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On the shores of the Mediterranean, the Roman remains of Leptus Magna should be crawling with tourists.
But for decades Libya has been a no-go zone … years of bank rolling terrorists and liberation movements have left the country isolated…its economy in ruins.Now Libya is changing – surrendering weapons of mass destruction … including plans for a nuclear bomb.
For decades an enemy of the west, Libya is now desperately trying to rejoin the rest of the world and is using its vast oil reserves to woo back former foes, especially the United States.
The question is why now? Well years of funding terror against the west and wars of destabilisation across this region have squandered Libya’s oil wealth leaving it isolated and many Libyans poor.
Caught between a more aggressive United States and perhaps more importantly the growing anger of his own people, Libya’s leader Muammar Gaddafi had to act.
Meeting Gaddafi right now is impossible - but we did get the next best thing.
The Colonel’s most influential son and heir apparent, Seif Gaddafi is well placed to reveal Libya’s new strategy.
SEIF GADDAFI: No more foreign battles, no more confrontation with the West, no more confrontation with the United States.
WILLIAMS: But make no mistake, this change of heart is about one thing - the survival of Gaddafi’s dictatorship - and he’s about to use western petrodollars to do it.
Ancient beats for a new beginning…or at least that’s what the Libyans would like us to think.The Tripoli international trade fair has until now been a contradiction … there’s been little trade.This year though the number of stalls has doubled. Forty countries have rushed to do business in this former pariah state.
Gaddafi’s hoping he can keep a new market economy somehow in tune with his mercurial one-man rule…and he’s called in some help.
Shukri Ghanem spent years outside Libya as a respected official at OPEC.
Welcome to all visitors to the Tripoli International Fair.
He was recently recalled by Gaddafi, made Prime Minister and told to revitalise an economy strangled by socialism.
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SHUKRI GHANEM: Well he supports it, and he agrees to it and he is of course behind it.
You see our economic reforms are aimed at as I said improving the standard of living of the people, improving the rate of growth of the economy and everyone would like it, of course Gaddafi would likes it.
WILLIAMS: But has the mad dog of the middle east as he was once called, really changed his bark?
Seif Gaddafi says yes – that his father was eventually convinced that policies of terror and socialism were crippling the country.
SEIF GADDAFI: At the beginning of course it wasn’t easy but he realised that it is in our favour, and our advantage for him, for Libyan society, Libyan people, Libyan state, for the future of the next generation and I think all of us agreed that Libya should adopt several reforms, internally and externally.
WILLIAMS: After seizing power 35 years ago, the flamboyant Colonel abolished shops and government and ruled Libya with an idiosyncratic iron first.
It was meant to be a revolution for the people – but Seif admits mistakes were made.
SEIF GADDAFI: Sometimes in order to pursue that moral principle sometimes you adopt the wrong way, the wrong tool.
WILLIAMS: Is that what he did?
SEIF GADDAFI: Sometimes, sometimes yes, sometimes not. We’re not perfect, we’re not perfect and we are human beings, we do mistakes.
MusicWILLIAMS: But many of Gaddafi’s so-called mistakes have been deliberate and deadly.
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ASHUR SHAMIS: There are people in Libya, we know them by name, who have been associated with killing, repression, torture in the prisons.
Their hands are dripping with blood and now they are ministers in the government … they are heading the people’s courts for instance … they are in charge of the people’s prosecution, they are in the judicial system, they are in the business sector … these are the people who are taking over these companies and running them. So how can you convince anybody that things have changed – they haven’t!!
In exile in London for thirty years, Ashur Shamis is one of Libya’s leading dissidents. Inside Libya people are too afraid to criticise Gaddafi and his cronies.
ASHUR SHAMIS: There is a deliberate effort from Gaddafi and
his supporters and his cronies to keep things as they were before and to make these cosmetic changes, outward changes only to please the outside world and not to bring about real change.
WILLIAMS: One thing that certainly hasn’t changed is the privilege afforded Gaddafi’s family.
As part of his grooming for leadership, Seif Gaddafi spends most of his time studying governance at the London School of Economics. But when visiting Libya, Seif stays at one of the family houses where he keeps pet tigers – given to him as cubs by an Italian friend.
