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| Africa North |
| NY Taj cancels Gaddafi booking |
| 2009-09-24 |
| Even as the highest-profile segment of the 64th UN General Assembly opened here today with leaders such as US President Barack Obama and external affairs minister S.M. Krishna taking the podium, the session has been overshadowed, for the man in the street, by a huge controversy over the presence of one of the world’s longest-serving and most mercurial leaders, Muammar Gaddafi. This is Gaddafi’s first visit to the US since he took power at the age of 27, exactly four decades ago. Libya is president of the General Assembly for a year from this month and is an elected member of the UN Security Council, but Gaddafi has been unable to find any place to stay in New York this week. In keeping with his unconventional lifestyle, Gaddafi, who likes to sleep in a bedouin tent, tried to pitch his sleeping quarters on the grounds of New York’s famed Central Park, but the City of New York denied him permission to do so. Ratan Tata’s landmark hotel here, the Taj Pierre, accepted a booking for the “Guide of the First of September Great Revolution of the Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya” and “Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution”, who has held no official state title for 30 of the 40 years that he has led Libya. But when word got around and the hotel’s long-time clients protested, the Tatas quickly cancelled the booking for Gaddafi. Taj Pierre would not comment on the record on the ground that guest bookings are confidential business. The aborted choice of the Taj Pierre was actually the last resort for the Libyan strongman, according to a Libyan diplomat to the UN. His UN Mission earlier tried to pitch Gaddafi’s tent at a property in the New Jersey town of Englewood. Although that property is owned by the Libyan embassy, the US state department stepped in and banned erection of the tent there in the face of angry protests by residents of Englewood, many of whom are Jews. “In keeping with prior arrangements, the Englewood, New Jersey, property is not available for any use in connection with” Gaddafi’s visit, state department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters. “Any use of this property other than the personal use of the Libyan ambassador and his family has to be reviewed by the state department,” Kelly said. Gaddafi has always been a hate figure among Americans, who view him as an enemy of the US and a promoter of terror and weapons of mass destruction. In 1986, then US President Ronald Reagan bombed what were thought to be Gaddafi’s sleeping tents in Tripoli and Benghazi, killing, among others, Gaddafi’s daughter, Hannah. However, in recent years, Libya compromised with its Western enemies, allowed the inspection and dismantling of Libya’s nuclear programme and was allowed back into the international community by the US and European Union countries. Libya’s presidency of the General Assembly and its election to the Security Council were the results of such acceptance. Earlier this year, there were suggestions from Tripoli that Gaddafi might himself preside over the 64th General Assembly, but the proposal ran aground because he wanted to hand over the post mid-way to his son and heir apparent, Saif Al Islam. Under UN rules, an individual has to be elected General Assembly president for an entire year. The post was eventually filled by Ali Abdussalam Treki, Libya’s minister for African Union affairs. Gaddafi’s visit to New York this week was to have been the high point of Libya’s return to the world order, but it has been spoiled by the controversy over his accommodation. The trigger for the latest round of American protests was the release from a Scottish prison of a Libyan, Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, who was given a hero’s welcome on his return to Libya in August. Megrahi, who was convicted of bombing a Pan Am jet over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 killing 270 people, was released on compassionate grounds because of his terminal cancer. After the Englewood fiasco, billionaire builder Donald Trump offered his estate in Bedford, 43 miles north of Manhattan, as a site for erecting Gaddafi’s tent, but town authorities stepped in and ordered work to be stopped at the site on the flimsy ground that no permits were sought for building a temporary residence on the estate. Several Manhattan hotels then refused to book the Libyan leader. At one point, Libyan diplomats here, desperate for a roof for Gaddafi under Manhattan’s skyline, pretended to be Dutch diplomats and inquired about renting a six-storey townhouse. They were quickly discovered to be Arabs because of their accents. The Libyan leader will now stay at his country’s Permanent Mission to the UN, which is an office and does not have residential facilities. |
| Posted by:john frum |
| #1 Le him pitch his tent on the White House Lawn. Obama's his friend? Right? |
| Posted by: Redneck Jim 2009-09-24 13:50 |