Gather ‘Round And Listen To The Tale Of Walter Fauntroy
Former D.C. Del. Walter Fauntroy went to Libya on a mission to broker peace (and then he disappeared for a while), but he's back now, and he has some things to tell you. The Baltimore Afro-American reports:
[Fauntroy] watched French and Danish troops storm small villages late at night beheading, maiming and killing rebels and loyalists to show them who was in control.
"'What the hell' I'm thinking to myself. I'm getting out of here. So I went in hiding," Fauntroy said.
The Afro was unable to confirm Fauntroy's version of what's happening in Libya, but Fauntroy insists, "The truth about all this will come out later."
"Contrary to what is being reported in the press, from what I heard and observed, more than 90 percent of the Libyan people love Gaddafi," Fauntroy told the Afro. "We believe the true mission of the attacks on Gaddafi is to prevent all efforts by African leaders to stop the recolonization of Africa."
The former civil rights leader and pastor has a history of odd statements and strange behavior. Even his trip, according to documents filed by Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, was kept a secret from his wife until shortly before he left. And once he "went underground" no one heard from him for about a month—during which time the State Department was surprised to find out he was even in the country.
There were reports that he was trapped in the Rixos Hotel by Gaddafi loyalists, but Fauntroy says he eventually spoke to Gaddafi, and the embattled leader promised to continue uniting African nations.
Fauntroy, who was the District's non-voting representative in the House for 20 years before stepping down to run (and lose) against Sharon Pratt Kelly in the 1990 mayoral election, adds that Martin Luther King, Jr. told him to "join four African countries on the continent with four in the African Diaspora to restore the continent to its pre-colonial status."
That's right. Fauntroy has a secret mission from MLK—which may or may not be tied to the lobbying he began doing on behalf of the African National Congress in the early '90s with his consulting firm.
Fauntroy's history—much like that of many politicos of a certain age—is checkered with triumphs, failures, and bizarre vanity projects.
His political influence (and lack thereof) has been felt in the District. Though he did help build the legislation that led to D.C. residents being able to directly elect a mayor, in 1987 he was predicting as-yet-unrealized D.C. statehood. In 1996, he pushed for the New Birth facility, which Washington City Paper described as an "elaborate, undulating geodesic dome" that would serve the city as a prison and hazardous waste processing facility, all for the low, low price of $3.5 billion.
More recently, in 2009, he supported a ban on gay marriage, giving a strange and rambling speech in which he attempted to explain the threat of marriage equality, which concluded, "as we used to say on the street—'It's cheaper to keep her!'"
Indeed.
2:59 pm
who paid for this trip?
3:57 pm
What's hilarious is the whole "pan-african anti-colonialist" gobblety gook has about as much backing as nothing. Historically ignorant. To wit:
The northern region is radically different than sub-Saharan Africa, and already quite colonized. The present folks living there are invading colonizers from the Middle East primarily, having knocked over the previous folks around 750-900 CE. So in effect, The Europeans who blew in around 1700 CE (give or take) were simply colonizing the colonizers.
But wait! It gets better. Because the Middle Easterners actually colonized the existing European societies. That's right folks! Northern Africa was firmly Roman between ~100 BC ish to the Middle Eastern invasion and colonization. Really, Carthage was the last "native" society.
Oh, and Egypt pre-Rome was actually long governed by the descendants of Alexander's General Ptolemy called the Ptolemic Dynasty, and the ruling elite was quite Greek. Cleopatra was a direct decedent of Ptolemy. So if yer looking for "Native Society" there, you need to go back to about ~400BC.
Isn't actual historical fact fun?
8:38 am
What a pathetic article. It lacked focus and was devoid of any depth. The author comes off snarky, disrespectful, sophomoric, and annoyingly driven by an irrational need for stripping the legitimacy of Mr. Fauntroy's statements. No effort was made at exploring the Libyan crisis, which should have been the focus of this article. The author was clearly more content with waging ad hominem arguments in a pot-shot character assassination bid, transforming an important issue into one about the personality of Walter Fauntroy.
Why did the author feel the need to mention Fauntroy "has a history of odd statements and strange behavior" immediately following his statement? Who was it that said Fauntroy was held hostage by Libyan government soldiers? Where has Fauntroy described the pan-African vision that he and MLK shared as being a "secret mission"?
Of course this stupid article would invite an even more idiotic comment like the one posted by John above- a rambling, ignorantly construed assessment that lacks any respectable analysis of historic and modern-day Africa.
10:06 pm
There is a lie in this article: the Rixos hotel was surrounded by Rebels forces and NOT loyalists. Proof are the reports from journalists who were stuck there such as from the Voltaire.org among many others...besides don't you think Otan forces would have attack them if the loyalists were taking a walk around the hotel (duh!)for such a long period, day and nights!! other than that this article is plain propaganda and so poorly written it's was a waste to read it.
Also, it always cracks me up when so called U.S bookworms try to give there 2 cents about North of Africa, Africa or the Middle East such as John did above..they get totally confused and it's a pure carnival of ideas...but that certainly crack me up, keep the show going on will you !!