Teferi Mekonnen
The Nile River has been a significant factor in determining the diplomatic posture of the powers in control of the river’s lower basin towards Ethiopia. This paper attempts to explore the role of the Nile waters issue in the engagement of the lower riparian states, particularly Egypt, in the politics of the Horn of Africa since the late 1950s, a time in which many of the enduring controversies of the Nile waters issue had their origins. It focuses on Egypt’s geopolitical strategy, which was based on safeguarding the continuous flow of the Nile waters during the two Somali-Ethiopian border wars. For this reason, the Somali-Ethiopian border wars and the role of the Nile waters issue within them are chronologically studied. Egypt believed that its permanent interest in the waters of the Nile could be secured by following a policy of weakening Ethiopia. Egypt, which is located thousands of kilometers away, meddled in the two Somali-Ethiopian wars against Ethiopia. This paper argues that the ongoing causal patterns that have helped shape Cairo’s foreign policy towards Ethiopia show that the motive behind Egypt’s involvement in the politics of the Horn of Africa was her vital interest in the Nile waters (Heikal, 1978: 715; Boutros-Ghali, 1982: 783-784; Rasheedy & Ahmad, 2007: 35-36; Souare, 2008: 3). Egypt’s interests in Eritrea, the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean were also factors behind Egypt’s siding with Somalia during its involvement in the Somalia-Ethiopian war. This article, therefore, seeks to present a keen analysis of the link between the hydropolitics of the Nile and the Somalia-Ethiopian wars. The intention of this article is to show the role of the Nile waters issue in the Somalia-Ethiopian wars and to look at how the Somali-Ethiopian wars in turn exacerbated and further complicated the hydropolitics of the Nile.
Annales d’Éthiopie, 2018-2019,
The research for this article was carried out by employing a systematic collection and diligent analysis of primary and secondary sources to understand the general essence of the period and the nexus between the Nile waters issue and the Somali-Ethiopian wars. It relies upon Ethiopian primary document collections from the Institute of Ethiopian Studies, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Ministry of Water and Energy as well as available Egyptian and Somalia sources. In particular, diplomatic correspondences, minutes, and official letters of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, since the 1950s, which are now preserved as confidential archival materials at the Ministry’s Documentation Center, are the most valuable sources for this study. However these sources highlight only the Ethiopian governments’ point of view. I did not travel to Cairo and Mogadishu to gather available sources, but to overcome such drawbacks, in addition to examining Egyptian and Somalia secondary sources, I examined Egyptian press extracts attached to diplomatic correspondences between the Ethiopian embassy in Cairo and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Addis Ababa.
1. The Nile issue, Somali irredentism and the first Somali-Ethiopian border clash
Egypt has maintained a ceaseless watchfulness over developments in the upper Nile Basin. The 1950s, in particular, saw a difficult period of confrontation between Ethiopia and Egypt in the history of the Nile waters issue. This decade witnessed a remarkable strategic shift from comprehensive basinwide hydraulic projects— which would have benefited all of the states and hence would have brought about cooperation in the Nile Valley— to Egypt’s unilateral decision to erect the Aswan High Dam. It was also in that decade that Ethiopia began its staunch opposition to the Aswan High Dam Project and developed subsequent Egypto-Sudanese hegemonic aspirations. Ethiopia also opposed the bilateral Nile waters division negotiations1 that excluded the other riparian states such as Ethiopia— which contributes 86% of the Nile waters— on the division of the Nile waters through the 1959 Nile Waters Agreement. Ethiopia also attempted to study its water resources by using the American experts and finance from the United States Operations Mission to Ethiopia (US Point Four) 2 in response to the downstream states of Egypt and the Sudan who had promoted unilateral and bilateral water development schemes of their own.
1 Communiqué released by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ethiopia, 6 February 1957 ; Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “ Aide-Mémoire”, 23 September 1957. 2 The US-Ethiopian joint study of the Abbay Basin was finally published by the US Bureau of Reclamation, in 17 volumes, in 1964, as Land and Water Resources of the Blue Nile Basin : Ethiopia. See Bureau of Reclamation,
Land and Water Resources of the Blue Nile Basin : Ethiopia.
The US-Ethiopian joint studies and Ethiopia’s plan for developing the Abbay Basin within its territorial jurisdiction rekindled Egypt’s historic concern of Ethiopian control of the life-giving river upstream and their potential to reduce its flow into Egypt. Egypt’s foreign policy makers seemed to believe that it was necessary for Egypt to create conditions that would inhibit Ethiopia from constructing any kind of development in the Nile Basin. Egypt seemed to believe that its permanent interest in the waters of the Nile could be secured by following an inward-looking policy of externally destabilizing and weakening Ethiopia. Apparently, Egypt thought that if Ethiopia remained weak, unstable, and underdeveloped, it would be incapable of constructing large projects upstream or mounting a serious challenge to Egypt’s share of the Nile waters (Elhance, 1999: 65). Thus, Egypt’s new foreign policy orientation supported subversive activities against the Ethiopian government. Egypt’s action was not as direct as the invasion of the 1870s (Gabre-Sellassie, 1975: 61-62) 3, but was rather indirect through supporting Eritrean insurgents and Somalia’s irredentist claim over Ethiopia’s territory. On the other hand, it was in the 1950s that the Somali nationalists came up with the Pan-Somali nationalist project. It was this rather ambitious project that forced Somalia to seek alliances with regional and global powers and eventually induced Egypt’s involvement in the Somalia-Ethiopia wars. The idea of the formation of a “ Greater Somalia” was not an obvious outgrowth of the ethnic homogeneity of Somali-speaking people living in the territories of Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Kenya. Above all, the Somali-inhabited territories of the Horn of Africa had never been unified and ruled under a centralized Somali state. The Somali nationalists used some notable figures in history, mainly Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi (1506-1543) (Lewis, 2002: 224) 4
and Sayyid Muhammad Abd Allah al-Hasan (1856-1920) (ibid.) 5 to give a historical basis to their irredentist ambition. Nevertheless, both Ahmed and Sayyid either involved or formed clan-based political-military movements but never ruled over a unified Somali territory (Laitin & Samatar, 1987: 63). After
3 Khedive Isma’il (r. 1863-1895), in attempting to put the source of the Nile River under Egyptian hegemony, waged an all-out invasion of Ethiopia but his army was defeated at the battles of Gundat and Gura in 1875 and 1876, respectively. 4 It is important to note that Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi (Ahmad Gragn “ the left-handed”) was the ruler of the Sultanate of Adal, in Ethiopia. He is known in Ethiopian history as a famed Muslim, but not Somali, xvith-century conqueror. Ahmed defeated the Christian Ethiopian monarch in 1527 and put significant portions of the Ethiopian Empire under his military rule for more than a decade. It is known that the Somalis, along with the Adare, the Afar, the Argoba and others were involved in Ahmed
Gragn’s conquest of the Christian kingdom. 5 Sayyid Muhammad Abd Allah al-Hasan (nicknamed the “ Mad Mullah” by the British) was a Somali religious and anti-colonial struggle leader in the early xxth century. He fought against British and Italian colonial forces. The Ethiopian heir to the throne,
Lej Iyyasu (r. 1913-1916), succeeded in establishing cordial relations with Abd Allah al-Hasan and provided the latter with weapons.
