Gaddafi 'turns page on past' with visit to Italy

ROME (AFP) - Italy rolled out the red carpet Wednesday for Libyan leader Moamer Gaddafi who said he has turned the page on the past after arriving for a landmark visit.
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi met Gaddafi and his 200-strong entourage at Romes Ciampino airport at the start of the three-day visit aimed at consolidating a friendship treaty signed last year.
The page on the past has been turned and a new page of friendship has opened, the leader of the oil-rich north African state said after meeting President Giorgio Napolitano, hailing this new generation of Italians for having had the great courage to resolve questions of the past.
The visit seals a major rapprochement with the August 2008 treaty under which Italy will pay five billion dollars over the next 25 years as compensation for Romes 1911-47 military occupation and colonisation of Libya.
While no compensation is possible for what colonial Italy did to the Libyan people, (the treaty) is the sign that Italy condemns colonialism (and) has apologised for what happened, and that is what allowed me to come here today, Gaddafi said.
The flamboyant leaders visit comes amid criticism over Italys decision to return to Libya some 500 would-be immigrants caught in international waters under a new policy introduced last month.
The rights group Human Rights Watch on Wednesday slammed the visit, saying it celebrates a dirty deal under which the two countries run roughshod over refugee and migrant rights.
It looks less like friendship and more like a dirty deal to enable Italy to dump migrants and asylum seekers on Libya and evade its obligations, the group said in a statement.
Rome has stepped up its relations with Tripoli in recent years in a bid to rein in a massive influx of migrants, many of whom come by boat from Libya across the Mediterranean.
The European refugee agency noted last week that Libya is the only African country that is not party to the 1951 Refugee Convention, does not have any asylum procedures and often detains people seeking protection indefinitely in extremely poor conditions.
Gaddafi, the Arab worlds longest serving leader who has been in power since 1969, is to address the Italian Senate on Thursday.
Senators of the opposition Democratic Party and others plan to boycott the speech in protest over Gaddafis policies.
In 2007, Tibetan spiritual leader and Nobel peace laureate the Dalai Lama wasnt allowed to address the Senate while it is allowed for Gaddafi, a dictator, the head of the small Italy of Values (IDV) group in the Senate, Felice Belisario, said in a statement.
Benedetto Della Vedova, a lawmaker from Berlusconis People of Freedom party, also spoke out against the event, saying: A solemn speech... before the Senate seems neither justified nor opportune.
Gaddafi, who will also attend next months Group of Eight summit in Italy as the rotating president of the African Union, has returned to the international fold since abandoning ambitions to build weapons of mass destruction in 2003.