Sunday 10 April 2011

Zuma to meet Gaddafi in Libya

[This is the headline over a report on the South African News24 website. It reads in part:]

President Jacob Zuma will travel to Libya on Sunday for a meeting with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, the Department of International Relations and Co-operation said on Friday.

Zuma will participate in the meeting in his capacity as a member of the African Union Ad Hoc High Level Committee on Libya.

"The committee has been granted permission by Nato to enter Libya and to meet in Tripoli with the Libyan leader, HE Muammar Gaddafi," the department said.

"The AU delegation will also meet with the Interim Transitional National Council in Benghazi on 10 and 11 April 2011." (...)

Zuma will take part in an AU meeting on Libya in Nouakchott, Mauritania on Saturday.

"President Zuma will participate in the meeting in his capacity as a member of the African Union Ad Hoc High Level Committee on Libya which has been mandated by the African Union Peace and Security Council to engage the opposing parties in Libya in order to find a peaceful and lasting solution to the current conflict in accordance with the will of the Libyan people."

The AU committee comprises the heads of state of Mauritania, Congo Republic, Mali, Uganda and South Africa.

"It is anticipated that the committee will hold discussions on the recent developments in Libya and deliberate on the way forward in fulfilling its mandate."

[Since the presidency of Nelson Mandela, the South African ANC government has had close relations with the Gaddafi regime in Libya. In the mid-1990s President Mandela and his then aide Jakes Gerwel played a significant part in encouraging the resolution of the Lockerbie impasse through a trial under Scots law in the Netherlands.

The Guardian website now has a report on the Zuma visit. It can be read here. A report on the outcome of the visit, headlined Libya: Gaddafi has accepted roadmap to peace, says Zuma appears in Monday's edition of the same newspaper. However, the BBC News website on Monday evening runs a report headed Libya: Benghazi rebels reject African Union truce plan.]

10 comments:

  1. Nelson Mandela must be very disappointed with the anti-Gaddafi stance adopted by the current South African President Jacob Zuma in relation to UNSCR 1973.

    There had been much doubt about how African members of the Security Council would vote, especially given the African Union resolution opposing a no-fly zone over Libya. This AU resolution in theory would oblige the three African Security Council members to vote against UNSCR 1973.

    But South Africa's President Jacob Zuma earlier this week indeed made it clear he was favouring the protesters.

    "Exile, torture, jail or even killing did not succeed to stop the masses of South Africa from demanding their freedom and cannot succeed anywhere else. The recently erupted and massive protests happened because people were tired of autocratic governments which had been there for a long time," President Zuma said.


    Technically South Africa doesn't have a Security Council veto, but an SA vote against UNSCR 1973 - as Mandela would have insisted upon - would undoubtedly have caused further abstentions, and might even have triggered a veto by China and/or Russia.

    UNSCR 1973 thus defeated would have removed David Cameron's cloak of international authority for regime change and the oil grab in Libya.

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  2. And he's also going to meet with those we have appointed to take over, this interim council of whom we know nothing very much at all.

    Permission to enter Libya eh? My God we still display all the arrogance of the days of the British Empire.

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  3. In a video interview with Russia Today on 8 April 2011, Susan Lindauer - author, journalist and former CIA asset - alleges that Britain and America were planning to act against Gaddafi's Libya as long ago as June or July 2010.

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  4. She's no George Galloway, unfortunately...

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  5. The Scot George Galloway is a class act, blogiston.

    Susan Lindauer is American. She is a former CIA asset.

    In the RT interview, Ms Lindauer says Libya had nothing to do with Lockerbie.

    That's why Susan trumps George!

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  6. Blogiston: Has any state authority ever declared Galloway a nut job? He is certifiable, probably.

    Lindauer is talking nonsense in the interview that Patrick continues to circulate. If Gaddafi wanted to embarrass the West, as she says, then why did he make Megrahi drop his appeal, which according to a number of people here would have been most embarrassing, and with no apparent cost? Also, one of the oil companies that were bullied by Gaddafi is Petro-Canada, which is neither American nor British. The US oil companies actually resisted/lobbied against transparency/disclosure rules and against the US legislation that enabled citizens to bring legal action against foreign states (and their US assets) for acts terrorism. And the payments were extracted by Gaddafi from those same companies some 3-4 years ago. How all this squares with the US/UK wanting to get even for being embarrassed (3-4 years after the fact), I don't know, but in the world of a CIA-asset-cum-nutjob and her Facebook birds of a feather, that all makes sense.

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  7. Suliman

    ON the issue of Libya making Megrahi dropped the appeal I thought it was about restoring trade between the UK/US and Libya? I realise this benefits the west of course but I thought there were benefits for Gaddafi too?

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  8. Suliman, why would Zuma not meet with the rebels? Does the African Union not recognise them? Is that because other African countries do not wish to condone outright what has happened in Libya?

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  9. I guess those three questions Suliman will not - or rather cannot - answer!

    Here's another (not rhetorical) one: who's going to pinch Libya's $6bn gold bullion: Cameron, Sarkozy or the Benghazi rebels?

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  10. Patrick, I think he may answer. If I had thought he would ignore the questions I would not have asked them. I'm genuinely interested in his take on these matters.

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