SACP welcomes the removal of the apartheid Israeli’s Bar-Li from the African Union Summit, reiterates unwavering solidarity with the Palestinian people.
20 February 2023
The South African Communist Party (SACP) welcomes the removal from the African Union Annual Summit on Saturday 18 February 2023 of the apartheid Israeli regime’s deployee, Sharon Bar-Li. It was correct to bar the apartheid Israeli’s Bar-Li from attending the summit, a decision implemented during the ceremony in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
In 2021, the SACP strongly condemned the irrational decision by the African Union Commission Chairperson Moussa Faki to grant the Israeli apartheid regime an African Union observer status. Faki made the unacceptable decision without consultation, and in complete disregard for the African Union’s Constitutive Act. This decision had to be investigated, as the absence of consultation, its irrationality, and flagrant violation of the African Union’s Constitutive Act suggested there was something else fatally flawed underpinning it.
At that time, the South African government correctly noted that the unjust actions committed by Israel offended the letter and spirit of the Charter of the African Union. Israel, as South Africa was before our April 1994 democratic breakthrough, is an apartheid regime involved in unleashing human rights violations and atrocities against the Palestinian people.
Just as the apartheid regime did to the oppressed black majority in South Africa, the oppressive regime of Israel is colonially occupying Palestinian territories, deprives the Palestinian people of their freedom and fundamental right to national self-determination, democratic sovereignty. This is something that the African people cannot tolerate, particularly noting their history of subjugation under colonial domination and imperialist exploitation.
The people of Palestine do not expect the African continent to serve a safe harbour for an apartheid regime. Apartheid Israel has tortured and incarcerated hundreds of Palestinian children in its jails, besides many women and men. This is but a tip of the iceberg when the sum of its crimes and its impact are considered.
The SACP calls on the African Union, and the world working-class movement for peace and justice, to increase pressure on Israel to end its occupation of Palestinian territories unconditionally, with immediate effect, and to dismantle apartheid in all aspects. As the SACP, we will continue with our unwavering solidarity with the Palestinian people for a two-state solution based on the pre-1967 borders with a viable Palestinian state.
Issued by Alex Mohubetswane Mashilo, Central Committee and Political Bureau Member: Spokesperson and Secretary for Policy and Research, 20 February 2023
