Starting Points: Muammar al-Gaddafi

Showing posts with label Muammar al-Gaddafi. Show all posts

Mar 1, 2010

Memo From Tripoli - Unknotting Father’s Reins in Hope of ‘Reinventing’ Libya

By LANDON THOMAS Jr.

TRIPOLI, Libya — Prying open a closed economy is no easy job, especially if the country in question is Libya — a nation that has spent more than two decades with its back turned to the world. It becomes all the more challenging when doing so means taking on the legacy of your father and fighting an entrenched bureaucracy with little interest in serious change.

Yet that is the goal of Seif al-Islam el-Qaddafi, the son and possible successor to Libya’s leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, as he sets out to dismantle a legacy of Socialism and authoritarianism introduced by his father 40 years ago.

“It is hard work reinventing a country,” he said in an interview last month, as he slouched on a sofa in his villa in the hills above Tripoli, picking at a tray of fruit including fresh dates brought to him by a black-suited waiter. “But that is what we are doing. We will have a new constitution, new laws, a commercial and business code and now a flat tax of 15 percent.”

In the last few years, Mr. Qaddafi, 37, who has a doctorate from the London School of Economics, flawless English and a bold independent streak, has emerged as the Western-friendly face of Libya and symbol of its hopes for reform and openness. When he was nominated last year to lead a powerful government body overseeing tribal leaders, analysts saw it as a sign of his father’s endorsement.

But in Libya’s opaque politics, little is seldom as it appears. And it is far from clear to what extent the younger Mr. Qaddafi’s vision is official policy or wishful dreaming.

Despite his broad international appeal and evidence of popular support at home, analysts say that resistance to his pell-mell approach to modernization appears to be building.

Recently the government curtailed the operations of two crusading newspapers he backed. His entreaties for Western investment were undercut last month when the government imposed a visa ban on more than 20 European countries hoping to do business here. And the old, bellicose Libya seemed to hold sway last week when Colonel Qaddafi escalated a running feud with Switzerland by declaring a “jihad” against it.

The developments have bolstered the view that the hard-line faction championed by Seif Qaddafi’s equally ambitious older brother, Mutassim, the country’s national security adviser, was gaining ground.

“A lot of people have jumped on Seif’s bandwagon as if he were the future of Libya,” said Dana Moss, a Libya expert and the author of a forthcoming monograph on United States-Libya relations. “But that is not clear yet. In a future Libyan system both Seif and Mutassim will have a say, but the question is who will have more of a say.”

Since Libya agreed to renounce its nuclear weapons, an initiative led by Seif Qaddafi, and began to mend ties with the West in the last decade, experts predicted that the opening of the economy would soon follow, spurred by privatization and an influx of foreign investment beyond the presence of international oil companies.

Those expectations were buoyed last October when Seif Qaddafi was proposed to lead the umbrella grouping of local leaders, a position that would give him, like his brother, a voice in the government and an official platform to further his reform agenda.

But months later, he has yet to accept the job. In his first public comments on the subject in London in January, Seif Qaddafi said that until Libya adopted democratic institutions he would stay on the political sideline.

“I will not accept any position unless there is a new constitution, new laws and transparent elections,” he said. “Everyone should have access to public office. We should not have a monopoly on power.”

Instead, he has continued his high-wire act, using his status to occasionally challenge his father’s ways — pushing for openness, opposing the ubiquitous revolutionary committees, allowing human rights critics into the country — while trying to retain his viability as his father’s successor.

Some analysts see his reluctance to enter government as a calculated strategy to retain the aura of an outsider, to rise above the political infighting just as his father did in 1972 when he removed himself from government and adopted the title Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution.

Free of bureaucratic restraints, Seif Qaddafi has been able to propose far-reaching ideas: tax-free investment zones, a tax haven for foreigners, the abolition of visa requirements and the development of luxury hotels.

“We can be the Dubai of North Africa,” he said, citing Libya’s proximity to Europe (the flight from London to Tripoli is under three hours), its abundant energy reserves and 1,200 miles of mostly unspoiled Mediterranean coastline. In the den of his villa, where a stuffed white tiger lay in watchful repose, a fountain gurgled peaceably nearby and the air was thick with incense, the idea seemed plausible. Libya is wealthier than debt-ridden, oil-poor Dubai. Its $15,000 gross domestic product per person ranks it above Poland, Mexico and Chile, according to the World Bank. The government’s sovereign fund, a reserve of oil revenues, boasts $65 billion. And the government has announced plans to invest $130 billion over the next three years to improve infrastructure.

But a descent into the center of Tripoli offers a bracing dose of reality. The streets are strewn with garbage, there are gaping holes in the sidewalks, tourist-friendly hotels and restaurants are few and far between. And while a number of seaside hotels are being built, the city largely ignores its most spectacular asset, the Mediterranean.

Unemployment is estimated as high as 30 percent and much of the potential work force is insufficiently trained.

“The whole country looks like a construction site,” said Mustafa Fetouri, a political analyst based in Tripoli. “But it is developing and growing Libya’s people, that is the real problem. We are not Dubai.”