SEIF GADDAFI: He is shy.
WILLIAMS: He is very shy. Why do you like tigers?
SEIF GADDAFI: Power, they are agile, clever.
WILLIAMS: The type of skills Gaddafi senior has used to stay in power.
At 31, Seif is most likely to succeed his father – but he says economic change does not mean Gaddafi is weakening his grip on political power.
He is a personality which you cannot replace, you cannot inherit, you cannot change .
SEIF GADDAFI: He’s the leader, nobody can hurt the leader, nobody can say now I’m the leader, neither me nor anybody in Libyan society, it’ something unique specially just for him.
WILLIAMS: So he can stay there basically as long as he likes?
SEIF GADDAFI: Yes.
ASHUR SHAMIS: The very name Gaddafi has become a stigma in Libya and anybody who comes with the same name is going to have real trouble. But there are people who think that the best thing that they can hope for is that somebody from the ruling family take over, but with the old ideas.
What Seif has to do I think, is he has to prove himself to the Libyan people. He has to establish credibility between him and the people inside the country and this can only be done by engaging the people directly.
Also spending much time outside Libya – this time in Italy - is another of Colonel Gaddafi’s favourite sons, 30-year-old Saadi.
Signed to play with Italian team Perugia, he was banned after testing positive for steroids.
But Saadi’s got other things on his mind - he’s spent millions buying up Italian football teams and hotels for Libya’s state investment body and hopes his father’s policy backflip will breathe business back into Libya.
SAADI GADDAFI: This is very important for us, this moment because you know the last decision made by my father for me it was very strategic decision you know for our life as Libyans, for our economy, our future, development, everything, it is very strategic.
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WILLIAMS: Gaddafi’s main strategy has been to retain power…
and in Tripoli’s commercial arts street, dictatorship is good business.
A steady stream of Gaddafi images are churned out of here - all part of the carefully crafted cult of personality -
built on Gaddafi’s guiding principles contained in his Green Book.
Printed in many languages, The Green Book dismisses democracy as a dictatorship of the majority.
SEIF GADDAFI: We have our own form of democracy,
the real thing is to have the real popular participation in the decision-making mechanism and to give people, not a voice but, not a vote but to be part of the decision-making mechanism.
WILLIAMS: Libyans don’t have the vote… instead they’re ruled by layers of people’s committees…a shambolic system simply used to rubber stamp Gaddafi’s dictatorship.
Gaddafi’s vision does of course have its believers.Attending a writer’s award ceremony, one of Libya’s leading literary figures, Dr Ali Khusain knows the limits of what you can and can’t say.
PROF. ALI KHUSAIN: Of course there is censorship, anything which opposes the main pillars or rules of our revolution, of course are not allowed to be read or to be published or read.
WILLIAMS: People’s committees and their decisions can be criticised he says, but not the Colonel.
Why after 35 years in power should Colonel Gaddafi stay as leader?
PROF. ALI KHUSAIN: Ah this question always be asked all the time .. why, because he’s a leader.
WILLIAMS: Libyans are quite happy for him to stay?
PROF. ALI KHUSAIN: Why not?
WILLIAMS: Why?
PROF. ALI KHUSAIN: What’s wrong with that? You would like to have a bloody coup d’estate in Libya for example?
WILLIAMS: Maybe some people want an election, that’s all?
PROF. ALI KHUSAIN: Election? Well, we’re not following the Western system of democracy, we have our own democracy, which is called direct democracy. So when while I’m having my own democracy, so why everybody insists we have Western democracy all the time? We have our own democracy, we’ll follow it.
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WILLIAMS: One reason people might want change is the way Libya is run.Gaddafi’s tribal clique controls business, corruption is rife, and educated outward looking people have been trapped in a society of fear.
This is a country where it’s illegal to form political parties, where the government runs the media and where freedom of speech is forbidden. Some political prisoners have recently been released but people still risk severe jail terms for criticising Colonel Gaddafi or his regime.
All of our meetings have been accessible only through the government, so perhaps not surprisingly their views are positive . Privately though many people are angry that an arbitrary corrupt and unaccountable dictatorship has crippled what should be a rich country.
