Gaddafi's 'mainstream' dream

2003-12-30 09:45

Vienna, Austria - To Ronald Reagan, he was the "mad dog of the Middle East" - but that was in the 1980s, and Muammar Gaddafi has come a long way since that. The former firebrand now says he is eager to see Libya shed its pariah existence and be embraced by the rest of the world.

In a meeting on Monday with chief UN nuclear inspector Mohamed ElBaradei, Gaddafi insisted he was sincere in carrying out his startling pledge to scrap programmes to make weapons of mass destruction. Moreover, "he talked a lot about his hopes that one day, Libya would join the mainstream countries," said ElBaradei spokesman Mark Gwozdecky.

The meeting - and Gaddafi's stated determination to rejoin the world community he shunned for decades - was the latest sign that the Libyan leader may be serious about bringing his country back into the international fold and taming his revolutionary image.

In announcing that Libya would rid itself of weapons of mass destruction less than two weeks ago, Gaddafi pledged that his country would help build "a new world free of weapons of mass destruction and all kinds of terrorism".

His tone was just as conciliatory on Monday, according to Gwozdecky, who relayed the substance of Gaddafi's meeting with ElBaradei, director general of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency.

Gaddafi "affirmed his commitment to ban all weapons of mass destruction," said Gwozdecky of the meeting that ended a two-day IAEA tour of some of Libya's nuclear facilities - the initial step in testing the Libyan leader's resolve to scrap his arms ambitions. "Gaddafi expressed his commitment to starting a new chapter for Libya and Libya's future."

Gwozdecky said the Libyan leader told ElBaradei "that he stands fully behind the decision to extend the full co-operation to the IAEA and the other international organisations that facilitate the implementation of his decision" to give up nuclear, chemical and biological arms.

Such statements reflect a turn from an international image as a sponsor of terrorism for the past three decades. Libya is blamed for a series of terrorist attacks, the deadliest being the downing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, killing 270 people.

US airstrikes on Libya to retaliate for a 1986 Berlin disco bombing killed about 40 people, among them Gaddafi's adopted daughter. Two months after the bombing, Gaddafi reportedly boasted, "We are capable of destroying America and breaking its nose."

But in his talks with ElBaradei, Gaddafi invoked the protection of his past bitter enemy. Gwozdecky said he was "eager to get security assurances from the bigger powers, so that Libya could live in security."

The meeting with a respected UN official was itself significant, after decades of isolation broken only by fitful and failed attempts to become the leader first of Arab, then of African nations.

- AP