Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi was shabbily treated during his visit to New York to make his first ever address to the United Nations General Assembly. What was supposed to be an historic rebinding of ties between Libya and certain Western nations was a predetermined flop.

Evidently, states such as the US and Britain that promised normalisation of relations with Libya in return for the handing over Lockerbie suspects for trial and dismantling its nuclear programme have reneged on the implicit bargain.

Their behaviour towards the Libyan leader was little short of insulting. Canada, for instance, announced that its delegates would not be present when he delivered his speech, while British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told the BBC in advance that he had no intention of attending.

Brown later tried to score Brownie points with the White House, which had rejected five British requests for a Brown-Obama one-on-one. When it came time for him to speak, he turned his sarcasm on the Libyan leader.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice quit the chamber before he spoke, while UN officials made sure that the Libyan leader didn’t accidentally brush shoulders with President Barack Obama.

This state-level hostility was mimicked by the people of New York and New Jersey, who made it clear that they didn’t want Gaddafi in their country by organising street protests and childish campaigns to ensure that he would not be allowed to sleep in his Bedouin tent.

It seems to me that those people could learn a lot about hospitality from the Middle East, where overseas guests are invariably treated with respect. Moreover, it is incumbent upon New York, which hosts the UN headquarters, to ensure that all delegates are properly treated irrespective of whether they happen to be in the good graces of the US or British governments.

In any event, if the demonstrators were upset at the early release of terminally ill Abdul Basset Ali Al Megrahi on compassionate grounds, their ire should have been directed elsewhere. Al Megrahi was sent home by the Scottish justice minister with the British government’s blessing. It’s true that a few hundred Libyans turned up at Tripoli Airport to welcome him but, as far as they were concerned, they were greeting a man who had been wrongly convicted.

Despite receiving the cold shoulder from many of his fellow delegates, Gaddafi spoke confidently for 90 minutes without a teleprompter, exhausting his translator and massively overrunning his allocated 15 minutes. At times his words were met with scant applause, at others open derision and yet more walk outs. It almost goes without saying that his address was later savaged by the Western press, which called it “rambling” and “incoherent.”

Gaddafi may break the mould with regards to his personal style and delivery, but he should not be so easily dismissed. He may not observe the rules of diplomacy and he certainly doesn’t tiptoe around a subject, but the thrust of his speech made perfect sense.

Indeed, he shed light on important anomalies. Article 2 of the United Nations Charter states that the “Organisation is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its members.” But as Gaddafi rightly pointed out, in practice this isn’t the case as long as the Security Council is a closed club of big powers.

Secondly, he noted that while the UN was set up in 1945 to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war,” it has failed dismally in that task. There have been 65 wars since the establishment of the Security Council, he said, waged in the interests of “one country, or three countries or four countries.”

He is against enlargement of the Security Council and would like to give more power to the General Assembly. The Security Council, he says, should exist just to implement decisions taken by the General Assembly.

Turning to the war on Iraq, which he called “the mother of all evils” and “a violation of the UN charter without any justification,” he rightly called for an investigation. “Why did we invade?” he asked.

And on the subject of Palestine, he echoed what many Palestinians and commentators are now saying: a two-state solution is no longer practical. Israelis and Palestinians should live together in peace, sharing one state.

There’s no doubt that the address would have been slightly better received had he not digressed by suggesting that swine flu may have escaped from a military laboratory or that president John F. Kennedy was killed because he sought to investigate Israel’s covert nuclear programme. Nevertheless, he was courageous enough to say what he thought even though most people might not agree with him.

I’ve listened to Gaddafi speak on many occasions and am often pleasantly surprised at the incisive way he gets to the nitty-gritty of a topic. Not for him diplomatic mumbo jumbo. He says it like it is. One thing is certain: as a leader of an Arab nation and chairman of the African Union, Libya’s president did not deserve the appalling treatment he received last week in New York.

Linda S. Heard is a British specialist writer on Middle East affairs. Article republished by permission. She welcomes feedback and can be contacted by email at heardonthegrapevines@yahoo.co.uk.