ASHUR SHAMIS: We are talking of at least 25 years of direct repression. You are told where to live, who to marry, where to study, what to study…the regime has taken over people’s lives.
WILLIAMS: The regime’s insidious control even tells people what to say.
YOUNG LIBYAN MAN: Muammar Gaddafi is very good.
OLDER LIBYAN MAN: There is no more gloominess - we are open to the world. And we have the right to extend our hands to the world.
MIDDLE AGED LIBYAN MAN: We like Gaddafi very much, and support him greatly. We are given freedom and we are progressing
YOUNG LIBYAN MAN: We love him because we live in peace with him and everything is perfect … 100 percent.
WILLIAMS: Their responses are hardly surprising.
GEORGE JOFFE: I think one of the biggest characteristics for Libyans is the uncertainty of life. You can never know what the state may do. It is completely arbitrary.
WILLIAMS: From London, George Joffe is one of the world’s leading Libya watchers.
GEORGE JOFFE: You may quite innocently do something and find yourself up in front of a revolutionary committee.
You may be thrown in to prison for no apparent reason, you may be then lost in effect for years.
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WILLIAMS: Over the years, hundreds of political prisoners were held here at Bu-Saleem prison. Just taking a photograph of these walls can lead to a prison term but Seif insists Libyans are no longer jailed for their thoughts.
SEIF GADDAFI: We were in conflict with the superpowers, we were in conflict with our neighbours and we had many conspiracies against us, and we were at war.
It was a different story, it was an emergency case but now we have a different picture and now our record regarding human rights is extremely, extremely and totally different than we had 20 years ago.
Despite Seif’s assurances, criticising the Colonel inside Libya is still dangerous. In a meeting like this, though not in the presence of Gaddafi, Dr Fathi al-Jahmi called for democracy … he was then jailed for 18 months.
Soon after being freed, he gave this interview to a US-funded Arabic channel, Al-Hurra.
DR FATHI AL-JAHMI: I criticise the regime as a whole as ineffective.
WILLIAMS: Libyans were dumbfounded to hear public criticism of Gaddafi from inside the country.
DR FATHI AL-JAHMI: Gaddafi is the absolute ruler. All that’s left for him to do is hand us a prayer carpet and ask us to bow before his picture and worship him. He is a dictator who doesn’t know any better.
WILLIAMS: Our requests to meet Dr Fathi were denied - he was placed under house arrest.
MALE VOICE: This man is not an advocator for human rights, he just wants to make troubles because he has his own problems.
WILLIAMS: If it’s going to be an open system, can’t the system deal with criticism?
SEIF GADDAFI: I think we are a democratic state. Why? Because he criticised the leader and the state and he’s still in his house and the Libyan police are protecting him.
WILLIAMS: With his most vocal critic safely protected by Libyan police - Colonel Gaddafi was invited to the European Union headquarters in Brussels.
Amnesty used Gaddafi’s coming out party to issue a new report.
It says during his rule hundreds of political prisoners have disappeared. Relatives don’t know if they’re alive or dead and fearing retribution, they’re too scared to ask…even though some prisoners have been freed.
ASHUR SHAMIS: This is something that they should have done a long, long time ago and something that was wrong.In fact they should be questioned about this, there be an investigation. There must be some people who should take responsibility for this injustice that’s been done to hundreds of Libyans, maybe thousands.
WILLIAMS: Gaddafi’s reign of terror has not just targeted Libyans. For three decades Tripoli was terror central …
as self-appointed leader of Arab nationalism, Gaddafi fermented trouble across Africa and the Middle East.
Libya hosted terror training camps and funded Palestinian fighters, the IRA and even the Abu Sayaf in the Philippines…a history they’re proud of.
SEIF GADDAFI: We supported the freedom movements in Africa but now they’re in power, therefore there is no need to support them again because now they are in power.
WILLIAMS: In a series of attacks, Libya targeted Western interests with deadly precision.In the eighties it bombed a Berlin nightclub killing a US serviceman. For the US it was the last straw.
GEORGE JOFFE: At that point, American attitudes changed very radically indeed and Libya became in itself a target of hostility.
WILLIAMS: In 1986, Washington sent its bombers to Tripoli.
