Gaddafi calls for unity
2004-02-28 11:05
Sirte, Libya - Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi urged African Union leaders to close ranks to fight poverty, war and disease, and to combine the continent's mineral wealth and human resources to deal with the United States and Europe as equals.
Reinforcing the break with its "rogue state" past, Libyan Foreign Minister Abdel Rahman Shalqam confirmed reports on Friday that his government is to destroy a stock of bombs used to deliver chemical weapons.
European Commission President Romano Prodi praised Gaddafi in a speech on Friday, saying "Libya has taken very bold steps and is back on the world stage."
In recent months, Libya has accepted responsibility for the 1988 bombing of an American airliner over the Scottish town of Lockerbie that killed 270 people, and agreed to dismantle under international inspection its facilities for developing weapons of mass destruction.
Turned a page
The moves have turned a new page in Libya's relations with Europe and the United States, which still lists Libya as a sponsor of terrorism. On Thursday, Washington lifted a 23-year-old ban on American travel to the North African country - a move Shalqam welcomed as "positive."
Gaddafi opened the two-day summit with a speech that was notably free of the anti-Western rhetoric that has been a hallmark of his 35-year rule. However, he criticised the West for historical sins such as colonising Africa and enslaving millions of its people.
"We believe we are dealing with a new European mentality. We hope we are also dealing with a new American mentality," Gaddafi told delegates in the coastal city of Sirte, about 370km southeast of the Libyan capital, Tripoli.
Gaddafi rolled up to the summit podium on an electric golf-cart that was also carrying Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Gaddafi's female bodyguards ran alongside.
He wore a long shirt emblazoned with outlines of Africa in green and photographs of statesmen regarded as the founding fathers of Africa - among them Ahmed Ben Bella of Algeria, Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, Nelson Mandela of South Africa, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt and Julius Nyerere of Tanzania.
Africa for Africans!
Hundreds of Libyan youths cheered key parts of his speech, chanting "Africa for Africans!" and "Nobody's going to fight us!"
The sporadic chants continued into the speeches of Mozambique President Joaquim Chissano, the current chair of the African Union, and Alpha Oumar Konare, who runs the union's secretariat. Some delegates couldn't hide their laughter.
Gaddafi's message was that Africa has the resources - oil, diamonds, gold and people - to speak to the world on equal terms.
"We have the capabilities that would allow us to be as strong as the United States and the European Union, and this is a good thing, so there could be balance in the world," Gaddafi said. "When there is no balance, there are wars and conflicts."
- SAPA