The U.S.-Africa summit, held this week in Washington, was not a pleasure trip for Algerian diplomats. They had to justify time and again in the corridors the absence of representatives of the Sahrawi Republic at this huge American-African diplomatic mass.
An Algerian diplomat felt so embarrassed that he remained speechless when a participant in the summit ironically asked him why Algeria did not insist that the Polisario chief be invited to the Washington summit, while it always imposes him at the African Union meetings.
The Algerian diplomat’s interlocutor was not expecting an answer anyway. He knew that the so-called Sahrawi republic and its president are may be recognized by the African Union but are totally ignored on the other shore of the Atlantic Ocean and beyond. A summit organized by the United States is something serious and nobody would dare to pronounce the name of a whimsical Republic that only exists in the minds of those who created it.
Algerian officials are fully aware of this and have learnt how to adapt to situations and places. They know that forty years after it was created, their Sahrawi Republic is completely ignored by major world capitals.
In view of this international disapproval, Algerian leaders now limit the marketing of their Republic-product to some African capitals only. Like bad money, the Sahrawi Republic is accepted only in the few markets pretending to believe in it. And Mohamed Abdelaziz, the Polisario leader-for-life, cannot expect any different fate than his Algeria-proclaimed Republic.
