Despite its exclusion by Moscow, the Polisario welcomes the conclusions of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum, organized on November 9 and 10 in Sochi. “The common Afro-Russian position expressed at the end of the ministerial conference of the Africa-Russia Partnership Forum strengthens the consensus of the international community on the need to allow the people of Western Sahara to exercise their inalienable and inalienable right to “self-determination,” the Front’s press agency wrote this Monday.
However, the Final Declaration, consulted by Yabiladi, brings a different story. The communiqué welcomes, in its preamble, “the historic ties of friendship between the Russian Federation and African States, based on mutual respect and trust, on the traditions of common struggle for the eradication of colonialism and the establishment of the independence of African States. In this passage, the word “States” is mentioned twice, without mention of the “Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic”, which was not among the participants and which is not recognized by Moscow.
The text “reaffirms the need to jointly oppose neocolonialism, the imposition of conditions and the policy of double standards, without allowing these practices to deprive States and peoples of the right to make sovereign choices regarding their path of development.
The Sochi Forum also emphasized “the shared responsibility of the Russian Federation and African States in the development of a just and stable world order based on the principles of sovereign equality of States, non- interference in their internal affairs, respect for sovereignty, territorial integrity and the right of all peoples to self-determination (…) and the need to preserve national identity and national resources, diversity cultural and civilizational and to protect the values traditional.
The statement also condemned “the ban on the use of the mother tongue.” Moscow defends the right to self-determination of Russian-speaking peoples living in Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova and the three Baltic countries.
Russia did not invite the Polisario to take part in the Sochi Forum. As a reminder, the Final Declaration of the last BRICS summit, held from October 22 to 24 in Kazan, Russia, ignored the Front’s demands.
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