495 Qadhafi in Paris
Nicolas Sarkozy in Tripoli last July. You can just barely see the Libyan fist crushing a U.S. fighterplane in the background.
So Muammar al-Qadhafi is going to be staying in a heated tent next to the Elysée Palace during his week-long airplane- and nuclear-reactor shopping trip to Paris. Rights groups, Bulgarians, and the press, noting that his visit coincides with the anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, are denouncing the colonel as a dictator. Al-Qadhafi comes to Paris fresh from Lisbon, where, for his part, he explained terrorism as a natural response to the “dictatorship in the United Nations.”
Don’t bet on Sarko to bring up many tough questions, the rousing rhetoric on human rights in his election victory speech notwithstanding (fast-forward in the video to 7:30).
He’s apparently leaving those to Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and Human Rights Minister Rama Yade. See Kouchner’s remarks in La Croix (“Pas question doublier le nom des victimes qui lui furent imputées. Pas question doublier quoi que ce soit de leurs souffrances“) and Yade’s more pointed remarks to Le Parisien (“La France n’est pas qu’une balance commerciale“). She’s already backtracking, though she’ll apparently skip dinner with the Colonel to attend FIDH’s dinner in honor of the Universal Declaration.
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Without wishing to make light of his sinister meglomania, can I just say that I like the giant badge Qadhafi is wearing in the first photo.
I too, have love for Africa but fear that if I wore this Afrocentrism would be at the expense of equilibrium.
Comment by Amnesiac — December 11, 2007 #
Say whatever you like about Brother Leader, he is a snappy dresser.
Comment by The Skeptic — December 11, 2007 #