Is South Africa Abandoning the Polisario? Analysts did not give a clear cut answer to the question, but said they could sense that the wind was changing. Actually, Pretoria dispatched to South Sudan on January 17 a peace mission, led by vice president David Mabuza, to mediate between the protagonists, and South Africa is member of the AU High Level Committee, chaired by the Congolese President Denis Sassou Nguesso. The South African president also brought up the continent’s economic issues, the need to give substance to the African Free Trade Area, the necessity to integrate women in the African economic fabric…but not a word about the Polisario and its whims. Cyril Ramaphosa’s exclusion of the Polisario from his agenda as AU Chairman will certainly anger the separatists and their Algerian mentors.

Source: The North Africa Journal January 30, 2020 00:33 UTC