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Italy occupied Ethiopia in 1936, the Italians created Africa Orientale Italiana
(Italian East Africa), which consisted of the Ethiopian Empire, Italian Eritrea and Italian Somaliland. The Italians created the Somalia Governorate with its capital in Mogadishu to administer the Somalis living within Italian East Africa (Zewde, 2001: 162). They also added conquered British Somaliland into the administrative region of the Somalia Governorate in 1940 (Laitin & Samatar, 1987: 62). Nevertheless, a year later the British defeated the Italians and recaptured their colony. Moreover, the British put British and Italian Somaliland, as well as the Ogaden (Ethiopia’s Somali-inhabited territory), under a unified military administration for the next 10 years. Eventually, the British handed over the Ogaden to Ethiopia through the Anglo-Ethiopian Agreement of 1954 (Zewde, 2001: 180-181) 6. At any rate, it was this brief unification of greater portions of the Somali-inhabited territory of the Horn of Africa under the military administration of Italy and Great Britain during World War II and its aftermath that became the basis of future Somali irredentism. In 1960 the British and Italian Somaliland achieved their independences and eventually united to form the Republic of Somalia. The new republic immediately began to put forth territorial claims over the Ogaden region of Ethiopia, Djibouti, and the Northern Frontier District of Kenya as part of their notion of a “ Greater Somalia”. Symbolizing the Pan-Somali project mission, the Somali state flag was emblazoned with five stars: two representing the former Italian and British Somalilands, which formed the Somali Republic, and the other three stars signifying the “ lost territories” the republic aspired to recover in Ethiopia, Djibouti, and Kenya (Laitin & Samatar, 1987: 134). As a direct outcome of the hydropolitics of the Nile, Egypt seems to have provided moral and material support to the growth of Pan-Somali nationalism. In the late 1950s, Egypt started radio broadcasting from Cairo that intended to stir up conflict between Ethiopian Muslims and the Christian political hegemony of the Ethiopian imperial monarchy under Emperor Haile Selassie I. Through this medium, the Egyptian government politicized Christian-Muslim relations in Ethiopia (Kendie, 1999: 154). The intention of Radio Cairo was to create a chaotic situation in Ethiopia by dividing the people into two antagonistic religious groups. The Egyptian attempt had some success, particularly in Eritrea, though there was no Christian-Muslim civil war. Radio Cairo also instigated the Somali irredentists who wanted to separate the Ogaden, the largely Somali region of south-eastern Ethiopia, from the Ethiopian Empire. Egyptian newspapers also portrayed Ethiopia as
6 It should be noted that like other African political boundaries, the Ethio–Somali boundary was arbitrarily delimited during the colonial period when Britain in 1898 and Italy in 1908 signed agreements with the then Ethiopian government.
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a “ colonialist and imperialist empire” that had forcefully occupied large parts of the Somali-inhabited areas in the Horn of Africa7. In August 1960, the Ethiopian Ministry of the Interior also reported to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as follows:
In its Amharic and Somali programs, the Radio Cairo has propagated and encouraged the Muslims to rise against the Christians as their enemies; now with no restriction, it has recently started Adaregna-language broadcasts and, more than this, it propagates the people to wake up from their sleep to fight against Ethiopian colonizers. The intention is to instigate the Adares [ Harari] as well to rebel against the Ethiopian Government8.
The Harari and Somali language broadcasts indicated Egypt’s concentrated efforts to instigate anti-government rebellions in the Muslim majority regions in the southeast of the Ethiopian Empire. Particularly, Egypt’s media added more fuel to Somali irredentism, which had the potential to develop into war. Indeed Somalia, which had begun to claim around one-fifth of Ethiopian territory as part of “ Greater Somalia”, was financed, armed and supported by Egypt in its intention to invade Ethiopia (Touval, 1963: 178; Wolde-Mariam, 1999: 85). As Haggai Erlich (1994) notes, “ simultaneously, as the Eritrean movement in Cairo was beginning to take shape, the Egyptians opened another Islamic Arab bridgehead in the Horn9”. Cognizant of Cairo’s overt and covert role in fomenting subversion, Emperor Haile Selassie time and again condemned Egypt for its instigation of Ethiopian Muslims and Somali irredentism by secret channels and provocative radio broadcasts10. In September 1960, Emperor Haile Selassie summarized Egypt’s involvement in the Somali invasion of Ethiopia by stating, “ the Somalis would have never dreamt of such an idea without being incited by Nasser” (Erlich, 1994: 134)
7 Gabra Maskal Kifla Igzi, Ambassador, Ethiopian Embassy Cairo, to Ato
Yilma Daressa, Minister, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Nahase 4, 1951 E. C. “ Ethiopian Embassy Cairo Report”, in Folder No-1, File No-1/ U (Ministry of Foreign Affairs Archive). 8 Afa-Nigus Eshate Gada, Vice Minister, Ministry of Interior, to Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Hamile 30, 1952 E. C., in “ Ethiopian Embassy Cairo Report”, in Folder No-1, File No-1/ U (Ministry of Foreign Affairs Archive). 9 To realize their grand ambition over the Nile waters by supporting subversive groups in Ethiopia, Cairo’s senior cadres played a major role in creating the institutional climate that helped the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) to be established in Cairo in the summer of 1960. Indeed, Egypt opened a small military training camp for Eritreans near Alexandria in 1958, where it trained some of the future military commanders of a guerrilla movement. It is noteworthy that the founders of the Eritrean armed struggle reportedly received their guerrilla training in Egypt. 10 Afa-Nigus Eshate Gada, Vice-Minister, Ministry of Interior, to Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
Hamile 30, 1952 E. C., in “ Ethiopian Embassy Cairo Report”, in Folder No-1, File No-1/ U (Ministry of Foreign Affairs Archive).
