Libya’s Colonel Moammer Gadaffi is not going to let up being Africa’s gadfly.
Members of the African Union (AU) are no better at dealing with him than the Arab League was before Gadaffi turned his back on them.
At Sun City a select group of 18 countries wrestled with the last of the constitutional amendments Gadaffi proposed at the AU inaugural summit in July last year.
As host, South Africa attempted to put the bravest possible face on affairs.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma spoke of a pleasant ambience and a will to achieve consensus. Nevertheless the lid was kept tightly closed on the two-day meeting of ministers and there was no briefing afterwards.
Dlamini-Zuma said she did not want to jump the gun on briefing the full AU Council of Ministers meeting in advance of the union’s extraordinary summit in Addis Ababa on February 3 and 4.
Whatever gloss was attempted, there was no disguising the volume of work that Gadaffi has given the union.
The Sun City gathering dealt with matters not completed at a similar meeting of foreign ministers in Tripoli last month.
Gadaffi, who still seethes at not becoming the first president of the AU, wants to impose conditions that might make future heads of state think twice before taking up the job.
Diplomats at Sun City said the most significant achievement was shelving the Libyan leader’s notion of a United States of Africa.
They told him in the most diplomatic way possible that the continent is nowhere near ready for such deep integration.
The setback is unlikely to deter Gadaffi, who sees a centralised African government and army as the basis of the union he claims as his brainchild.
His strength is that he appears to have no sense of irony.
Gadaffi joined his motorcade out of Durban assured that Libya, which does not have its own Parliament, will be the venue for the proposed African Parliament.
He will arrive in Addis Ababa as chair of the United Nations Human Rights Commission.
African leaders, who supported both these patently ridiculous steps, simply don’t know what to expect.