Ghana and Western Sahara: an ambassador is never accredited to a movement — and that is the whole problem with the Yabiladi article
Thomas Marchal — Addis-Abeba, Éthiopie — 2026-09-15
Method note. This file rests on the press release of the official Sahrawi news agency and on the article of the Moroccan outlet that we quote word for word. We report what each of the two parties writes — and we say which one is ours, and why. And at the end, we concede what must be conceded, including what weakens our demonstration.
📰 The facts, and their date
Monday 14 September 2026, in Accra, at the headquarters of the Ghanaian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Sahrawi Ambassador Tayeb Seddik handed over the copies of his letters of credence in his capacity as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic to the Republic of Ghana.
He handed them to the Ghanaian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, in the presence of several of his collaborators and of officials of the Africa and Protocol Directorates of the Ghanaian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The source of this information is the official news agency of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, the Sahara Press Service, in its dispatch of 14 September 2026. We state this from the outset, and we will return to it: it is a party source.
🗣️ What the Ghanaian minister said, according to that press release
Still according to the same dispatch, the Ghanaian Minister of Foreign Affairs reaffirmed the steadfast position of the Government of the Republic of Ghana on the Sahrawi question.
He expressed his country's readiness to pursue and to strengthen coordination and joint action between Ghana and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, in the service of bilateral cooperation, and to maintain consultations on regional and international questions of common interest.
And the Sahrawi ambassador thanked Ghana for “its principled and steadfast position on the just Sahrawi cause”, recalling that relations between the two countries rest on a historic heritage of African solidarity.
Remember that last word: African. We return to it further on, because it is the heart of the matter.
✍️ And here is how a Moroccan outlet wrote it
**The Moroccan outlet Yabiladi devoted an article to this ceremony. Its headline:**
“ Ghana receives Polisario envoy despite backing Morocco autonomy plan ” — “Ghana receives a Polisario envoy, although it supports the Moroccan autonomy plan.”
And in the body of the article, this sentence, which we reproduce as it stands:
“ […] he presented a copy of his credentials as the Polisario Front's “Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary” to Ghana […] ”
Translation: he presented a copy of his credentials as “Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary” of the Polisario Front to Ghana.
Let us stop on two details, and they are decisive.
First detail: the title “Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary” is attributed to the Polisario Front. A movement. Not to a State.
Second detail: the quotation marks. Yabiladi frames the word “ambassador” in quotation marks — that is, it writes the word only to take it back immediately.
**And there is one thing that Yabiladi does itself, in its own article, and which must be noted: it reproduces the Sahrawi quotation that speaks of “the Republic of Ghana and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic”. It therefore cites the name of the State — and refuses to use it in its own voice. That is a choice, not a constraint.**
⚖️ Why “a Polisario ambassador” is an impossibility
This is not a question of political opinion. It is a question of law, and it is elementary.
An ambassador is accredited to a State. This is not a matter of diplomatic politeness: it is a matter of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 18 April 1961, which governs relations between States. It knows no other object.
The title of “Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary” is a title of State. It has no meaning for a movement, a non-governmental organisation, a party or an association. One does not hand letters of credence to a movement: one addresses a letter to it.
The consequence is mechanical, and there is no escape from it:
- Either an ambassador was accredited — and then there exists a State that appointed him and a State that received him.
- Or no State exists — and then there is no ambassador, and the ceremony of 14 September did not take place.
You cannot have both. ***Yabiladi* wrote the word “ambassador”. It put it in quotation marks — but it wrote it.**
🌍 And the Polisario is not the SADR
This must be said precisely, because that is where the whole confusion lies — sometimes maintained, sometimes sincere.
The Polisario Front is a national liberation movement. The Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic is a State, proclaimed in 1976.
And that State has been a member of the African continental organisation for more than forty years. It was admitted to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in 1982, and it has sat ever since in what became the African Union.
Measure what that means, and no one ever recalls it: Ghana is a member of the African Union. The SADR is a member of the African Union. Accrediting an ambassador to another member State is not a scandal: it is the ordinary functioning of the organisation.
The real deviation, the anomaly, is therefore not the ceremony of 14 September. It is the suspension that preceded it. We come to that.
🔍 The admission hidden in their own argument
**Here is what Yabiladi itself writes**, and it is the most revealing passage of its article:
“ Ghana, which recognized the Polisario Front in 1979, announced in January 2025 that it was suspending diplomatic relations with the movement. The decision was set out in an official document sent to Morocco's Ministry of Foreign Affairs […] and was also communicated to the African Union and the United Nations. ”
Read the end again, slowly. Ghana notified the suspension of its diplomatic relations... to the African Union and the United Nations.
And let us ask the only question that matters: why notify the United Nations and the African Union of the suspension of relations with a MOVEMENT?
States file diplomatic notes with the United Nations and international organisations to notify the rupture or the suspension of relations with other States. One does not seize the Secretary-General of the United Nations with an official document to announce that one has stopped talking to a non-governmental organisation.
