IVORY COAST: Libyan President Gaddafi tours West Africa promoting the idea of a pan-African government

Record ID: 181995

  • Title: IVORY COAST: Libyan President Gaddafi tours West Africa promoting the idea of a pan-African government
  • Date: 30th June 2007
  • Summary: GADDAFI AND GBAGBO STAND LISTENING TO NATIONAL ANTHEM GADDAFI AND GBAGBO STANDING ON PODIUM SOLDIERS GBAGBO AND GADDAFI WALKING ON TARMAC
  • Embargoed: 15th July 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVA2ZEEMTE0E050BV7YKJH56K0Z4
  • Story Text: Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi meets Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo on his tour of West Africa. Gaddafi is promoting a radical plan for a pan-African government ahead of an African Union summit in Ghana. Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi arrived at Abidjan airport in Ivory Coast on Wednesday (June 27) ,where he was greeted by Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo. Gaddafi's visit is part of a tour of West Africa to promote the long-standing plan for a pan-African government which will be discussed at a summit of the African Union (AU) on July 1 in Ghana.
    Flush with cash from an oil boom, the leader of the North African Arab state has won backing from Senegal, Zimbabwe and some other countries. But diplomatic heavyweights like South Africa and Uganda are staunch opponents.
    Many ordinary Africans say it is premature for the political amalgamation of a continent of nearly one billion people divided between rich and poor, black and Arab, Muslim and Christian, and criss-crossed by conflicts like the wars in Somalia and Sudan's western region of Darfur.
    Others feel Gaddafi can inspire the people of Africa. Ble Goude, leader Of The Young Patriots, an Ivorian movement notorious for its violent support for President Laurent Gbagbo, said: "We are waiting for him to show us the way, so that we can follow him. And we hope that he doesn't give up, because the unity of Africa that he promotes is not in everybody's taste. So there are some chiefs of states that could try and stop him, so he should be strong in order to unite Africa, because today it's the era for big alliances."
    In areas like trade, where Africa's impoverished farmers have clamoured in vain for the United States and Europe to scrap billions of dollars of subsidies, the continent could benefit from more negotiating power, officials say.
    But existing pan-African institutions have failed to gain traction, although a degree of political and military cooperation occurs through the AU.
    Addressing a rally of hundreds of youths in Ivory Coast's economic capital Abidjan on Wednesday, Gaddafi suggested Africa should form an army of two million troops. He said the continent had to "forbid all war, civil, tribal or over borders."
    The success of blocs like the expanded European Union (EU) has given renewed credibility to the idea pioneered by Kwame Nkrumah, who led Ghana to become the first black nation in sub-Saharan Africa to throw off the colonial yoke 50 years ago.
    Nkrumah and other independence leaders like Tanzania's Julius Nyerere wished to scrap the artificial frontiers drawn up by colonial rulers at the conference of Berlin in 1884.
    Many people question, however, whether there is a common African identity spanning the continent that would bond it together. Others wonder how a central government could impose policies some states may not have the means to implement.
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