Then Libyan agents were involved in the bombing of Pan-Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland – killing 270 people.
More people were killed when a French airliner was brought down.
In London British police office Yvonne Fletcher was shot from within the Libyan embassy during a protest.She died soon after….Libyan dissidents in places like London were equally at risk.
ASHUR SHAMIS: It was Gaddafi himself who announced the
launching of the so-called liquidation campaigns, physical liquidation campaigns of opponents of the regime and enemies of the revolution.
Gaddafi openly called for the killing of everybody who’s opposed to the revolution from their point of view even if they go to the North Pole he said.
It was at this time the US banned American companies from doing business in Libya until the Gaddafi regime admitted responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing and compensated relatives of the dead.
As those sanctions bit and his socialism failed, Gaddafi was caught.
GEORGE JOFFE: There was a very genuine threat and the United States would be prepared in the end to intervene, if it felt that Colonel Gaddafi was a real danger and that Libya was far too weak to resist such a threat, unlike say Iraq or Iran, Libya was really very vulnerable and that he knew from 1987 onwards.
WILLIAMS: As part of his re-engagement with the U.S. and Britain - Gaddafi finally agreed to pay 10 million U.S. dollars compensation to each family of the Lockerbie dead.
But senior Libyans insist paying off the west with blood money does not admit guilt – it was simply to buy the peace.
SIEF GADDAFI: Officially we accept responsibility,
but still a lot of people here in Libya like me or even in the United Kingdom like some of those families of the victims and even in the States, they still believe that we are innocent and we have nothing to do with Lockerbie. And one day the people will realise the real criminal.
WILLIAMS: Who is the real criminal?
SEIF GADDAFI: I don’t know.
WILLIAMS: Soon after the US invasion of Iraq supposedly in search of weapons of mass destruction – Libya owned up to its own program.
It had some chemical stockpiles and plans for a nuclear bomb.
GEORGE JOFFE: They did have detailed knowledge of how they could actually create an atomic bomb, but it doesn’t appear that they actually had the real materials to do it.
WILLIAMS: Then U.S. agents found a boatload of nuclear centrifuges heading for Libya.
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GEORGE JOFFE: It is believed that actually the Libyans told them the ship was on the way and therefore one is left with the uncomfortable feeling that perhaps this latest stage of a nuclear program was set up with the express object of being discovered, because Libya knew once the program was discovered and disclaimed, then of course the Americans could have no more grounds to accuse it of being involved in weapons of mass destruction programs and that would aid the process of re-establishing diplomatic relations.
For Washington and London, Libya’s WMD surrender was a badly needed win…but what of the West’s commitment to democracy and freedoms in the Middle East… well Gaddafi it seems doesn’t have to worry about it.
SEIF GADDAFI: We negotiated with the Americans a deal on WMD
issues and what we are going to take out of it for Libyan society. We have never ever discussed with them whether they are going to topple the regime or not. First of all, nobody discussed this with them, and number two, it’s not in their interest because their interest was WMD. That’s it.
ASHUR SHAMIS: People feel that he’s not paying attention to the suffering of the Libyan people themselves, like we said, the people who have died, people who’ve disappeared without trace.
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WILLIAMS: So why are the Americans and Europeans so eager to paper over the past and once again greet Gaddafi as their friend?
GEORGE JOFFE: Well there’s a very simple answer to that and it’s called oil.
Libya happens to be a very attractive oil province, in fact one of the most attractive oil provinces in the world, in terms of location of resources and the cheapness of producing them. American oil companies have been kept out of Libya since 1986. They very much want to go back.
WILLIAMS: In fact Libya has the eighth largest known oil reserves in the world, earning it $12 billion U.S. dollars a year.The end of U.S. sanctions should quickly treble that … oilmen believe there’s much more to find.
But Gaddafi’s new partners should remember, access is due to one thing.
GEORGE JOFFE: Colonel Gaddafi in the end is a survivor. That’s the fundamental concern that he has, to keep his regime in being, and keep himself in the position that he’s in. And he came to the conclusion many years ago that to achieve that, he would have to change his policies.
