After the African Union (AU) summit in January, King Mohammed VI’s people were dancing in the streets of Addis Ababa. The reason: Morocco rejoined the AU over three decades after King Hassan II left in fury when Western Sahara, a disputed desert tract represented by the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), was admitted.

M6, as King Mohammed (in photo) is popularly known, came to address the 54 heads of state. “We know that we do not have unanimous backing from this prestigious assembly. Far be it from us to spark off a sterile debate! We have absolutely no intention of causing division, as some would like to insinuate,” he said. Still, Morocco’s second coming has triggered divisions in the AU. Morocco considers Western Sahara one of its “southern provinces”, but the Algeria-backed Polisario Front’s SADR insists on self-determination. The crisis dates back to 1975 when Morocco annexed Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony. After it regained the AU membership, Morocco’s Deputy Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita said Rabat would “never recognise” the SADR and would redouble its efforts so that the “small minority of countries” which still recognise it “change their position”.

On March 20, the 15-member AU Peace and Security Council (PSC) held a meeting on Western Sahara. Morocco failed to attend. A day later, SADR Foreign Minister Mohamed Salem Ouldsalek called for the AU to sanction Rabat. The PSC, headed by Algerian diplomat Smail Chergui, called on the two sides to “immediately engage in direct and serious talks, without preconditions,” and in compliance with Article 4 of the AU Constitutive Act, which refers to “respect of borders existing on achievement of independence”.

Morocco’s re-entry into the AU has triggered divisions in the bloc as the kingdom says it will never recognise Western Sahara, another member, as an independent nation

An annual meeting of African Finance Ministers, jointly hosted by the AU and the UN Economic Commission for Africa, was to be followed in Senegal. It was cancelled as Rabat wouldn’t share the platform with the SADR. A diplomat in Addis Ababa told this writer future meetings are also threatened. He said Rabat was lobbying embassies in Addis Ababa, which houses the AU headquarters, to amend the bloc’s governing statute. While Morocco wants to leave the matter in UN hands — the UN hasn’t recognised the SADR — the PSC is reactivating an ad hoc committee for heads of state and government on the conflict, and is asking the AU to reopen its office in Laayoune, Western Sahara’s largest city.

Call for self-determination

The UN has been backing a referendum for self-determination since 1991. In an advance copy of an annual monitoring report to the UN Security Council, circulated this week, Secretary-General António Guterres proposes an accord on “the nature and form of the exercise of self-determination”. The report says Morocco did not permit an observer delegation from the AU to return to Laayoune to resume its collaboration with the UN Mission for the referendum in Western Sahara.

While African leaders deliberated behind closed doors over whether to readmit Morocco, they were mulling a 10-page private legal opinion provided to them by the bloc’s Office of the Legal Counsel. The opinion was requested in November by 11 states, including Algeria, South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya. They put a series of questions to the AU’s legal counsel, all revolving around what they described as Morocco’s “occupation” of Western Sahara. The Legal Counsel document advised the heads of state that Morocco’s re-entry would entail “the admission of a member state occupying another member state”. The AU still went ahead with the readmission, and is now battling the consequences.

Nizar Manek is a journalist covering Africa from Addis Ababa.