Libya’s market economy remains more aspirational than real. On a recent weekday morning at the nascent Tripoli stock exchange, 10 or so brokers sat looking blankly at their screens while a handful of customers waited languorously nearby. Ten companies trade on the exchange, which says it does $400,000 worth of business on an average day.

“The cost of running the stock market is more than the daily trading volume,” said Shokri M. Ghanem, the chairman of the National Oil Corporation, the state oil company.

That scene is unlikely to change until the government releases its tight grip on the economy. But Mr. Ghanem, a former prime minister who supports efforts to open the economy, said the political resistance was formidable and has been bolstered by the world financial crisis. The same oil wealth that would finance Seif Qaddafi’s vision has propped up an entrenched elite vigorously opposed to reform.

“There are certain people high up in the government that are against privatization, even though a majority of Libyans wish to go for a market economy,” Mr. Ghanem said.

That majority includes people like Muhammad Younes, 35, a mechanical engineer in Tripoli who has not had a steady job for years. Libya may be wealthy, but he has nothing to show for it, despite his fluent English and a university education.

“No work, no chances, no job,” he said with a fatalistic shrug. “Yet we have so much money. Something must be wrong.”

Sep 24, 2009

Qaddafi’s First U.N. Speech Is a Rambling Diatribe - NYTimes.com

By NEIL MacFARQUHAR

UNITED NATIONS — The blaring cavalcade of world leaders whisking through the streets of New York has been a fall rite for 64 years, with one leader often thrusting himself above the din — a role played this year almost inevitably by Libya’s leader, Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi, making his first appearance despite 40 years in power.

After being introduced in the General Assembly Hall as the “leader of the revolution, the president of the African Union, the king of kings of Africa,” Colonel Qaddafi shattered protocol by giving a rambling speech that stretched for 90 minutes instead of the allotted 15.

Others went over the time, too, of course. But in the case of President Obama, also making his debut speech but forced to share the limelight, he was forgiven his 38 minutes because he made such a ringing endorsement of the American commitment to the world body. “We have re-engaged the United Nations,” he said to cheers.

Outside the building other rituals unfolded with gusto. Hundreds of protesters turned up to denounce the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, who used the podium on Wednesday evening to defend his election in June. President Nicolas Sarkozy of France went jogging in Central Park. Security measures turned Midtown Manhattan into a clogged obstacle course, with agents muttering in their sleeves seeming to outnumber pedestrians.

Colonel Qaddafi — dressed in a brown traditional Libyan robe, embroidered vest and shirt, with a black pin of the African continent pinned to his chest — took about 17 minutes to get to the main point of his speech, which was a demand for an African seat on the Security Council.

He also suggested that those who caused “mass murder” in Iraq be tried; defended the right of the Taliban to establish an Islamic emirate; wondered whether swine flu was cooked up in a laboratory as a weapon; and demanded a thorough investigation of the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King.

He offered to move the United Nations headquarters to Libya because leaders coming here had to endure jet lag and because the understandable security against another attack on New York by Al Qaeda was too stringent. And he repeated his longstanding proposal that Israel and the Palestinian territories be combined into one state called Isratine.

The Security Council “is political feudalism for those who have a permanent seat,” Colonel Qaddafi said, speaking in Arabic and riffling through various documents on the hall’s green marble podium.

“It should not be called the Security Council, it should be called the terror council,” he added. “Permanent is something for God only. We are not fools to give the power of veto to great powers so they can use us and treat us as second-class citizens.”

Although a red warning light illuminates after the 15-minute time limit, United Nations officials said they could not remember anyone interrupting a head of state to explain that the allotted time had expired.

Colonel Qaddafi also attracted attention far from the General Assembly Hall. His official home in New York was the mission on East 48th Street; Libyan diplomats briefly seemed to find a place for his controversial reception tent on a Westchester estate owned by Donald Trump in Bedford, N.Y., but he apparently had no plans to go there. At the mission, he welcomed Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam, while some supporters outside sang his praises.

Inside the United Nations, reactions to his speech were mixed. Some world leaders were cursing him quietly all day because he threw off schedules for side meetings. “They were not happy,” said Heraldo Muñoz, the Chilean ambassador. “Everybody had to cancel meetings and postpone things and arrive late.” (The normal two-hour lunch break was canceled to squeeze in all the leaders scheduled to speak in the afternoon, although the lunch for world leaders hosted by Ban Ki-moon, the secretary general, went ahead a little late.)

At one point in his speech, Colonel Qaddafi waved aloft a copy of the United Nations charter and seemed to tear it, saying he did not recognize the authority of the document. Speaking later in the day from the same podium, Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain said, “I stand here to reaffirm the United Nations charter, not to tear it up.”

Michele Montas, the United Nations spokeswoman, called the denigration of the charter “unacceptable.”

Arab ambassadors accustomed to tongue-lashings from the “brother leader” laughed off the speech as vintage Qaddafi, and at least one United Nations official expressed relief that he did not talk longer. The last General Assembly address of such length likely took place in 1960, when President Fidel Castro of Cuba delivered a similarly verbose speech with a parallel theme — that all weak states were likely to face aggression from the American superpower.

