did not work on the Blue Nile/Abbay Valley but I participated on Abbay tributaries like the Dabus Irrigation Project. I also learned from a close friend who worked on Beles Tana Irrigation Project. On the Beles Tana most of the irrigation plot is owned by those who are ethnically connected with Woyane. How could the project which is built on loan can only benefit one ethnic group ?
When it comes selling fertile land in Gambella who benefited from one dollar per hectare deal, it is foreign land grabbers and ethnic Tigreans. The Oakland Institute study proves that 75 percent of local land owners are ethnic Tigreans. Are we going to support such commercial farm as a development too like Meto Aleka Ayaelsew Dessie “Yelem Abayema Yegedeb “Dam Abbaye Dam(DAD) ” suggested on a piece he wrote on ethiomedia ?
His part one “DAD” is not seen from this angle, who profits from it ? It is only seen Abbay as a “deterrent” from our traditional “enemies”,Egypt and Sudan. In fact North Sudan is happy with the dam as long as Woyane is in power. The aim of the dam is to get foreign currency by selling power.It is used as “oil”. Whoever controls the oil ruled the Middle East benefiting very few and the majority are not beneficiary of that oil. If you ask most Arabs now they will prefer if that oil was kept underground until an elected and accuntable government comes and put it for the use of the people.
Ghana is learning from this oil curse and developing this source for the benefit of the people. When China was digging for oil in Ogaden I was against it because such oil is not to improve the lives of the people in Ogaden and the rest of Ethiopia. If we go with Meto Aleka Ayalesew Dessie “DAD” I should have to support that too.
Supporting development when it is non transparent and came out of nowhere like the “Renaissance Dam” it is very troubling. Most of all if it is a “Cash” project we need to raise the red flag. Meto Aleka Ayalesew suggested this project it will “empower” Ethiopia by controlling the water of Abbay. What is this dam has to do to the people of Ethiopia ? How could it help to keep the territorial integrity of Ethiopia ? His argument is not convincing at all.
Ethiopia has lost more than 11.5 billion dollar in the last decade alone. The new Abbay Dam surely will fatten the wealth of those connected. When someone supports the dam on Abbay he/she should not ignore where the profit of Abbay dam will go. If we care less for that and claim it as “Nuclear Deterrent” like the nuclear project of Iran as suggested by Meto Aleka Ayalesew I have problem. Why not we ask for the Tigrean People Conglomerate, EFFORT to build this dam and profit from it like it did on other sources of our country and leave us alone ?
When the regime goes we will have our dam like all other illegally acquired resources of our country,our
land and water.
