Debate Continues On Qadhafi's Libya

Apparently, some debate is still 'raging' about "Qadhafi's Libya" and the apparent contradiction in US 'values' & foreign policy. Who knew?

And why am I not surprised?

In return for Gadhafi's agreement to cooperate with the United States and the United Kingdom in fighting terrorism and reneging on his weapons of mass destruction program, the U.S. resumed diplomatic relations with Libya, allowing for the establishment of embassies in Washington and Tripoli on May 31. By June, Libya was officially removed from the State Department's terrorism list.

But debate still rages around the question of how much Gadhafi's Libya has really changed since the reinstatement of relations with the U.S. Gadhafi claims to stand strong against terrorism, but there are those who argue that this is merely a façade.

Okay, well, the debate does not rage with me.

Libya has changed undoubtedly. But that change is purely opportunistic and economic. The country is still under dictatorship and the fact that the US government and media suffer from some form of amnesia/madness does not take away from this fact.

So I'm happy for Pan Am and the American families who are finally being paid off their blood money. I'm glad to know that lives really can be bought off by money (maybe I should pitch this idea to my Palestinian friends). And I will take the notion of 'democracy' with a grain of salt.

Thank you, Mr. Bush & company.

Debate* continues on Gadhafi's Libya
By ANNE DECECCO
UPI Correspondent

WASHINGTON, Sept. 21 (UPI) -- "Although there are 24 security cars surrounding my house, I have no doubt Gadhafi has been weakened. He's a terrorist and he will be brought to justice. Take care of my children. I am standing against this regime and I'll never back down."

Those are the words of Fathi el-Jahmi, as remembered by his brother Mohamed el-Jahmi from the last time they spoke on the phone before Fathi was taken by Libyan security police in March 2004 and imprisoned for a second time.

Fathi el-Jahmi is 65 years old. He remains imprisoned today in an unknown location, having virtually no contact with the outside world, according to David Stamps, a country specialist on Libya for Amnesty International.

Stamps said that el-Jahmi was originally imprisoned in October 2002 because he called for democratic reform in Libya. He was then released in March 2004 and abducted two weeks later by security agents.

To many Americans, it seems that much has changed since 2003, when Libya's leader Moammar Gadhafi surrendered the country's nuclear weapons program and offered compensation for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988, and that of UTA flight 772, in 1989.

In return for Gadhafi's agreement to cooperate with the United States and the United Kingdom in fighting terrorism and reneging on his weapons of mass destruction program, the U.S. resumed diplomatic relations with Libya, allowing for the establishment of embassies in Washington and Tripoli on May 31. By June, Libya was officially removed from the State Department's terrorism list.

But debate still rages around the question of how much Gadhafi's Libya has really changed since the reinstatement of relations with the U.S. Gadhafi claims to stand strong against terrorism, but there are those who argue that this is merely a façade.

"He never really took responsibility for the acts of terrorism," said Mohamed el-Jahmi, referring to Gadhafi and the plane bombings. "He merely paid his way off. I don't know what the State Department is doing removing him from the list of terrorists."

According to one State Department official who wished to remain unnamed, Gadhafi "made good on implementing policy change and stopping the nuclear weapons program. He also agreed to pay reparations. In terms of intelligence operations, he has cooperated fully."

This official explained that the U.S. now has a team of CIA agents in Libya gaining access to security information on the Middle East, which is an important benefit for the U.S.

According to Diederik Vandewalle, associate professor of government at Dartmouth College, Libya's formal governmental institutions are fairly new, installed in the last few decades in an effort to transition to modern statehood and to advance its oil industry.

When presenting his new book "Libya: Prospects for Change" at the Middle East Institute Monday, Vandewalle explained that "the true political power in Libya lies in the informal circles of people that work for Gadhafi."

He explained that in the upcoming years we can expect to see some economic reform come out of Libya, but in terms of political reform, the system will remain immobile while Gadhafi is in power.

