Gaddafi to West: Don't Force Us Back to Bombing (Libya warns Bush?)

[papau]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&ncid=578&e=8&u=/nm/20040427/ts_nm/eu_libya_dc

Gaddafi to West: Don't Force Us Back to Bombing (Libya warns Bush?)
By Marie-Louise Moller and Paul Taylor

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - On a turbulent maiden visit to the European Union, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi appealed to the West Tuesday to seize his offer of peace and not force his country back to its bad old days of the gun and the bomb.

Cheered on by African drummers and chanting supporters who outnumbered human rights protesters, Gaddafi took another step toward international respectability with talks at European Commission headquarters on his first visit to Europe since 1989. <snip>

But the aging Arab radical showed flashes of his firebrand style in a 45-minute harangue to a joint news conference, at which questions were barred, under the watchful eye of four of his women bodyguards in blue camouflage uniforms on the podium.

"I hope that we shall not be prompted or obliged by any evil to go back or to look backwards," Gaddafi said, after defending his past support for militant Third World "freedom fighters.<snip>"

[Crucible]

1. Unbelievable!

Some people never learn. I hope this is just a ploy to save face.