Israeli Top Diplomat Thrown Out Of African Union Summit In Ethiopia

 A senior Israeli diplomat on Saturday was removed from the African Union’s annual summit in Ethiopia, as a dispute over Israel’s accreditation to the bloc escalated.

Images posted online showed AU security personnel confronting the diplomat during the opening ceremony of the summit, before she left the auditorium.

“Israel looks harshly upon the incident in which the deputy director for Africa, Ambassador Sharon Bar-Li, was removed from the African Union hall despite her status as an accredited observer with entrance badges,” the foreign ministry said.

Ebba Kalondo, the spokesperson for the African Union’s commission chairman, said the diplomat had been removed because she was not the duly accredited Israeli ambassador to Ethiopia, the official who was expected.

But Israel blamed the incident on South Africa and Algeria, two key nations in the 55-country bloc, saying they were holding the AU hostage and were driven by “hate”.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry said the charge d’affaires at South Africa’s embassy would be summoned for a reprimand.

“The attempt to cancel Israel’s observer status has no basis in the organization’s laws,” the ministry said.

South Africa rejected the claim, saying Israel’s application for observer status at the AU has not been decided upon by the bloc.

“Until the AU takes a decision on whether to grant Israel observer status, you cannot have the country sitting and observing,” Clayson Monyela, head of the public diplomacy in South Africa’s department of international relations, told Reuters.

“So, it’s not about South Africa or Algeria, it’s an issue of principle.”

South Africa’s ruling party has historically been a strong supporter of the Palestinian cause.

African leaders are meeting in Addis Ababa for an annual summit aiming to jumpstart a faltering trade deal while also focusing on the continent’s most pressing challenges, which include armed conflict and a worsening food crisis.

As the continent reels from a record drought in the Horn of Africa and deadly violence in the Sahel region and the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, the two-day meeting in Ethiopia is looking forward to addressing these issues and accelerating a free-trade pact launched in 2020.

The African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) is billed as the biggest in the world in terms of population, gathering 54 of 55 African countries, with Eritrea the only holdout.

African nations currently trade only about 15 per cent of their goods and services with each other, and the AfCFTA aims to boost that by 60 per cent by 2034 with the elimination of almost all tariffs.

But implementation has fallen well short of that goal, running into hurdles including disagreements over tariff reductions and border closures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Most of the summit’s sessions will be held behind closed doors at AU headquarters in the Ethiopian capital.

The main focus of the summit will be on trying to achieve ceasefires in the Sahel and the eastern DRC where the M23 armed group has seized swaths of territory and sparked a diplomatic dispute between Kinshasa and Rwanda, which is accused of backing the rebels.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that Africa needed “action for peace” to combat rising violence and promote democratic freedoms on the continent.

“I am deeply concerned about the recent rise in violence by armed groups in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo and the rise of terrorist groups in the Sahel and elsewhere,” Guterres said at the start of the summit.

At a mini-summit on Friday, leaders of the seven-nation East African Community called for all armed groups to withdraw from occupied areas in the eastern DRC by the end of next month.

“We cannot walk away from the people of DRC, history will be very harsh on us. We must do what we have to do,” Kenya’s President William Ruto told the meeting.

It is worth noting that all previous meetings in recent months involving presidents Felix Tshisekedi of the DRC and Paul Kagame of Rwanda, and sometimes other regional leaders have not amounted to any change on the ground.

Created in 2002 following the disbanding of the Organization of African Unity, the AU comprises all 55 African countries, with a population of 1.3 billion people.