Who's spoiling Gaddafi's dream?

Calm has returned to the streets of Tripoli after the recent violence against African immigrants. But the PR fallout from the distubances is bound to reverberate long after the physical injuries have healed.

Coming in the teeth of Col Gaddafi's drive for African unity, the violence was bad news not only for Gaddafi but for the whole African continent. No wonder, Gaddafi was quick to blame "foreign hostile hands" for fanning the flames.

"We regret the skirmishes that have taken place between the brothers because there are hidden hostile hands that took advantage of the circumstances and fomented them," Gaddafi said in an official message to the Ghanaian president, Jerry Rawlings, broadcast over Libyan radio on 10 October.

Rawlings had personally flown to Tripoli to evacuate 250 of the estimated 4,500 Ghanaians caught up in the violence. His gesture immediately earned him, in the Ghanaian media, the sobriquet, Moses -- after the Biblical Moses who led his people out of suffering in Egypt.

So far, two Libyan ministers, (including the justice minister) have lost their jobs over the violence as Gaddafi tries to uncover the "root cause".

His message to Rawlings hinted that the violence was meant to undermine his African unity plan. He has, therefore, urged his people not to "give the enemies the opportunity to block our union."

He told Rawlings: "An investigation is going on and will uncover for us the whole truth".

The Libyan official death toll is six dead, but returnees have claimed more than six people died.

Various versions have been given of what sparked the violence. None too difficult to believe. The truth, however, is that Libyans have long looked down upon the estimated 2.5 million immigrants in their midst. With increasing numbers, (the majority of them, illegal and providing cheap labour), the African immigrants now inhabit their own zones with in Libyan residential areas.

With its 5.4 million population, Libya is the second largest producer of oil in Africa, after Nigeria. Its output of 1.5m barrels of crude oil per day means it is an attractive spot for African migrants fleeing unemployment and civil wars in their home countries. But as the immigrant numbers increase, so are the concerns, if not xenophobia, of ordinary Libyans. The recent violence is only a tiny manifestation of the pent-up feelings.

But Libya's deputy information secretary (in charge of African Union), Boukari Houda, has denied that racism or xenophobia was behind the disturbances. "What those who wanted to take advantage of the situation to tarnish Libya's reputation and its relations with its sister African countries did not know is that, out of the five million Libyan citizens, 1.4 million are blacks," Houda said.

He added that many Libyan civil servants are black, including General Younous Jaber, the general commander of the Libyan armed forces who is also the secretary of the provisional defence committee.

Houda also cited the example of "Fezzan in southern Libya whose inhabitants are black Libyans", and added that: "African immigrants have been among us for so many years, and it is not today that we are going to repatriate them. However, the countries wishing to repatriate their nationals are naturally free to do so and Libya is prepared in such cases to help them."

Ghanaians, Nigerians, Chadians, Sudanese and other black African nationals were all-caught up in the disturbance.

Nigeria recalled 700 of its immigrants from Libya on 3 October. And Ghana dispatched a high-powered delegation, led by the head of national security, to assess the situation in Tripoli before Rawlings flew there himself to evacuate some of the Ghanaians. The presence of Rawlings in Tripoli caused Gaddafi huge embarrassment.

This July, Gaddafi had made an overland journey of some 3,000 kms to Togo to attend the OAU summit. On the way, his flamboyant motorcade of 200 vehicles passed through Burkina Faso and Ghana, where he addressed public rallies on why all Africans are one people.

But the violence in Tripoli was clearly a setback to that dream.