Nairobi — Going by the strange, rambling speech he gave to the UN General Assembly on Wednesday, it is no longer an idle question whether Libya's Muammar Gaddafi could be a source of scorn for Africa rather than an asset.
To start with, there was the overly long speech to tired delegates.
Then, there was the sheer grab-bag of issues that Gaddafi threw up in his speech: from the abolition of the UN Security Council to the relocation of the UN headquarters from New York to the release of former Panamanian President Manuel Noriega from US jail.
The world's longest serving ruler, who came emblazoned with a map of Africa on the chest of his tunic, was making his first ever address to the UN body.
It was also his first ever visit to the United States.
Besides the theatrics, which are part and parcel of the Gaddafi show, one of the things that were noteworthy was the muted reference to Middle East politics and an extolation of everything African.
That certainly had nothing to do with any waning concern for the circumstances his fellow Arab people -- the Palestinians -- find themselves in.
Relevant Links
It is his poisonous quarrels with moderate Arab countries over his radical stances on Arab unity and, more so, on confronting Israel, which have forced Gaddafi to turn his frustrated attention elsewhere, in this case to the Africa Union.
In recent months, he has been welcoming to Tripoli entourages of African traditional rulers and elders on all-expenses-paid junkets aimed at indoctrinating them into his version of shot-gun continental unity.
Among the beneficiaries of these junkets has been the chairman of the Luo Council of Elders, Riaga Ogallo, and a team from the Njuri Ncheke, the Meru Council of Elders.
The royal houses of Uganda have also sent delegations.
The eccentric change of tack, while being typical Gaddafi, is itself an admission that his push for a United States of Africa under a single government has hit a wall.
Despite hosting several AU summits where he has made this the key agenda, most African countries find the idea impractical for now.
Even President Yoweri Museveni, who has long been on good terms with the Libyan, ridicules the proposal in no uncertain terms.
Museveni, like the Nigeria leadership, believes in a gradual evolution to continental unity through building on the existing regional economic blocs like the East African Community and Ecowas.
Whereas many of the UN delegations followed Gaddafi's speech with polite amusement, he did generate a round of applause from African diplomats when he suggested that Africa be represented on a permanent, veto-wielding UN Security Council seat.
His meandering speech aside, Gaddafi's proposal on UN Security Council reform actually has some merit.
Even the US administration under George W. Bush at one point signalled it was partial to some reform, though in its case it preferred permanent admission of Japan, the world's second largest economy, albeit in a watered down, non-veto status.
However, the US soon backtracked when it realised that such changes could open a Pandora's Box of rival claimants.
Europe's largest economy, Germany, promptly indicated it expected the same.
France and Britain, which sit as permanent members of the Security Council, were not for the idea. Nor was China, in as far as Japan was to be admitted.
At the same time, emerging powers India and Brazil picked up the clamour for permanent membership, from which they have not relented.
Gaddafi in his speech was quite gracious to President Barack Obama, who preceded him at the podium.
But he raised bemused snickers among the US delegation when he proposed that America makes Obama a life president, like for all practical purposes the Libyan leader is.
Gaddafi's first trip to the US was not without drama.
Residents of New Jersey, where he initially planned to stay at a Libyan-owned residence, scuttled the plan, angry at Libya's heroic welcome of countryman Abdelbaset el-Megrahi, who had been jailed in Scotland in connection with the 1988 Lockerbie plane bombing.
Plans to set up a Bedouin tent in New York's Central Park were also scuttled by the city's authorities.
Gaddafi's delegation even had trouble getting a booking in some of the city's hotels. He finally put up at a property owned by billionaire Donald Trump.
Otherwise, Libya's relations with the US had been on a better keel than they have ever been. In 2006, the Bush administration restored full diplomatic relations.
This followed Gaddafi's decision in 2003 to forswear terrorism as well as weapons of mass destruction.
In 2008, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made a ground-breaking visit to Tripoli, opening the floodgates to other western powers keen on business with oil-rich Libya to follow suit.
Comments Post a comment