The Consulate Opening Series of African countries in Western Sahara, whose last act took place July 21 in Dakhla, irritates Algeria. “We had already qualified these consulates as ‘ghost consulates’ because they were financed by the Moroccan authorities from the budget of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs”, declared this Sunday, July 24 Amar Belani to the press of his country.
Algeria’s envoy to Western Sahara and the Maghreb countries considered that the inaugurations of these diplomatic representations cannot lead to the expulsion of the ‘Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) from the African Union. “It’s a chimerical goal,” he said. “Morocco has already tried in the past and it had miserably broken its teeth, especially since nothing in the founding texts of the AU provides for the use of such an option”, explained Belani.
Indeed, the Constitutive Act, adopted on July 11, 2000 in Lomé, Togo, does not provide for a provision on the expulsion of one of its members. The African legislator has only reserved article 30 for the suspension of governments that come to power through coups.
Nevertheless, article 32 authorizes any member to submit for the approval of the Assembly of Heads of State amendments or revisions of the AU Charter. Failing to be adopted by consensus, the threshold of the support of two thirds of the components of the Pan-African organization to the proposals is required for them to have the force of law.
Since the start of the dynamics of the opening of these consulates, in 2020, the flags of 20 African countries have been flying in Laayoune and Dakhla, including 11 States which had diplomatic relations with the “SADR”. These are Burkina Faso, Burundi, Esawtini, Guinea Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Liberia, Malawi, Sao Tomé and Príncipe, Sierra Leone, Togo and Zambia.
