Muammar rambles

Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the Libyan leader, took the lectern at the United Nations on Wednesday morning for his first address at the General Assembly, and delivered a long and rambling diatribe — far exceeding the 15-minute limit on speeches — against the United Nations Security Council and a host of other perceived enemies, while urging the world to welcome President Obama, referring to him as “our son.”

Of Africa?

In the first third of a speech that lasted more than 90 minutes, Colonel Qaddafi focused on what he called the inherent unfairness of the United Nations, which gives the five permanent members of the Security Council far more authority than the nations in the General Assembly. This, Mr. Qaddafi said, was dictatorship, not democracy, and as such, “was terrorism itself.”

And when was the last time the Colonel held elections in his democracy?

The Afghan war, too, he said, should be investigated for possible prosecution. At times, Colonel Qaddafi veered into conspiracy, saying, for example, that the H1N1 influenza virus, also called swine flu, might be a military or corporate weapon that got out of a lab and intimating an Israeli hand behind the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he said, should be solved by the creation of a single state, which Mr. Qaddafi calls Israteen, but Mr. Qaddafi stressed it is wrong to infer that Arabs hate the Jews. “You are the ones who burned them, not us. You expelled them,” he said, referring apparently to European nations.

For Mr. Obama personally, however, he had only warm words, calling on the collected nations to welcome “our son” on the occasion of his first United Nations appearance. “We are content and happy if Obama can stay forever as the president of America,” he said, saying he feared America would return to its old ways after the end of his term.

Oy vay.

Threat to Niger 's Democracy

A woman selling vegetables at a market in Niamey, the capital of Niger. The country ranks fifth from the bottom in the United Nations human development index.
















Tens of thousands have taken to the streets to protest President Mamadou Tandja’s slow-moving coup d’état, as his critics call it: his plan to stay beyond the legal limit of two terms in his colonial-era palace, a gleaming oasis of whitewashed order amid dilapidated government buildings and mud-brick houses.

In his push for a new constitution that would abolish term limits and give him more power after 10 years as president, Mr. Tandja dissolved a high court that ruled against his bid to remain in office; dismissed a fractious Parliament; took steps to muzzle the press, including shutting down a radio and television station; and arrested opposition leaders.

Just as Chávez, Correa and Morales have done, as Zelaya want to do, In Latin America, one in power in Africa works to perpetuate his power.

Niger’s president, Mamadou Tandja, is seeking a new constitution that will allow him to stay in office past two terms and increase his power.






Democracy is new here in one of the world’s poorest countries, barely a decade old in this vast land of about 14 million people, most of it desert, bigger in area than France, Spain and Portugal together. Uranium deposits, among the world’s largest, provide the government with revenue, but the citizens here do not have much.

Yellow cake, W. Bush announced, Iraq sought to get, and he and Blair used that line to help justify their decision to make war.

Most of Niger’s citizens live on less than a dollar a day.






Most live on less than a dollar a day, and mortality rates for mothers and children are well above the African average — double in the case of women giving birth. The country ranks fifth from the bottom in the United Nations human development index, and persistent malnutrition stalks rural areas, aid workers say. In the capital, the hugely swollen limbs of insistent beggars testify to the effects of unchecked disease.

One thing the people have dearly acquired, though, after decades of coups, military strongmen and weak governments, is a political order that has resembled democracy, albeit with lapses: two successful presidential elections, defeated candidates who go home without causing turmoil, an outspoken opposition and an alert if beleaguered press. The citizens are manifestly unwilling to give up their shaky gains.

In the presidential palace, an airy Moorish-style edifice built for the French governors and well hidden from the road, Mr. Tandja beamed and said he wanted to stay on only because the people were begging him to do so. “The people demand it,” Mr. Tandja said. “My obligation is to never betray the aspirations of the people. It’s the people who asked.”

What people, one wonders.

Although the United States and the European Union have condemned Mr. Tandja’s moves, analysts say that because of an oil deal with the Chinese and support from the Libyan leader Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, he may be relatively invulnerable to Western pressure, despite the considerable presence of outside aid in Niger’s budget.

Mr. Tandja insisted that he had not “violated any act of the Constitution.”

A union leader here who also heads the protests angrily disagreed.

“Unfortunately, he’s made us miss our entrance into the great court of democratic nations, like Ghana and Mali,” said Issoufou Sidibé, secretary general of the Democratic Confederation of Workers in Niger. “He’s made us totally miss what would have been our triumphant entry. It’s made every Nigerien who is proud of his country very angry.”

