Algerian FM bemoans exclusion of Polisario from international fora

The exclusion of the Polisario separatists from international events bringing together the African Union and international partners is irking Algeria whose foreign minister Ahmed Attaf made a desperate plea to the African Union.

Speaking at an African Union meeting in Accra, Attaf deplored that keeping the Polisario separatists out of international events involving the pan-African organization “undermines the credibility of our continental organization, especially with the expansion of this network of partnerships.”

Russia, Japan, South Korea and Saudi Arabia, to mention but a few, have rejected the participation of the Polisario separatists in their summits with African leaders.

Ironically, Attaf, whose country mobilizes all its resources to back the Polisario separatists, said the African Union has been created “to unite instead of dividing.”

His plea mirrors the waning support for the Polisario separatist thesis within the African Union, as Algeria’s voice becomes inaudible and its influence weakens, including in its immediate Sahel neighborhood.

Under pressure from Algeria, the African Union admitted in the 1980s the Polisario, an entity lacking all the attributes of a state, within a context marked by ideological fervor that is now anachronistic.

So far 37 African states back Morocco’s autonomy plan for the Sahara territory where 40% of African states have already opened consulates.

Morocco has always stressed that the membership of Algeria’s Polisario proxies within the African Union stands as an aberration in total disregard for the UN process and for Morocco’s historical rights as a country that was divided by two colonial powers.