SACP condemns admission of Morrocco to AU

The South African Communist Party (SACP) issued a statement expressing its disappointment regarding the decision of the African Union accepting the membership of Morrocco which had "colonially occupied" Western Sahara.

ICP, 01 February 2017

On 30 January 2017 at the 28th African Union (AU) Summit held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, following 39 of the 54 AU member states voted in favour of the admission of Morrocco. The South African Communist Party (SACP) issued a statement expressing its disappointment regarding the decision. The SACP expressed its "revolutionary solidarity with the people of Western Sahara on this regressive occasion" and declared that it would "intensify its Western Sahara Solidarity Campaign in response to the counter-productive admission of Morocco to the AU.

The statement continued as follows: 

"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."

SACP stated that, the admission is "synonymous with the admission of apartheid South Africa to the OAU during apartheid". The SACP also emphasized that there could be no doubt that this is "underpinned by imperialist machination and that the problem persists to this day." The admission was assessed in the statement as "a serious threat to democracy, peace and stability in our continent."

For the full statement see the link.