Italy: Tepid Applause for Qaddafi

The Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, on Thursday urged the world to understand what motivates terrorists, and likened the 1986 strikes by the United States on Libya to Osama bin Laden’s terrorist attacks. Colonel Qaddafi, left, who was long accused of sponsoring terrorism, got tepid applause from the Italian lawmakers he addressed on the second day of a trip to Italy, Libya’s former colonial ruler. “It is not very intelligent to chase terrorists down the Afghan mountains or Central Asia,” he said. “That’s impossible. We must look at their reasons.”

Weird reasoning, but par for Muammar.

Qaddafi Runs Cold and Warm

World Briefing | Middle East
Qatar: Qaddafi Runs Cold and Warm

What at first appeared to be a tirade by the Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, against King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia at the Arab summit meeting in Doha, Qatar, turned out to be an effort to end a six-year feud. After denouncing Saudi Arabia as “a British creation with American protection,” Colonel Qaddafi said that the dispute was ended and that he was prepared to exchange visits. The two leaders then met for about 30 minutes and appeared to have reconciled, in time for Saudi Arabia to attend next year’s summit meeting, in Libya.

New Status in Africa Empowers an Ever-Eccentric Qaddafi

A billboard in Surt, Libya, depicting Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the new chairman of the African Union, tries to suggest a bright new day is dawning in Africa.











African migrants around a fire last month in Tripoli, where many have flocked to seek jobs










March 23, 2009

New Status in Africa Empowers an Ever-Eccentric Qaddafi

By MICHAEL SLACKMAN

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.

Qaddafi, as New African Union Head, Will Seek Single State

President Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya, right, during a meeting of the African Union on Monday in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

At least he dreams big; he also offered that Palestinians and Israelis live in one state.

The One-State Solution

Everybody has an opinion. This is Qaddafi's. And it is an interesting one.

THE shocking level of the last wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence, which ended with this weekend’s cease-fire, reminds us why a final resolution to the so-called Middle East crisis is so important. It is vital not just to break this cycle of destruction and injustice, but also to deny the religious extremists in the region who feed on the conflict an excuse to advance their own causes.

After a couple of weeks of seeing and of knowing what was going on, it became a shock to continue to see it. 1,300 dead. UN facilities hit. Civilians used as shields. It is interesting, ,and then some, to read Qaddafi writing of religious extremists feeding on conflict.

The basis for the modern State of Israel is the persecution of the Jewish people, which is undeniable. The Jews have been held captive, massacred, disadvantaged in every possible fashion by the Egyptians, the Romans, the English, the Russians, the Babylonians, the Canaanites and, most recently, the Germans under Hitler. The Jewish people want and deserve their homeland.

Will Qaddafi recognize the state of Israel? He just has. Now he needs to send an ambassador, after signing a treaty.

But the Palestinians too have a history of persecution, and they view the coastal towns of Haifa, Acre, Jaffa and others as the land of their forefathers, passed from generation to generation, until only a short time ago.

Haifa, Tel Aviv, Jaffa.

Thus the Palestinians believe that what is now called Israel forms part of their nation, even were they to secure the West Bank and Gaza. And the Jews believe that the West Bank is Samaria and Judea, part of their homeland, even if a Palestinian state were established there. Now, as Gaza still smolders, calls for a two-state solution or partition persist. But neither will work.

Pretty much it in a nutshell. The Colonel recognizes matters clearly.

A two-state solution will create an unacceptable security threat to Israel. An armed Arab state, presumably in the West Bank, would give Israel less than 10 miles of strategic depth at its narrowest point. Further, a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip would do little to resolve the problem of refugees. Any situation that keeps the majority of Palestinians in refugee camps and does not offer a solution within the historical borders of Israel/Palestine is not a solution at all.

True.

In absolute terms, the two movements must remain in perpetual war or a compromise must be reached. The compromise is one state for all, an “Isratine” that would allow the people in each party to feel that they live in all of the disputed land and they are not deprived of any one part of it.

Nice theory; will either side even consider this?

It is a fact that Palestinians inhabited the land and owned farms and homes there until recently, fleeing in fear of violence at the hands of Jews after 1948 — violence that did not occur, but rumors of which led to a mass exodus. It is important to note that the Jews did not forcibly expel Palestinians. They were never “un-welcomed.” Yet only the full territories of Isratine can accommodate all the refugees and bring about the justice that is key to peace.

Great analysis. Too bad he didn't make it twenty years ago, but, nonetheless, it is welcome.

If the present interdependence and the historical fact of Jewish-Palestinian coexistence guide their leaders, and if they can see beyond the horizon of the recent violence and thirst for revenge toward a long-term solution, then these two peoples will come to realize, I hope sooner rather than later, that living under one roof is the only option for a lasting peace.

Idealistic, perhaps unrealistic, but welcome. How about that treaty?