PANA Kadhafi Hails African Diplomacy Panafrican News Agency (Dakar) February 25, 2001 Posted to the web February 25, 2001 Sidy Gaye Tripoli, Libya It is a calm and serene Moammar Kadhafi, clad in a magnificent indigo boubou with well-matched hat and shoes who, late Saturday, started "hailing" and "restoring confidence" to his guests at the opening of the 73rd session of the OAU Council of Ministers. Speaking calmly, the Libyan revolutionary leader set about a real exercise of moral rearming which did not leave his audience indifferent. Kadhafi, who is hosting for the third time in four years a session of African ministers of foreign affairs, was applauded at certain points, but above all listened to with reverence. The libyan leader, whose talents as an orator are recognised by all, kept the audience spellbound. He reviewed his 30 years of experience in regional organisations and lifted the veil on the latest talks he had with African heads of state with a view to ratification by all of the African Union treaty, which was adopted in July 2000 in Lome, Togo. Kadhafi asked the ministers to take stock of the "long and winding road that Africans have followed since 1963" for the unification of the continent. "There is no regional organisation in the world that compares with ours, which is well-structured and has worked with so much commitment and consistence for the total liberation and unification of all its members", he said. "Whatever the enemies, who thrive on artificial divisions, may say about our continent, one cannot find a regional organisation comparable to ours, be it in Europe, Asia or among our brothers in Latin America", Kadhafi said. "The European Union did not have that collective approach in its early days and only brings together, even today, 15 member states after more than half a century of attempts to have unity. The same could not be said of Asia where the initiative is strictly a regional one, whereas the first attempts in Latin America are hardly in their infancy. "I personally worked for 30 years with the Arab League where I have close friends, but I left it with memories of several impediments and a legal vaccuum. "During all these years, we were simply guests and vote took place without any legal basis. It is only after almost half a century of existence that we thought of drawing up a charter that people should learn to apply and comply with," he said. Kadhafi told the ministerial session that it was only in Africa where "people are constantly fighting for total unity since 1963 and where from the outset, a charter is approved, signed, applied and complied with". "This is one of the reasons why I am proud of Africa. The other reason is that on the occasion of the Lockerbie affair, which was turned into a world problem, African diplomacy was able to mark its presence. "It succeeded at the Ouagadougou summit in 1998 by imposing the will of once colonised, humiliated and dominated peoples on those obliged, against their will, to accept Libyan proposals". It was in view of all that, the Libyan leader explained, "the confidence we have has brought us to explore a new stage in our unification process". "The Constitutive Act of the African Union would today come into force if procedural problems did not prevent some countries from ratifying it with diligence", he said. Colonel Kadhafi, who said he had talks with "several heads of state on that question in the perspective of the Sirte summit", affirmed that countries like South Africa, Ethiopia and Algeria assured him of their commitment to ratify the constitutive treaty. No less than 20 countries have ratified the document, or were in the process to do so. Khadafi said that the number could increase during the Sirte II summit, scheduled to take place from 1-2 March. **** Kadhafi's Commitment to African Union Panafrican News Agency (Dakar) February 25, 2001 Posted to the web February 25, 2001 Tripoli, Libya ( The Leader of the Libyan Revolution, Col. Moammar Kadhafi, may mean different things to different people, but even his strongest critics can vouch to his stoic philosophy and tenacious attachment to African cause as demonstrated by his pet project, the African Union. The idea of pooling Africa's abundant human and material resources is not entirely new, but Kadhafi's desire to give a new impetus to this ideal has been engaging as it is compelling, pulling everyone in his direction since September 1999, when the African Union idea was born in the Libyan city of Sirte. Since coming to power through the 1969 Revolution under the Socialist policy, not even the collapse of the former Soviet Union has mediated the Libyan leader's professed people-oriented government, espoused in his Green Book, and his abhorence for capitalism, which he considers exploitative. Kadhafi's perpetually strained relations with the West, which accuses him of "exporting terrorism," have found expression in political and economic difficulties faced by Libyans not only in Western countries but in nations with strong affinity to the West. Still Kadhafi is unbowed and continues to push for a united and stronger Africa, but never at the expense of his commitment to the Arab world's unity. Africa's political will and the success of Kadhafi's diplomatic campaigns for the realisation of an African Union would be tested at the 1-2 March OAU extraordinary Summit, otherwise called Sirte II. Following the Sirte September 1999 declaration by African leaders, the African Union Constitutive Act was adopted by the OAU's July 2000 Summit in Lome, the Togolese capital. This has been followed by the challenge of ratification with two-thirds of the OAU 53 member states required to ratify the Act before it becomes