Ahmed Attaf: Africa Will Turn the Page on Colonialism After Western Sahara Independence

Algeria, under the leadership of the President of the Republic, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, is committed to African collective action to prevent and settle conflicts on the continent to achieve economic development, in dedication to the principle of African solutions to African problems, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the National Community Abroad, Ahmed Attaf, said on Tuesday.

In a speech read on his behalf by Abdelhamid Ahmed Khoudja, Inspector General of the Ministry, during the opening of the work of the international forum on the Algerian revolution in its African dimensions, Attaf highlighted Algeria’s loyalty to its African depth, which was embodied, especially through its support for just causes in Africa and its relentless defence at all levels to achieve a comprehensive renaissance, complete and integrated, involving the minds and hands of all the daughters and sons of Africa to advance the continent to the highest levels and become one of the active poles in the world.

The minister added that “loyalty is one of the traits of the Algerian leadership and people, especially towards those who stood with its glorious revolution and supported its eternal message,” highlighting the great importance that the President of the Republic attaches to everything related to the memory of the struggle of the Algerian people confirming his great gratitude to the friends of the Algerian revolution from the African countries and the rest of the world which believed in the justice of the Algerian cause and the inevitability of its victory.

Attaf explained that the glorious Algerian revolution would not have received the global resonance it had if it had not been a human revolution that brought noble values and commonly defended virtuous ideals to all nations, such as the right to life, the rejection of racism, and the right of peoples to self-determination.

“We must stand by the struggle of the brotherly Sahrawi people in the last African colony, which expect support and assistance from all of us and from all the free people of the world to exercise their inalienable and imprescriptible right to self-determination. Only then, Africa can once and for all turn the last page of the abhorrent history of colonialism, shameful occupation, and the illegal plunder of its wealth,” he asserted.

The minister also highlighted that “talking about the African dimension of the Algerian revolution and the eternal epic it represented in combating colonialism and defending human dignity and the values of freedom, forces us to stand in solidarity with the proud and steadfast Palestinian people in the face of the barbaric war of extermination waged against them by the Zionist settlers’ occupation.”