LOME, July 9 (AFP) - African leaders gathered Sunday in Lome ahead of the 36th Organisation of African Unity (OAU) summit, which will focus on debt forgiveness, the fight against AIDS and plans for creating an African political and economic union.

Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, acting OAU president, arrived Sunday afternoon in Lome, joining 18 presidents and two prime ministers already in the Togolese capital.

After a year at the helm of the organisation, Bouteflika is set to hand the reins to Togolese President Gnassingbe Eyadema.

Presidents Blaise Compaore of Burkina Faso and Adboulaye Wade of Senegal were among those who arrived in Lome early Sunday, ahead of the summit which starts on Monday.

US Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Susan Rice, also due to attend, met Sunday with Eyadema, host of the OAU conference.

On Saturday, Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi, who originally proposed the idea of creating a federal United States of Africa, pitched his tent in the gardens of one of Lome's largest hotels, which was filled by his entourage.

Kadhafi arrived from Accra, at the head of a convoy of 200 all-terrain vehicles with two Libyan aircraft flying overhead, to an enthusiastic welcome by throngs of admirers on the capital's streets.

Armored personnel carriers with heavy machine guns were posted along Lome's deserted seafront to ward off attacks against the OAU leaders.

Kadhafi's caravan had crossed Niger, Burkina Faso, and Ghana, symbolically promoting his idea of a pan-African union while satisfying his preference for overland travel.

The Libyan leader dreams of an African economic and political union with broad powers and its own parliament.

His scheme, put to fellow OAU leaders at an extraordinary summit held last September in Syrte, Libya, would eventually supplant national governments and the OAU itself.

Heads of state and government present in Syrte did agree to constitute an "African Union" -- more along the lines of the European Union -- as of this year. But the plan met resistance Friday and Saturday when foreign ministers met here to prepare the summit.

The most determined opposition came from countries such as South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria, respective leaders of regional economic groupings, said sources close to the foreign ministers' talks.

Most favourable to the Kadhafi project are west African nations which benefit from Libya's generosity, such as Togo, whose governing figures hope that the union plan can be brought to fruition in Lome.

The first step toward political unity would be to set up a pan-African parliament, followed later by institutions such as an African Central Bank, an African monetary union and an African Court of Justice.

"Togo strongly hopes that the Lome summit will be the moment to reach a consensus on the project for creating an African union and pan-African parliament," Joseph Kokou Koffigoh, Togo's foreign minister, told AFP.

The leaders will also take up their annual debate over how to lift their continent out of chronic hardship wrought by conflict and poverty.

Civil wars, armed separatist movements and territorial disputes continue to dog the continent, where grinding poverty is the lot of four in 10 people, according to the UN Economic Commission for Africa.

The OAU has acknowledged an abysmal record at conflict resolution, but can at least point this year to the Horn of Africa ceasefire, which it brokered in Algiers.

In all, 37 heads of state are expected to attend the summit, which is being boycotted by Angola and Namibia, whose governments accuse Togo of supporting Angolan rebels.

Also expected here is France's Cooperation Minister, Charles Josselin.

Ivory Coast, whose ruling junta seized power last December, has been barred from attending due to an OAU decision last July against recognising regimes that came to power by force.

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