WILLIAMS: This – the biggest new gas plant in the world will funnel oil and natural gas to Italy…but others are here – including Australians. Michael Hession represents Australia’s Woodside Petroleum.
Today’s party is to celebrate a concession to extract fuel and sell it to Europe…Libya’s oil promise is enormous.
MICHAEL HESSION: We think if the thing comes off and we make some major discoveries, we could be looking at a net present value of hundreds of millions to billions of dollars of value.
WILLIAMS: What’s the biggest dilemma for you in dealing with the government that’s still here?MICHAEL HESSION: It’s not really a dilemma, I mean we as a company believe in positive engagement.
The people in power in this country have realised the benefits of being economically with the outside world, the people want that, we’re gradually being brought closer and closer together.
WILLIAMS: Engaging with the world means forgoing conflict – especially with the United States.
At Tripoli’s leading school, a mural reminds students of the U.S. air attack that killed Gaddafi’s adopted daughter.
Yet in class, young Libyans are already preparing for a new future of friendship with the West, among them 14 year old Sarah.
SARAH: Everyone likes America, everyone likes American people, because it’s nothing to do with the people, it’s to do with the presidents themselves. So we like the American people, we always welcome them in our country as well as we do the English and any other culture.
WILLIAMS: But Libya’s young are still subject to the old ideology.
Their exercises punctuated with chants of Gaddafi’s most recent revolutionary campaign– African unity.
STUDENTS: Africa… Africa… Africa! Africa is the biggest!WILLIAMS: Western investment promises a brighter economic future for many – but no-one’s sure what system will best manage market reforms.
So no change to political system that runs Libya?
SEIF GADDAFI: In theory it’s not bad. I accept it, I like it, it’s fantastic for us, for a country like Libya, but how to deepen our democracy, how to make it more effective, how to make it real democracy.
WILLIAMS: There is a change at the moment, isn't there?PROF.
ALI KHUSAIN: Why do you insist it is a change. It is a development you can say, this is the word, ‘development’ not ‘change’.
WILLIAMS: Not change?
PROF. ALI KHUSAIN: No, no, no. We are keeping our own system of democracy, we are keeping our own way of running our own society, and being open – that doesn’t mean we have changed.
WILLIAMS: A star to some – Gaddafi’s younger son Saadi is seen by critics as profligate, wasting state funds on personal obsessions…but living in Italy has perhaps shown him other ways of running a country.
Do you think democracy needs to come to Libya?
SAADI GADDAFI: Yeah democracy is the solution a good solution yeah.
WILLIAMS: Democracy as in Western style democracy?SAADI GADDAFI: Yeah, yeah, yes this gives a chance for everybody to play a role and help the country.
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WILLIAMS: Back home and the Libyan team owned by Saadi is playing a Tripoli rival.Music
WILLIAMS: Soccer – once banned by Colonel Gaddafi – is one of the few avenues of release for young Libyans … and it shows …
Many celebrate their nation’s re-engagement with the world … and as it happens, Saadi’s team wins – as it often does.
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WILLIAMS: But Libyans face an uncertain future.
Gaddafi could change tack again … or the old guard could simply resist.
Where do you see the big resistance in Libya to these changes?
Is there any resistance?
SAADI GADDAFI: You know, for me I think the resistance against our future, our development, it’s the old people staying there in the head of the state.
WILLIAMS: In government positions?
SAADI GADDAFI: The government, yeah. We should bring in new blood from the young generation
WILLIAMS: How do you do that?
SAADI GADDFI: My father will do that..
WILLIAMS: But to some his father is the problem.The Colonel wants the excesses of his cruel rule forgotten … but he might not get away quite so easily.
Many still silent Libyans might seek justice.
ASHUR SHAMIS: Most Libyans who have suffered
either economically or in human rights terms, have lost dear ones or peoples’ lives were destroyed, they blame Gaddafi personally.
WILLIAMS: In the rush for Libya’s black gold, we’re told Gaddafi will change himself – but there’s been little talk from the West about democracy for Libyans.
Does there need to be political change in Libya to match the economic reforms that you’re now doing? And if so, what sort of changes can we see?
SHUKRI GHANEM: Well I mean we are … what you mean by political change … well what’s happening now … we are concentrating basically on our economic development and this is my main interest.
