Muammar Gaddafi’s Speech to the UN General Assembly
Tom Leonard writes in the Telegraph:
Gordon Brown and other political leaders scheduled to speak in a tight schedule were forced to wait in the wings as the famously eccentric Col Gaddafi delivered a sustained rant against the UN Security Council that ran to an hour and 36 minutes.
The Libyan leader has not visited the UN since he took power in 1969 and clearly wanted to make up for it by giving his views on the past four decades of history.
Reading from a sheaf of handwritten notes, he touched not only on Israel and the Taliban but also on swine flu and the US invasion of Grenada.
He called for a UN inquiry into the investigation of John F Kennedy’s assassination, castigated the organisation for failing to stop 65 wars since 1945 and suggested the Security Council be renamed the “terror council”.
Although Col Gaddafi, the president of the African Union, praised Barack Obama and even referred to him as “our Obama”, the US president did not return the compliments.
The American seats were filled only by low to mid-ranking diplomats when the Libyan leader swept up to the podium in flowing robes.
An hour into his speech, he started complaining about jet lag. Half an hour later, the exhausted Arabic translator had to relieved by a colleague.
UN speakers are supposed to limit themselves to 15 minutes and the chamber was half empty by the time he finished.
