“A fallacy of the utmost stupidity.” Alaa Mubarak responds to an Ethiopian minister’s comparison between the High Dam and the Renaissance Dam

-Alaa Mubarak, son of former Egyptian President Mohamed Hosni Mubarak, responded on Saturday evening to statements by Ethiopian Water Minister Habtamu Etefa in which he claimed that the Egyptian High Dam was built without Ethiopia’s approval and “caused social unrest.” Alaa Mubarak said, in a post on his official account on the “X” platform, on Saturday: “It is something extremely strange. The upstream country is asking the downstream country to explain the construction of the High Dam without its approval!!.”

The son of the late Egyptian president added: “The issue of using the High Dam as an excuse or as a tool for comparison by some voices in the upstream country demonstrates either blatant ignorance of the geographical nature of the river, or a failed attempt to justify non-compliance with the agreements and laws that regulate the movement of rivers,” as he put it. Alaa Mubarak went on to say in his post: “The intuitive and natural thing for the Nile River is to move from the south (the source) to the north (the mouth), due to gravity and the laws of physics. Based on this scientific axiom, which children understand in the early school stages, the claim of the upstream country that Egypt should have asked for permission to build the High Dam is a fallacy of utmost stupidity.”

On Saturday, the Ethiopian Minister of Water and Energy, Habtamu Etefa, spoke about the High Dam that Egypt built on the Nile River in Aswan, in the south of the country, claiming that the project was implemented “without Ethiopia’s approval,” unlike the Renaissance Dam, which was built based on the Declaration of Principles agreement signed between Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia in 2015, according to what was reported by the official Ethiopian “ENA” news agency. The minister claimed that the historical legacy of the High Dam and its construction “caused widespread social unrest.”

The minister described the Aswan High Dam as one of the most influential giant dam projects in Africa. Habtamo said: “Ethiopia has a sovereign right to develop and use its water resources in the Nile River based on the principle of fair and reasonable use,” rejecting calls for Ethiopia to obtain prior approval from the two downstream countries for its projects to develop water resources, according to what was reported by the “ENA” agency.

Habtamu added, “The Renaissance Dam is subject to a more recent regional framework, represented by the 2015 Declaration of Principles, which was signed by Ethiopia, Sudan, and Egypt,” as quoted by the official Ethiopian News Agency. The Renaissance Dam file still represents one of the most prominent areas of disagreement between Egypt and Sudan on the one hand and Ethiopia on the other, as Cairo and Khartoum adhere to the necessity of taking into account the rights of the two downstream countries and not taking any unilateral measures that would harm their water interests.