ASHUR SHAMIS: My fear of the immediate future is that Gaddafi will become re-entrenched again in the country
and he will go back to the old methods. I wouldn’t discount that one bit, especially against Libyans, he will become more repressive, he will become more autocratic because he feels that he has nobody to account to and he that doesn’t have to justify his actions to the West.
WILLIAMS: We are told the accommodation with Gaddafi will improve Western security by removing a threat … yet that security might still be undermined by propping up yet another Arab dictatorship.
Reporter: Evan Williams
Camera: Geoffrey Lye
Editor: Simon Brynjolffssen
Producer: Mary Ann Jolley
On the shores of the Mediterranean, the Roman remains of Leptus Magna should be crawling with tourists.
But for decades Libya has been a no-go zone … years of bank rolling terrorists and liberation movements have left the country isolated…its economy in ruins.Now Libya is changing – surrendering weapons of mass destruction … including plans for a nuclear bomb.
For decades an enemy of the west, Libya is now desperately trying to rejoin the rest of the world and is using its vast oil reserves to woo back former foes, especially the United States.
The question is why now? Well years of funding terror against the west and wars of destabilisation across this region have squandered Libya’s oil wealth leaving it isolated and many Libyans poor.
Caught between a more aggressive United States and perhaps more importantly the growing anger of his own people, Libya’s leader Muammar Gaddafi had to act.
Meeting Gaddafi right now is impossible - but we did get the next best thing.
The Colonel’s most influential son and heir apparent, Seif Gaddafi is well placed to reveal Libya’s new strategy.
SEIF GADDAFI: No more foreign battles, no more confrontation with the West, no more confrontation with the United States.
WILLIAMS: But make no mistake, this change of heart is about one thing - the survival of Gaddafi’s dictatorship - and he’s about to use western petrodollars to do it.
Ancient beats for a new beginning…or at least that’s what the Libyans would like us to think.The Tripoli international trade fair has until now been a contradiction … there’s been little trade.This year though the number of stalls has doubled. Forty countries have rushed to do business in this former pariah state.
Gaddafi’s hoping he can keep a new market economy somehow in tune with his mercurial one-man rule…and he’s called in some help.
Shukri Ghanem spent years outside Libya as a respected official at OPEC.
Welcome to all visitors to the Tripoli International Fair.
He was recently recalled by Gaddafi, made Prime Minister and told to revitalise an economy strangled by socialism.
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SHUKRI GHANEM: Well he supports it, and he agrees to it and he is of course behind it.
You see our economic reforms are aimed at as I said improving the standard of living of the people, improving the rate of growth of the economy and everyone would like it, of course Gaddafi would likes it.
WILLIAMS: But has the mad dog of the middle east as he was once called, really changed his bark?
Seif Gaddafi says yes – that his father was eventually convinced that policies of terror and socialism were crippling the country.
SEIF GADDAFI: At the beginning of course it wasn’t easy but he realised that it is in our favour, and our advantage for him, for Libyan society, Libyan people, Libyan state, for the future of the next generation and I think all of us agreed that Libya should adopt several reforms, internally and externally.
WILLIAMS: After seizing power 35 years ago, the flamboyant Colonel abolished shops and government and ruled Libya with an idiosyncratic iron first.
It was meant to be a revolution for the people – but Seif admits mistakes were made.
SEIF GADDAFI: Sometimes in order to pursue that moral principle sometimes you adopt the wrong way, the wrong tool.
WILLIAMS: Is that what he did?
SEIF GADDAFI: Sometimes, sometimes yes, sometimes not. We’re not perfect, we’re not perfect and we are human beings, we do mistakes.
MusicWILLIAMS: But many of Gaddafi’s so-called mistakes have been deliberate and deadly.
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ASHUR SHAMIS: There are people in Libya, we know them by name, who have been associated with killing, repression, torture in the prisons.
Their hands are dripping with blood and now they are ministers in the government … they are heading the people’s courts for instance … they are in charge of the people’s prosecution, they are in the judicial system, they are in the business sector … these are the people who are taking over these companies and running them. So how can you convince anybody that things have changed – they haven’t!!
