Morocco led eight countries in a walkout at the 4th Africa-Arab summit held in Equatorial Guinea. Photo Credit: Peoples Daily Newspaper
Morocco on Tuesday led eight other countries on a boycott of the ongoing African-Arab summit in Equatorial Guinea. Morocco, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan, Yemen, and Somalia withdrew their participation to protest the presence of the Polisario Front at the summit. The Polisario Front is an armed separatist movement calling for the independence of the Western Sahara from Morocco. According to Africaintels, Morocco felt its sovereignty threatened by the inclusion of the Polisario Front in the summit talks.
Western Sahara, a mineral-rich region located south of Morocco, is a former Spanish colony. When the Spanish occupation ended in 1975, Morocco moved in and annexed the region. The Polisario Movement was formed soon after as an armed pro-independence group.
Morocco however continues to maintain that Western Sahara is a part of its territory and has by way of compromise proposed a semi-autonomous government to administer the region. In 1991, Moroccan authorities and rebel fighters from the Western Sahara agreed to hold a referendum to settle the status of the region once and for all, but the referendum was never held.
Rwandan President Kagame pictured as he arrived at the third African-Arab Summit in Kuwait.
Photo Credit: News of Rwanda
Morocco’s has repeatedly accused Algeria, its neighbor to the east, of supporting and sponsoring the Polisario Front, which it describes as “the presence of the emblem of a puppet entity.”
The international community is split over whether to recognize Western Sahara as an independent nation state. Morocco’s strongest allies, most of them in the Arab world, have recognized Morocco’s sovereignty over the region, but many of the member countries of the African Union (AU) appear to lean towards granting the Western Sahara full independence.
In 1984, Morocco rescinded its membership of the AU, to protest the Pan-African body’s recognition of Western Sahara. However, earlier this year Morocco submitted an official request to re-join the AU.
A statement released by Morocco’s Foreign Affairs Ministry over its decision and those of its allies to boycott the summit read in part:
All these countries back Morocco in conformity with the principles of international law, including the respect of sovereignty of countries and their territorial integrity.
Morocco recalls the “shared commitments” made by Arab and African countries during the 2nd and 3rd Arab-African summits held respectively in Libya in 2010 and Kuwait in 2013. During these summits, Arab and African countries agreed that “only UN member countries” should be allowed to participate in the Arab-African summits.
The African-Arab summit is an initiative that seeks to implement the millennium development goals in Africa and the Arab world. The summit aims to bridge the gap between finance institutions, developmental authorities, and the business community in both regions to mobilize resources.
The on-going summit in Equatorial Guinea is the fourth since its inception.
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Fact is, there is not one shred of evidence that a country called western Sahara ever existed during any period of time.
I just don't get it, how come a country existed and had a civilization like the separatists claim, while we cannot find anything in history to support that? not even a forged coin or a postal stamp? who were the rulers of this country? did it have kings or presidents or emperors or what exactly? and who are they? did this country have ANY diplomatic relations with ANY other country of the world? was this country involved in any wars or international or regional affairs? did this country have any known scientists or artists?
how come a country exist without any trace in history?
If i ask someone to prove that Zimbabwe is a country or that Peru is a country for example, it would not take him more than a few seconds to provide sufficient evidence because it is not supposed to be very hard to prove the existence of a whole country. However, whenever i ask someone who supports the POLISARIO to provide any evidence supporting the existence of an independent state in Western Sahara, i do not get any answers and all i get is finger pointing to Spain and Morocco...
Fact is, the idea of "Western Sahara as an independent country" only emerged in 1975 after Spain was pressured by Morocco to move out of the territory. The POLISARIO front was created by communist university students who were aided by Algeria's government because Algeria's government was aligned with Russia and did not have any love for the Moroccan government who was open on the USA and on capitalism. The Algerian military regime also feared that Morocco would ask about more territory from the Algerian side, the reason is that France left Morocco first, and stayed in Algeria longer, so it has basically taken territory from Morocco and kept it while occupying Algeria, after France left Algeria, the border between Morocco and Algeria was still TBD. So the Algerian regime feared that Morocco would ask about iut's eastern territory and saw a golden opportunity to weaken Morocco by supporting the separatist movement called POLISARIO.
Morocco kicked POLISARIO out of the Sahara, POLISARIO then waged guerrilla war against orocco while hiding inside and getting massive military aid from Algeria, and in 1991 a ceasefire treaty was reached where Morocco accepted that UN overseas a referendum, that is where MINORSO came to be, but the parties did not agree on who would be eligible to vote, so the referendum idea was deemed useless by the UN. Morocco controls the territory and invested heavily in its infrastructure, and only allowed UN in to oversee a referendum, that is why Morocco was enraged by the human rights trick that POLISARIO lobbies tried to pull out, it was not about human rights but it was more abut sovereignty on the territory, if Morocco allowed MINORSO to oversee HR in the Sahara, that would mean implicitly that the territory is not Moroccan. because UN cannot intervene in internal affairs of countries.
While POLISARIO talks about HR, they are being led by a dictator who has been in power for
30years and counting, and they keep oppressing and imprisoning any sahrawi who supports the Moroccan proposal of self governing even partially...