OAU without Morocco
By Ben Mensah
The swing of support within the OAU for the Polisario Front was motivated by a desire of the majority members not to allow the Western Sahara dispute between Morocco and Polisario to continue to wreck the organisation.Whereas the implications of Morocco's withdrawal from the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) will, for a long time to come, exercise the minds of political analysts, certain incontro- vertible facts which emerge from the same Moroccan action need to be recorded here for their worth.
These are that Morocco was a founder member of the OAU and that it is the first member country to withdraw from the Organisation. Morocco also played a leading role in the formation of the OAU. For in 1963 when the African continent started its drift into a polarisation of radical and conservative leaders, the leadership of Morocco offered Casablanca as a venue for a meeting of progressive leaders like Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah, Guinea's Sekou Toure, and Mali's Modibo Keita where a strategy was drawn up to forge ahead with the formation of the OAU regardless of the reservations of another continental meeting in Liberia, Monrovia of conservative leaders including Nigeria's Tafawa Balewa and Tanzania's Mwalimu Nyerere.
The implementation of the withdrawal decision based on the recognition by OAU of Western Sahara as a member of the Organisation, even though unprecedented, does not come so much as a surprise. Morocco's King Hassan himself knew that when he pledged before an OAU summit in Nairobi, Kenya in 1980 to hold a referendum in the Western Sahara he had implicitly acknowledged that the region was being disputed over and therefore could no longer be taken for granted as an integral part of Morocco. The inference was that anytime Polisario gained the upper hand in the war, be it at the diplomatic, economic or military front, Morocco had to concede defeat. This is what has happened in Addis Ababa where the overwhelming majority of the OAU membership have accorded Polisario with diplomatic recognition and admission into the OAU.
On November 6, Morocco's King Hassan acknowledged and apologised to his people for this gaffe on the referendum pledge in Nairobi. In a speech marking the country's Green March anniversary, the King said, “when we went to Nairobi for the OAU meeting, I believe, dear people, that I exceeded the powers vested in me. The principal authority I had was to ask you whether I could accept the holding of a plebiscite in the Sahara. But I exceeded this authority and I admit this. Thus I personally bore this responsibility and this exceeding of authority on my own behalf and on behalf of my smaller and larger families.”
"But today they tell us this was not enough and that we should sit around the same table with people who are Moroccans. But by sitting with them around one table, the plebiscite becomes futile.”
Another development that possibly eroded support for Morocco was King Hassan's recent treaty of friendship with Libya's Col. Gaddafi, the only African Head of State to have failed to marshal a quorum for a summit of the OAU
"Morocco cannot bear more than it already has. For this reason, my dear people, the orders I give to our delegation which will represent us at Addis Ababa are frank and clear: The plebiscite and the cease-fire, in the name of God, we have accepted. We accept all that. But we cannot accept anything beyond this.
"If asked to offer more than that, Morocco will leave its seat in the organisation wishing the OAU at the same time a long life and success. We will not be held responsible for such a decision. We would be forced into taking it. It would be a decision the historical responsibility for which will rest on the shoulders of those who are pushing us to it. The responsibility will remain attached to every head of state in Africa."
The King went on to predict the end of the OAU. But notwithstanding the instant decision of Zaire also to suspend its membership of the organisation in solidarity with Morocco, King Hassan's prediction of the OAU's doom merely provides another basis for speculation by analysts of African affairs.
The swing of support within the OAU for the Polisario Front was motivated by a desire by the majority of members not to allow the Western Sahara dispute between Morocco and Polisario to continue to wreck the organisation.
But there was no doubt that a substantial number of the OAU membership merely supported the Polisario Front on account of the ideological orientation of the Polisario leadership. Algeria, understandably opposed the fusion of Morocco and Western Sahara into one big country which will dominate them in the Maghreb. Libya supported the Polisario because Col, Gaddafi wanted another 'colony' to imbibe his Green Book philosophy. But for countries like Burkina Faso whose leader Thomas Sankara threatened in Addis Ababa to withdraw from the OAU 'for good' if the Polisario were not admitted, it was an issue of showing solidarity with a country which they believe would join their ranks as radicals in the struggle against the continent's reactionary forces.
But perhaps one single factor which influenced the decision of many other countries in favour of Polisario has been the understanding and respect showed to OAU decisions over the past years by the Polisario Front leaders.
In Nairobi in 1980 the Front agreed with Morocco to hold a referendum over the status of Western Sahara and subsequently agreed to stay away from OAU meetings to ensure the success of such meetings. After several of these meetings it became obvious to even some of the supporters of Morocco in the conflict that in the absence of any initiative over the referendum proposal which could not be blamed on the Polisario, it was no longer tenable for the Front to be excluded from OAU meetings.
It is also noteworthy that unlike previous summits where Morocco managed to mobilise enough support to prevent the OAU from raising a quorum, this time the Morocco delegation simply announced their country's withdrawal from the organisation and walked out with the lone support of Zaire.
This was because President Ahmed Sekou Toure of Guinea, a close friend of King Hassan of Morocco who constantly got his colleagues not only in the Mano River Union, but in the entire ECOWAS sub region to support Morocco on the Western Sahara issue was no more and the soldiers who took over from him did not hesitate to declare their non-opposition to the Polisario cause.
Another development that possibly eroded support for Morocco was King Hassan's recent treaty of friendship with Libya's Col Gaddafi, the only African Head of State to have failed to marshal a quorum for a summit of the OAU.
Col Gaddafi is viewed with so much suspicion on the continent that moderate leaders like President Houphouet Boigny of the Ivory Coast who had previously supported Morocco were prepared to distance themselves from the maverick Colonel and his new friend, King Hassan of Morocco.
In such circumstances, Morocco could only withdraw from the OAU without attempting to wreck the twenty first summit. But whether the withd- rawal has set a pattern to be followed by others or whether the organisation is doomed to disintegration as predicted by King Hassan is an issue to be tested by time.
