Last week, the seven upstream countries announced that they will sign a framework agreement that will close out the two downstream countries Egypt and Sudan, and reduce their shares of the water. Egypt threatened to respond to any move that affects its ‘historical rights’. I wonder if Black African countries are capable of coordinated action over the Nile.
5 comments:
"I wonder if Black African countries are capable of coordinated action over the Nile."
In short, no, other than paper agreements. On the other hand, I'm not sure that the Egyptians are really capable of projecting force as far south as Uganda - 3000 km from Egypt. Not by land and not by air. So they will just scream and yell at each other at international forums and somehow hope that they can get the white people to compensate them.
K
You are probably right: Turkey dammed Iraq's Euphrates and nothing happened. In this case, it is probable that upriver countries like Uganda will be technically unable to maintain an irrigation system that uses up the river's water. In South America, in the late sixties, the IDB built large irrigation systems that are unused.
The lower Nile valley is now inimaginably full of people (100 million Egyptians). The Nile cannot be tampered with.
As I'm sure you know, most water is used for crop irrigation and much of it in Egypt is wasted. Those 100 million could live on much less water if forced to do so. Sure they will kick and scream first because people always prefer to keep things the same.
That Egyptians have reproduced like rabbits far beyond the capacity of their economy to provide for them, so that people are living in tombs, etc. is another discussion.
K
I'll have to agree with K, the Egyptians could live on less water if they had to. If you look at the wikipage for the Arab Organization of Industrialization you will see that the Egyptians produce licensed copies of Western products. One of the divisions of the AOfI built a desalination plant (link) so if they diverted some of their brainpower away from trying to destroy Israel they could potentially manage their water better.
The average Egyptian may only have an IQ in the low 80's, but since there are so many of them Egypt can have a small indigenous technical workforce.
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