Toppled Summit

Gaddafi's bid for glory fails

The gathering had long been ballyhooed as a triumph for Libya's radical Muammar Gaddafi, his chance to gain the international respect that he has always longed to acquire. Instead, the 19th annual four-day summit meeting of the Organization of African Unity, scheduled to begin last week in Tripoli, was an embarrassing failure for the Libyan leader.

When Gaddafi's official green Chevrolet Caprice Classic rolled up in front of Tripoli's newly built Grand Hotel, where dignitaries were quartered, only 16 of Africa's heads of state were present. That was less than half the necessary O.A.U. quorum of 34 leaders. Among the decisions that the O.A.U. could not make: the scheduled passing on of the coveted chairmanship of the Pan-African body to Gaddafi, who craves the status and respect ability that the title confers.

One of those who did not attend was the outgoing O.A.U. chairman, Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi, who was preoccupied at home with the aftermath of a failed coup attempt. Many others stayed away because they could not abide the thought that Gaddafi, who has meddled in the affairs of at least 22 of his neighbors, would take over the direction of their organization.

A more fundamental reason for the fiasco, however, was the deepest split in O.A.U. history, which was also, at least in part, because of Gaddafi. Last February, he and 25 other leaders of radical and left-leaning African states engineered the recognition of the self-styled Saharan Arab Democratic Republic (S.A.D.R.) as the O.A.U.'s 51st member. That is the name used by the Polisario guerrillas in the Western Sahara.

Since 1976 the Algerian-backed guerrillas have been engaged in a bitter desert war with King Hassan II of Morocco over a 100,000-sq.-mi. former Spanish possession. At least 19 moderate African states were outraged at their organization's recognition of S.A.D.R., which they claim violated O.A.U. procedures.

At week's end Gaddafi was still trying to find a way to make the formal summit take place. Failing that, he may attempt to organize an emergency O.A.U. meeting, probably in November, at which he could take over the chairmanship. Meanwhile the mercurial strongman contented himself with haranguing the "radical rump" of 16 leaders who showed up in Tripoli about the fact that their non-gathering had been "openly corrupted" by -- who else? -- "the American colonialists."

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