Egyptian Politicians: Sabotage Ethiopia's New Dam

Politicians meeting with Egypt's president on Monday proposed hostile acts against Ethiopia, including backing rebels and carrying out sabotage, to stop it from building a massive dam on the Nile River upstream.
Some of the politicians appeared unaware the meeting with President Mohammed Morsi was being carried live on TV. Morsi did not directly react to the suggestions, but said in concluding remarks that Egypt respects Ethiopia and its people and will not engage in any aggressive acts against the East African nation.
Morsi called the meeting to review the impact of Ethiopia's $4.2 billion hydroelectric dam, which would be Africa's largest. Egypt in the past has threatened to go to war over its "historic rights" to Nile River water.
Morsi's office later said he had directed his foreign and irrigation ministers to maintain contact with the Ethiopian government to obtain more information on the dam and its likely impact on Egypt's share of the Nile water.
His office's statement included an ominous-sounding note, saying: "Egypt will never surrender its right to Nile water and all options (to safeguard it) are being considered."
Ethiopia last week started diverting the flow of the Nile to make way for its hydroelectric plant dubbed the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. On completion, it is expected to produce 6,000 megawatts, and its reservoir is scheduled to start filling next year.
An independent panel of experts has concluded that the dam will not significantly affect downstream Sudan and Egypt, which are highly dependent on the water of the world's longest river, said an Ethiopian official, who spoke Saturday on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the topic.

But in Cairo on Monday, Younis Makhyoun, leader of an ultraconservative Islamist party, said Egypt should back rebels in Ethiopia or, as a last resort, destroy the dam. He said Egypt made a "strategic error" when it did not object to the dam's construction.
Makhyoun said Ethiopia is "fragile" because of rebel movements inside the country. "We can communicate with them and use them as a bargaining chip against the Ethiopian government," he said.
"If all this fails, then there is no choice left for Egypt but to play the final card, which is using the intelligence service to destroy the dam," said Makhyoun, whose Nour party won about 25 percent of parliament's seats in elections in late 2011 and early 2012.
Another politician, liberal Ayman Nour, proposed spreading rumors about Egypt obtaining refueling aircraft to create the impression that it plans an airstrike to destroy the dam.
"This could yield results on the diplomatic track," Nour said.
Abu al-Ila Madi, leader of the pro-Morsi Islamist Wasat party, suggested that a rumor that Egypt planned to destroy the dam could scare the Ethiopians into cooperating with Egypt on the project.
Magdy Hussein, another Islamist politician, warned that talk of military action against Ethiopia is "very dangerous" and will only turn Ethiopians into enemies. He suggested soft diplomacy in dealing with the crisis, including organizing a film festival in Ethiopia and dispatching researchers and translation missions.
Ethiopia's decision to construct the dam challenges a colonial-era agreement that had given Egypt and Sudan rights to the Nile water, with Egypt taking 55.5 billion cubic meters and Sudan 18.5 billion cubic meters of 84 billion cubic meters, with 10 billion lost to evaporation.
That agreement, first signed in 1929, took no account of the eight other nations along the 6,700-kilometer (4,160-mile) river and its basin, which have been agitating for a decade for a more equitable accord.
Ethiopian Minister of Water and Energy Alemayehu Tegenu has said Egypt should not worry about a diminished water share.
"We don't have any irrigation projects around the dam. The dam is solely intended for electricity production ... So there should not be any concerns about a diminished water flow," Alemayehu told The Associated Press on Saturday.
Eighty-five percent of Nile waters originate in Ethiopia, yet the nation utilizes very little of them, and the country has become synonymous with famine.

Africa Union: Is it a Union of brutal tyrants or the people of African?

Imagine in today’s Africa finding a leader capable of forming a regional organization like OAU. Imagine a leader that stand out as role model for African leadership in the 21^st century. And, imagine when an African leader would emerge that would earn universal respect like Mandela.

My people, Africa is a play ground for dictators acting like domesticated wolf during the day a hyenas in the night. The few leaders that have the mandate of their people found Africa Union a retreat; a kind of resort to do what they wouldn’t be able to do at home. Shame-on all of them to coddle up with daylight wolves and the hyenas of the nights.

by Teshome Debalke

On the occasion of 50^th anniversary of African Union (the former Organization of Africa Unity) another history was made. In a city where the Headquarter of the organization was erected and the country that was the instrument in uniting Africans is occupied by the brutal ethnic tyranny that divides her population by ethnicity and religion; in direct contradiction to the very Charter of the foundation and with the help of the international community.
The visionary leaders that brought about African Unity are replaced by demagogues, corrupt, and brutal tyrants taking the organization down with them. Our own rogue regime not only denies the existence of the nation that is the founding member but, doesn’t recognize the Founding father of the Organization himself. Fifty years later the striking difference between African leaders then and now is telling.

In all honesty, I am sick and tired of being sick and tired of hearing about Africa Union. I don’t know why people make a big deal of an Organization that turned in to good-for- noting; taken hostage by barefaced dictators. The Organization did its work when it was established 50 years ago with clear vision and great leaders of the time to end up into an entertainment hall of mindless dictators financed and built by Chinese Communist Regime.

No offense to the Chinese regime, but the communist tyranny would do us a great favor if it builds freedom centers for its own people than AU Headquarter to dance with African wolves in order to tap in what is underground in partnership with mindlessly corrupt dictators. For sure a regime that builds on the grave of its own people’s freedom can’t be a friend of Africa. The most expected of the Chinese government is to be a bed fellow with its counterparts for mutual distraction of the people.
Imagine when the clowns couldn’t pitch a few million dollars each from the money they have been stealing to finance the only building that symbolize African Unity. Don’t they have any pride to beg the Chinese authoritarian regime to sell the symbol Africa for cheap as they do the raw materials of their peoples?
I think the regime that occupied Ethiopia would do its counterparts a favor to sell African Union bond to build a new headquarter and make the Chinese made building a shopping mall to sell cheap Chinese made goods Siyoum Mesfin, the Ethiopia Ambassador in China and Associates import. It would make more sense for a part-time merchant, part-time government and part time beggar regime.
As we speak, 50 years later since the organization was founded the majorities of the member countries of African Union are ruled by brutal and corrupt tyrants brutalizing and robbing their respective people. Their biggest accomplishment is noting more than reducing their respective population in poverty into sub human condition and turn around begging from the international donors and pretending they are running governments. The donors are not helping either. They handover billions of dollar to tyrants in Africa without asking the hard question as they do the exact opposite at home. It must be the policy of ‘he may be a son of a bitch but he is our son of a bitch’
I am more sick and tired of half a dozen elected leaders of member countries like South Africa, Botswana, and Ghana…too. Wining and dining with brutal and corrupt dictators; going along with them as if everything is nice and dandy with the dictators-for-life, instead of raising the cause of the people of Africa. In fact, during the Libyan uprising to oust Kaddafi the African dictators were embarrassingly showing the true color; refusing to recognize the Transitional Council until the last day of the 42 long years old dictator bit the dust. Even democratically elected leaders sided with Kaddafi instead of the leaders of the revolution. In our own home turf, the Union of Dictators validated the Woyane regime’s 99.64% win in 2010 election as if they don’t know how to count; claiming it is fair and square and decided to dance with the Woyane wolf. These are the kinds of leaders Africans are subjected in the 21^st century.