Make a firsthand reading of the July 1993 ‘Framework for General Co-operation Between the Arab Republic of Egypt and Ethiopia’ and share your opinion.

The former Egyptian President Hosini Mubarak and Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi(then President of the Transitional government) signed an agreement titled ‘Framework for General Co-operation Between the Arab Republic of Egypt and Ethiopia’ on July 1993 in Cairo, Egypt.

The accord has eight articles, of which five deals with Nile water issues.

In my extensive follow-up of the Egyptian media in the last five week, I observed the Egyptians hardly mention this agreement – on the contrary they often cite the 1902 Treaty between Ethiopia and UK(United Kingdom) as a legal basis of the 1929 UK-Egypt and 1959 Egypt-Sudan Treaties.(that will be discussed in a forthcoming post).

Quite to the contrary, Ethiopians are aware of the 1993 accord. However, like much of the issues in our politics, the public has never had the chance to read the document first-hand. Thus, I posted a scanned image containing the full text here.

[Continue reading below]

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

I would rather not comment on the matter at this time. Because, I wish to find out how many types of criticisms are out there first.

For example, a very brief post, titled ‘Meles-Mubarak 1993 Nile Accord Revisited’, by Elias Kifle on Ethiopian-review, on Aug. 2010, goes like this:

To return a favor to Egypt … one of the first things … Meles Zenawi did was to fly to Cairo and sign a secret agreement with Egypt’s President Mubarak.

The July 1993 accord signed in Cairo strips Ethiopia of its right to use the Nile River for development schemes. Article 6 of the accord states:

The two parties agree on the necessity of the conservation and protection of the Nile Waters. In this regard, they undertake to consult and cooperate in projects that are mutually advantageous, such as projects that would enhance the volume of flow and reduce the loss of Nile Waters through comprehensive and integrated development schemes.

In other words, Ethiopia must first get approval from Egypt before undertaking any development projects on Nile.

In December 2009, Meles signed another agreement with Mubarak affirming Egypt’s quota over Nile, as reported by Al Aharam.

The Meles-Mubarak bilateral agreements had angered the other Nile basin countries while boosting Egypt’s position.

Nowadays, desperate for diverting attention from the May 2010 election fiasco and growing domestic problems, the Meles regime is attacking Egypt over Nile River. In the process, Meles is dragging the region into yet another crisis.

[Well, ignore the ‘Dec 2009 agreement thing’, as there is no such agreement. The Al-Ahram ‘report’ it refers must be this one(link) which I found after hours of search – Only to be reminded that the objective of Ethiopian Review is confusion, distraction and disinformation.]

I wonder if Elias Kifle is a lawyer or consulted one. My suspicion is that he overheard there is a flaw in the 1993 Accord but he couldn’t tell which – so he made a bold guess.

Judging by this, it is possible there could be as many criticisms as the words on the Accord.

Thus, I decided to invite you to put forward your opinion in the comment space below. And, I will summarize and address them here or in a new post.

If you made an informative comment(pro or against), I will recognize your effort by sending you a couple of PDF docs in a subject of your choice – from fiction to physics.

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You may also share your opinion by voting here: 

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