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Saadia Touval also described the primary reason for Egyptian involvement in Somalia in the early 1960s as follows:
Egyptian involvement stems in part from religious solidarity; but the principal reason behind it is political. Dependence on the Nile has led Egypt throughout its long history to view the sources of the river and its upper reaches as vital to Egyptian security. Most of the Nile waters which reach Egypt originate in Ethiopian highlands. Egypt has always feared interference with the flow of the river by Ethiopia or other powers controlling its headwaters (Touval, 1963: 178).
Similarly, Mesfin Wolde-Mariam’s study, which details the factors behind the Somali-Ethiopian conflict, indicates a basic reason:
Somalia has attempted armed invasion of the Ogaden […], no similar attempt was made on Kenya, or on Djibouti. Certainly, the reason for this is not to be found in Somalia’s underestimation of the Ethiopian armed forces in comparison to those of Kenya or of Djibouti. It will be more reasonable to assume that Somalia’s attempt to invade Ethiopian territory is an indication of Arab [ Egyptian] strategy rather than that of Somalia (Wolde-Mariam, 1999: 87).
He also added that one of the most important driving strategic factors behind Arab interference in the Horn of Africa was its desire to establish total control over the Nile. Of the Arab countries, Mesfin explicitly mentions Egypt by explaining, “[ t] he only real and understandable insecurity concerning the waters of the Nile is that of Egypt, for which the Nile equals life” (ibid.: 81-82). Obviously, Egypt’s desire to maintain its permanent interest in and unrestricted utilization of the Nile waters played a significant role in undermining the peace and security of the Horn of Africa. In this respect, Leo Silberman states Egypt’s involvement in the Somali-Ethiopian conflict in relation to the Nile issue as follows:
More must be done to keep the Somali problem contained within the orbit of the Horn of African peoples. Egypt once occupied the Somali ports and wants to return to the Southern straights [ sic] of the Red Sea. She cannot be indifferent of what goes on at the headwaters of the Blue Nile […] (Tilahun, 1979: 32).
Therefore, by the early 1960s Ethiopia had grown tired of Egyptian-backed Somali aggression. In 1961, Somalia had begun to train and arm a guerrilla force named the Western Somalia Liberation Front (WSLF) (Laitin & Samatar, 1987: 136), which infiltrated the Ogaden region. Eventually, the clashes along the frontier developed into a full-scale Somali-Ethiopian border war in February of 1964. It is important to note that during the war, President Nasser delivered plane-loads of ammunition to the invading Somali army to aid in their fight against Ethiopia (Abdi Aden, 2010: 68). Nevertheless, the Ethiopian armed forces quickly drove the Somali army back across the border
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into Somalia (ibid.: 320). Further significant military engagements formally ended in April 1964 through the Organization of African Unity (OAU)’ s mediation of a cease-fire based on an acceptance of the colonial boundaries (Laitin & Samatar, 1987: 138; Zewde, 2001: 182). Still, the potential for future Somali– Ethiopian conflict remained high. According to Laitin and Samatar, “ the Somali hoped that when the Ethiopian emperor died (or was removed from office) the WSLF would be in a good strategic position to take advantage of the concomitant turmoil in the empire and thereby to liberate the Ogaden” (Laitin & Samatar, 1987: 136).
2. The Somali-Ethiopian war of 1977-1978 and the hydropolitics of the Nile
The coming to power of General Mohamed Ziad Barre in 1969 created new momentum for Somalia’s irredentist claim to the Ogaden. Since Somalia had become a client state of the Soviet Union, its armed forces were well trained, modernized, and equipped with sophisticated Soviet weapons. As a result, on the eve of the outbreak of the Somali-Ethiopian war, Somalia had one of the best fighting forces in sub-Saharan Africa. Somalia had 50 MIG fighters, among them 24 supersonic MIG 21s, many Ilyushin bombers and T-54 tanks as well as 250 other medium tanks and approximately 300 armored personnel carriers. Ethiopia, on the other hand, had only 37 combat planes, which were all outdated with the exception of nine F-5As. Ethiopia had 12 medium and 50 light tanks and just over 100 armored personnel carriers (Farer, 1979: 98-99). Above all, Somalia wanted to use Ethiopia’s internal political unrest following the 1974 Revolution as an opportunity to realize its irredentist claim over the Ogaden. During an intense revolutionary period, from late 1974 to 1978, Ethiopia faced various security threats: the intensification of the armed struggle in Eritrea, unprecedented provincial rebellions, a power struggle within the Derg (committee of the middle level military officers with the rest rand and files), war by the Ethiopian Democratic Union (EDU), an urban guerrilla war in Addis Ababa and major urban centers by the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party (EPRP) (Zewde, 2001: 253-255), and Somalia’s infiltration of the WSLF into the Ogaden to secede the region from Ethiopia and subsequently incorporate it into Somalia (ibid.: 254). To make matters even worse, not only did the Ethiopian army lose its senior officer corps as a result of politically-inspired purges but the US, Ethiopia’s traditional arms supplier, also terminated all military ties with Ethiopia (ibid.). Against this background, Somalia enjoyed a distinct military advantage and attempted to annex the Ogaden region of Ethiopia as part of “ Greater Somalia”. The period of intense revolutionary ferment in Ethiopia also had a tremendous impact on the relations of the three countries most concerned with the Nile River Basin: Ethiopia, Sudan, and Egypt. In that period of wrenching transition, the Derg, which had toppled the ancien regime (1941-1974), required
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a national consensus in order to mobilize men and material to confront the worsening security situation in the country and to protect the established frontiers of Ethiopia and its national unity. The Derg ran a continuous rhetorical propaganda campaign against Arab plots aimed at an Arab holy war (jihad)
to dismember the Ethiopian state (Legum & Lee, 1977: 19). The Derg claimed that “ Arab countries”, meaning the two downstream Nile states, Egypt and the Sudan, had undermined the unity of Ethiopia by engineering the secession of Eritrea and other subversive activities at home in order to realize their age-old aspiration of securing their control of the Nile waters by weakening Ethiopia. Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam, in his recently published memoir, underscores that because the Egyptians had failed to establish direct control over the source of the Nile in the 1870s, they adopted the following as an alternative grand strategy:
Although they were not able to materialize their dangerous and grand dream of controlling the source of the Nile through force, as an alternative strategy, [ Egyptian leaders] employed all kinds of methods to weaken Ethiopian succeeding generations and their leaders not to harness tributaries of the Nile to boost their country’s economic development. (Mengistu Haile Mariam, 2004 E. C.: 35).
