New Status in Africa Empowers an Ever-Eccentric Qaddafi

Daniel 7:7 "After this I kept looking in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast, dreadful and terrifying and extremely strong; and it had large iron teeth. It devoured and crushed and trampled down the remainder with its feet; and it was different from all the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns. NEW YORK TIMES [NYTimes Group/Sulzberger] - By Michael Slackman - March 22, 2009 TRIPOLI, Libya - Forty years after he seized power in a bloodless coup d’état, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the Libyan leader once called the mad dog of the Middle East by President Ronald Reagan, has achieved the international status he always craved, as chairman of the African Union. Colonel Qaddafi’s selection last month to lead the 53-nation African Union coincided with his emergence as a welcomed figure in Western capitals, where heads of state are eager to tap Libya’s vast oil and gas reserves and to gain access to virgin Libyan markets. Once vilified for promoting state terrorism, Colonel Qaddafi is now courted. But Colonel Qaddafi remains the same eccentric, unpredictable revolutionary as always. He has used his new status to promote his call for a United States of Africa, with one passport, one military and one currency. He has blamed Israel for the conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan, defended Somali pirates for fighting “greedy Western nations” and declared that multiparty democracy was not right for the people of Africa. “This is a role that Qaddafi has been looking for for 40 years,” said Wahid Abdel Meguid, deputy director of Egypt’s largest research institute, the government-financed Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies. “He kept shifting and changing directions in search of this role.” Each step of Colonel Qaddafi’s calculated transformation from terrorist sponsor to would-be statesman has bolstered the next. The thaw in relations with the West, which began in 2003 when he gave up Libya’s nuclear weapons program, gave him more credibility in Africa; and his rising status in Africa has made him more acceptable to the West. All of which has been aimed at one primary objective: bolstering his image. At one time, Colonel Qaddafi, who was born in 1942, tried to position himself as the next pan-Arab leader. But he was rejected, at times mocked, for his eccentric style and pronouncements. His country was isolated for decades because he sent his agents to kill civilians, including in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. But now in Africa, he has found traction. African heads of state view him suspiciously, and his one-Africa agenda is generally dismissed as unworkable. But he is embraced for his growing status in the West, the lack of credible alternatives across the continent and his money. Many stories are told in Tripoli of African leaders visiting Colonel Qaddafi and leaving with suitcases full of cash, stories that cannot be confirmed but that have become conventional wisdom. “They don’t want to lose him because he is a gold mine for solving crises, usually financial crises,” said Attia Essawy, an Egyptian writer with expertise in African affairs. “He is searching for a role; he wants to have a role regardless of where.” While Libya’s strongman is enjoying his burnished image, it has come at a cost to his nation of 5.5 million people and to the approximately two million Africans who have flocked to Libya believing that they would find warm receptions, good jobs and, perhaps, an easy path to Europe. Instead, they found a hostile environment and a struggle just to eat. “It is a burden,” Ali Abd Alaziz Isawi, who served for two years as the minister of economy, trade and investment, said of the army of illegal immigrants living in Libya. “They are a burden on health care, they spread disease, crime. They are illegal.” All over this capital city, illegal African immigrants line up along roadways, across bridges and at traffic circles hoping to be selected for menial day jobs that pay about $8. They call the areas where they congregate “the hustling grounds,” which are always crowded with desperate faces from early morning until well past sundown. Many people in Tripoli said they resented the presence of so many illegal workers. “We don’t like them,” said Moustafa Saleh, 28, who is unemployed, echoing a popular sentiment. “They smuggle themselves through the desert, and the way they deal with us is not good.” For the African migrants themselves, life in Libya is often a dead end. “They call us animals and slaves,” said Paul Oknonghou, 28, a Nigerian who lives with about a dozen other Nigerians in a house under construction that lacks glass in the window frames, running water, a bathroom or a kitchen. He said he and his friends considered themselves lucky that they did not have to sleep on the streets. Thomas Thtakore, 26, who is from Ghana, entered Libya illegally a year ago after a three-month journey across mountains and desert. “I have no help; I sleep under a bridge near the river,” He said. He said his younger brother died on the way. “If