Hafed Al-Ghwell, a Libyan-American who works for an international organization in Washington, explains the Libyan government this way: "There's the technocratic government. Then there's the shadowy clan of Gadhafi, the security apparatus, the informal side. They're in control. The formal government is subject to their whims."

He said, "Gadhafi is the antithesis of everything the U.S/ is saying it stands for: human rights, anti-terrorism, democracy. Democracy is the anchor of U.S. policy and Gaddafi is a dictator. Seeing him become an ally of the U.S. undermines U.S. credibility in the Arab world."

Al-Ghwell referenced the case of Abdul Rahman al-Amoudi, an American Islamic intellectual who was found to be breaking U.S. law by traveling to Libya without consent and receiving funds from Tripoli, and who later pleaded guilty to a plot to assassinate a Saudi monarch in 2003.

According to Al-Ghwell, this case, as well as the plane bombings, and the fact that there is limited political freedom in Libya, show that Gadhafi is not as staunchly anti-terrorist as he claims to be. "How can the U.S. convince the Arab world it's serious about reform if it does not enforce it in Libya?" He asked.

David Goldwyn, president of the international energy consulting firm Goldwyn International Strategies, LLC, said that Libya has an aggressive economic reform plan in place that will change the economy considerably over the next several years. These changes will include privatization, new investment laws, and increased infrastructure, among other factors.

Goldwyn also said U.S. companies have increased their presence in Libya and that many U.S. companies are now exporting goods and services to Libya, as well. This will increase as more economic reforms are passed.

According to Goldwyn, Gadhafi's regime has changed since U.S.-Libyan relations have increased, and it is evidenced in its efforts towards economic reform.

When asked about the situation of the Libyan population and the need for political reform, Goldwyn said, "Political and economic reform advance together. The more economic space opens the more open to Western business and practices it will become."

*so, what's the debate?

allAfrica.com: Africa: Gaddafi - All Thunder And Anti-Imperialist Rhetoric

Gaddafi - All Thunder And Anti-Imperialist Rhetoric

Gaddafi is one of the longest-serving heads of state in Africa, after clocking 37 years at the helm in Libya, which has a population of about five million people. The former army colonel's most cherished dream is to see the creation of a United States of Africa. "Africa should build one federal government as soon as possible. We will have one minister of defence, one minister of finance and so on. This will be the birth of a black giant."

But considering how much Africa's rulers -- including Gaddafi himself -- relish power and self-preservation, his brainchild could be stillborn. It is difficult to imagine some old-style dictators who cannot fathom voluntarily passing on the baton to anyone in their own countries accepting the idea of a leader from another country overshadowing them and basking in the limelight as the president of Africa.

I probably shouldn't post this without looking further into the angle of this online publication, but I think it's a good article about the Q-dude in the African (i.e., AU, USA) context anyway.

I admit that I may be harsh as far as Libyan politics are concerned, but I can't help agreeing with Makuni on this African Union crap. While I think the concept itself is beautiful, reality on the ground speaks to its improbability.

Anyway, here's the rest of the article for folks who may not have access to the site:


Africa: Gaddafi - All Thunder And Anti-Imperialist Rhetoric

Financial Gazette (Harare)
September 20, 2006
Posted to the web September 21, 2006

Mavis Makuni

ONE thing that can be said about Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is that regardless of whether one agrees with his politics or not, he is never boring.

His flamboyance ensures that whatever he says and wherever he is, he always attracts attention. He caused a stir a few years ago when he swept into Zimbabwe in a long motorcade after traversing almost the entire length of Africa by road. A short while later he indeed completed the Cape-to-Cairo adventure when he arrived in Cape Town by road to attend a conference after journeying down the entire length of Africa from Tripoli.

In 1986, Gaddafi was like a fish out of water when he made an impassioned speech in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare, in which he described the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) as an "international falsehood." Last week, Gaddafi is likely to have joined a host of other leaders from the developing world who attended a NAM summit in the Cuban capital, Havana. A few days before, the Libyan leader had been opining on the subject of unity at an African Union meeting in his home town of Sirte.