The act itself betrays the reasoning. If Ghana judged it necessary to notify the whole world, it is precisely because these were relations between States. And that is written in the article that claims the opposite.
📅 And the “freeze” the headline speaks of
**The headline of Yabiladi speaks of a “freeze of relations with the Polisario”. Let us look at this freeze closely.**
- 1979: Ghana recognises the SADR.
- January 2025: Ghana suspends its relations.
- July 2026: Accra declares that the Moroccan autonomy initiative represents “the only realistic and sustainable basis” for a settlement.
- 14 September 2026: a Sahrawi ambassador hands over his letters of credence in Accra.
On this timeline, what is the anomaly? It is not the restoration: it is the suspension. Forty-six years of recognised relations, then an eighteen-month suspension. Resuming what lasted forty-six years is not a “surprise move”: it is a return.
And one thing must be added that the headline omits: the suspension of January 2025 was announced as concerning “Western Sahara” — that is how the press reported it at the time, including the French press. Not “a movement”. The vocabulary changed along the way, according to what had to be demonstrated.
📣 And the other Moroccan outlet that speaks of “disinformation”
**Another Moroccan outlet, Medias24, ran the headline:** “Disinformation: the Polisario invents a chimerical breakthrough in Ghana.”
The word “disinformation” is a heavy word. It designates information fabricated from scratch. But what happened on 14 September did not happen on a social network: it happened in a ministry, with a minister, and in the presence of the Africa and Protocol Directorates of that ministry.
If one wants to contest this ceremony, there is a simple, immediate and definitive way: let the Ghanaian government publish a denial. A single press release would suffice. We would publish it without hesitation, and we would correct.
As long as it does not do so, one cannot describe as “disinformation” a ceremony that took place in its own premises.
⚖️ What we concede, because it is true
First: our main source is a party to the case. The dispatch of 14 September is that of the official Sahrawi agency. It is not a neutral source, and we do not present it as one.
Second: the Ghanaian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has not published its own press release on this meeting. ***Yabiladi* writes so expressly — and we report it. We have therefore not obtained confirmation from the host government through its own channels. This is a weakness of our file, and we flag it rather than keep silent about it.**
Third: the Moroccan position is real and documented. The joint communiqué of July 2026 describing autonomy as “the only realistic and sustainable basis” exists. We do not deny it, and we do not play it down.
But none of these three reservations touches the point of law. That the source is a party, that the Ghanaian press release is missing, that Morocco has a position: none of that turns a movement into a State, nor a State into a movement. The law does not depend on who speaks.
🎯 The conclusion, in four sentences
On 14 September 2026, in Accra, an ambassador handed over his letters of credence to the Ghanaian Minister of Foreign Affairs, in the presence of the Africa and Protocol Directorates of the ministry.
***Yabiladi* ran a headline on a Polisario “ambassador” — a movement — and put the word “ambassador” in quotation marks, while citing, in its own article, the name of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.**
Yet an ambassador is accredited to a State: that is the Vienna Convention of 1961, and there is no other way of doing it. And Ghana judged it necessary to notify its suspension to the African Union and the United Nations — which is not done for a movement.
One may refuse to recognise a State. One cannot receive its ambassador and write that it does not exist. It is one or the other — and the ceremony of 14 September chose for them.
🔗 The sources, in direct access — click and check for yourself
- The ceremony of 14 September, the ambassador's identity, his exact title, the name of the Ghanaian minister and the remarks reported — Sahara Press Service, official agency of the SADR, 14 September 2026: https://www.spsrasd.info/en/2026/09/14/17718.html
- **The article of Yabiladi: its wording “Polisario Front's Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary”, the recognition of 1979, the suspension of January 2025 and its notification to the African Union and the United Nations, and the joint communiqué of July 2026** — Yabiladi, 15 September 2026: https://en.yabiladi.com/articles/details/202876/ghana-receives-polisario-envoy-despite.html
- **The Spanish version of Yabiladi, which speaks of a “freeze of relations with the Polisario”** — https://es.yabiladi.com/articles/details/202885/ghana-acredita-embajador-polisario-pese.html
- The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 18 April 1961: https://legimonaco.mc/tai/convention/1961/04-18-tai1l010128/
- The Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, forty years of membership in the OAU then the African Union — Sahara Press Service: https://www.spsrasd.info/es/2024/05/24/3646.html
- The suspension announced by Ghana in January 2025 and reported as concerning “Western Sahara” — Jeune Afrique: https://www.jeuneafrique.com/1646558/politique/le-ghana-annonce-la-suspension-de-ses-liens-avec-le-sahara-occidental/
These links open directly the documents cited, with their dates. They suffice to verify the entirety of this file, quotation by quotation.
Final note. **We have reproduced the formulations of Yabiladi without modifying them, including those that contradict us — the exact quotation is the only honest way to contest a formulation. We do not have the text of the Ghanaian document of January 2025: we therefore do not quote it directly, and we hold to what the sources report of it. Where we do not know, we write that we do not know.**