operational. Sirte II Summit is devoted to the realisation of this goal, to which Kadhafi and his oil-rich country of some five million people have deployed all resources to attain. Opening Saturday's 73rd OAU Council of Ministers session, which precedes the Summit, Kadhafi was unequivocal in urging African foreign affairs ministers to impress upon their leaders the need to ratify the Union's Act without delay. "We have to jettison the old bureaucratic ways. The Union is like the Gospel and the Koran, whose injunctions we have to obey," he said in his 40-minute address. He said, "we need not go on pilgrimage to obtain this decision, we cannot wait for a year for something that can be done today." Pan-Africanists, who share this sentiment, however, point out that Africans have never lacked the desire, but the political will and economic muzzle to transform dreams into reality. But Kadhafi believes that like the ant, Africa's strength lies in numbers and together, he says, the continent can shake off the stigma of a basket case. As an orator he is, the Libyan leader did not fail to utilise his address to try and drum up more support for Libya and its people. He thanked the OAU and Africans for their support for and solidarity with Libya, which has been under UN sanctions since 1992 over the 1988 downing of American Pan Am flight 103 that killed 270 people off the Scottish city of Lockerbie. Libya's no-love-lost relations with the West took a turn for the worse over the incident that was widely condemned by the world, including Libya. After protracted diplomatic negotiations, brokered by the OAU and former South African President Nelson Mandela, Tripoli agreed to the trial in a neutral country of two Libyan suspects for the alleged bombing. Washington and London had insisted the suspects must be tried in either US or Britain. After the 84-day trial, a Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands sentenced one of the Libyans to life jail, while the other was acquitted. But the Lockerbie is far from over. While Tripoli has dismissed the trial as another political conspiracy by its enemies, and insists that the State was not involved, Britain and the US are pressing that Libya pays families of the flight victims some 700 million dollars compensation ordered by the Court. Further more, London and Washington are adamant to support moves for the lifting of sanctions on Libya, which was said to be a pre-condition for Tripoli's acceptance to allow the trial of the two suspects. The OAU has always called for a just and fair settlement of the Lockerbie dispute, but when its appeal and efforts failed, it did not only authorise the holding of its 65th Council of Ministers meeting in Tripoli in November 1997, but has also approved humanitarian flights to Libya in solidarity with Tripoli and disregard to the UN position. Meanwhile, Kadhafi is expected to repeat the call for the lifting of the remaining "unjust sanctions" to his colleague Heads of State at Sirte II, who are expected to show yet another gesture of solidarity. Whether this would be enough to push the UN and the West to review the sanctions may be another matter, but the Libyan leader is proving to critics that he can stand on his own and even win more friends to his side. **** Activist Urges Action On Refugee Problems Panafrican News Agency (Dakar) February 25, 2001 Posted to the web February 25, 2001 Tripoli, Libya As the move for African Union gathers momentum, an official of the Accra-based NGO on Civil Rights Education For Democracy and Human Rights, has called for greater attention to be paid to the plight of millions of displaced people on the continent. "The number of refugees in Africa continues to grow and about 95 percent of them are workers that have lost their means of livelihood," said George Tarbah Snr, founder and Executive Director of CREDHR. Africa has more than 20 million displaced people, including about seven million refugees, one of the highest among the regions of the world. Tarbah, a refugee himself, who fled his home country Liberia to set up CREDHR in Sierra Leone in 1996, said most refugees in Africa were denied their rights as prescribed by the UN refugee agency, UNHCR. He said his organisation seeks to educate refugees in the continent on their obligations and rights in the host country through legal representations in compliance with UN's 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol for the protection of refugees. Tarbah, who was in Tripoli for the just-ended Organisation of African Trade Union Unity (OATUU) conference as part of OAU meetings in the Libyan capital, said the planned African Union Act should take into account the interest of African refugees. "This is very important given the increasing number of conflicts, which force people to flee their countries," he added. According to Tarbah, 52, who said he had been a trade unionist for 30 years, "CREDHR believe that necessary steps should be taken by governments and civil societies to prevent the future escalation of refugee problems in Africa". His group is seeking a status with the OAU and possibly under the envisaged African Union. On why he has not returned to Liberia following the end of the civil war in 1997, Tarbah said apart from alleged insecurity in the country, he preferred to work in the field of Non- Governmental Organisation to assist other needy and displaced people in Africa. _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki Phone +358-40-7177941 Fax +358-9-7591081 http://www.kominf.pp.fi General class struggle news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Geopolitical news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________________________
