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Gadhafi chosen to lead African Union

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-02-03 09:38

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia – Moammar Gadhafi of Libya was elected Monday as leader of the African Union, a position that will give Gadhafi the power to guide policy across Africa.

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi arrives at the African Union Meeting in Addis Ababa, Sunday, Feb. 1, 2009. Gadhafi has been elected to lead the African Union, a position that will Gadhafi the power to guide policy across Africa. [Agencies]

Gadhafi has been trying to increase both Libya's global stature and its regional influence -- mediating African conflicts, sponsoring efforts to spread Islam on the continent and pushing for the creation of a single African government.

"I think the coming time will be a time of serious work and a time of action and not words," he said.

The chairmanship of the African Union is a rotating position held by heads of state for one year and gives the holder some influence over the continent's politics but carries no real power.

Diplomats who attended the closed-door meetings in which Gadhafi was chosen said several countries vigorously opposed him, seeking alternatives from Lesotho and Sierra Leone. However, the AU's chairmanship rotates among Africa's regions, and a North African had not been chaired the continental body since 2000, when Algeria held the chairmanship.

Meetings to select the chairman are held in private. The leader is usually nominated and then chosen by consensus. AU officials would not give details of the proceedings, including which countries objected.

The large North African country is perhaps best known for the 1988 downing of a Pan-Am flight over Lockerbie, Scotland. All 259 people on board the flight from Heathrow to New York were killed when a bomb exploded. Another 11 people died on the ground.

The bombing prompted United Nations-imposed sanctions and breaking of diplomatic ties with Britain and the United States.

Libya has paid several billion dollars to the families of Lockerbie victims, and has accepted "general responsibility" for the attack. Sanctions have since been lifted and diplomatic ties re-established.

Gadhafi renounced terrorism in 2003.

Libya has also entered into deals with major oil companies for exploitation of its reserves and re-established diplomatic ties with the US.

In Washington, the US State Department declined to comment specifically on Gadhafi's election but said the United States would remain engaged with the African Union.

"We are going to continue to work with the AU," spokesman Robert Wood told reporters. "It's a critical institution in terms of our dealing with the continent."

Gadhafi has also been involved in mediating the conflict in Darfur. He has mediated between Chad and Sudan -- both have accused each other of supporting the other's rebel groups. The Libyan leader's mediation has resulted in deals between Chad and Sudan, which have later been violated.

Libya has never held the chairmanship in the 46-year-history of the African Union and its predecessor, the Organization of African Unity. This contributed to his being denied the chairmanship of the Organization of African Unity in 1982.