The Polisario calls Morocco's criticism of its membership of the AU "manipulation and lies"

MADRID, 1 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Polisario Front has branded Morocco's statements as "manipulation and lies" in which it describes as a "legal aberration" that the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) is part of the African Union (AU).

Thus, the Saharawi Ministry of Information has denounced "Moroccan attempts to justify their illegal occupation and colonialist mentality" and has stated that these words from Rabat "only demonstrate their failure to tarnish the reputation of the SADR", as reported the Sahrawi news agency SPS.

In this sense, he recalled that the SADR has been a member of the AU for "more than three decades" and has accused Morocco of "clearly violating the provisions" in various articles of the Constitutive Act of the organization "on respect for the existing borders in the moment of independence, the prevention of the acquisition of territory by force and the resolution of disputes by peaceful means".

"Morocco is aware that its expansion project has no future in Africa and is aware that the international community will not recognize its supposed sovereignty over Western Sahara, despite resorting to the methods it dominates the most, such as bribery, the purchase of wills and the dissemination of lies or manipulations far from the truth, in order to break their commitments signed by their king, ratified by their Parliament and deposited in the Commission of the African Union", has settled.

The declarations of the Polisario Front have come after the Moroccan Foreign Minister, Naser Burita, affirmed that the presence of the "pseudo" SADR in the AU is an "institutional obstacle" facing the resolution of the conflict in Western Sahara.

Burita stated that this membership supposes a "violation" of International Law and the principles of national unity, before adding that it embodies "an Africa of divisions" and "a contradiction" to the practice of the AU. "If the SADR is a State, its first place should be in the United Nations," she concluded.

Morocco rejoined the AU in 2017, an organization it left in 1984 in protest at its recognition of Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony occupied by Moroccan forces since 1975.

The former Spanish colony was occupied despite the resistance of the Polisario Front, with whom it remained at war until 1991, when both parties signed a ceasefire with a view to holding a self-determination referendum, but differences over the preparation of the census and the inclusion or not of Moroccan settlers has so far prevented its call.

On November 14, 2020, the Polisario Front declared the ceasefire with Morocco broken in response to a Moroccan military action against Saharawi activists in Guerguerat, in the agreed demilitarized zone, which meant for the Saharawis a violation of the conditions of the Stop the fire.