In exile in London for thirty years, Ashur Shamis is one of Libya’s leading dissidents. Inside Libya people are too afraid to criticise Gaddafi and his cronies.
ASHUR SHAMIS: There is a deliberate effort from Gaddafi and
his supporters and his cronies to keep things as they were before and to make these cosmetic changes, outward changes only to please the outside world and not to bring about real change.
WILLIAMS: One thing that certainly hasn’t changed is the privilege afforded Gaddafi’s family.
As part of his grooming for leadership, Seif Gaddafi spends most of his time studying governance at the London School of Economics. But when visiting Libya, Seif stays at one of the family houses where he keeps pet tigers – given to him as cubs by an Italian friend.
SEIF GADDAFI: He is shy.
WILLIAMS: He is very shy. Why do you like tigers?
SEIF GADDAFI: Power, they are agile, clever.
WILLIAMS: The type of skills Gaddafi senior has used to stay in power.
At 31, Seif is most likely to succeed his father – but he says economic change does not mean Gaddafi is weakening his grip on political power.
He is a personality which you cannot replace, you cannot inherit, you cannot change .
SEIF GADDAFI: He’s the leader, nobody can hurt the leader, nobody can say now I’m the leader, neither me nor anybody in Libyan society, it’ something unique specially just for him.
WILLIAMS: So he can stay there basically as long as he likes?
SEIF GADDAFI: Yes.
ASHUR SHAMIS: The very name Gaddafi has become a stigma in Libya and anybody who comes with the same name is going to have real trouble. But there are people who think that the best thing that they can hope for is that somebody from the ruling family take over, but with the old ideas.
What Seif has to do I think, is he has to prove himself to the Libyan people. He has to establish credibility between him and the people inside the country and this can only be done by engaging the people directly.
Also spending much time outside Libya – this time in Italy - is another of Colonel Gaddafi’s favourite sons, 30-year-old Saadi.
Signed to play with Italian team Perugia, he was banned after testing positive for steroids.
But Saadi’s got other things on his mind - he’s spent millions buying up Italian football teams and hotels for Libya’s state investment body and hopes his father’s policy backflip will breathe business back into Libya.
SAADI GADDAFI: This is very important for us, this moment because you know the last decision made by my father for me it was very strategic decision you know for our life as Libyans, for our economy, our future, development, everything, it is very strategic.
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WILLIAMS: Gaddafi’s main strategy has been to retain power…
and in Tripoli’s commercial arts street, dictatorship is good business.
A steady stream of Gaddafi images are churned out of here - all part of the carefully crafted cult of personality -
built on Gaddafi’s guiding principles contained in his Green Book.
Printed in many languages, The Green Book dismisses democracy as a dictatorship of the majority.
SEIF GADDAFI: We have our own form of democracy,
the real thing is to have the real popular participation in the decision-making mechanism and to give people, not a voice but, not a vote but to be part of the decision-making mechanism.
WILLIAMS: Libyans don’t have the vote… instead they’re ruled by layers of people’s committees…a shambolic system simply used to rubber stamp Gaddafi’s dictatorship.
Gaddafi’s vision does of course have its believers.Attending a writer’s award ceremony, one of Libya’s leading literary figures, Dr Ali Khusain knows the limits of what you can and can’t say.
PROF. ALI KHUSAIN: Of course there is censorship, anything which opposes the main pillars or rules of our revolution, of course are not allowed to be read or to be published or read.
WILLIAMS: People’s committees and their decisions can be criticised he says, but not the Colonel.
Why after 35 years in power should Colonel Gaddafi stay as leader?
PROF. ALI KHUSAIN: Ah this question always be asked all the time .. why, because he’s a leader.
WILLIAMS: Libyans are quite happy for him to stay?
PROF. ALI KHUSAIN: Why not?
WILLIAMS: Why?
PROF. ALI KHUSAIN: What’s wrong with that? You would like to have a bloody coup d’estate in Libya for example?
WILLIAMS: Maybe some people want an election, that’s all?
PROF. ALI KHUSAIN: Election? Well, we’re not following the Western system of democracy, we have our own democracy, which is called direct democracy. So when while I’m having my own democracy, so why everybody insists we have Western democracy all the time? We have our own democracy, we’ll follow it.
