allAfrica.com: Uganda: When Gadaffi Stole the Show Again (Page 1 of 1)

For a conference that had been too dramatic, Libyan President Muammar Gadaffi's speech at the closure of the Afro-Arab Youth Festival provided a fitting finale. In the end, as in the beginning, it was not clear whether the festival had provided the right platform to positively inspire the youth of Africa and the Arab world beyond offering them a chance to meet - and disagree on so many things.

Col. Gadaffi suggested in his remarks that dictatorships can be good for us, that elections are a waste of time when you have Gadaffiesque leadership, and that the Afro-Arab world had better get used to the idea.

There is no reason to believe that President Yoweri Museveni, who has not ruled out standing for a fourth term in 2011, would have the guts to condemn the remarks. Yet they were being delivered before a festival whose theme was "Youth in Peace and Development Partnerships", a meeting of over 2,000 young people who fancy themselves as the leaders of tomorrow.

Gadaffi, of course, is his own man, and maybe he did not intend to be taken seriously. But there were obvious ironies in letting him have the last word at a conference where the youth of Africa hoped to find solutions to some of the continent's most pressing problems.

To be sure, Col. Gadaffi's singular views provided one last reason to be cynical about the festival, which was first held in Khartoum in 2004, but which became infamous in its 2008 rendition because of reasons far removed from its objectives. Attendance of the festival's meetings was always dangerously low, with some delegates spending time disagreeing over identity--and facilitation, over which the Ugandan delegates once threatened to stage a boycott.

The festival was a "lost opportunity", a Ugandan delegate argued, speaking on condition of anonymity because he did not want to be seen as a whiner. "I do not think that the forums were designed to bring ideas. Nothing inspirational was there," he said. "If this conference had been designed to create change, to improve leadership qualities among young people, then it would have been an achievement."

The festival's only achievement, the delegate said, was to provide thousands of young people with "opportunity to be in one place at the same time". That viewpoint assumes that the festival's agenda, however genuine, had been lost along the way, or that the agenda was never good at all.

Yet the festival was meant to inspire young people, to give them a reason to hope that tomorrow will be better. In fact, one of the festival's objectives is "to serve as a research think tank for African leaders and [to mentor] young people". The 10-day event, held at Speke Resort in Munyonyo, set out to discuss issues of sustainable development, climate change, conflict resolution, immigration, Arab and African identity under globalisation, social transformation and health.

Although Col. Gadaffi has called for the creation of a United States of Africa, an idea that many Africans may find idealistic, he is a dictator at home. Put more bluntly, Gadaffi is no Mandela. And the other presidents who had been expected to speak at the festival-- Sudan's Omar el-Bashir, Burundi's Pierre Nkurunziza, Rwanda's Paul Kagame, Niger's Tandja Mamadou and Chad's Idriss Deby-- are not exactly the most inspirational leaders around. In Sudan, where the first festival was held, there is genocide in the region of Darfur.

As it were, Uganda never really had the means to finance the festival, leaving the organisers to rely on external sources such as the Libyan leader's petrodollars. The festival cost about Shs5 billion, only 2.3billion of which was provided by the Uganda government, informed sources said, revealing that the rest came from external donors.

For Col. Gadaffi, who once advised President Museveni against leaving power, the festival appealed to his own perverse sense of vanity. It also gave the Libyan leader an opportunity to renew his friendship with Uganda, a country with which he has had a murky relationship that goes back to the '70s. Col. Gadaffi's Libya, for example, is where Idi Amin first found sanctuary after losing power in 1979; it is also one of the places where rebel leader Yoweri Museveni found help during the armed struggle that brought him to power in 1986. It is possible that Col. Gadaffi believes that Mr Museveni, who has now been in power for 22 years, is only pretentious about democracy and constitutionalism.

The festival was another glorious opportunity for Col. Gadaffi, as with Mr Museveni, to rail against the West, to find fall guys for Africa's backwardness. The conference, as some delegates told Inside Politics, was never as engaging as it should have been, and it is likely to be remembered more for Col Gadaffi's grand entry than for its commitment to promote Afro-Arab unity.

It is curious that Mr Joseph Okwakau, who chairs the National Youth Council, never attended even a single forum, sources said, alleging that the festival's organisers approached the event as a once-in-a-lifetime chance to make a fortune.

Speaking to Inside Politics, Mr Okwakau confirmed that he never attended the festival, but only because he had "some other commitments". Mr Okwakau, who headed the national committee that organised the Commonwealth Youth Forum, said he reckoned the Afro-Arab Youth Festival had been a success "despite a few challenges".

Mr Abbas Agaba, who was on the festival's national organising committee, insisted that it had been "the most successful" yet, arguing that the presence of two presidents--Col. Gadaffi and Mr Museveni--made it distinctive. But some delegates were already complaining over the final communiqué, saying it was not an accurate reflection of the attitudes of all the youth who attended the festival.

"We don't understand how [the communiqué] was developed, because presentations never took place," said Mr Thomas Tayebwa, a Ugandan delegate. "It doesn't reflect the ideas of the young people who attended the conference." Mr Abbas was adamant the communiqué reflected the views of the delegates, at least those who attended the presentations.

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