TRIPOLI, BENGHAZI — President Jacob Zuma of South Africa received a raucous red carpet greeting on Monday as he arrived in Libya for meetings that could prove crucial to the fate of Col. Muammar Gaddafi and his embattled government.

Zuma, dressed in a dark suit and looking somber, debarked at Mitiga Airport outside the capital, Tripoli, at 1 p.m. local time, The New York Times reported. He traveled as a representative of the African Union. He was expected to meet with Colonel Gaddafi rapidly, a development that would mark a break in Gaddafi’s elusive behavior since the NATO bombing strikes began two months ago.
Flanked by palm trees and 50 fluttering Libyan flags, a crowd of Gaddafi supporters, government officials and tribal leaders warmly greeted Zuma, who came with his own armored car and at least four jeepfuls of South African soldiers for security. A clutch of Libyan women shouted slogans and held placards reading, “Thanks for great Africa,” and “We are all Muammar el-Gaddafi.”
Zuma’s visit represents a renewed effort by the union to negotiate a peace deal between the rebels and the Libyan government and a possible lifeline for Colonel Gaddafi in the face of a mounting international chorus demanding his ouster. An earlier peace plan, offered by the African Union at the beginning of the conflict, was rejected by the rebels, and the union had remained mostly silent since. In meetings last week, the group decided to renew its efforts to bring an end to the Libyan conflict.
Chance to redeem African Union
President Zuma's mediation trip to Libya will test the relevance of the increasingly discredited African Union as well as an old friendship between South Africa's governing party and Gaddafi, The Associated Press reported.
Zuma will be looking to restore some faith in the 54-nation pan-African body whose diplomatic efforts to resolve Libya's crisis were sideswiped by NATO airstrikes that began March 19.
Officially, Zuma arrived in Tripoli -- bthe capital and stronghold of Gaddafi, whose command centers have been pounded by a relentless NATO bombardment for days -- to resuscitate an African roadmap drawn up in February that calls for an immediate ceasefire.
Unofficially, Zuma will try to persuade Gaddafi to step down, South Africa's influential Mail and Guardian newspaper reported, quoting a senior security source.
His visit comes as all sides appear stalemated: Gaddafi has remained intransigent in the face of stepped-up NATO airstrikes; the rebels have proved unable to capitalize on the airstrikes to advance the battle fronts and are fast running out of cash even as they win increasing diplomatic recognition.
Hundreds of thousands of Libyans are suffering: in Tripoli from the trauma of the bombings as well as growing shortages and increasing prices of fuel and food; in western mountain towns besieged by Gaddafi's forces; in refugee settlements at borders with Tunisia, Chad and Egypt.
South Africa voted for the UN resolution authorizing a no-fly zone over Libya and the use of force to protect civilians, using its power as a rotating member of the Security Council to flout an African Union stance demanding a peaceful resolution.
Since then, Zuma has joined other African leaders in accusing NATO of overstepping the UN mandate and calling for an end to the airstrikes.
Relations with Gaddafi already were strained when Zuma came to Tripoli in April at the head of an African delegation. But he came away pleased, having won Gaddafi's agreement to a cease-fire. The same day it became clear that Gaddafi was not honoring his word.
The rebels' National Transitional Council in their eastern bastion of Benghazi already had dismissed the African roadmap because it did not demand Gaddafi surrender power.
Zuma has known Gaddafi since the 1980s when he was the intelligence chief of the then-outlawed African National Congress and Gaddafi provided arms and money for its fight to end a brutal white minority regime in South Africa.
Two decades later, Nelson Mandela was able to return the favor, using his international moral standing to end Libya's pariah status. Mandela helped broker the agreement that ended sanctions imposed on Libya over the downing of a civilian jetliner that killed all passengers over Lockerbie, Scotland.
For Zuma, the mission is an opportunity to redeem the African Union as leaders say they are being upstaged on their own turf by other world diplomatic efforts.
“Some international players seem to be denying Africa any significant role in the search for a solution to the Libyan conflict,” African Union Commission chief Jean Ping complaint at an extraordinary summit in Ethiopia last week.
“Africa is not going to be reduced to the status of an observer of its own calamities,” he warned.
Photo: Libya's Prime Minister Al-Baghdadi Ali Al-Mahmoudi (front R) walks with South Africa's President Jacob Zuma (front L) upon his arrival at Mitiga airport in Tripoli on May 30, 2011. (Reuters photo)