As the Somali invasion of Ethiopia violated Article III of the OAU Charter, which denounced the use of force to settle border disputes (OAU Charter, 1963), as well as the OAU’s 1964 Cairo Resolution that sanctified the African colonial boundaries into law (OAU, July 1964), Ethiopia attempted to stop the invasion via diplomatic efforts. Nevertheless, all of these efforts turned into a fiasco. President Ziad Barre, who was expecting the support of the West through Egypt and other Arab countries, ignored condemnation and pressure to drop his irredentist claim over the Ogaden. Even though the OAU condemned Somalia as an aggressor (Laitin & Samatar, 1987: 143), Egypt, which was in tension with Ethiopia over the Nile waters issue, continued to provide moral and material support for Mogadishu. The Soviet Union and Cuba also put pressure on Somalia to relinquish its invasion plan, albeit in vain (Makinda, 1984). Egypt’s promise of arms support might have been one of the factors which encouraged Ziad Barre to pass over Soviet warnings against invading Ethiopia. Indeed, after the Somali-Ethiopian war broke out, Egypt and other Arab countries were “ playing the role of American regional ‘ policemen’” (ibid.) in the Horn of Africa. Therefore, from the standpoint of Somalia, if war broke out in 1977, Somalia had a good chance of victory given Ethiopia’s internal problems; thus, following its decisive military triumph, Somalia would eventually realize its dream of a “ Greater Somalia” by incorporating almost one-fifth of Ethiopia’s territory into its own. Somalia employed insurgents in the Somali-inhabited regions of Ethiopia, namely the WSLF and the Somali Abo Liberation Front
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(SALF), to spearhead its full-scale invasion of the Ogaden, Bali, Arsi and parts of Sidamo (Belachew, 2014: 679). In 1977 the Derg, which was under increasing political pressure to address the threat of an Arab-backed Somali invasion, initiated an active search for allies. On 23 April 1977, to secure military aid from the Soviet Union, Mengistu11 closed down four US organizations that symbolized Ethiopia’s alignment with the US and the Western camp: the Kagnaw Station in Asmara, the US Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG), the US Naval Medical Research Unit (NAMRU), and the US Information Service (USIS) 12. The Derg, in order to escape from growing isolation, was much more eager for a Soviet embrace than the latter were to embrace it. Indeed, this strategy helped Ethiopia to garner Soviet, Cuban, and South Yemeni support for its counter-offensive against the Somali invasion (Zewde, 2001: 254). Eventually, Somalia launched a full-scale war of aggression using ground forces and air power and crossed the border into Ethiopia on 23 July 197713. Hence, the Somali-Ethiopian war broke out (July 1977-March 1978), and became one of the largest inter-state wars in contemporary African history. Certainly, Somalia’s initial victory in the Ethiopian Ogaden was the greatest threat to Ethiopia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity after the Italian invasion in 1935-193614. Egypt lost no time in fighting wars by proxy in the Horn of Africa, as was evident from her rushing to the aid of Somalia. History was repeated in a peculiar way in 1977. As mentioned above, Egypt had supported Somalia during the border conflict with Ethiopia in the early 1960s. Cairo openly supplied large quantities of weapons to Somalia from its arms arsenals, which Egypt had received from the Soviet Union for the war against Israel15. Egypt did this despite blatant Somali aggression, which was against the tenets of the OAU that respected the European colonial boundaries of independent states in Africa. Even though Egyptian leaders had almost pushed the Palestinian question aside, they spoke to “ Arab solidarity” as their reason to support the Somali
11 In 1977 Mengistu became the dictator of Ethiopia after he had eliminated all other contenders for power, namely Generals Mikael Andom and Tafari Bante, both of whom served as chairmen, and Colonel Atnafu Abata, the vice-chairman, of the PMAC. 12 Ibid. 13 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Provisional Military Government of Socialist Ethiopia. Press Release. Addis Ababa, 7 September 1977. 14 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Provisional Military Government of Socialist Ethiopia. Press Release. Addis Ababa, 7 September 1977. 15 PMAC Chairman Comrade Lt-Colonel Mengistu Haile-Mariam’s radio and television address to the nation and the progressive forces and oppressed masses of the world on the situation in the Horn of Africa, Addis Ababa, 30 January 1978, published by the Ministry of Information and National Guidance (Institute of Ethiopian Studies Library, Pamphlets, 313-327.3).
