African leaders “unequivocally” condemned the continent’s recent “surge” of coups on Sunday at the annual African Union (AU) summit, where talks over Israel’s controversial accreditation to organization have been postponed.
The coups that have rocked the continent over the past year — the last in Burkina Faso two weeks ago — were high on the agenda of this summit, held in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.
African leaders have “unequivocally condemned […] the wave of unconstitutional changes of governments” during the meeting of the AU Peace and Security Council, said its official, Bankole Adeoye.
The AU “will not tolerate any military coup in any form”, he added, stressing that “at no time in the history of the African Union have we had four countries suspended in twelve months: Mali, Guinea, Sudan and Burkina Faso”.
In a speech on Saturday, the chairman of the AU Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, also spoke of the “disastrous wave” of putschs and underlined “known causal links” with terrorism.
Controversy postponed
The AU, on the other hand, chose not to show its dissension on the sensitive subject of the accreditation of Israel, a decision taken in July by Moussa Faki and which divides the organization.
Several Member States, including South Africa and Algeria, were indignant at this, considering that this choice went against the declarations of the organization supporting the Palestinian Territories.
Both countries lobbied to put this topic on the agenda. A debate scheduled for Sunday has been “suspended”, diplomatic sources told AFP, and a committee will be created “to study the issue”.
This committee will include South Africa and Algeria, but also Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, which support Mr. Faki’s decision, as well as Cameroon and Nigeria, according to the diplomats interviewed.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry said the AU “has rejected attempts by Algeria and South Africa to revoke” its accreditation, in a statement saying the committee’s findings would be known at the AU summit. of 2023.
This postponement rules out the possibility of a vote which, according to analysts, could have caused a split unprecedented in the history of the AU, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary.
In a closed-door speech on Saturday, Moussa Faki justified his decision, recalling that 44 member states “recognize Israel and have established diplomatic relations with this state”.
Accreditation with observer status for Israel, granted to the Palestinian Territories since 2013, is also part of “solemn support for the two-state solution”, he said.
On Saturday, the Palestinian Prime Minister, Mohammed Shtayyeh, had asked for the withdrawal of this accreditation, believing that Israel should not be “rewarded” for its “apartheid regime”, taking up a formula from a recent report by Amnesty International .
Accredited non-African states can attend certain conferences, access non-confidential AU documents and present statements at meetings concerning them.
Peace efforts in Ethiopia
It is unclear whether the summit, most of whose sessions were held behind closed doors, touched on the war raging in the host country.
Northern Ethiopia has been ravaged for 15 months by a conflict between pro-government forces and rebels in the Tigray region, which has claimed thousands of lives and, according to the UN, brought hundreds of thousands 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, is criticized for its position in this conflict.
Mr. Faki thus waited until August, nine months after the start of the fighting, to appoint former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo as special envoy in charge of obtaining a ceasefire.
Ethiopia also continued to serve on the Peace and Security Council. However, she was not reappointed this week for a new term, diplomats said.
Mr. Adeoye considered that it was “not true” that the AU was slow to react: for him, “it was impossible for the AU not to engage in such a situation, precisely given its situation in Ethiopia”.
Obasanjo is due to visit war-affected areas this week, he said.