Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, once a devoted and energetic champion of Arab unity, announced this weekend his definitive separation from the Arabs, whom he heavily criticised.

Standing before a group of women, in a Mediterranean villa in Syrte about 500 kilometres east of Tripoli, Gaddafi declared himself more than ever African, claiming to be "forever beyond nationalism and Arab unity."

Admittedly, Colonel Gaddafi is famous for his verbal excesses and spectacular rebuttals, but his declaration on Saturday sounded like an irreconcilable divorce from the Arabs, coming from the mouth of an aging Gaddafi who in recent years has never given up on the ideals from his youth.

When he took power on September 1, 1969, the young leader, raised in the cult of the former president, the Egyptian unionist Jamal Abdel Nasser, threw himself body and soul into attempting unity.

He would court Egypt, the Sudan, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, regardless of whether they bordered on Libya.

On Saturday, he also referred to the symbolic date September 28, 1961 which ushered in the end of the Syrian-Egyptian union which had for three years formed the United Arab Republic to better support their common agenda.

"The era of nationalism and of Arab unity is forever gone. These ideas which once mobilised masses no longer have any value," he said.

Gaddafi called on the Popular Congress, the basic structure of the Libyan political system, to "confirm Libya's withdrawal from the Arab League," envisioned by Tripoli for months but never realised.

"The Arab League is in the middle of giving up the ghost, and Arabs will never be strong even if they unite... They will remain content every night to watch bloody newsreels from Palestine and Iraq."

Colonel Gaddafi had some strong words for the Arabs, denying them human qualities, and publicly challenging their former policy of helping movements and political groups from Arab countries.

"Libya has for too long endured the Arabs, for whom we have paid blood and money," he said, adding that as a result, his country had been "boycotted by the US and demonised by the West."

"In return, the Arabs joined forces with the US and Israel against Libya," he continued, as he confirmed his African orientation, viewing the continent as "a source of great force" for his country.

This confession was made by an appeased leader, whose country had its international sanctions lifted after agreeing to pay $US10 million ($14.6 million) to the family of each of the 270 victims killed during the explosion of a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, blamed on Libyan bombers.

And once more the top Libyan put his faith in women, deeming them "better than men and more capable."

Gaddafi, who travels with a female security detail, called on Libyan women on October 1 to train themselves against "the enemy," and to be inspired by the women of Africa, whose situation he believes, is better than that of Eastern and Western women.

AFP

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/10/07/1065292586158.html