Gadaffi: I'll turn back on Africa
2008-01-30 09:12
Tripoli - Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi warned on Tuesday that he would turn his back on Africa if the continent's leaders again rejected his proposals for closer unity at a summit in Addis Ababa later this week.
"If unity is not achieved, then Libya will turn its back on Africa and reorient its foreign policy in other directions - Euro-Mediterrannean or Arabo-Mediterranean," he told a news conference on the eve of his departure for Thursday's African Union summit.
Gaddafi said Libya was also prepared to move its investments in African countries, which he said totalled more than $5bn, to Arab and Mediterranean states.
'Conspiracy to sell Africa'
He said: "The Addis Ababa summit must mark a decisive step in the establishment of African unity. Anyone who blocks the unity project is part of a conspiracy to sell Africa to the highest bidder.
"Libya will not be party to the betrayal of the continent and will expose whoever is behind it."
Gaddafi had been involved in intensive lobbying in the run-up to this year's summit after he failed to win support for his proposals for a federal African government among the African Union's 53 member states at its last summit in Ghana last July.
In the space of less than a week he had received around 10 African leasders at his Tripoli residence in a bid to win their support for his unity project.
"The African Union commission is a dead letter without any powers and ought to be be replaced by an executive cabinet," Gadhafi said on Tuesday.
He blamed the governments of English-speaking African states with the exception of Nigeria for blocking the proposal on behalf of "colonial interests".
Arab states 'deprived'
Despite his opposition to the AU's administrative set-up, Gaddafi said Libya's deputy foreign minister for African affairs Ali Triki would be a candidate to replace the AU commission's outgoing chief Alpha Omar Konare at this week's summit.
He said: "The Arab states have been deprived of this position for some four decades even though they represent two-thirds of the continent and contribute 60% of the AU's budget.
"If this situation persists, it will be tantamount to racism against Arabs." In nearly four decades in power, Gaddafi had made some sharp about-turns in foreign policy.
A staunch Arab nationalist when he seized power in 1969, Gaddafi gradually grew disillusioned with the Arab League and sought to expand Libyan influence in Africa, particularly West Africa and the Sahel, instead.
During the Cold War, Gaddafi tilted heavily towards the Soviet Union and supported a plethora of radical groups around the world, earning the monicker "Mad Dog" from then United States president Ronald Reagan.
But in December 2003, after nine months of secret negotiations with Britain and the US, Libya announced that it was renouncing efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction. It then set about repairing relations with all the main Western governments.