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The debate scheduled for Sunday followingnoon at the African Union’s annual summit on Israel’s accreditation to the organization as an observer has been “suspended”. If the 55 member countries of the AU are strongly divided on this question, they have on the other hand spoken with the same voice to condemn “unequivocally” the coups d’etat which have occurred recently on the continent.
During its annual summit, the African Union (AU) chose, on Sunday February 6, not to display its dissensions by adjourning the debate on the highly sensitive subject of Israel’s accreditation to the organization as an observer.
A source of heated debate among the 55 member states, the subject was “suspended” and the debate scheduled for Sunday followingnoon postponed, avoiding an unprecedented crisis within the pan-African consensus-building organization.
The decision to accredit Israel, taken in July by Moussa Faki Mahamat, the president of the African Union Commission, divides the organization.
Several Member States, including South Africa and Algeria, were indignant at this, considering that this choice goes once morest the statements of the organization supporting the Palestinian Territories.
A committee will be created
The two countries lobbied to put this topic on the summit agenda. A debate was scheduled for Sunday followingnoon but it was “suspended”, diplomatic sources told AFP. A committee will be created “to study the question”.
This committee will include South Africa and Algeria, but also Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, which support Moussa Faki Mahamat’s decision, as well as Cameroon and Nigeria, according to the diplomats interviewed.
This postponement avoids the possibility of a vote which, according to many analysts, might have caused a split unprecedented in the history of the AU, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary.
In a speech on Saturday, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh called on African leaders to withdraw Israel’s accreditation.
Moussa Faki Mahamat had defended his choice and called for a “serene debate”. He assured that the AU’s commitment to the Palestinians’ “quest for independence” was “unchanging and can only continue to grow stronger”. But the accreditation of Israel can constitute, according to him, “an instrument at the service of peace”.
Coups condemned “unequivocally”
African leaders, on the other hand, spoke with one voice in “unequivocally” condemning the recent “wave” of coups on the continent.
The putsches that have rocked the continent in the past year – the last in Burkina Faso, two weeks ago – was an inevitable topic for the AU’s annual summit.
>> To see: “At the summit of the African Union, Macky Sall castigates the coups in West Africa”
During the meeting of the Peace and Security Council, “every African leader in the assembly condemned unequivocally (…) the wave of unconstitutional changes of government”, said its leader, Bankole Adeoye. The AU “will not tolerate any military coup in any form”, he added, recalling that all countries that have experienced putsches have been suspended.
“At no time in the history of the African Union have we had four countries suspended in 12 months: Mali, Guinea, the Sudan and Burkina Faso,” he added.
In a speech delivered on Saturday, Moussa Faki Mahamat also spoke of the “disastrous wave” of coups and underlined “known causal links” with terrorism.
>> To read also: “Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso … the temptation of the coup in West Africa”
AU’s delicate position on the conflict in Tigray
It is unclear whether the summit, most of whose sessions were held behind closed doors, addressed the issue of the war raging in the host country.
Northern Ethiopia has been ravaged for 15 months by a conflict between pro-government forces and rebels of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which has left thousands dead and, according to the UN, led hundreds of thousands of people to the brink of starvation.
Bankole Adeoye assured that “all conflict situations were on the summit’s agenda”.
The AU, whose headquarters are in the Ethiopian capital, finds itself in a particularly delicate position on this conflict. Moussa Faki Mahamat waited until last August – nine months following the start of the fighting – to appoint former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo as special envoy to secure a ceasefire.
Ethiopia also continued to sit on the AU Peace and Security Council during the conflict. However, she was not reappointed this week for a new term, diplomats said.
Bankole Adeoye said on Sunday it was “not true” that the AU was slow to react. “It was impossible for the AU not to get involved in such a situation, precisely given its situation in Ethiopia,” he said, stressing the role of “quiet diplomacy, shuttle diplomacy, which cannot generally not be reported”.
Olusegun Obasanjo is due to visit the war-affected areas this week, he said.
With AFP