Moroccan King Mohammed VI on Sunday announced that
his country wanted to rejoin the African Union, 32 years
after quitting the bloc in protest at its decision to accept
Western Sahara as a member.
“For a long time our friends have been asking us to return to
them, so that Morocco can take up its natural place within its
institutional family. The moment has now come,” the
monarch said in a message sent to an AU summit taking
place in Kigali, the MAP Moroccan news agency reported.
Morocco quit the grouping in protest in 1984 when the
Saharan Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) was admitted as
a member.
But although Morocco left the club, “it never quit Africa”,
King Mohammed said in his message to AU leaders as they
began a two-day meeting in the Rwandan capital.
Morocco has occupied the sparsely populated Western Sahara
area since 1975 in a move that was not recognised by the
international community.
It maintains that Western Sahara is an integral part of the
kingdom even though local Sahrawi people have long
campaigned for the right to self-determination.
In 1991, the United Nations brokered a ceasefire between
Moroccan troops and Sahrawi rebels of the Algerian-backed
Polisario Front but a promised referendum to settle the status
of the desert territory has yet to materialise.
In his address to the African Union, King Mohammed urged
the bloc to rethink its position on the “fantom state” of
Western Sahara, saying that a political solution was being
worked on under the auspices of the UN. m.guardian.ng/news/morocco-wants-to-rejoin-african-union-after-32-years/

It's now they want to rejoin. Thank God they've dusted the sand from their brains. Rubbish!