The Nile issue and the Somali-Ethiopian wars (1960s-78)

This article attempts to scrutinize the link between the hydropolitics of the Nile and the Somali– Ethiopian border wars, of which the second was one of the largest inter-state wars in contemporary African history. It examines and seeks to flesh out the role of the Nile waters issue as a geopolitical factor in escalating the Somali– Ethiopian conflict. In doing so, it attempts to fill the lacunae in various serious academic analyses, which have tended to focus exclusively on the military aspects of the wars. It also aims to clear the mist surrounding Cairo’s strategy of direct involvement in the conflicts in the Horn of Africa through alliances with Mogadishu’s irredentist claim over the Ogaden region of Ethiopia. Egypt’s concern, arising from her historic stance that Ethiopia could control the life-giving river upstream and reduce its flow, was among the main factors that engendered Cairo’s determination to support the Somali irredentist claim. The Somali-Ethiopian wars were manifestations of Egypt’s operations to weaken the Ethiopian state so that the latter could not interfere with the flow of the Nile waters. This article insists on the importance of the hydropolitics of the Nile in understanding the conflict in the volatile region of the Horn of Africa in general and the Somali– Ethiopian wars in particular.