Museveni urges Egypt to agree to equitable use of Nile waters

KAMPALA, April 1, 2004 (dpa) — Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni called on Egypt Thursday to agree to demands by other countries using the waters of the River Nile that a colonial agreement giving the Arab state authority over the river be revised.

Under the two agreements signed in 1929 and 1959 between Egypt and Britain, its then colonial power, other countries using the Nile waters have been seeking consultation with the north African country before erecting any project including dams or irrigation schemes.

Specifics of the agreement could not readily be got, including the legal steps to be taken if Egypt was not consulted. But ministers from the ten countries sharing the rivers waters or tributaries have been meeting in the Kenyan capital over revising the agreement.

Egypt should stop monopolizing the Nile waters. Egypt should sit with us and agree on new arrangements under which we should all share the use of the Nile equitably,” the Ugandan leader told a news conference Thursday evening after opening an international conference on food security in Africa.

The three-day meeting attended by over 500 officials including Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo and Senegalese leader Abdoulaye Wade sits at a resort beach hotel, 15 kilometres south east of Kampala to discuss ways of improving food and nutrition security on the continent.

The ten countries through which the worlds longest river passes or from which other rivers flow into it include Uganda, Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, the DR Congo, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Egypt.

The 1929 agreement was between the Egyptians and the British not between us. That was a colonial agreement. We should sit down and work together to work out a new arrangement,” Museveni said.