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The South African Communist Party is shocked and disappointed at the African Union’s decision to admit Morocco as its member state. The sad decision was taken on Monday, 30 January 2017 at the 28th AU Summit held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, following 39 of the 54 AU member states voting in favour of the admission. The SACP expresses its message of revolutionary solidarity with the people of Western Sahara on this regressive occasion, and will intensify its Western Sahara Solidarity Campaign in response to the counter-productive admission of Morocco to the AU. The decision to admit Morocco to the AU is completely wrong.

First of all it is a blatant violation of the AU’s Constitutive Act, in particular the principle for African countries to respect each other’s territorial borders. Western Sahara was never part of Morocco – the latter is colonially occupying the former. An end to the illegal occupation should have been an inviolable precondition for the admission of Morocco to the AU. Further, the admission of Morocco to the AU is a violation of the declarations of both the AU and the United Nations (UN) on the right of the people of Western Sahara to democratic self-determination and independence.

The AU owes the people of Africa and the world an explanation how it would now resolve the problem of Western Sahara’s colonial occupation by Morocco, which is now emboldened by its admission to the AU. The admission is synonymous to an act by former OAU member states that pushed for apartheid South Africa to be admitted to the OAU during apartheid. There can be no doubt that this was underpinned by imperialist machination and that the problem persists to this day. This is a serious threat to democracy, peace and stability in our continent, Africa, to democratic transformation, development and in dependence.

Issued by South African Communist Party