By Winnie Kamau
Barely a month to the much anticipated Assembly of the 22nd Conference of Parties (COP22) in Marakech to be held from the 7th -18th of November 2016 the temperatures are heating up for Morocco to recede their 32 year standoff with the African Union (AU).
The Kingdom of Morocco during the 71st session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) requested to riposte itself back to the organization they once played a vital role in its formation.
In a presser sent to the newsrooms after a consultative meeting between the Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma and Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Morocco and Adviser to King Mohammed VI, Taieb Fassi Fihri confirmed that they had officially submitted a request to accede to the African Union Constitutive Act and therefore, become a Member of the Union.
H.E. Taieb as he handed a hardcopy letter to AU Chairperson, Zuma affirmed that Morocco had submitted the letter of intent to the commission’s Secretariat in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Zuma urged that due process would be followed including officially informing Member States as per the Provisions of AU Constitutive Act of their rejoinder to the Union.
Morocco was a founding member of Organization of African Unity in 1963 following the 32 signatures appended to its formation before it was disbanded in 2002 to form the African Union. During the 20th Summit held in 1984 in Addis Ababa, Morocco quit OAU in a dramatic statement issued by their representative Ahmed Reda Guedira saying ”While we wait for wiser days, we will bid you farewell,”
Morocco’s decision to leave was supported by Zaire. This was after the OAU’s decision to seat a delegation claiming to represent independent state, Western Sahara -the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. The group was composed of the Polisario Front Guerrillas.
In seating Western Sahara as its 51st Member state of OAU, Guedira said “OAU has been requested to trample on its own legality and I hope not on its own existence”. Western Sahara’s state at the OAU bore the name a “Ghost state” as described by the Moroccan Kingdom.
The world will be keenly watching how the AU will be able to iron out the ongoing dispute of the fiefdom that has been in the center of contention for the last 32 years. The Kingdom of Morocco is on its final leg making preparations to host the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) which will be held the second time in Africa since its inauguration in 1995.