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invasion of Ethiopia16. Egypt’s deeper involvement in the affairs of Somalia would have been part of its grand strategy to prevent Ethiopia from developing the Nile waters resources (Kendie, 1999: 160). Apparently, this Egyptian intervention was aimed at weakening Ethiopia by creating political instability and shifting its focus from water resource development to war. The media confrontations between Egypt and Ethiopia in relation to the Ogaden War began on 22 January 1978 when the Egyptian Gazette made public that Mahmoud Riad, the Secretary General of the Arab League, referring to the Arab League’s resolution adopted in September 1977, urged member states of the League to extend their military support for Somalia. Moreover, Mr. Riad was accused by the Ethiopian government of having requested the Secretary General of the OAU send him a proposal for OAU-Arab League joint “ cooperation” that would support Somalia against Ethiopia. In response, the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a press release that expressed serious concern over the contents of the Egyptian Gazette article (Ethiopian Herald, 25 January, 1978). Indeed, the Ethiopian government suspected that Sadat might instruct Mr. Riad, as he was an Egyptian, to write to the OAU to support Somalia in her war of aggression against Ethiopia (Ethiopian Herald,
16 February, 1978). From this time onwards, Ethiopia continued its frequent open accusations that Egypt was aiding Somalia. On 5 February 1978, President Sadat publicly announced Egypt’s direct involvement in the Somali-Ethiopian War by declaring that he had already dispatched arms to Somalia and was considering sending more arms along with Egyptian troops17. On 10 February 1978, The Washington Post, quoting President Sadat, reported that Egypt aided Somalia through $ 30 million worth of armaments (The Washington Post, 10 February 1978). According to the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, based on information obtained from the Kenyan News Agency, an Egyptian Boeing 707 plane loaded with over 20 tons of explosives and artillery shells for Somalia was forced to land at Nairobi international airport by the Kenyan Air Force (Addis Zaman, Yakatit 10, 1970 E. C.; Addis Zaman, Yakatit 11, 1970 E. C.; Ethiopian Herald, 16 February,
16 Egyptian Mail, May 31, 1980, Press Extract attached to a letter from Batiru Kidane Mãriyãm, Ambassador, Ethiopian Embassy in Cairo, to Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ginbot 23, 1972 E. C., folder no-1, file no-3-14/ 2 (Ministry of Foreign Affairs Archive). 17 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Provisional Military Government of Socialist Ethiopia. Press Release on President Anwar El Sadat’s latest public announcement in Washington D. C. regarding the supply of arms and troops to Somalia, Addis Ababa, 9 February 1978.
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1978) 18. On the other hand, the then Egyptian ambassador to Kenya, Ahmed Mabouk, dismissed the allegation by saying that the intercepted planes were carrying relief supplies to the people of Somalia (Ethiopian Herald,
16 February, 1978). However, on 17 February 1978, the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in an address to the heads of African diplomatic missions who were meeting in Addis Ababa regarding Egypt’s direct involvement in Somalia’s war of aggression against Ethiopia, officially described Egypt as an “ reactionary” enemy Arab state behind the Somali invasion of Ethiopia with the purpose of realizing its age-old interest in the waters of the Nile. The Ministry stated, “[ t] his point [ Egypt’s interference in the Somali-Ethiopian war] has been made crystal clear by Sadat himself when he declared that he had the mandate to protect the waters of the Nile19”. It was also reported that in an interview with
Newsweek magazine on 5 February 1978, President Sadat was quoted as saying in unmistakable terms that “ he would use the arms to be delivered by the US government not against Israel or any other ally of the United States but to safeguard his interest in black Africa” (Ethiopian Herald, 10 December, 1978). In response, on 11 February 1978, in the main article of the Ethiopian Herald
(11 February, 1978), “ Anti-Ethiopian Crusade”, the publication criticized the newly growing desire for Mogadishu’s support from “ the Arab reactionary leaders”, in general, and the Egyptian leadership, in particular, by writing, “[ t] hey [ Arab “ reactionary” leaders] once claimed the Red Sea; today, they are casting their evil eyes on the Ogaden and the Nile […]”. In February 1978, President Sadat expressed his concern that the revolution in Ethiopia might spread to the Sudan, and hence the latter would fall under Soviet influence by explaining, “ I want America to send arms to Somalia along with troops. Soviet involvement in Ethiopia could spill over into the Sudan, through which the Upper Nile flows. This means Egypt. Water for my country is life to my people, and I am going to defend it” (Ethiopian Herald,
16 February, 1978). This clearly shows how Cairo lobbied a bid to safeguard the undiminished flow of the Nile waters. Sadat’s interference in the Somali-Ethiopian war as well as his statements on the Nile waters encountered fierce denunciation from Ethiopia. The Ethiopian Herald (16 February, 1978), which began to consider Sadat as an embodiment of Khedive Ismail (r. 1863-1879), who had tried to control the source of the Nile
18 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Provisional Military Government of Socialist Ethiopia. Press Release : Statement by Dr. Feleke Gedle Giorgis, Foreign Minister of Socialist Ethiopia to Heads of African Diplomatic Missions on Sadat’s interference in the Horn of Africa. Addis Ababa, 17 February 1978. It should be noted that Kenya was against Egypt’s interference since Somalia also laid claim to Kenya’s territory as part of what it called “ Greater Somalia”.
19 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Provisional Military Government of Socialist Ethiopia. Press Release, 17 February 1978.
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but was defeated by the Ethiopians in the 1870s, asked in surprise, “ Who told the Egyptian Khedive that Revolutionary Ethiopia wants to stop the flow of the Nile waters?” The paper also bluntly intimidated Sadat by implying that since the Nile flows from Ethiopia, it could interfere in the flow of the Nile unless Egypt stopped its support for Somalia:
If he [ Sadat] wants to protect the Nile basin because water is life to his people, he must know too that the Nile has one of its sources in Ethiopia that he wants to destroy. It is from here that goes the dark blue alluvial soil so dear to the Egyptian
fellahin. Furthermore, Ethiopia has a Head of State who cares for the lives of his people. Those dying in the Ogaden, Sidamo, Bale and the Eritrean regions are Ethiopian nationals— human beings like the ones for whom Sadat wants the Nile waters (Ethiopian Herald, 16 February, 1978).
