Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), September 07, 2025 (SPS) - The President of the Republic, Secretary-General of the Polisario Front, Mr. Brahim Ghali, delivered a speech today, Sunday, during the opening of the proceedings of the Second Africa-CARICOM Summit, held in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.
This is the full text of the speech:
“Address by Mr. Brahim Ghali, President of the Sahrawi Republic at the Second Summit of CARICOM and the African Union
Addis Ababa, 07 September 2025
Your Excellency Mr. João Lourenço, President of the Republic of Angola, Chairman-in-Office of the African Union,
Your Excellency Mr. Terrance Drew, Prime Minister of Saint Kitts and Nevis, Rotating President of the CARICOM Caucus,
Your Excellency Ms. Carla Barnett, Secretary-General of the Community of Caribbean States (CARICOM),
Your Excellency Mr. Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, Chairperson of the African Union Commission,
Your Excellency Mr. António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations,
Your Excellencies Heads of State and Government of the African Union and CARICOM,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
We would like to express our deep gratitude to His Excellency Mr. Abiy Ahmed, Prime Minister of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, for the warm reception and hospitality that we have always received from this brotherly country, a country of ancient civilization and glorious history.
We would also like to thank the African Union, its Commission and the partners of CARICOM for their tireless efforts to make this historic achievement a success and to provide a fruitful environment for dialogue that reflects the spirit of solidarity and unity that unites our peoples.
The Africa-Caribbean Summit is truly historic, because we all share a common legacy of struggle, and we share a collective memory of suffering from colonialism, racial discrimination and occupation. It is not only a high-level diplomatic gathering, but it is also a living embodiment of the will of peoples to build a future based on justice, dignity and transcontinental solidarity.
The success of this summit depends on its ability to consolidate our common goals, to promote the plans of coordinated action at the international level in order to achieve reparative justice for the colonial era, and to restore the historical and cultural rights that were taken away from our peoples. It is time for our demands to be turned into policies, and for our policies to be translated into concrete results on the ground.
We extend our hands to our brothers in the Caribbean, this wonderful gathering that constitutes and must remain a space for peace and stability, and to all free peoples, to forge together a strong alliance that restores the dignity of our history and creates a more just future for our children.
At its 37th Summit, the African Union designated 2025 as the Year of “Justice for Africans and People of African Descent through Reparations”, calling for the establishment of a transcontinental partnership framework that includes the African Union, CARICOM and the African diaspora in the Americas and Europe.
The Memorandum of Understanding signed in September 2024 between the African Union and CARICOM represents a practical step towards strengthening partnership and cooperation in the fields of trade, education, health, culture, and air and maritime connectivity in a way that consolidates the unity of destiny and enhances the integration of our peoples, liquidates the remaining manifestations and consequences of colonialism, and enables peoples to determine their own destiny freely and with dignity.
In this context, we affirm that enabling the Sahrawi people to exercise their inalienable right to self-determination and to reestablish their sovereignty over their entire national territory is an integral part of the decolonization process on the African continent. It is not possible to speak of a free and prosperous Africa as long as there are a people who are deprived of their freedom and prevented from choosing their future.
Long live unity and solidarity among the peoples of Africa and the Caribbean.
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