station, while the lebanese parliament’s foreign-relations committee announced that lebanon would start – “as of today” – to increase the amount of water it was using from the wazzani from 7 million cubic meters to 11 million cubic meters annually. it all started in march of 2001, when lebanon began pumping water from the hasbani, which is fed by the tiny wazzani, to four drought-stricken villages, in spite of israeli objections. sharon quickly declared that he would launch military operations if lebanon began pumping water out of the hasbani – which israel had controlled during its occupation of southern lebanon from 1978 to 2000 – or its tributary, the wazzani. those rivers, according to the israeli ministry of agriculture, supply between 20 and 25 percent of the water flowing into the sea of galilee, a primary source of israel’s largest freshwater reservoir. given the acrimonious history between the two sides, as well as the close proximity of the disputed shebaa farms area to the rivers in question, issues of sovereignty were quickly raised. “this is the first step towards liberating our water, a symbol of sovereignty and simple rights,” qablan qablan, a lebanese government official, said at the time. israel was given some reassurance by the united nations, which, after dispatching fact-finders to the area, declared that lebanon’s exploitation of the river was negligible. as the un mission noted, the irrigation pipe in question was only four inches in diameter. the dispute – briefly forgotten in the aftermath of september 11, 2001 – raised its head again in august of this year, with beirut’s announcement that it would begin work on a more substantial project involving the construction of a pumping station at the wazzani springs. the scheme aims to increase lebanon’s share of wazzani water by three and a half to four million cubic meters annually, in order to distribute water to 40 villages in the area. the bulk of the funding for the $450 million project, according to lebanese minister of energy & water mohammed beydoun, will be provided by kuwait. as the project’s inauguration drew near, tel aviv’s war drums again took up the beat. “israel cannot accept this project and will not compromise,” sharon said on october 6, despite repeated calls for moderation from washington, which, as it prepares for a war on iraq, hoped to avoid alienating its arab allies any further. us president george w. bush, via the us ambassador to israel, daniel kurtzer, reportedly requested of sharon that israeli violations of lebanese airspace over the wazzani area – which had begun on october 2, according to lebanon’s daily star – should cease. lebanon’s militant hizbullah group, which played a large role in pushing israeli occupation forces out of southern lebanon in 2000, was quick to declare that it would meet force with force if israel attempted to stop the scheme militarily. “our water is ours,” hizbullah assistant secretary-general hussein musawi was quoted as saying on october 6. “we will sacrifice our blood… for our water.” although the october 16 inauguration of the pumping station ended peacefully, without the retaliatory strike promised by sharon, the wazzani dispute showed how an argument over water, coupled with territorial disputes, can escalate. according to sharif s. elmusa, director of the middle east studies program at the american university in cairo (auc), the dispute must be seen in the context of an agreement dating from 1955, when a us special envoy to the middle east, eric johnston, came up with a plan for sharing the jordan river system and its many tributaries. the plan was eventually agreed to by all sides: jordan, lebanon, syria and israel. the shares of each country were based on how much irrigable land it had, so lebanon and syria got the least, even though those two countries produce the most water. under this formula, which later became known as the johnston plan, lebanon is entitled to 35 million cubic meters annually. so, explained elmusa, beirut is entirely within its rights to raise its take from 7 million cubic meters per year to 11 million. “their plan is to take another 4 million – and this is still less than their allotment,” he said. as to israeli claims that lebanon’s tapping of the wazzani
will deprive the jewish state of vital drinking water, elmusa said:
“israel is overreacting. the amount of water in question is
very small.” he added, however, that israeli brinkmanship over lebanese river systems has a dangerous effect on southern lebanese politics. “beirut needs this water to cultivate its villages in the south, which haven’t been developed due to the [earlier] conflict,” he explained. “the lebanese government needs this water to maintain its political influence by doing something for the people, and thereby take influence away from the hizbullah militia,” which enjoys wide popular support. most of the irrigable land in the disputed border area is said to be riddled with mines, so any intention to cultivate crops there is largely moot, at least for now. according to the october 17 edition of al-ahram weekly, whose correspondent had attended the inauguration of the wazzani water pump the day before, soldiers from the united arab emirates and ukrainian engineers are working alongside lebanese de-mining experts to remove the thousands of unexploded landmines in and around the border area. by the rivers of babylon larger river systems, not surprisingly, can also be a source of conflict. the euphrates river has been a source of almost perpetual conflict. rising in turkey and crossing both syria and iraq before joining the tigris and emptying into the gulf, the euphrates has been quarreled over by all three states at one time or another. in 1975, iraq almost declared war on syria when the latter filled its al-thawra reservoir, thus seriously