As the course of the Somali-Ethiopian war changed in favor of the Ethiopian armed forces, Sadat tried his best to coordinate a common Arab League-OAU front, although there was little sympathy for the Somali claim to the Ogaden in Africa where all countries accepted the inviolability of colonial boundaries. Moreover, Sadat tried to secure the military support of Washington to protect the retreating Somalis from Ethiopia’s counter-offensive (Erlich, 2002: 167). The Somali-Ethiopian war was not as prolonged or as successful for Somalia as Cairo had desired. Ethiopia regained control over all the Ogaden, military posts, and administrative centers in March of 1978 (Zewde, 2001: 254). Therefore, Cairo’s attempt to play the Somali card in the hydropolitics of the Nile was a failure. The defeat of the Somali army did not bring lasting peace to the Horn of Africa. Somalia and Ethiopia continued to engage in reciprocal harboring and supporting of opposition groups fighting to overthrow their respective regimes to further exacerbate the security situation of the region. To realize its irredentist claims through a subtler strategy, Somalia continued to assist the WSLF and SALF which were fighting to liberate the Ogaden (Belachew, 2014: 678). Moreover, Somalia also provided moral and material support to separatist and insurgent groups in Ethiopia, such as the Eritrean Peoples’ Liberation Front (EPLF), the Tigray Peoples’ Liberation Front (TPLF) and the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), all of whom were fighting to overthrow the military government of Ethiopia (ibid.). On the other hand, the Derg provided anti-Barre elements with varied support to destabilize and incapacitate the Somali Republic (ibid.: 684). This reciprocal destabilization strategy followed by Mogadishu and Addis Ababa eventually contributed to the forced flight of both Barre and Mengistu in 1991. Above all, Ethiopia’s strategy of weakening Somalia would be counterproductive, as it has proved to be an existential security threat to Ethiopia’s southeastern frontier as well as a major security concern for the region and the international community.
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Indeed, Addis Ababa is still paying a heavy price for its mistaken historical strategy in Somalia. On the other hand, the failure of Cairo’s efforts to support Somali aggression against Ethiopia was a watershed in the history of the hydropolitics of the Nile. After Ethiopia had gained victory over the Somali forces, its morally boosted army launched a counter-offensive against Eritrean guerrillas and, for a time, won back most of the province of Eritrea. The new assertiveness of the military government after the Ogaden War further indicated to Egypt that Ethiopia would turn to economic development by using the Nile waters. Indeed, this Egyptian suspicion was later shown to be well founded by the Ethiopian military government’s proclamation of the “ National Revolutionary Development Campaign” in October 1978. The rationale behind the proclamation was as follows: “ Whereas, the broad masses, having through great determination vanquished their external and internal enemies that had challenged their Revolution and unity, have declared … their readiness to carry out a revolutionary campaign in the field of development” (Negarit Gazeta, 29 October, 1978). The military government’s “ Green” Zamacha (campaign) was supposed to be realized by using the Abbay and other rivers for irrigation20. Egypt was concerned about the new ideological alliance between Ethiopia and the Soviets who had been expelled from Egypt less than two years after the Aswan High Dam had been completed (Henze, 1986: 86). To Egypt, there was a possibility that the Soviets might use the Nile card to threaten Egyptian leaders. Egypt, therefore, took a political stance and tried to topple the military regime of Ethiopia. Nonetheless, although the Ethiopian leadership was reportedly in an optimistic mood concerning the Soviet interest in the Nile and the hope of obtaining financial and technical assistance to harness the river, nothing came of the Ethiopian-Soviet alliance with regard to the Nile waters development projects (Erlich, 2002: 169). The Soviets did not use Ethiopia as a showcase for other African countries by harnessing the Nile and hence boosting its economy; they simply flooded it with armaments. However, it seems that Egypt, which kept a watch on the sources of the Nile, was alarmed by the aforementioned developments in Ethiopia. In May 1978, the Egyptian Irrigation Minister, Abdel Azim Abul Ata, told the Egyptian weekly newspaper Akhabar El-Yom that his government “ will not allow the exploitation of the Nile waters” (Ethiopian Herald, 14 May, 1978) by Ethiopia. Moreover, the minister was also said to have called for Arab countries, such as Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, and Kuwait, to support Egypt in backing the
20 Izadin Ali, Minister of Mineral, Energy and Water Resources, to Ato
Haylu Yimanu, First Minister, Provisional Military Government of Socialist Ethiopian, Office of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, Hamile 7, 1970 E. C. Folder no-1, file no-3-14/ 2. (Ministry of Foreign Affairs Archive).
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Eritrean insurgents against the Ethiopian government (Kendie, 1999: 158) who had planned to build dams around the source of the Nile. The newspaper also publicly characterized Ethiopia’s plan for development around the source of the Nile as a danger to Egypt and the Sudan. In addition, it announced that Ethiopia’s move was being prudently studied by the two downstream states (Ethiopian Herald, 14 May, 1978). Therefore, assuming an absolute connection between peace for Ethiopia and Ethiopian water resource development, as well as the fear of Soviet support for the Derg’s plan to build a dam on the Blue Nile, Cairo began reiterating warlike threats against Addis Ababa soon after the end of the Somali-Ethiopian war. An Ethiopian diplomat in Cairo summed up his observation of the anti-Ethiopian propaganda of the Egyptian press following the end of the Somali– Ethiopian border war in relation to the Nile waters issue as follows:
After the acts of invasion [ by the Somalis] against the south-eastern part of the country had been repulsed and the people of Revolutionary Ethiopia had gained victory with great determination, the Nile waters issue has been given great attention in the situation of the country [ Egypt] in which we are living21.
On the other hand, Ethiopia began to make a formal reply to Cairo’s war threats on 13 May 1978. The Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in its press release titled “ Ethiopia has all the rights to exploit her natural resources”, stated that, “ No one in his right senses can question Ethiopia’s inalienable and self-evident right to use her natural resources for the benefit of her struggling masses” (Ethiopian Herald, 14 May, 1978). The press release, which clearly indicated Egypt’s plots against Ethiopia, strongly criticized Cairo’s statement by saying, “ the alleged statement does not only constitute a rude and provocative interference in Ethiopia’s affairs, but is also a meddling act without precedence [ sic]” (ibid.) In conclusion, the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that:
Revolutionary Ethiopia would like to make it emphatically clear that she is at full liberty and within her right to utilize her natural resources for the advancement of her people and the inevitable and final attainment of her revolutionary goals. It must be noted, however, that despite the reactionary and empty outcries of the reactionary Arab regimes, Revolutionary Ethiopia does not believe in the exclusive exploitation of her resource against the well-being of the masses in neighbouring countries (ibid.).
21 Batru Kidana Mariyam, ambassador, Cairo, to Ato Birhanu Dinqa, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Africa and Middle East Affairs, Sane 15, 1970 E. C. Folder no-1, file no-3-14/ 2. (Ministry of Foreign Affairs Archive).
