Open Wide the Border: Gaddafi's Hypocrisy

Muammar Gaddafi of Libya has been one of the recent dominant voices in the African quest for unity. In fact, the recent deadly demonstrations in Tunisia spurred by youth unemployment led him to ask Libyan authorities to throw the borders open for Tunisians to come and work in Libya. This is a very laudable move that augurs well for his call for African unity. The problem, however, is that this open border policy is being enacted only in the case of Tunisian unemployment crisis. The conditions south of his border, in Niger and Chad, have been precarious for a very long time but I am not aware of Gaddafi calling for the borders to be thrown open for these people to come and make a living in Libya. This selective open border policy speaks of discrimination at the heart of Gaddafi's vision of African unity and may justify the suspicion with which he is held in some quarters of the debate on African unity.