reducing the euphrates’ flow. turkey alienated the other two in 1990, when it completed its ataturk dam as a part of the ambitious southeastern anatolia project, which also includes the construction of 22 additional dams on the tigris and euphrates to provide irrigation water and hydroelectricity to turkey’s arid southeast. syria and iraq complain that the turkish scheme deprives them of vital water resources. all three countries depend in some measure on the river for their economic development; iraq and syria perhaps more so than turkey, which has access to alternative sources of water. substantial water deficits could seriously worsen relations between these countries, especially in light of the probable invasion/occupation of iraq, and the possible creation of a new kurdish state, which would create another competitor for the coveted river. the nile and the machakos threat egypt’s life-sustaining river, too, has seen plenty of controversy. a decade rarely passes without a water dispute breaking out among the riparian neighbors of the nile basin. competition for its waters is largely seen as a zero-sum game among the three principal countries located along the river – egypt, ethiopia and sudan – each of which can increase their shares of water only at the expense of the other two. control of the river has always played a big part in the region’s geopolitics. in the late 1970s, sadat proposed a water pipeline from the nile to the israeli negev desert as a component of a possible peace deal between israel and its arab nemeses. the gesture prompted negative responses from sudan and ethiopia, the latter of which declared its intent to construct dams on the blue nile, the nile proper’s largest tributary. this led sadat to threaten military intervention. concerns over “river security” surfaced again this august, with the advent of the machakos protocol, a peace accord to end sudan’s decades-old civil war. the us-approved protocol, signed by representatives of the khartoum government and john garang’s sudanese people’s liberation army (spla) on july 19, stipulated a referendum that might give south sudan total independence from the north, after a proposed six-year period of semi-autonomy. egypt, meanwhile, feared that a new state in southern sudan would only serve to boost competition over nile water. cairo was quick to register its discomfort with machakos. “partitioning the country of sudan into two parts would be a contagious phenomenon that would spread to surrounding countries on the basis of tribe, language and religion,” presidential adviser osama el-baz declared on july 31. the agreement that regulates water sharing between egypt and sudan dates back to the colonial period. in 1929, egypt and the british government – acting on behalf of sudan – reached an agreement whereby egypt was allotted a minimum of 48 billion cubic meters of water per year while sudan was guaranteed 4 billion. after its independence in 1956, sudan requested a revision of the less-then-equitable 1929 agreement, and a new agreement was reached in 1959. out of a total discharge of 84 billion cubic meters of water, 55.5 billion cubic meters was allocated to egypt and 18.5 billion to sudan. some water experts doubt the legitimacy of cairo’s anxieties vis-à-vis machakos. would the creation of a brand new state upset a delicate balance between rivals and threaten egypt’s share of water? “it depends, of course, where the borders of the new country would be,’’ said elmusa. “if [the new state] controlled the primary water resources, you’d have to worry.” however, he continued, 85 percent of egypt’s nile water comes from the atbara and the blue nile branches of the river, which come down from the ethiopian highlands (see map). “if the south sudanese only control the white nile [located in southern sudan], it wouldn’t be as bad,” he said. nile security has always been the basis of egypt’s “southern strategy,” elmusa added. so if machakos had really threatened egypt’s water supply, egypt “would have been much more concerned.” according to el-naggar, “egypt and sudan have a clear agreement vis-à-vis nile water.” referring to the 55.5/18.5 formula, he insisted that “any new country in southern sudan must take its share from the sudanese portion. our share is untouchable.” although the nile has produced above-average amounts of water in the past five years, “any change in the geostrategic status quo is difficult for most governments to accept.” cairo’s fears of such an eventuality were eased on september 2, when the machakos peace talks broke down after the spla captured the southern garrison town of torit in a surprise attack. on october 16, however, another cease-fire was signed. the talks in machakos are now expected to resume, although the situation has been further complicated by the appearance on sudan’s eastern border of eritrean troops, which khartoum accuses of being in league with garang’s rebels. smaller members of the nile basin community, also eager to develop their water resources, are hardly satisfied with the current allocation of water, in which egypt and sudan enjoy the lion’s share. “egypt must recognize that uganda and the other countries, which share the river equally, have legitimate rights over the nile,” read an editorial in uganda’s africa news in late september. “it is unfair for egypt to dictate on matters relating to utilization of the nile.” the writer further criticized egypt for opposing the machakos peace agreement “on grounds that it does not want another state along the river nile.” at the end of september, a ugandan member of parliament went so far as to sponsor a motion annulling the 1959 agreement – which actually pre-dates uganda’s independence – and called on egypt to pay an annual compensation of $2.2 billion. the complaint, however, was quickly shelved.
