Tripoli | Sunday
LIBYAN leader Muammer Kadhafi, speaking on the 32nd anniversary of the nation’s revolution on Saturday, said Washington’s inability to catch Saudi extremist Osama Bin Laden demonstrated that “crazy” Western powers cannot deal with the new nature of warfare.
Kadhafi (59) also praised Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe’s controversial land reforms, and warned Sudan’s southern rebels he was “weary” of their conflict.
The Libyan leader told the final session of the General People’s Congress marking his overthrow of the monarchy, as well as several African leaders, that the world powers were unable to fight the new types of rebellion because of technological changes, including the Internet revolution.
“We no longer wage war with the old weapons. Now they can fight you with electrons and viruses,” Kadhafi said in a two-and-a-half-hour speech under a sprawling tent as the meeting was relayed live on Libyan television.
“The crazy world powers that have invested huge amounts of money in weapons of mass destruction have found themselves unable to fight the new strain of rebellion,” he said.
As an example, he mocked the United States for failing to nab Bin Laden, wanted in connection with the bombings of two US embassies in Africa in 1998 which left 224 people dead and thousands injured.
“As a simple example, the USA is unable to fight someone called Osama Bin Laden,” he said, referring to the Saudi dissident who has taken refuge in Afghanistan.
“He is a tiny man, weighing no more than 50 kilograms. He has only a Kalashnikov rifle in his hands. He doesn’t even wear a military uniform.
“He wears a jalabiyah (Arab robe) and turban and lives in a cavern, eating stale bread. He has driven the USA crazy, more than the former Soviet Union did. Can you imagine that?” Kadhafi said.
Kadhafi also told his audience, which included Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir, Chad’s Idriss Deby and Benin’s General Mathieu Kerekou, that they should support the “hero” Mugabe, who was also at the parliamentary meeting.
“You should continue to support the hero Mugabe, since Zimbabwe is a strategic country and important for Africa,” Kadhafi said.
Kadhafi is one of the few foreign leaders who continue to back Mugabe’s controversial land reforms, which have been closely tied to the political violence that has raged across Zimbabwe for 19 months.
On that subject the Libyan leader said: “The whites can stay in Zimbabwe but the lands must be redistributed to blacks.”
Mugabe has staked tough presidential elections in April on his land reform scheme, which has earmarked about 95 percent of white-owned farms for resettlement by blacks to correct colonial-era inequities in ownership.
Farmers in Zimbabwe said Saturday that pro-government militants set thousands of hectares (acres) of white-owned farms ablaze in the past week.
Kadhafi also demanded Zimbabwe be supplied with gas to relieve chronic fuel shortages which have crippled the country and be given other means of support.
Libya itself has signed a $360-million fuel deal with Zimbabwe to help relieve its short supplies, and Kadhafi made an official visit to the country last month after an African summit in neighbouring Zambia.
The Libyan leader added that he was “weary” of the 18-year war in neighbouring Sudan, and warned the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) that their insistence on self-determination was a “very serious” question.
“If we accept a redrawing of Sudan’s map, that means we accept a review of the map of all of Africa,” he told the southern rebels.
Libya, along with Egypt, opposes the self-determination, fearing it could result in separation of the south and both countries sponsor a bid to end the fighting.
The southern-based SPLA is made up of various animist and Christian tribes from southern Sudan and has been fighting domination by the Arab and Muslim north since 1983. – AFP