Malawi Withdraws Its Recognition of Polisario’s Self-proclaimed SADR

PERSISMA, Rabat – Malawi has announced on Friday its decision to withdraw its recognition of the Polisario’s self-proclaimed Saharawi Arabic Democratic Republic.

The announcement was made by Malawi’s Foreign Minister, Francis Kasayla after a meeting with Nasser Bourita, Morocco’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation.

Malawi established diplomatic relations with the so-called SAR in 2002.

Malawi’s move comes a week after the adoption by the Security Council of a new resolution on the Western Sahara conflict that reestablished the preeminence of the Moroccan approach to reach a mutually acceptable political solution to the conflict.

Observers view the new resolution as an unprecedented setback for the Polisario and its main backers, Algeria and South Africa.

Not only the resolution made no mention of the politicized question of the monitoring of human rights in the Western Sahara and the Tindouf camps, but it forced the Polisario to withdraw from the Guerguerat region, in the buffer zone between Morocco and Mauritania.

This is not the first time Malawi withdraws its recognition of the self-proclaimed SADR. Few months after the establishment of diplomatic ties between this English-speaking country and the Polisario in 2002, the former decided to suspend its recognition of the latter’s entity.

Diplomatic ties were reestablished on February 1, 2008. In September of the same year, Malawi decided once again to withdraw its recognition of the so-called SADR. The decision was in effect until March 2014 when it decided once again to reestablish its diplomatic ties with the Polisario.