This is part 1 of a 4-part series
Kings Park Stadium in Durban, 9 July 2002. In what was the last summit of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and the first of the African Union (AU), the continent’s heads of state turned out in droves amidst a cacophony of vuvuzelas, military music and Zulu dances.
At the podium, flanked by amazons in uniforms, Gaddafi reminded his peers that it was his idea to replace a dying union with the new and pragmatic union which would pave the way for the ‘United States of Africa’. Had he not launched it in Sirte three years earlier? “We accept those who want to help us, but we don’t want those who wish to impose their own terms on us,” he added, before concluding with one of his favourite slogans: “African land for Africans!”
Wade, Mbeki, Mugabe, Mubarak, Dos Santos, Kabila, Gbagbo, Déby, Bongo, El-Béchir, Zenawi… Like the Libyan ‘Guide’, many of the
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