Libya, Qadhafi, and the African Union

The Conflict

Colonel Muammar al-Qadhafi, after having been isolated as a leader of an alleged terrorist nation for years, returned to the international arena as a spokesperson strongly pushing the unity of African nations. He deftly brought about the unanimous decision of the African states to form the new African Union in 2001. With Africa's current political configuration as 53 distinct nation-states with diverse markets, civil wars, and individual health measures, there is less hope for progress than there would be as a strong union of nations. There are many obstacles to federation, not least of which are suspicions about Qadhafi himself.

Political

• Many suspect Qadhafi, who was not long ago the primary advocate of Arab unity, of attempting to amass power for himself and for anti-Western, anti-Israeli causes.
• Qadhafi's vision of a United States of Africa entails changing the concepts of national identity within the African nations.
• Some people in the nation of Libya rose up against their leader's mission to unite Africa because of its high cost to the Libyan people. The country is accustomed to seeing itself as Arab before African.

Economic

• Libya and Qadhafi receive a disproportionate amount of international attention due in part to the vast oil resources of the country. Qadhafi is using Libya's oil income to help finance the African Union campaign, drawing many poor African nations to support Qadhafi and tipping the normal scales that balance power.

Ethnic

• Before the arrival at the end of the 1990s of more than one million African immigrants from many countries, Libya's population was very homogeneous, with 97 percent of the population Sunni Muslims of Berber and Arab descent. Introducing new groups within the country resulted in violence. Eliminating borders between the nation-states of Africa, many of which have strong cultural and ethnic identities, could require careful attention to the possibilities of ethnic conflict.

In 1999 Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Abu Minyar al-Qadhafi (also Gaddafi, Kadhafi, Gadafy, and various other spellings) called a meeting of all African heads of state to discuss the creation of a new union of African states. The new union Qadhafi proposed was to be far stronger than the existing Organization of African Unity (OAU), which had been formed by 32 independent African states in 1963 in order to promote unity and to defend the sovereignty of its members and eradicate all forms of colonialism on the continent. Following several meetings and a two-day summit of 40 African heads of state in Sirte, Libya, in March 2001, Libya announced the creation of a new African Union, to be roughly modeled on the European Union.

Upon the announcement of the new pact, established by a unanimous decision of all 53 member states of the OAU, Colonel Qadhafi flashed a victory sign. "Africans will no longer accept to be treated like animals and Africa has the right to take the place that is hers in the world," Qadhafi said, as quoted by Paul Ejime in a March 2, 2001, Panafrican News Agency article. Qadhafi declared the formation of the African Union a major turning point in modern African history. "Today marks the crowning of the dozens of steps taken by Africa on the road to freedom and unity" Qadhafi pronounced, as quoted in an article in the Middle East News Online. For Qadhafi too, the creation of African Union was a turning point in his long struggle to bring about worldwide changes as a legitimate statesman.

The African Union that was voted in will actually be a watered-down version of Qadhafi's original proposal to create a federated super-nation similar to the United States of America, with a president and a congress. The new African Union will have a Union executive council, a parliament, court of justice, a monetary union, a peacekeeping force, and financial institutions, including a common currency, central bank, and investment bank. The Union should be a forum to foster greater cooperation among African nations, end wars, and promote prosperity. Member nations hope eventually to form a single political body that can compete among the global powers on an economic, political, and military basis.

United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Kofi Annan has given the African Union his blessing, and the new Union has brought a ray of hope and promise to some African nations. But there are those in Africa and in the West who have grave concerns, and some confusion, about Qadhafi's motivations. The controversial Libyan leader is thought to have sponsored state-organized and financed terrorism aimed at select Western targets in the past; many fear that he is building up to create worse havoc in the future.

Qadhafi rules 5,445,500 Libyans. His country by itself has too small a population to pose a substantial military threat to the West. But under Qadhafi, Libya has played an international role more appropriate to a far larger nation. The new African Union would give Qadhafi access to some 680,000,000 Africans—a tremendous power base.

No less concerned are the people of Libya, who experienced a tremendous shift in their nation's population when their leader shifted his orientation from Arab countries in the Middle East to the federation of African nations.

Arab or African?

Qadhafi adopted the mantel of "Mr. Africa" in the late 1990s, after a long career as a spokesperson for the Middle East. When asked by a Reuters reporter if he was detached from the Arab world, Qadhafi replied, "Libya is a very dynamic country. Libya's territory is African. The Arab countries can catch up with the African countries."

Despite their leader's words, Libyans, as North Africans, are probably more accustomed to thinking of themselves as Arab than as African. For many the idea of being part of Africa and the African Union is a novel concept. When Libya's economy plunged in 2000, there were public riots and terrible violence against the African immigrants in Libya, ending with the deportation of hundreds of thousands back to their native lands. It will take time for Libyans to accept Africans from countries such as Nigeria, Chad, and Ghana as "brothers" in any meaningful sense. Yet, with Libyan television broadcasting local divas singing "Africa, our father, our mother" (according to the March 12, 2001, Time), perhaps the idea of being African will eventually take hold among Libyans.

Suspicions about Qadhafi and Libya

Qadhafi had been politically isolated from the international world before he stepped into his new role of statesman for Africa. The West has accused Qadhafi of being involved in acts of terrorism for many years. Libya is one of seven governments that the United States designated as state sponsors of international terrorism. Qadhafi has gone to great lengths to change the image. He has notably been a major advocate of peace in the war-torn nations of Africa. He has repeatedly condemned terrorism, and on September 11, 2001, he condemned the "terrible" terrorist attacks on the United States and offered to send aid to the American people. The West, however, has not been quick to forget the past.

The government of Libya was suspected of involvement in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing more than 200 innocent civilians. Qadhafi's minions were also suspected of bombing a disco in Germany and killing two U.S. soldiers stationed there, and they have been associated with a number of other terrorist attacks that have targeted Westerners. It was widely reported that Qadhafi offered a US$5 million payout to anyone who could provide him with fissionable material and the knowhow to make an atomic weapon of mass destruction, according to Patrick Lyons in his article "Gaddafi's African Union Is a Fraud, Part II: Would You Trust This Man with Nukes?"

Libya has huge internal sources of uranium, which Russia used under a 1985 agreement to build a nuclear power plant in Qadhafi's home-town of Sirte. This plant currently produces 880 megawatts of electricity. Some are concerned that it could also create bomb-grade material. A German-built pharmaceutical complex near Rabta was suspected of producing mustard gas; it was destroyed in a "mysterious" fire. Suspicion has also been focused on an enormous underground …