#6 - Turn Back the Clock

William Golding once said, ‘he who rides the sea of the Nile must have sails woven of patience’. Golding, revered author of Lord of the Flies, lived as the sun finally did set on the British Empire. He evokes the patience required to traverse the Nile. Interpreted more broadly, the quotation indicts the lengthy struggle of colonial powers for a controlling stake in the Nile.
 
As I have touched on in previous posts, colonial powers exerted great influence over the Nile. In this post I unpack a few of the major historic events. Of key importance is to recognise that many treaties favoured colonial objectives rather than the fair allocation of water for African states (Kimenyi and Mbaku 2015). A total of 150 transboundary water treaties have been signed over 140 years in Africa (Lautze and Giordano 2005). Over 60 percent concern the Nile basin (Lautze and Giordano 2005).
 
In the case of the Nile, there are two major positions on the succession of colonial treaties for post-colonial states, albeit with increasingly muddier positions (Ferede and Abebe 2014). Egypt, and Sudan to some extent, insist on the continuity of colonial agreements which cement their access and power over Nile deliberations (Kimenyi and Mbaku 2015). The upstream riparians, spearheaded by Ethiopia, reject colonial agreements (Ferede and Abebe 2014). Colonial-era treaties not only assign Egypt a specific water allocation, but also provide a mechanism for exerting hegemonic force across the basin.
 
Egyptian influence comes primarily from British colonial agreements which limited the development of the upstream Nile while ensuring investment downstream (Tawfik 2016). The 1902 Anglo-Ethiopian Treaty prohibited Ethiopia from constructing on any Nile tributaries that would obstruct the flow of the Nile (Tawfik 2016). The 1929 Anglo-Egyptian Nile Water Agreement ensured that no projects on the Nile under British control would interfere with Egyptian interests (Kendie 1999). And the 1959 Nile Water Agreement divided the entire flow of the Nile in a 75-25 split between Egypt and Sudan respectively, eclipsing all other states' water rights (Kendie 1999). The setup to the 1959 agreement saw an Egyptian-led coup in Sudan and demonstrations of Egyptian military strength under the guise of border disputes (Swain 1997). 
 
What connects these agreements (amongst others) is the fervent rejection by Ethiopia of their lack of legal standing. Many of the Nile water allocation treaties never involved the upstream riparians, were fraudulent, or were ensconced in British colonial influence, which, as Ethiopia is a non-colonial state, is under no obligation to recognise (Ferede and Abebe 2014). Indeed, scholars have argued that many treaties (both post- and pre-colonial) are legally invalid, if not for the fact that they are bilateral and simply ignore the remaining Nile riparians (Ferede and Abebe 2014).
 
Undoubtedly, the colonial history of the Nile basin is incredibly complex. This post barely scratches the surface. Suffice it to say, colonial exertions greatly affected the distribution of power between Nile riparians. And today, the downstream riparians continue to rely on contentious historic treaties to bolster their claims to precarious Nile resources. Scholars urge us to see the tension over the Nile not as a recent issue of contrition, but as a historical tension exacerbated by colonial yoke (Hussein and Grandi 2017; Lautze and Giordano 2005).