Global Issues
POLITICS: Libya's Mercurial Leader Keeps U.N. Guessing
Libyan leader Muammar el-Qaddafi, who will be making his maiden appearance before the United Nations next week, has been described as a gadfly with a penchant for stirring up controversies.
Even before he addresses a daylong summit meeting of the Security Council on Sep. 24, chaired by U.S. President Barack Obama, the garrulous Arab leader has been politely advised to stick to the day's agenda and a time frame of five minutes for his speech. The subject of the meeting: nuclear disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation.
'So, it would be out of order and inappropriate for any head of state to address topics unrelated to that,' says U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice.
But will the mercurial Qaddafi, who recently celebrated the 40th anniversary of a bloodless military coup that catapulted him to power after the ouster of the strongly pro-U.S. King Idris, defy U.N. protocol?
'Assuming Qaddafi does raise the matter of Israel's nuclear arsenal - which despite all the hysteria about Iran is the only one that actually exists in the Middle East - it will be interesting to see how the United States and the European Union (EU) states react,' Mouin Rabbani, contributing editor to the Washington-based Middle East Report, told IPS.
One assumes they will find a way to smite it off the agenda on procedural grounds, he added.
Rabbani said it was somewhat difficult to comment in advance on Qaddafi: 'He's typically characterised as 'mercurial', and that is putting it rather mildly.'
Essentially, anything he might do, as well as its polar opposite (or for that matter anything and its polar opposite), would conform to his pattern of conduct, said Rabbani, a highly-respected Middle East political analyst.
At a press conference in early September, Rice told reporters: 'As president of the Council, we are mindful of the very tight time frame that is available for this session.'
'We want to be respectful of the heads of state in attendance. And we have asked, and we expect, and have been assured, by most delegations, that their heads of state will keep their remarks to five minutes or less,' she said.
Rice said she 'expect[s] no less' from the Libyan leader, 'should he come'.
The Security Council summit is expected to be attended by heads of state from 15 members states, including the five permanent members of the Council, namely the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia.
The 10 non-permanent members in the Security Council, whose heads of state have been invited to participate, include Burkina Faso, Costa Rica, Croatia, Libya, Vietnam, Austria, Mexico, Japan, Turkey and Uganda.
A similar session of the Security Council - on the maintenance of international peace and security - was held in January 1992 presided over by then British Prime Minister John Major.
But next week's session will be only the fifth occasion in U.N. history for a meeting of the Security Council at the summit level.
It will also be the first time a U.S. president will chair such a meeting.
Until recently, Libya was one of the countries designated by the U.S. State Department as a 'terrorist state' - along with Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, North Korea and Cuba.
Qaddafi incurred the wrath of the United States for his military and financial support to the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), the Irish Republican Army (RA), the Moro National Liberation Front in the Philippines, Beider-Meinhoff in former West Germany, the Red Army in Japan and the Dhofar rebels in Oman.
However, he has now severed links with virtually all of these organisations and is playing the role of an elder statesman in Africa and the Middle East. But his past keeps shadowing him.
Qaddafi's decision to give up his nuclear weapons programmes back in December 2003 and his initiative to renounce terrorism gave him international legitimacy in the eyes of the Western world.
In January 2004, the United States helped airlift out of Libya components of the nuclear weapons programme that the country abandoned.
After the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, which claimed 270 lives, and in which Libya was implicated, Qaddafi agreed to pay some 2.7 billion dollars in compensation to families of the victims.
The only person convicted in that bombing was Abdelbaset Ali Mohamed al-Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence agent, who was released recently on compassionate grounds, triggering outrage in the Western world.
But there have been reports that he was released on condition he dropped his appeal for a re-trial, which could have implicated others or the real architects of the bombing.
Rice said 'it goes without saying that virtually every American has been offended by the reception accorded to Mr. Megrahi in Libya upon his return from the U.K.'
'This is a very raw and sensitive subject for all Americans, having lost 270 of our compatriots in a terrorist act,' she said.
'And how President Qaddafi chooses to comport himself, when he attends the General Assembly and the Security Council in New York, has the potential either to further aggravate those feelings and emotions or not,' Rice added. 'So we are certainly hoping that this will be an opportunity for a constructive General Assembly session and a constructive meeting of the Security Council.'
Rabbani told IPS it was somewhat ironic that Qaddafi will address the world body as a Security Council member on the pretext of addressing the issue of nuclear non-proliferation.
Libya's own nuclear programme was - much like that of Iraq at the time - essentially non-existent, and largely invented in the aftermath of the 2003 Anglo-U.S. invasion of Iraq to demonstrate that the war produced genuine disarmament benefits.
For U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, it helped divert attention from the spurious pretexts invoked to invade and occupy Iraq in violation of the UN Charter, he noted.
'And for Qaddafi, it formed his entry ticket into what is termed 'the civilised world' - a grotesque colonial term suggesting the Libyan leader was well on his way to achieving the status of an honorary white,' Rabbani said.
The above notwithstanding, he added, 'I suspect Qaddafi may well use his U.N. platform to once again argue that Libya - and more specifically former Libyan intelligence operative Megrahi - is innocent of involvement in the Lockerbie attack.'
And while on the subject of nuclear proliferation, he will probably make some pointed references to Israel's U.S. and European-endorsed nuclear arsenal, in addition to some provocative remarks about Iran's nuclear programme.
In this context it is a real pity that Megrahi withdrew the appeal to his conviction on the even of his release from prison, said Rabbani.
Given that withdrawing the appeal was not a requirement for release on compassionate grounds, it seems indubitable that a political deal was struck in this regard.
'That's about all one can say with any confidence about Qaddafi's UN statement,' he said,
'But will he also invite Americans to restore the U.S. to its rightful owner, with African-Americans returning to the African continent and the rest embracing Islam and spending the rest of their days memorising the Green Book (which contains his political philosophy?'
'I wouldn't put it past him...'
© Inter Press Service (2009) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service