“I don’t think anybody has ever done a real study of General Assembly speeches because nobody listens to them,” said Stephen Schlesinger, a historian of the body. He noted that it was only the controversial leaders who really attract attention. “It seemed like pent-up fury. It seemed like he had been smoldering over all these issues for years and wanted to get it all out.”

Many seats in the grand hall were empty, as they often remain during the speeches because leaders prefer to chat in the hallways or simply escape the grandstanding on stage.

When a leader finishes speaking, there is a tradition of other heads of state going to shake his or her hand if they so desire. So many leaders leapt up to greet Mr. Obama that it took some 20 minutes to settle the hall back down, with the new assembly president, Ali Treiki, also a Libyan, pounding the gavel and saying, “Please take your seats,” over and over, in Arabic, English and French.

Aside from the tradition of Brazil speaking first and the host country, the United States, second, slots are assigned on a first-come-first-served basis. Colonel Qaddafi, who immediately followed Mr. Obama and whose speech contained no shortage of barbs against the United States without naming it directly, also heaped praise on the idea that the United States had elected a “son of Africa” as president.

In fact he suggested that Mr. Obama remain American president for a long time, not unlike his extended reign in Libya. (Colonel Qaddafi’s Green Book suggests that in a perfect state, the government disappears and the people rule, but Libyans note wryly that the colonel has never seemed to follow his own advice.)

Diane Cardwell and Ravi Somaiya contributed reporting.

Sep 5, 2009

Dar Al Hayat - A Libyan message to Morocco

Image via Wikipedia

Sat, 05 September 2009

Mohammad al-Ashab

When Libyan Leader Mu'ammar al-Qaddafi announced that he supports the independence of southern Sudan if its people want to, it was clear that his message goes beyond the Sudanese crisis to the West of North Africa, particularly the issue of Western Sahara, especially since both crises erupted at the same time in the mid-1990s in order to separate the Arab space from its African extension.

Those who are acquainted with Col. Al-Qaddafi realize that he has been keen on giving precedence to the image of the thinking leader over the reality that he is a head of a state who can hit and miss. When a Moroccan court prosecuted some newspapers for criticizing the Libyan leader, the issue was considered closed at this level. On the one hand, this newspaper was unofficial and only reflects the ideas of its publishers. On the other hand, the commitment to principles in the relations among states is not subject to mood swings. It is different when Libya expresses its discontent with some reports published by the Moroccan press, and when Libyan officials go back in time and manipulate the Sahara issue.

It was enough for the Libyan officials to inform the Morocco officials that the leader of the Polisario Front Mohammad Abdelaziz will attend the celebrations of Al-Fateh Revolution in order to avoid any embarrassment. In this case, Morocco's absence would not be more serious that driving it to face a fait accompli. Also, Morocco does not agree to be at the same distance with the Polisario Front, especially since the issue is still on the table of the United Nations.

In its current experience, Libya has replaced resounding slogans with a pragmatic methodology that is closer to understanding the laws of the times. Going backward in dealing with the Sahara issue and southern Sudan just because Libya was displeased with reports published by the press is out of the question. The Libyan role is necessary to help solve the problems of the African continent, not to complicate them. The Libyan Republic might have been forced to deal with the European Union in its current structure, or it might have been exposed to political pressures to ensure a mass rally to mark the 40th anniversary of Al-Fateh Revolution.

However, it realizes that the accession of the "Sahara Republic" to the Organization of the African Unity in 1984 raised political and legal controversies which the efforts of the wise people of African failed to overcome. The evidence is that the Sahara dossier in particular has moved to the corridors of the United Nations, and thus there is still a need for a political solution to the predicament of the African Union, all the more so after many countries suspended their recognition of the "Sahara Republic" and are yearning for a political solution to end the problem.

Likewise, the situation in southern Sudan would not have enjoyed the current dimensions had it not been for the repercussions of the Darfur crisis which put Sudan's unity before the unknown. This can only be faced by consolidating unity and sovereignty in light of respecting ethnic and political pluralism. After all, there are many African and Arab frameworks that can contain the struggle of the brother-enemies in Sudan.

No one wants the relations between Morocco and Libya to deteriorate. Both countries are bound by joint commitments inside the Maghreb Union, which can obviously play a role in encouraging the parties of the Sahara conflict to carry on with negotiations, let alone the fact that its current situation cannot withstand new differences.

It is worth mentioning that while the Maghreb capitals abstain from carrying out any efforts to arrange the appropriate atmosphere for a political solution brokered by the United Nations, international envoy Christopher Ross took the lead and talked with the Maghreb Union Secretariat about the issue. But Col. Al-Qaddafi still heads the current session of the Union, and he had experienced, two years ago, how the Sahara differences reflected negatively on the Maghreb Summit hosted by Tripoli at the time. His position and responsibilities perhaps push him to contemplate over the dreams that fade away of establishing a Maghreb Union, one that is active in its periphery and a partner to its neighbors. The opportunity remains favorable to do something, but not under the circumstances of the protest of the celebration which necessitated the withdrawal of Morocco. And it is not too late!