AU Readmits Morocco

The African Union agreed on Monday to readmit Morocco 33 years after it quit the bloc, following a difficult debate over the status of Western Sahara, according to presidents attending the summit.

“Morocco is now a full member of the African Union. There was a very long debate but 39 of our 54 states approved the return of Morocco, even if the Western Sahara question remains,” Senegalese President Macky Sall told journalists, France24 reported.

Liberia’s President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf confirmed that “the majority of the member states have accepted Morocco’s application to rejoin the African Union.”

“Africa wants to speak in one voice. We need all African countries to be a part of that voice,” she added.

Delegates attending the debate described an emotional and tense discussion, with heavyweights like Algeria and South Africa against the readmission of Morocco.

These nations have long supported the campaign for self-determination by Western Sahara’s Polisario movement.

Morocco maintains that the former Spanish colony under its control is an integral part of the kingdom, while the Polisario Front, which campaigns for the territory’s independence, demands a referendum on self-determination.

Some nations find it unthinkable that Morocco should sit in the same room as Western Sahara and the debate has been “an emotional call for the fight against colonization”, according to the Institute for Security Studies analyst Liesl Louw-Vaudran.