Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

Our new friend Moammar


President Bush has been quick to claim the great Libyan turnaround as one of the welcome by-products of the Iraq war. Gadhafi does not want to be the next Middle Eastern maverick to mess with the U.S. Marines, goes the Bush administration's argument. But European sources who know Gadhafi say he is less concerned about the U.S. threat than the threat from Osama bin Laden.

In reality, bin Laden's organization al-Qaida has tried more than once to assassinate Gadhafi, on one occasion actually wounding him in the arm and leg.
http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=2702218

Libya turned to the United States not from fear of our Marines or love of democracy but rather dread of bin Laden. The truth of the matter is easily seen in that Libya remains a terrorist state

Arab countries, including Libya, are contributing to a legal defense fund for toppled Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, a French lawyer said in Paris. Libya’s contribution is channeled through Gaddafi’s eldest daughter, Aicha Muammar Gaddafi, who “wanted to provide her logistic and financial aid”, Ludot said. “It’s Libyan money. It’s welcome.”
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3172884

Libya is among the world's most corrupt countries, according to an October 2003 survey by Berlin-based Transparency International, which tracks corruption worldwide. The study ranked Libya 118th among 133 nations, tied with Ivory Coast, Kyrgyzstan and Papua New Guinea.

Though Qaddafi has set a goal of abolishing the death penalty, his regime still executes people for offenses that include peaceful political activities, according to an April 27 Amnesty International report. Libyan law also restricts free expression and association, and security forces torture detainees, the report says.

Libya is still a terrorist state however it is a terrorist state that has started exporting oil to the United States. Libya has 36 billion barrels of proven oil reserves -- more than Nigeria or Mexico -- or about 3 percent of the world's total. http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000102&sid=aAAnmBqSlf8Q&refer=uk

Therefore the United States overlooks that which it condemns in other countries.

-Am

Our new friend Moammar
By Scripps Howard News Service
July 6, 2004

In the category of never-say-never, the Bush administration has reestablished diplomatic relations with Libya after 24 years of hostility during which we tried in 1986 to kill its leader, Moammar Gadhafi, and Gadhafi in 1981 may have tried to assassinate President Ronald Reagan.

But this improbable exchange of olive branches is what the diplomatic crowd calls "realpolitik," where pragmatism trumps principle. Libya remains a dictatorship with a poor record on human rights and a still suspect record on terrorism.

Diplomatic recognition represents a calculated gamble by the White House that it can nudge Libya back to something like international acceptability. It has been a long climb back.

The turning point was when Gadhafi turned over two Libyan agents implicated in the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am airliner. In 2001, a Scottish court convicted one of the agents, and Libya since has apologized and paid compensation for both the Pan Am flight and the bombing of a French airliner.

In December, Libya renounced an ambitious nuclear, chemical and biological weapons plan, and allowed American inspectors to haul nuclear material and key weapons components back to the United States. The U.S. and U.N. then began easing long-standing sanctions, with both hoping that engagement will eventually end in a Libyan democracy.

The White House sees no contradiction in tightening sanctions on Fidel Castro and Cuba while lifting them on Libya and the equally reprehensible Gadhafi. Perhaps this could be a test case on which approach works better.

In the 35 years since he seized power, Gadhafi has both fought and sought to merge with his neighbors, and seemingly there was no international terrorism movement he wouldn't support. Now years of isolation, a stalled economy and an oil industry desperate for outside investment seem to have convinced him there's a better way.

The mercurial leader has recently shown disturbing flashes of his old self. In April, on a trip to Europe he suggested if things didn't go his way he might revert to car bombs and suicide bombers; he greeted Reagan's death with the observation that the former president should have been tried for war crimes; and there are allegations that last year he might have been party to a plot to kill Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah.

Still, it is progress and the price of that progress may be, as Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., the first lawmaker to visit Libya in 30years, told AP, "We will be living for quite some time with occasional outbursts of inappropriateness."

May all those outbursts be minor and democracy come soon.

http://www.naplesnews.com/npdn/perspective/article/0,2071,NPDN_14966_3013905,00.html





Libya resumes oil exports to U.S.
7/5/2004 8:20:00 AM GMT

Libya has already started exporting oil to the United States, Libyan Prime Minister Shokri Ghanem announced in a news conference following a meeting with U.S. and British financial experts last Friday.

Ghanem said that Libyan-American relations have improved.

“Many of the obstacles between Libya and the U.S. have been removed and many problems between us have been solved,” Ghanem said.

The announcement came less than a week after Tripoli and Washington resumed direct diplomatic ties, following a 24-year break.

Assistant Secretary of State William Burns made the announcement during a visit to Libya, where he met with Libyan leader Muammar Ghaddafi. Burns formally inaugurated a new U.S. liaison office in Tripoli.

The government later announced that a total of 360 companies would be privatized between 2004 and 2008 in its attempt to develop the economy. Multi-national companies have already been invited to “contribute to the ownership of these companies,” the Libyan PM disclosed.

“One hundred and sixty public companies have been transferred to the private sector and major international firms have been invited to take part in this privatization,” he conveyed.

The capital of 54 companies is expected to be opened to international investors in July, according to the minister in charge of the program Mahmoud Ahmed Al-Fitissi.


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