does not matter”, said Feleke, my driver in Addis Ababa, “because now the population finally has the chance to do something for the country.” How circumstantial the comments of a taxi driver may be, they hint at a broader strategy of the government that does not just raise finance for the dam, but also enrols the population in the controversial project. What makes this dam different from previous large-scale top-down interventions is that the dam is not just an elite pet project anymore, but quite literally owned by the population. Unfortunately, this does not make the project less contentious or more transparent. The turbulent waters of field research. A couple of weeks earlier, while still in the UK, I had met with the Ethiopian ambassador in London for an interview. I was hoping to gauge the mood, find out about the general sentiment towards nosy researchers, and ask some general
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Post | June 2012
questions on government policy. Instead, fearing that I was yet another anti-dam protester, he gave me his regular tirade against what he calls neo-colonial NGOs who prefer the lives of butterflies over the developments of human beings. I applied for my visa during this embassy visit, which was perhaps not the smartest move. Indeed, in Ethiopia there were remarkably many people that were ‘expecting’ me. After just a couple of days, for instance, I was approached in my hotel by a young lady whom I suspected to have a rather questionable profession. But instead of complimenting me on my blond hair or making shameful and even unspeakable proposals, she inquired after my research results and asked when I would visit the dam site. How amazing, I thought, no girls in Europe are interested in my research! Talking this through with my contacts in Addis Ababa, I was warned to be careful.
Ethiopia has one of the largest internal security organisations in the world that was originally set up and trained by the Stasi, back in the days that Ethiopia was a staunch East German ally. Prime Minister Zenawi is not the biggest fan of opposition movements, as his crackdown after the stolen 2005 elections suggests, and he would not take critique on his pet project lightly. Indeed, the girl’s intentions were probably beyond a general interest in the geography of dams, but without the sound effects and background music spy movies usually have it is hard to interpret the trickiness of the situation. At the same time, I found out more and more about the murky geopolitics of the dam. As was expected, relationships between Ethiopia on the one hand, and Sudan and Egypt on the other, were deteriorating. Sudan and Egypt have distributed virtually all Nile water amongst themselves by virtue of two dubious legal agreements dating from 1929 and