NAME: Moammar Gadhafi

AGE: 62

NATIONALITY: Libyan

CLAIM TO FAME: The latest Muslim leader to do Uncle Sam’s bidding

ECCENTRIC he may be, but he certainly believes in doing things in style.

When Moammar Gadhafi landed up in Brussels on Tuesday last, the world took notice and the European Union rolled out the red carpet for him. This was after all, the Libyan president’s first visit outside the Arab-African world in 15 years.

Gadhafi’s entourage arrived in two planes. One carrying him and his female bodyguards. The other, his white stretch Mercedes limousine. Gadhafi’s black Bedouin tent — with its own satellite dish — was pitched in the lush grounds of the government-owned Val Duchesse chateau on the outskirts of the capital. Accompanied by his usual entourage of cheering Congolese supporters, the longest serving leader in the Arab world was in the capital of the EU to improve relations between his country and the EU, particularly in terms of aid and trade. For the revolutionary leader is making a virtue out of necessity.

Sanctions have badly hurt Libya’s and Gadhafi realizes that he needs to bow down to the wishes of the West if he has to prevent Libya from becoming another Afghanistan and Iraq, or for that matter, himself another bin Laden and Saddam.

Much before Osama Bin Ladin and Saddam Hussain turned against their patron and became unruly enemies, Moammar Gadhafi had been on top of the West’s, particularly Uncle Sam’s, hit list. The colonel has after all ruled Libya for 34 years with an iron fist, tolerating no interference from within or outside. And if it meant using violent means to send a message across and teach his enemies a lesson, Gadhafi didn’t hesitate, whether it be bombing a crowded disco or blowing up a plane.

Despite tough sanctions and being cast-off from the international community, Gadhafi worked to rid Libya of Western presence and influence and to undermine Western, particularly American, interests in the region. Even air raids on his country by America during the 1980s — during one such attack his infant daughter was killed — didn’t deter him.

But then came a U-turn and suddenly last December, Gadhafi, who still describes himself as “the world revolutionary leader” on his web site, waved an olive branch to the West. In an extraordinary move, Gadhafi agreed to dismantle Libya’s biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programmes, and turned over to the US, equipment it said it was using to build a nuclear bomb. Libya also settled the Pan Am and UTA airliner bombing cases. And soon enough, the West came congratulating Gadhafi with open arms.

British PM Tony Blair visited Tripoli in March, confirming that the West believes Libya’s days as a sponsor of terrorism were over.

Colonel Gadhafi’s extraordinary tale of hate and love began nearly four decades ago. Inspired by Gamal Abdul Nasser of neighbouring Egypt, who rose to the presidency by appealing to Arab unity and condemning the West, Gadhafi entered the military academy like his hero. He and a few of his fellow militants organized a secret corps whose explicit aim was the overthrow of the pro-Western monarchy. After graduating from the academy in 1965, he was sent for a year to Britain for further training. The youngest child of a nomadic Bedouin family, on September 1, 1969, Col. Gadhafi and his secret corps staged a bloodless, unopposed coup overthrowing King Idris Senussi I.

Gadhafi based his regime on his own political system — a combination of socialism and Islam and changed the country’s name to the Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. Gadhafi become a fervent advocate of the unity of all Arab states into one Arab nation and of pan-Islamism. Once a strong supporter of PLO, often criticizing other Arab states for a lack of total commitment to the Palestinian cause, Gadhafi now is, like many other leaders of the Muslim world, only worried about saving his own skin.