Yet there is an ominous silence from the 55-member continental organisation.

The AU echoes the United Nations in making clear its fears about the Libyan conflict becoming proxy war.

It’s failure to condemn Egypt taking the North African state down that road undermines AU credibility and certainly makes a nonsense of the grouping’s major goal of silencing the guns.

African leaders are behaving like their predecessors who took too far their reluctance to interfere in the internal affairs of their peers.

Two decades ago, having sat on their hands during the Rwandan genocide, African leaders resolved never to allow a repeat of such a shameful occurrence.

Since the fall of dictator Muammar Gadaffi in 2011, Libya has been the biggest mess the AU has had to contend with.

The country has become armoury for conflict in the region and beyond.

Its potential oil wealth has been ruined by the conflict and instability.

Nevertheless that oil attracts the unwanted attention of Russia, Turkey and Egypt all of whom hold the  lethally misguided belief that Libya represents their strategic interest.

The most dramatic illustration of this is Egypt’s parliament voting to allow President Abdel Fattah El Sisi to take the country to war over Libya.

The temerity of El Sisi warning the United Nations-backed Libyan Government of National Accord not to attempt to regain control of Sirte is staggering.

A credible government must perforce control the port city at the centre of Libya which is the country’s oil export terminal and gateway it oil fields. The GNA has mounted the ironically named Operation Peace Storm to ensure this.

Egypt backs the rebel force of Khalifa Haftar who are making a last ditch stand at Sirte having been driven out of the capital Tripoli to the west.

Haftar also enjoys the backing of the United Arab Emirates and Russia, which this week shipped mercenaries and air defense systems to the rebels. 

France, which takes more than a passing interest in developments across the Mediterranean, has despatched the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaul to lie off Sirte.

Turkey, determined to be player in this game, has provided both troops and arms to the GNA led by Fayez Al Sarraj.

Small wonder the United Nations Secretary General António Guterres has repeatedly expressed concern about the developing proxy war in Libya.

Western powers have also been involved in attempts to get the belligerents around the negotiating table, causing the AU to complain about being iced out of peace efforts in one of its member states.

Surely African leaders must accept that their silence about Egyptian interference in Libya rather disqualifies them from achieving an African solution to this particular African problem.

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It is pretty much common cause among strategic analysts that the next world war will be fought over water .

The argument that oil might be the casus belli has been dealt a body blow by the Covid 19 lockdown.

The black stuff remains vital to economic prosperity – important enough, certainly to take up arms over it.

But in the last three months as the economy was forced to take a backseat to public health, the price of oil dropped below zero.

And through the worst times since the Second World War,  the clear stuff has remained as vital to life itself as ever it did.

The most dramatic example of this is the battle over the water in Africa’s longest river stretch 6650 kms from south to .

President Cyril Ramaphosa, in his capacity as revolving chairman of the African Union, presided over a virtual summit yesterday seeking agreement on the use of  the Nile.

The three parties in the thick of things – Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt – agreed to continue pursuing an accord.

That is obviously better than having any of them walk off in a huff.

But they are still a considerable distance from finding an African solution to this existential African problem.

We may take comfort from Egypt asserting that it will not go to war over the Nile.

But since President Abdel Fattah El Sisi has involved both the United Nations Security Council and the Arab, in addition to the African Union, in this imbroglio we may be assured the matter will not go away for some time.

El Sisi would have us believe that the problem started when Ethiopia broke ground nine years ago on the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) across the Blue Nile.

The six-billion-dollar wall rising 155-metres above the water below and extending 1,85 kms across the valley  will make Ethiopia Africa’s largest producer of hydro electric energy and lift many of that country’s 106-million people out of poverty.

Downstream, Egypt counters that the dam will reduce the supply of water on which 100-million of its people are entirely reliant for their survival.

The third riparian country at the top end of the giant river is Sudan, where the White and Blue Niles meet in its capital Khartoum.

It too complains that the GERD will reduce its supply of Nile water. But its position is convoluted by the fact that it will buy some of the 6500 mw generated at the GERD and that the dam will reduce the flood damage it suffers annually from the Nile.

Egypt’s historical hegemony over the Nile was underpinned by agreements signed in 1929 and 1959 by the colonial power, Britain.

Ethiopia was not party to those agreements that it maintain are part of an unhappy past.

It has sought a new agreement with all eleven riparian countries – Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, and Eritrea in addition to the northern troika.

This has proved problematic because it requires more than a technical accord on water sharing.

It runs to legal, historical and trust issues that have brought the United States and Europe into the equation.

The matter has come to a head now because satellite pictures show Ethiopia is carrying out its plan to start filling the dam.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who won the Nobel Peace Prize last year for the compromise he showed in forging a peace with neighboring Eritrea, has been stubborn on this issue. He refuses to tell Egypt how much water will be allowed to flow downstream from the GERD.

Egypt wants this and more, nothing less than an agreement on how much water it can rely on in times of drought and an agreement on the very definition of a drought.

There is also divergence over the timing of the filling.

Ethiopia says it could complete this process in three years but offers a compromise of taking four to seven years. 

