African Union summit opens without Gadhafi, though his shadow looms large

Organizers of this week’s African Union summit printed Moammar Gadhafi’s portrait and mounted it on the flags decorating the highway to the conference venue back when the world expected him to rule for life.

His proud face flaps incongruously in the wind here, the only sign of a man who has long dominated this gathering of African leaders and who is unable to attend because his very future as Libya’s leader is in question.

It’s a jolting image that reminds delegates of how much has changed on the continent in the past six months, and also underlines the organization’s ambivalence toward one of its most prominent members.

The summit is scheduled to open Thursday without Gadhafi. It’s fitting, though, that in order to reach the conference hall, delegates will need to pass under his defiant gaze, for even though the longtime dictator is not in attendance, the problem he poses looms large for the 53 nation body.

“There is a very strong number of countries in the African Union who believe that Gadhafi’s time is up and that he should go, and there are some who — to a greater or lesser extent — do not share that view,” Britain’s International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell told reporters in London before heading to the talks.

Diplomats from all over the world are descending on Malabo, the capital of this minuscule nation located on an island off the western edge of Africa, in an effort to persuade Gadhafi’s peers to force him from power.

Gadhafi inspires deeply conflicted emotions on a continent where numerous strongmen still cling to power, including several who came to office in coups backed by Gadhafi as well as others whose regimes could be destabilized if the wave of popular unrest spreads south.

Compared to the rest of the world, the African Union has been one of the most conciliatory voices toward Gadhafi, condemning NATO airstrikes even as evidence mounted that Gadhafi’s military was carrying out massacres of civilians.

Yet even in the hours since delegates began arriving in Malabo, the mood appears to be shifting as old alliances erode.

On Wednesday in nearby Gabon, President Ali Bongo, whose father converted from Christianity to Islam in an effort to court Gadhafi’s favor, held a news conference to urge Gadhafi to go.

“For the good of his people, for the good of his country as well as Africa, it would be good if he were to choose of his own volition — and I do mean of his own volition — to step down,” Bongo said.

Britain’s Minister for Africa Henry Bellingham said that he has met with many of the foreign ministers of the 53 member nations attending the conference, and found that even those that were previously reluctant to call for Gadhafi’s ouster are now privately agreeing that he should go.

“I believe there is certainly a change in the whole perception of Gadhafi. We are in a very different position to the one we were in just five, six weeks ago. Then we were talking about a stalemate. Now there’s no stalemate. Gadhafi is losing his grip,” Bellingham said.

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