Gaddafi is one of the longest-serving heads of state in Africa, after clocking 37 years at the helm in Libya, which has a population of about five million people. The former army colonel's most cherished dream is to see the creation of a United States of Africa. "Africa should build one federal government as soon as possible. We will have one minister of defence, one minister of finance and so on. This will be the birth of a black giant."

But considering how much Africa's rulers -- including Gaddafi himself -- relish power and self-preservation, his brainchild could be stillborn. It is difficult to imagine some old-style dictators who cannot fathom voluntarily passing on the baton to anyone in their own countries accepting the idea of a leader from another country overshadowing them and basking in the limelight as the president of Africa.

And taking into consideration the endless political upheavals and civil wars that have been sparked by ethnic and tribal passions within individual countries, the expectation that the concept of one identity, one army, one nationality, one currency and one people can be unanimously embraced in the foreseeable future seems far-fetched. The Libyan leader must be aware of this but he is so passionate about this seemingly unworkable idea, cynics suggest, because he fancies himself as the eventual kingpin.

Sceptics will continue to question the basis of Gaddafi's conviction that the creation of this new entity will transform Africa into a giant capable of tackling problems such as the Darfur crisis without external assistance. They will continue to ask what is stopping African countries from taking such concerted action now under the banner of the African Union if they are genuinely committed to easing the plight of civilians in Darfur. The bickering and dragging of feet that has characterised the AU's response to conflicts in the past suggests that the proposed USA can never be a melting pot in which individual leaders will be prepared to subordinate their egos and idiosyncrasies for the common good.

The 53-member AU has remained impotent in the face of the Sudanese humanitarian catastrophe in which thousands have perished and at least two million peasants have been displaced. In the midst of the continuing carnage, Gaddafi has endorsed Sudanese President Hassan al-Bashir's rejection of plans to deploy a 20 000-strong United Nations peacekeeping force in Darfur. This is despite the fact that the 7 000 AU soldiers, who are hampered by a lack of resources, have failed to quell the turmoil since their deployment about a year ago.

Gaddafi has echoed al-Bashir's red-herring claim that those calling for the replacement of the AU soldiers in Darfur have ulterior motives, including re-colonising Africa. These strongmen would rather see more people dying than admit that international intervention is urgently needed to stop what some observers believe should be classified as genocide. And yet intriguingly, on the same day that Gaddafi made remarks about Africa becoming a giant under a federation, he contradicted himself in the next breath by implying that the continent should rely on its former colonisers to tackle another one of the problems of its own making: the exodus of millions of Africans who are flooding Europe to escape the dire economic conditions or tyrannical governance in their home countries.

Gaddafi said European countries should pay 10 billion Euros annually to enable Africa to stop the flight of its people northwards in search of a better life. The ambivalence and double standards reflected in Gaddafi's thundering anti-imperialist rhetorical grandstanding side by side with a preparedness to go cap in hand to beg for external funding to tackle continental challenges is one factor that is guaranteed to stunt the evolution of the African "giant" he envisions.

African leaders are notorious for pleading poverty when called upon to avail resources for important initiatives as shown by their record of non-payment of dues to the AU and its forerunner, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) as well as the United Nations. While clinging to these penny-wise-pound-foolish tactics on initiatives with a bigger picture, they do not hesitate to adopt a no-expense spared attitude when it comes to expenditure on prestige projects. These are the same people who have caused widespread disgruntlement for putting their personal interests above those of their countries, thereby ruining once thriving economies and condemning their people to unnecessary poverty.

Neither the availing of billions of Euros nor the setting up of a United States of Africa will solve these fundamental leadership problems. On the contrary, the ramifications of civil wars, rampant official corruption, dictatorship, economic mismanagement and human rights abuses are bound to continue driving desperate Africans into the diaspora.