I stay here, I will die.” Mr. Thtakore was about to be flown back to Ghana by the International Organization for Migration, a nongovernmental group that helps migrants return home. Since 2006, the group has helped about 3,000 travel home. “If they find a job it can be good, but if they don’t, it can be a nightmare,” said Michele Bombassei, an official with the migration group, adding that most do not find jobs. That hostile reality contrasts sharply with the image that Colonel Qaddafi likes to portray. His capital city is filled with billboards showing Libya as the one bright spot on the continent. In one billboard, Colonel Qaddafi appears as a savior as sun rays break over his shoulder and a crowd of black men and women reach toward him with outstretched arms. His Africa agenda helps empower him in other ways, too. Diplomats here said it gave him leverage in keeping African and European leaders listening and their doors open. If Libya sent all the migrants home, they would become a burden to poorer African nations, which would have to absorb them while losing out on the remittances they send home. At the same time, diplomats here said, Libya has made it plain to European countries, especially Italy, that if Libya chose to look the other way, most of those migrants would head for European shores. “It’s a kind of soft power they use,” said one Western diplomat who works on Libyan affairs but requested anonymity for fear of antagonizing Libyan authorities. Colonel Qaddafi will serve only a one-year term as chairman of the African Union, but his quest to use Africa as a stepping stone to greater world influence and credibility is likely to continue well past that. Last August, 200 kings and traditional African leaders traveled to Libya and anointed him with a more permanent moniker; they crowned him king of kings. Mona el-Naggar contributed reporting. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/23/world/africa/23libya.html Also: Gaddafi, Newly Elected African Union Head, Strongly Opposes Darfur Indictment CYBERCAST NEWS SERVICE (CNSN.com) [Media Research Center] - By Patrick Goodenough, International Editor - February 3, 2009 African nations have elected Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi as head of the African Union, a move likely to further bolster the 53-nation bloc’s opposition to a war crimes trial for Sudan’s president. The Libyan, a former international pariah whose leadership aspirations include founding a “United States of Africa,” has strongly opposed attempts by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to indict Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on charges relating to the conflict in western Sudan’s Darfur region. Shortly after prosecutors in The Hague last July accused Bashir of involvement in genocide, crimes against humanity and murder and asked judges to issue an arrest warrant, Gaddafi discussed with Sudanese leaders ways to block what he described as the “false” charges. Apart from their A.U. connection, Libya and Sudan are both members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), which has closed ranks around Bashir while accusing the ICC of “double standards” for focusing on Sudan rather than other countries, notably Israel. At an A.U. summit in Addis Ababa on Monday, Gaddafi was elected as chairman for the next year. A group of traditional leaders accompanying his delegation hailed him as the “king of kings.” In an inaugural speech, he said that during his term, he would “continue to insist that our sovereign countries work to achieve the United States of Africa.” Gaddafi has been pushing the concept for many years, and he was a key mover behind the creation of the A.U. to replace the looser Organization for African Unity in 2001. Over the past four years his campaign for full political and economic integration has picked up steam, with 2015 identified as a target date for a United States of Africa with a single union government. ... http://www.cnsnews.com/public/Content/Article.aspx?rsrcid=42904 Gadhafi pledges to resolve Darfur crisis as head of African Union ASSOCIATED PRESS - February 4, 2009 ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia - Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi said Wednesday that the crisis in Sudan's western region of Darfur is his personal responsibility now that he has been elected to head the African Union. Gadhafi, whose history in brokering peace between Sudan and neighboring Chad has been plagued with foibles and failures, warned the two countries not to use the vast western Sudan region as a battleground. A conflict between rebels and government forces in Darfur that began in 2003 has killed as 300,000 people and caused a humanitarian crisis that has seen 2.7 million flee their homes, some entering neighboring Chad. In recent months, Darfur rebel groups believed to be supported by Chad have taken key positions in the region, prompting counterattacks by Sudanese forces. http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull&cid=1233304684634 FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. 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