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Libya's Gaddafi In Landmark Visit To Colonial Mater Nation Italy
8 June 2009
Abuja — Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi began his first visit to Italy yesterday with a warm embrace from Premier Silvio Berlusconi, evidence of better ties between the energy-rich desert nation and its former colonial ruler.
Gadhafi's four-day visit is packed with speeches, including the rare honor of addressing the Italian Senate, and an appearance at Rome's centuries-old Sapienza University. He also agreed to meet with some of the 20,000 Italians he kicked out in 1970 to punish Rome for its 1911-1941 colonization. Human Rights Watch decried the visit, saying it "celebrates a dirty deal" reached recently in which Italy sends back to Libya illegal immigrants rescued at sea who set sail in smugglers' boats from Libyan shores.
An hour late, Gadhafi stepped off the Libyan plane wearing full dress military uniform, followed down the steps by some of his 300-member entourage, including the elderly son of a Libyan national hero who was executed by colonial authorities for leading a guerrilla war against the Italians in the 1920s and 1930s.
Gadhafi helped the white-robed Mohammed Omar al-Mukhtar, son of Omar al-Mukhtar, off the plane. The Libyan leader wore pinned to his uniform a faded black-and-white photo of the late hero chained by his Italian captors.
Berlusconi, squinting in the sun, and Gadhafi, his eyes behind big sunglasses, exchanged an embrace and smiles. At one point, Berlusconi gestured to his own neck, apparently indicating a stiff neck that the Italian leader reportedly has been suffering of late.
Berlusconi was scheduled to meet formally on Wednesday evening with Gadhafi, one of the world's longest-serving rulers. The Libyan was a 27-year-old Western-educated colonel when he took power in a 1969 coup.
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