What Morocco is banking on this week is that 27 of the 53 African states will back its bid for AU membership, writes Shannon Ebrahim.
Morocco’s application to become the AU’s 55th state has the potential to divide and even destabilise the AU at this week's Summit in Addis Ababa.
Morocco has engaged in ferocious lobbying among member states to support its bid, but what underlies its agenda is to break the African consensus in support of the Polisario Front.
The goal would be to convince a significant bloc of countries to withdraw their recognition of the Sahrawi Democratic Republic (SADR) and call for its expulsion from the AU.
Morocco has used its financial largesse as well as its extensive foreign direct investment on the continent to win over support among African governments.
It has traditionally been Francophone states in west and central Africa that have backed Morocco’s position at the UN and in the AU, many of them under pressure from France to toe the line in support of Morocco.
But France's power of persuasion is slipping, even within Europe itself. In December, the European Court of Justice reaffirmed the right of the Sahrawi people to self-determination.
Not only did the court call for the UN to follow through on the long-promised referendum on self-determination, but also ruled on the EU’s trade deal with Morocco, saying that it should not apply to products emanating from Western Sahara.
The European court reaffirmed the 1975 ruling of the International Court of Justice that supported the right of self-determination for the Sahrawi people, and denied Morocco any sovereignty over the territory.
The ruling sent a clear message to Morocco that despite 41 years of occupation, endless propaganda and millions of dollars spent on lobbying the international community, at the end of the day, its occupation of Western Sahara is illegal.
Former UN secretary-general Ban Ki Moon himself made reference to Morocco's occupation of Western Sahara and its four decades-long annexation. For much of the past four decades SADR has relied on strong support for its struggle from within the Organisation of African Unity and then the AU.
When Oliver Tambo visited SADR in July 1988, he had said: “We are very surprised by the similarity of the nature of the struggle of the Sahrawi people and the people of South Africa.”
Almost two decades after this speech, an ANC struggle veteran visiting Tindouf named one of the Polisario Front’s battalions the OR Tambo battalion.
More than any other African state, Algeria has championed this cause as a neighbouring state, for years providing financial and military support to the Polisario Front, and allowing its soldiers to train in the Algerian desert.
The fact that Nigeria has also been vocal in its support for the Sahrawi cause firmly locates Africa's heavyweights behind Western Sahara’s struggle for self-determination.
Last July, when Morocco’s King Mohammed VI sent his letter to AU member states declaring Morocco's intention to once again become a member of the AU, the very same day AU Commission Chair Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma reaffirmed the AU’s support for Western Sahara's independence.
President Robert Mugabe declared at a recent AU summit that “Africa's failure to decolonise Western Sahara is a negation of Africa's ideals and principles.”
President Yoweri Museveni has also showed unflinching support for the Sahrawi people's right to self-determination, to the extent that he personally sat in the chair allocated for the SADR at a recent AU meeting, to ensure the Moroccan delegation present could not take the seat.
But what Morocco is banking on this week is that 27 of the 53 African states will back its bid for AU membership. Even if that transpired, supporters of SADR would argue that this is a political issue, and it would ultimately need the support of two-thirds of AU members.
Senegalese President Macky Sall will be leading the charge for Morocco’s inclusion in the AU, strongly backed by Ivory Coast, Gabon, Guinea-Bissau and Mali.
Even if Morocco succeeded in persuading 36 states to support its application, the monumental challenge lies in the fact that Morocco is not prepared to adhere to the Constitutive Act of the AU. Therein lies the crisis for the AU, with potentially destabilising effects.
The Constitutive Act of the AU makes reference to the right of peoples to self-determination and independence, and the obligation of states to promote human rights. Article 4 of the Constitutive Act calls for respect of borders existing on achievement of independence. It also stipulates the need for peaceful resolution of conflicts among member states.
If Morocco's bid for AU membership were to succeed, it would be joining the AU while maintaining its position that it would not consider any option leading to Western Sahara's independence.
The most it will agree to is autonomy for the territory within the sovereign borders of Morocco.
That position violates the right of the Sahrawi people to self-determination, and is therefore in violation of the AU’s Constitutive Act.
* Ebrahim is Group Foreign Editor