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On 30 May 1978, President Sadat was quoted saying that, “ Egypt would go to war if Ethiopia planned to build a dam on Lake Tana” (Ethiopian Herald,
10 December, 1978). The Ethiopian Ambassador in Cairo reported that the Egyptian press was giving wide coverage to the threat that Egypt would go to war if Ethiopia developed the Nile tributaries in its territory, as the Nile was a question of life and death for Egypt. He also reported that Egypt would stand behind the Sudan if Ethiopia invaded that country22. The diplomat commented to the Egyptian press how “ shameless” Egypt and the Sudan were to generate such propaganda against Ethiopia, ignoring the rights of the source country of the Nile, and even planning to take military action if the latter utilized the waters of the river23. On the other hand, the military government also continued counterpropaganda against Cairo’s war threats. Mengistu Haile Mariam emphasized in a press conference held in July 1978 that Ethiopia was in a much better position than Egypt to take unilateral action on the Nile waters, as follows:
Of all things that President Sadat’s warlike threats first remind us is that all neighbouring countries utilizing rivers that spring from Ethiopia must first negotiate with Ethiopia, the source of the Abbay and other tributaries of the Nile, on the bases of international law on rivers’ utilization as well as in the spirit of peaceful neighborhood and cooperation, before planning any project on the Nile24.
However, Mengistu continued:
[ However] what has been done to the present [ is that], they have simply invested up to $ 6 billion in different projects; let alone negotiating with or considering the interest of the sources of all these streams, but without [ even as it might seem] knowing the existence of Ethiopia25.
After Cairo’s repeated threats that it would go to war with Ethiopia in the event that the latter dared decrease the flow of the Nile waters, the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs once again expressed grave concern about the statements made by Egyptian leadership through a press release issued on 10 December 1978. According to the Ministry, a press release titled “ Egyptian war cries denounced” was issued in response to an address to the National Security and Mobilization Committee of the People’s Assembly of Egypt made by the Defense Minister of Egypt, Lt-General Kamal Hassan Ali, which was
22 Batru Kidana Mariyam, ambassador, Cairo, to Ato Birhanu Dinqa, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Africa and Middle East Affairs, Sane 15, 1970 E. C. Folder no-1, file no-3-14/ 2. (Ministry of Foreign Affairs Archive). 23 Ibid.
24 Mengistu, quoted by Izadin Ali, Minister of Mineral, Energy and Water Resources, to Ato Haylu Yimanu, First Minister, Provisional Military Government of Socialist Ethiopian, Office of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers,
Hamile 7, 1970 E. C., Folder no-1, file no-3-14/ 2. (Ministry of Foreign Affairs Archive). 25 Ibid.
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later given wide coverage by Egyptian newspapers on 6 December 1978. The Defense Minister was said to have stated that as part of “ Egypt’s security and strategy”, his government was helping the Eritrean struggle for independence. Moreover, he reportedly said that Egypt’s armed forces should be strengthened to encounter the serious situation masterminded by the Soviet Union in the region (Ethiopian Herald, 10 December, 1978). It should be noted that at that time the Sudan, by and large, remained within Egypt’s Nile policy framework. The year 1979 saw a steady rise of well-trained and armed Egyptian troops, estimated around 50,000, present in the Sudan with a declared military purpose of securing the undiminished flow of the waters of the Blue Nile (Arsano, 2007: 91-92). Evidently, Cairo’s officials insisted that Egypt’s military intervention was inevitable to dissuade Ethiopia from exploiting the Nile waters. Therefore, in its press release of 10 December 1978, the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs denounced Cairo’s statements as “ war-like pronouncements [ which] were not only directed against Ethiopia but also against other African countries which control the sources of the Nile” (Ethiopian Herald,
10 December, 1978). It also “ vehemently condemned these Egyptian war-cries and intrigues against the interests of the African and Arab peoples and [ called] upon all peace-loving peoples and governments to raise their vigilance against the new designs of Egyptian hegemony” (ibid.). The Ministry also pronounced that, “[ a] s concerns Ethiopia, no amount of drum-beating or empty bluster from Cairo will divert the victorious march of the Ethiopian Revolution, and the resolve of the broad masses to defend their sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity” (ibid.).
Cairo’s warlike threats following the Somali-Ethiopian war had a counterproductive effect. Wondimneh Tilahun’s (1979) book Egypt’s Imperial Aspirations Over Lake Tana and the Blue Nile, was more a response to the contemporary hydropolitics of the Nile and a response to the warlike speeches and declarations of President Anwar Sadat in the late 1970s than a critical study of the subject. However, as his central thesis, he gives an interesting explanation of the Nile as a menace to Ethiopia’s peace by explaining that, “[ t] he great danger of unutilized rivers to Ethiopia is that it creates an insane desire on the part of her neighbors to see to it that she will never attain the capacity to utilize these rivers” (Tilahun, 1979: 30). He also argued that the sacrifice and some of the social, economic, and political problems Ethiopians faced in the past and at that time were the product of the hydropolitics of the Nile River. Thus, he emphasized that “ Lake Tana and the Blue Nile will cease to be the fifth columns of nature planted in the heart of Ethiopia beckoning
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and tempting Egyptian aggressors to disturb her peace and security26” if Ethiopia utilized its water. Therefore, according to Wondimneh, Ethiopia would achieve sustainable peace and stability when the Soviets supported it in developing the Nile as they had previously assisted the Egyptians in erecting the Aswan Dam (ibid.: 29-30). In May 1980 President Sadat complained about US negligence in response to Somalia’s requests for military aid by lamenting that, “ the Americans do not seem to realise that the Somali President is defending his country against Soviet threats coming from Ethiopia. Somalia is an Arab country, and a member of the Arab League, Egypt would not hesitate to send its troops to Somalia to fight beside the Somali people, if that were necessary” (Egyptian Mail, 31 May 1980). Moreover, on May 27, 1980, President Sadat threatened Ethiopia with a Nile war and “ urged the US to speed up the delivery of military aid to Egypt because an entirely [ new] situation has emerged with Marxist Ethiopia circulating through the Secretariat of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) a Memorandum accusing Egypt of diverting Nile water without the necessary consent of the nations of the Nile basin” (The Egyptian Gazette,
May 27, 1980). Above all, Sadat was also said to have told Katherine Graham, Editor of the Washington Post, who had conducted an interview with him, that, “ As the Nile water issue is one of life or death for my people, I feel I must urge the US to speed up the delivery of the promised military aid so that Egypt might not be caught napping” (ibid.). At that time, diplomats based in Mogadishu also thought that Sadat’s motive was to realize his interest in the Nile waters and was less altruistic, as Somalia had only “ a firm but low-key loyalty to Egypt” (New York Times, 4 June 1980). Moreover, at that time, it was reported that Egypt and Somalia had begun joint air strike training with a US squadron of Phantom F-4s27, albeit in the 1980s Somalia did not have the capacity to invade Ethiopia. Cairo’s warlike threats to Addis Ababa continued until Sadat’s assassination in October 1981. Under President Hosni Mubarak (1981-2011), Egypt initiated diplomatic games to safeguard its interest in the Nile waters. Cairo proposed different forms of peaceful cooperation to work closely with Addis Ababa28. Subsequently, Egypt and Ethiopia signed a modest commercial agreement on 8 February 1982. Egypt then continued its effort to improve relations with Ethiopia. In 1983 the Egyptian ambassador in Addis Ababa, Dr. Samir Ahmed,
26 The four column enemies of Ethiopian were then claimed to be “ feudalism, imperialism, bureaucratic capitalism and the internal dissident groups”. Therefore, Ethiopia would not leave the Blue Nile and Lake Tana unutilized to be a bone of contention, ultimately to become a fifth column by attracting a historic enemy, Egypt. 27 Batiru Kidane Mariyam, Ambassador, Ethiopian Embassy in Cairo, to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Africa and Middle East Affairs Section, Hamile 17, 1972 E. C., Folder no-1, file no-3-14/ 12 (Ministry of Foreign Affairs Archive). 28 Ibid.
