Admission of Polisario republic to pan-African body: a juridical heresy, Senegalese foreign minister

Senegalese Foreign Minister, Jacques Baudin, said on Thursday that the admission of the self-proclaimed Arab Sahrawi Democratic Republic is a "juridical heresy."

Jacques Baudin, who was interviewed by "Le quotidien du Maroc," recalled that those who backed the admission in 1984, forged out "within one night" a majority of 21 states without answering the question of whether the Sahrawi republic was an "independent and sovereign" state. "This is where the heresy lies," he said.

The SADR was admitted as member of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) during the 1984 African summit of Nairobi. The decision prompted founder Morocco to quit the body.

"I believe there was a collective hypocrisy (within the OAU), because only independent and sovereign African states are entitled to enjoy membership at the OAU," Baudin said.

He recalled that the SADR is not member of the United Nations, the Arab League or the Organization of the Islamic Conference. Only OAU fell in the trap, he said.

"The SADR case resembles to that of a student who was admitted to the university without even having obtained the baccalaureate," he said.

The head of the Senegalese diplomacy underlined that a majority of 35 states "agree with the position defended by Senegal."

Several countries have been pressing the pan-African body to exclude the Sadr.

During the 1998 OAU summit of Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso), and during the OAU ministerial meeting, held last March in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), Senegal and several other nations banded together to request the expulsion of the Sadr.