Libya’s Gadhafi Now Head of African Union
By Joseph DeCaro, Worthy News International Correspondent
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA (Worthy News) — After years of diplomatic isolation by the West, Libya’s leader Moammar Gadhafi was spending his first full working day, Tuesday, February 3, as the newly elected chairman of the African Union (AU) pledging to unite the continent into the “United States of Africa.”
The chairmanship of the AU, an intergovernmental organization consisting of 53 African states, is a rotating position held held for one year. Although the title holder has influence over the continent’s politics, the chairmanship itself carries no real power, but seen as of symbolic significance.
Gadhafi accepted the chairmanship, attired in a gold-embroidered, green robe and accompanied by seven well-dressed men, who claimed to be “traditional kings of Africa.” He told about 20 attending African heads of state that he would work to turn the continent into “the United States of Africa.”
Libya has never held the chairmanship in the 46-year-history of the African Union.
NEW TIME
“I think his time has come,” Liberian President Ellen Sirleaf told the Associated Press news agency. “He’s worked for it. I think it’s up to us to make sure it comes out best.”
Once ostracized for state-sponsored terrorism, in 2003 Libya paid out billions of dollars to family members of vcitims after accepting “general responsibility” in the 1988 downing of a Pan-Am flight over Lockerbie, Scotland. All 259 people on board as well as another 11 people on the ground died.