Gaddafi proposes to abolish Switzerland

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi submitted a proposal to the United Nations General Assembly to abolish Switzerland last month, a UN spokesperson told the Swiss News Agency.

On Thursday, Farhan Haq told the Swiss News Agency that Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi submitted a proposal last month that would abolish Switzerland but it was immediately thrown out of discussion because it would have contradicted the United Nations charter, which states that no member country can threaten the existence or sovereignty of another nation. Therefore, the document was never circulated nor published. Gaddafi was to present this to the General Assembly during his speech on Wednesday. However, this is not the first time Gaddafi has made such a motion. During the G8 Summit in Italy in July, according to Foreign Policy, the Libyan leader said Switzerland “is a world mafia and not a state” and “formed of an Italian community that should return to Italy, another German community that should return to Germany, and a third French community that should return to France.” The animosity that brews Gaddafi’s resentment towards Switzerland stems from last year’s incident when his son, Hannibal, was arrested at a hotel in Geneva because of aggravated assault against two of his servants, according to Time. When Gaddafi learned of these events, he immediately shut down Swiss-owned businesses in Libya and began expelling Swiss diplomats. Many experts and analysts do not see much reasoning for his beliefs. Warner, a political scientist at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva said, according to Yahoo! News, "Even though Gaddafi is a leader of a country and the current head of the African Union, he loses credibility when he comes up with outrageous comments like that."