Follow The Leader
Former 'mad dog' Muammar Qadhafi is taking Libya in a surprising new direction
Officials, with no hint of irony, tout Libya's political order as a plus for westerners contemplating investments. "There are no parties or factions here," offers Jamah Balkheir, a Foreign Ministry spokesman. "It's the most stable regime in the area," says Rajab Shiglabu, head of the Libyan Foreign Investment Board. The only recent challenge appears to have come from Islamists in eastern Libya. A government campaign against them four years ago apparently succeeded. One can see the scorched mountaintops overlooking the Mediterranean near Ras al-Hillal, a future vacation spot, where Libyan Air Force planes bombed Islamist encampments.
A ban on political parties does not mean that all dissent has been stifled. After Saddam was nabbed, graffiti appeared in Tripoli: "Today, Saddam. Tomorrow, Qadhafi." After the U.S. Army rolled into Baghdad, one of the Leader's sons, a soccer player named Saadi, was taunted by fans at a match in Tripoli. "Saadi, don't think you're a big guy," they chanted. "Your destiny will be like Uday's" --a reference to one of Saddam's slain sons. On the streets of Tripoli, complaints about the million-plus migrants from sub-Saharan Africa fly freely. An editor of a government newspaper was fired for having the audacity to write--with obsequious delicacy, no less--that Qadhafi should become Libya's president and that "the time has come for the warrior knight who led the revolution to dismount and begin to build the state."
One middle-aged professional vented his anger as long as he would not be identified. "If you say something against the government, they put you in prison," says the man. "People are sick of Qadhafi's family. Who appointed them to rule our country?" He also argued that the United States needs to "put pressure on the government on human rights. Otherwise, they won't change."
Surveillance by security services is presumed to be commonplace. Libyan guests at an embassy dinner party were reprimanded for attending without permission and told to write reports about their conversations. One told his hosts, "I will still have the memory of a wonderful evening even after I'm punished." Amnesty International and the State Department report that Qadhafi's jails still hold hundreds of political prisoners. Some have disappeared, they say, and torture is still in use. But Qadhafi may be relenting a bit on human rights. This winter he met with an investigative team from AI, the first such visit in 15 years. In April, Qadhafi called for abolishing revolution-era special courts that forbid appeals, ending the practice of arrests without warrants, and ratifying international antitorture conventions.
But progress is patchy. Under U.S. pressure, a dissident named Fathi Eljahmi was released in March. He had been jailed for 18 months after condemning the regime as undemocratic and calling for a constitution and free speech at a public meeting. He repeated his criticism in an interview with U.S.-based al Hurra television, and afterwards a pro-government mob besieged his house. He is now in government custody, say Libyan dissidents. In the new Libya, so far, freedom to make money doesn't mean freedom to speak your mind.
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