Egypt maintains the faster this happens, the greater the impact on its farmers downstream. It is asking for Ethiopia to take at least 21years to fill the dam.

However forceful the ministers of Ahmed and El Sisi may sound in negotiations, their positions must be seen against the domestic troubles in both Ethiopia, which has had to postpone for a year elections scheduled for August and Egypt which has had to commit its full military capability to fighting insurgents in the Sinai.

El Sisi’s claim to be fighting for the very existence of his people must be measured against the real beneficiaries of the Nile water – the factory owner and big farmers who are all part of the power elite that keep him where he is.

Ahmed, for his part, cannot back down on a project financed by loans and donations from a public that still vividly remembers the civil war and famine that turned it into a basket case.

The GERD is an integral part in Ethiopia continuing on its upward trajectory.

ends

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It is not clear whether President AbdelFatah el Sisi and other Arab leaders will attend.

The controversy over the funeral of Hosni Mubarak, who died in a Cairo military hospital yesterday, aged 91, indicates that his death has not  brought closure on a dark era of Egyptian history.

A former air force commander and hero of the 1973 war against Israel – hence the military funeral – Mubarak’s legacy is debatable.

As president for 30 years before his overthrow in 2011 he was hugely influential in the region and a staunch ally of the West.

But his regime was enormously divided. Human rights abuses abounded as did corruption and economic stagnation.

Many Egyptians argue they are still getting over the damaging effects of his presidency.

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He succeeded assassinated President Anwar Sadat and led Egypt for 30 years.

Hosni Mubarak spent years in court after being deposed as Egypt’s fourth president.

He was found guilty of complicity in killing protestors during the Arab spring revolution but that conviction was overturned and he was freed in 2017.

The former air force commander was often likened to the Sphinx  but he was brought down by the poverty, corruption and repressive police tactics that marked his rule.

He underwent surgery last month and appeared to have recovered when he was photographed with his grandson.

Egyptian state news has confirmed his death in a military hospital.

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He spoke about this before handing the rotating chair of the African Union to President Cyril Ramaphosa.

On the face of it, having a permanent African anti-terror group standing by makes sense.

Countries, for various reasons political, social and economic, cannot respond quickly and muscularly to terror attacks.

However, having a group of soldiers fully armed and trained on stand-by creates suspicion – not to say alarm and despondency.

Who knows what they can be used for?

Witness the failure of the United Nations to  approve mustering a peacekeeping standby force.

President AbdelFattah Al Sisi has his work cut out transforming a good idea into actual boots on the ground. 

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They’re sitting at the table in Washington for talks mediated by U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchen.

Since Ethiopia’s at the root of the Nile Water issue by building the Grand Renaissance Dam, it is hardly surprising that they are sounding less than compromising

The talks are not negotiations, insist the team from Addis Ababa.

The largest hydro electric dam will be completed across the Blue Nile, which provides 80% of the water to the world 12th largest drainage basin.

What has to be decided is how much water Egypt will get after Sudan has taken its share upstream.

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With both sides promising that a solution will negotiated, Egypt’s state-supporting media is saying it might be necessary to go to war over its lifeblood.

Still celebrating  his Nobel Peace Prize, Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed talks tough, asserting that no force on earth can stop construction  of  the Grand Renaissance Dame across the  Blue Nile.

The $5billion project is 70% completed and will generate power for most of Ethiopia’s 100 million people.

Egypt is seeking guarantees about the flow of water necessary for its very survival.

As negotiations bog down, President AbdelFattah El Sisi’s supporters say he might need to use force to underline Egypt’s downstream needs.

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He says negotiations with Ethiopia,  who have built the Grand Renaiassance Dam, have been unfruitful.

There’s no better place to draw attention to a subject than the UN General Assembly with all 193 members in attendance.

The Nile is absolutely vital to Egypt’s exisitence.

Upstream, Ethiopia will start next year generating electricity from a dam that will make it Africa’s biggest power producer.

Egypt wants guarantees about the flow of water and assurance of what will happen in drought years.

President AbdelFattah El Sisi calls on the international community to press Ethiopia to show greater flexibility in this matter

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Human rights activists says more than 500 people have been arrested following last weekend’s return to Tahrir  Square by protestors.

President AbdelFattah El Sisi banned demonstrations after coming to power in a military coup.

However his austerity measures forced by taking a $12 billion bail-out from the International Monetary Fund have caused widespread economic pain.

El Sisi relies on making Egyptians too afraid to go to the streets.

Hosni Mubarak, who  did much the same thing, fell when the military failed to fire to demonstrators.

Protecting their position of power, the soldiers might be less inclined to show restraint this time around.

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They used teargas to disperse protestors in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, site of the mass demonstrations eight years ago that forces President Hosni Mubarak from power. 

Protests have become rare event since the military coup that ousted President Mohamed Moursi in 2013.

Yesterday’s demonstrations in various centers across Egypt were quickly broken up.

President Abdel Fattah El Sisi, the former military chief who took power after the coup, has cracked down on the media and opposition.

Hundreds of protestors were arrested yesterday and taken off in armoured military vehicles.

This is a tense time both for Sisi and the Egyptian people.

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