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Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2000 12:45:41 EDT
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Subject: [AfricaMatters] African Unity And the Disturbing Rumbles From Libya
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African Unity And the Disturbing Rumbles From Libya
Since he came to power 31 years ago in the 1969 Socialist Revolution, Libyan
leader Col. Moammar Kadhafi has endeared himself to admirers as a
Pan-Africanist.
He has not only given vent to this profile in words but also in deeds, not
least his recent push for an African Union.
Kadhafi has never made any secret of his abhorrence of the "imperialist
West", which accuses Libya of exporting terrorism.
But even in Africa, critics are uncomfortable with the Libyan leader's cosy
relations with some so-called revolutionary elements.
They point to the fact that people like former warlord now Liberian president
Charles Taylor and Corporal Foday Sankoh, ousted leader of Sierra Leone's
rebel Revolutionary United Front, had their military training in Libya before
launching their version of "revolution" against their own countries.
Political observers have also noted that Kadhafi's African solidarity has
never diminished his affinity to his Arab neighbours, evidenced by his strong
parallel commitment to the Maghreb Union.
Nonetheless, Kadhafi has remained steadfast in his crusade for a united
Africa that would be able to fend off the "machinations of the
neo-colonialists and their allies" hell bent on seeing the continent
literally annihilated.
The Addis Ababa-based continental body, the OAU in July endorsed the
ambitious African Union Treaty midwived early this year at a special summit
in the Libyan city of Sirte, where Kadhafi, true to his generosity, announced
the bankrolling of millions of dollars in arrears of contribution owed the
OAU by a number of African countries.
In many ways, Sub-Saharan Africa has also reciprocated Kadhafi's fraternal
gestures, rising up to his defence against frequent attacks from the West,
particularly the US.
A typical case was over the 1988 bombing of the American PANAM flight over
Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed all 270 people on board.
Two Libyan nationals were accused of involvement in the violence, which
earned the north African country wide-ranging US- sponsored UN sanctions from
1992.
After an aborted OAU summit in 1992, the continental organisation never
relented until the sanctions were finally lifted last year.
Against all odds, the OAU in 1997, for the first time held its Council of
Ministers meeting outside Addis Ababa in Tripoli, in an awkward arrangement
that made African ministers and other delegates to travel some 300km from the
Tunisian border town of Djerba to Tripoli because of the flight ban on Libya.
Like many other OAU fora, that meeting, which was a deliberate collective
violation of the UN sanctions, was another opportunity for a strong African
campaign against the embargo, which was finally lifted after Tripoli agreed
to hand over the suspects for trial in a third country.
It is against this background that observers view with concern recent
skirmishes between Sub-Saharan Africans, mainly from West Africa and their
Libyan hosts.
Historically, Libya has been home to hundreds of thousands of citizens from
countries like Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Ghana and Sudan, to name a few.
Most of these immigrants, whose numbers have been swelled by harsh political
or economic situations at home, have settled in Libya for decades engaged in
mainly menial jobs.
Some even use North Africa countries as springboard to illegal emigration to
Europe.
But three weeks ago, for reasons linked to disagreements between Nigerian
suspected drug dealers and Libyans, an avoidable violence erupted resulting
in casualties and the repatriation or deportation of thousands of Sub-Saharan
Africans.
Apart from the death toll which some Nigerian returnees put at more than 500,
though Libyan authorities confirmed only five dead, the tales of
ill-treatment by these returnees, be they from Lagos, Accra and Khartoum, is
appalling to Pan-Africanists, especially coming from a country championing
African unity.
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has expressed concern
at the entire affair, which has prompted several high-profile emergency
visits including that by Ghanaian president Jerry Rawlings to Libya to
ascertain the true situation.
In his first public statement on the crisis, Kadhafi not only condemned the
incident but reaffirmed his country's commitment to African unity. He blamed
the crisis on outsiders bent on dividing Africa.
But despite the reassuring words, observers are of the view that a thorough
investigation is required to get to the root of the problem. This is not only
to stem the anti-Libyan sentiment now spreading in countries whose nationals
are affected, but most importantly, to prevent a repeat performance.
There could be a much more fundamental local underpinning to the crisis or an
external connection, which Kadhafi alluded to.
Oil-rich Libya with some five million people is largely a closed religious
society, which must not compromise its territorial integrity for the sake of
solidarity.
At the same time, its nationals should not be seen to take undue advantage of
foreigners, particularly fellow-Africans, since this would not only undermine
Kadhafi's life-long dream of a "United State of Africa."
This would be a great disappointment to Pan-Africanists like Senegalese
president Abdoulaye Wade.
"I think that if I died without living in a united Africa, I would regret
it... Wade told journalists in Tripoli in July.
PanAfrican News Agency * October 13, 2000 * Dakar/Senegal
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