upstream countries are equally unenthusiastic about egypt’s internal plans for exploiting its water resources. on october 22, the front page of semi-official daily al-akhbar featured “the first ever picture of nile water flowing into the land of toshka,” according to the accompanying caption. the photo showed the life-giving waters gushing from the sheikh zayad canal into the toshka valley, as hundreds of awestruck laborers looked on. besides the picture and a tiny blurb, the paper did not offer further information. the toshka land-reclamation project is supposed to create 540,000 feddans (2,268,000 square meters) of new agricultural land in southern egypt by drawing nile water from lake nasser. east oweinat, toshka’s sister project, was meant to create another 200,000 feddans (840,000 square meters) of virgin farmland in the southwestern desert by exploiting underground reserves. the north sinai development project, meanwhile, aims to reclaim 400,000 feddans (1,680,000 square meters) of land along the northern coast of the sinai peninsula. all three projects are intended to help wean the country’s rapidly expanding population away from the nile valley, to which it has been historically restricted. more than 90 percent of egypt’s 65 million inhabitants currently live on less than 10 percent of the land, confined to the narrow strip of irrigable land on either side of the river. until the onset of recession in early 2000, the government had been spending at a rate of $3.7 billion a year on the projects, with another $120 billion pledged over the next 20 years. the completion of the much-trumpeted canal is, inarguably, a watershed. toshka represents the most-hyped of the five megaprojects that the government launched the late 1990s, when, under former prime minister kamal el ganzouri, the projects were billed as symbols of national sovereignty and self-sufficiency. but el-ganzouri was ousted in a 1999 cabinet shuffle, due in part to the economy’s flagging performance, for which the megaprojects were widely blamed. massive spending on the projects has often been singled out as the cause of the crippling foreign-currency shortage that has since forced the government to devalue the local currency. the land-reclamation megaprojects were not only controversial at home. they also caused friction with khartoum and addis ababa, both of which made angry noises about the additional nile water that toshka and the north sinai project would consume. when president hosni mubarak announced the schemes in 1997, ethiopia demanded an amendment to the 1959 nile treaty, saying it deserved a larger share of nile water to allow it to implement its own projects. at the time, london’s financial times quoted sources within the ethiopian ministry of water resources as saying that there would be “no cooperation among the nile countries until a clear commitment to the principle of fair and equitable use was established.” egypt’s upstream neighbors, however, have no reason to fear the megaprojects according to el-naggar. “the project won’t have any effect on [sudan’s or ethiopia’s] access to water,” he said. the 55.5 million cubic meters guaranteed to egypt under the 1959 agreement more than covers its agricultural needs, even when the projects are fully operational, he maintained. “we wouldn’t touch one cubic meter of their water,” he added. but el-naggar also said that the government’s choices for the projects’ locations were ill-advised. he opined that egypt’s north coast – specifically the area stretching from alexandria to marsah matrouh – is much more suitable for land reclamation than the deep south. “it’s less dry, there’s more rain and the depth of the soil is better.” he added that the reason the government opted against land reclamation on the north coast was – as in lebanon’s south – the ubiquity of unexploded ordnance. nicknamed “the devil’s garden” due to the high number of world war ii-era land mines, the area cannot be cultivated, el-naggar said. “we chose toshka because we had no choice,” he said, adding that germany, britain and italy – the states that laid the mines originally – should be forced to provide funding for their removal. where water development schemes are not tied up by contemporary politics, they can still, it seems, be held hostage to conflicts of the past. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Site Developed and Maintained by the Business Information Center of AmCham Egypt Copyright©2008 American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt |
|||
 |
|||