A senior member of the ANC has been flagged for misrepresenting the affairs of South Africa with Morocco in an attempt to foster economic relations between the two under false pretences.
TimesLIVE reported that Obed Bapela, a senior ANC leader who is charged with the party's foreign policy through the subcommittee on international relations, misrepresented the party when he visited and met Morocco’s foreign minister Nasser Bourita, promising to deepen ties with the country.
Bapela was neither deployed nor acting on a resolution or policy of the ANC. The actions of rogue ANC leaders such as Bapela have the potential to destroy President Cyril Ramaphosa’s goodwill and the ANC’s resolve to fight injustice wherever it rears its ugly head.
It is commendable that the party has attended to the matter with speed. However, what was the end goal here? What would lead an individual to pretend to be spearheading matters of an entire country while they have no business doing so? Do they realise the impact that their conduct might have concerning the geopolitical engagements of this country?
The plight of the people of Western Sahara has been very close to the ANC and its foreign policy.
Ramaphosa has successfully branded himself as a global politician. Even before the Russian war on Ukraine, the ANC with Ramaphosa at the helm was reasserting its role in global politics.
Ramaphosa took on the West during the worst pandemic in this century, Covid-19, by appealing to their conscience to re-examine vaccine hoarding as African nations needed aid.
It was South Africa that spearheaded and championed the Africa Continental Free Trade Area. It called out the US and other Western countries for interfering in African affairs. South Africa took on the Western superpowers for their complacency in the Israeli war against the people of Palestine when none, even those in the Middle East region, dared to challenge them.
The plight of the people of Western Sahara has been very close to the ANC and its foreign policy. On every global stage, Ramaphosa and his predecessors have been at pains to raise awareness of the injustice suffered by the Sahrawi people at the hands of their Moroccan neighbours.
The ANC has shared this campaign with its allies in Algeria’s National Liberation Front. These two countries have a rich history with the ANC. Former president Nelson Mandela is said to have trained in Algeria during the struggle years and the plight of the ANC to liberate its people trapped by the shackles of the apartheid was one that was shared by its Algerian sister party.
But while the Palestinian plight has grabbed the attention of the media (albeit due to the US and its allies' support of Israel) though the two nations share similar goals, very little is known about the decades of struggle by the small country of Western Sahara.
In a 2022 article, Pawal Wargan properly spells out the history of the Sahrawi people. To understand colonisation one must understand the land which is in dispute.
In November 1975, despite a judgment from the International Court of Justice that neither Mauritania nor Morocco had territorial sovereignty over the land, Morocco sent 25,000 troops and 350,000 settlers to Western Sahara. On November 14, Spain signed the tripartite Madrid Accords with Morocco and Mauritania, effectively ceding Western Sahara to its invaders.
The Polisario Front, a national liberation movement formed in 1973 to oppose Spanish colonialism, now fought on two fronts. Supported by Algeria, it defeated the Mauritanians in 1978. But Morocco retained its control over Western Sahara — with significant backing from Western powers, including the US and members of Nato.
In 2022, the UN warned that the Russian-Ukrainian conflict risks further eroding the humanitarian support refugees camped in Algeria need as funding had thinned to only 39%.
It’s in this historical context you get to understand the absurdity of Bapela’s recent actions.
The seriousness with which the ANC takes this matter was clearly illustrated in head of international relations Nomvula Mokonyane’s statement. According to a letter she sent to Bapela, she claimed to have been made aware of his unsanctioned visit to Rabat by its allies in Algeria in what must have been a very embarrassing phone call.
“Your actions contradict our established positions and resolutions. Had it not been for our comrades in Algeria, who provided recorded evidence of the proceedings in Morocco, the ANC would have remained unaware of these misrepresentations and the implications they carry for our organisation,” she said.
If Ramaphosa wants to continue to lead change on the continent, he needs to let go of rogues like Bapela who will certainly undercut his efforts.
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