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delivered a series of eloquent public lectures in favor of cooperation between Egypt and Africa at Addis Ababa University. In all of his lectures, compiled as Egypt and Africa: on the Road to Cooperation, the ambassador emphasized the Egyptian desire for cooperation, past and present, with African states, and the desire to put the historical thorny relations between Ethiopia and Egypt aside (Ahmed, 1983). Moreover, which is perhaps more important to highlight, the overt change in Egypt’s foreign policy towards Ethiopia was that Egypt, which had supported Somalian aggression, desisted from open condemnation of Ethiopia’s forces that were alleged to have patrolled inside Somalia in July 1982 (Erlich, 2002: 169-170). This indicates that Cairo had altered its policy, at least temporarily, and withdrew its open support for Somalia. Nevertheless, even after Somalia became stateless, Egypt and Ethiopia once again found themselves taking opposite sides over Somali affairs. Egypt is one of the few Arab countries that was beyond the region but who still had active embassies in stateless Somalia to safeguard its interest in the region as well as influencing the Somali peace process (Abdi Aden, 2010: 69). The country sabotaged a number of Ethiopia’s attempts to broker a settlement in Somalia. Egypt seemed to fear the establishment of an Ethiopian-friendly Somali government (ibid.). The International Crisis Group enunciated the conflict between Egypt and Ethiopia over the Somalia peace issue as follows: “ As the Sodere process threatened to produce a new Somali government, Egypt invited the key participants to a parallel conference in Cairo and effectively aborted the initiative. The Cairo conference subsequently failed, leaving Somalia as divided as ever” (International Crisis Group, 2002: 8) 29. The same report shows Egypt’s motive behind the re-establishment of a strong and unified Somali state that would serve as a counterweight against Ethiopia, as follows: “ Cairo’s concerns are conditioned primarily by the perennial dispute with Ethiopia over the waters of the Nile” (ibid.: 9) 30. On the contrary, Ethiopia is said to have been suspicious of the re-establishment of a “ strong central Somali state”, which could again take up irredentist claims to its territory, promoting the idea of the formation of a Federal Somali state (Abdi Aden, 2010: 55). The Ethiopian media also intermittently accused Egypt of meddling in stateless Somalia to play off tribal factions against Ethiopia (Addis Tribune, 16 April, 1999).
Conclusion
The nexus of the Nile waters issue, being Egypt’s vital interest, and the two Somali-Ethiopian border wars show that the Nile waters issue quietly but
29 The Sodere peace process was organized and hosted by the Ethiopian government in 1996. 30 The Somaliland media also described Egypt’s involvement in Somalia thus : “ Egypt is locked in a perpetual struggle with Ethiopia over Nile River water rights and sees a greater, united Somalia as a strong counterbalance to Ethiopia” (Brown, 2009).
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clearly remained the foundational agenda of Egypt’s foreign policy strategy in the Horn of Africa. Egypt’s decision to support Somalia against Ethiopia was related to its interest in the Nile waters. Preventing Ethiopia from utilizing the Nile waters became the basis of Egypt’s foreign policy, which supported Somalia under the presidencies of Nasser and Sadat in the 1960s and 1970s. Therefore, the Somali-Ethiopian border wars serve as examples in miniature of the history of Egypt’s interventions in the Horn of Africa intended to destabilize and weaken Ethiopia. The defeat of the Somali army and the Derg’s subsequent destabilization strategy eventually led to the collapse of the Somali state in 1991, undermining the security situation of the Horn of Africa. Somalia entered a quarter of a century of state collapse coupled with civil war. It is important to recognize that the Nile waters issue was and still is intricately connected to the history of conflict in the volatile region. We need more and more thorough insights in order to understand and to attempt to solve the serious problems facing the region. Furthermore, those with a stake in peace should take into account the hydropolitics of the Nile to contextualize their theories and practices in situ, in the search for sustainable peace in the Horn of Africa. Finally, one commonly recognized recurring factor that contributes to the instability of the Horn of Africa is Egypt’s total dependence on the Nile waters and its need to safeguard the undiminished flow of them. Conversely, however, Egypt’s policy has not fully prevented successive Ethiopian governments from claiming an equitable share of the Nile waters resource as a key component of the country’s economic development. Moreover the Somali-Ethiopian wars, which were a meaningless tragedy for the people of the Horn of Africa, as well as other conflicts and subsequent economic catastrophes in Ethiopia, have contributed to making the condition of the natural environment of the Nile Basin precarious and thereby have adversely affected the long-term interests of Egypt.
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Abstract
