The Ethiopian Civil War and the Nile Dam

The civil war raging between the Ethiopian government and the Ethiopian separatists Tigers with simultaneous guerrilla movement in the northwest of the country on the border with Sudan. Recently, the Ethiopian government declared the capital a state of emergency as Western countries evacuated their citizens from Ethiopia, a sign that the future was born of civil war. The government seized hexapine and lost several territories in the north and center of the country. The civil war in Ethiopia is not just a separatist movement in the north. It is connected to the Great Dam of the Ethiopian Renaissance, at the sources of the Blue Nile, a tributary of the Nile. The war in the province of Tigray started four months after the first filling of the Dam in the summer of 2019.

Of Dr. Evangelos Venetis *

The $ 5 billion hydroelectric dam began construction in 2011 on the border with Sudan and is expected to generate enough electricity to meet domestic needs as well as export surplus. The hydroelectric dam will generate electricity to meet domestic demand with a surplus for export.

However, Egypt and Sudan have reacted, and are reacting strongly, to the construction of the Dam because of the vital importance of the Nile to these states. For more than a decade, fruitless negotiations have been going on with Egypt and Sudan over the operation of the dam and the amount of water that will be seized in it. Talks between Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt intensified after the first filling of the dam in July 2020, as there was no prior agreement or agreement. In 2019, due to the tense situation, the USA mediated in the dispute with the then President Trump commenting that “Egypt could not compromise with the dam and that it could” blow up “the construction”. As early as 2018, the chief engineer of the Dam was found dead in his car in the capital under unknown circumstances, while earlier in the same period, the director and executives of a major Nigerian cement company on the outskirts of Addis Ababa were killed by unknown individuals.

THE Ethiopia had in mind the Egyptian reactions before proceeding with the construction of the dam. The decision to invest in the dam was made with the support of the United States and its allies in the wider Red Sea and Eastern Mediterranean region. In the process, however, the “divide and rule” of the West resulted in the partial abandonment of Addis Ababa in favor of Egypt in exchange for the Palestinian, Libyan, etc. This attitude of Washington in combination with foreign equipment and Rebel funding has sparked a wave of anti-Americanism in Ethiopia

The government is currently counterattacking and reclaiming much of the lost territory. At the same time, it has installed anti-aircraft systems around the dam. But as the war is expected to last and because of the geopolitical importance of the dam, the role of Russia and China, which has a military base in adjacent Djibouti, is expected to be important. event and could turn it into a regional war with unpredictable consequences for the Straits of Aden.

Dr. Evangelos Venetis is an expert on Islam and the Middle East