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WILLIAMS: One reason people might want change is the way Libya is run.Gaddafi’s tribal clique controls business, corruption is rife, and educated outward looking people have been trapped in a society of fear.
This is a country where it’s illegal to form political parties, where the government runs the media and where freedom of speech is forbidden. Some political prisoners have recently been released but people still risk severe jail terms for criticising Colonel Gaddafi or his regime.
All of our meetings have been accessible only through the government, so perhaps not surprisingly their views are positive . Privately though many people are angry that an arbitrary corrupt and unaccountable dictatorship has crippled what should be a rich country.
ASHUR SHAMIS: We are talking of at least 25 years of direct repression. You are told where to live, who to marry, where to study, what to study…the regime has taken over people’s lives.
WILLIAMS: The regime’s insidious control even tells people what to say.
YOUNG LIBYAN MAN: Muammar Gaddafi is very good.
OLDER LIBYAN MAN: There is no more gloominess - we are open to the world. And we have the right to extend our hands to the world.
MIDDLE AGED LIBYAN MAN: We like Gaddafi very much, and support him greatly. We are given freedom and we are progressing
YOUNG LIBYAN MAN: We love him because we live in peace with him and everything is perfect … 100 percent.
WILLIAMS: Their responses are hardly surprising.
GEORGE JOFFE: I think one of the biggest characteristics for Libyans is the uncertainty of life. You can never know what the state may do. It is completely arbitrary.
WILLIAMS: From London, George Joffe is one of the world’s leading Libya watchers.
GEORGE JOFFE: You may quite innocently do something and find yourself up in front of a revolutionary committee.
You may be thrown in to prison for no apparent reason, you may be then lost in effect for years.
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WILLIAMS: Over the years, hundreds of political prisoners were held here at Bu-Saleem prison. Just taking a photograph of these walls can lead to a prison term but Seif insists Libyans are no longer jailed for their thoughts.
SEIF GADDAFI: We were in conflict with the superpowers, we were in conflict with our neighbours and we had many conspiracies against us, and we were at war.
It was a different story, it was an emergency case but now we have a different picture and now our record regarding human rights is extremely, extremely and totally different than we had 20 years ago.
Despite Seif’s assurances, criticising the Colonel inside Libya is still dangerous. In a meeting like this, though not in the presence of Gaddafi, Dr Fathi al-Jahmi called for democracy … he was then jailed for 18 months.
Soon after being freed, he gave this interview to a US-funded Arabic channel, Al-Hurra.
DR FATHI AL-JAHMI: I criticise the regime as a whole as ineffective.
WILLIAMS: Libyans were dumbfounded to hear public criticism of Gaddafi from inside the country.
DR FATHI AL-JAHMI: Gaddafi is the absolute ruler. All that’s left for him to do is hand us a prayer carpet and ask us to bow before his picture and worship him. He is a dictator who doesn’t know any better.
WILLIAMS: Our requests to meet Dr Fathi were denied - he was placed under house arrest.
MALE VOICE: This man is not an advocator for human rights, he just wants to make troubles because he has his own problems.
WILLIAMS: If it’s going to be an open system, can’t the system deal with criticism?
SEIF GADDAFI: I think we are a democratic state. Why? Because he criticised the leader and the state and he’s still in his house and the Libyan police are protecting him.
WILLIAMS: With his most vocal critic safely protected by Libyan police - Colonel Gaddafi was invited to the European Union headquarters in Brussels.
Amnesty used Gaddafi’s coming out party to issue a new report.
It says during his rule hundreds of political prisoners have disappeared. Relatives don’t know if they’re alive or dead and fearing retribution, they’re too scared to ask…even though some prisoners have been freed.
ASHUR SHAMIS: This is something that they should have done a long, long time ago and something that was wrong.In fact they should be questioned about this, there be an investigation. There must be some people who should take responsibility for this injustice that’s been done to hundreds of Libyans, maybe thousands.
WILLIAMS: Gaddafi’s reign of terror has not just targeted Libyans. For three decades Tripoli was terror central …
as self-appointed leader of Arab nationalism, Gaddafi fermented trouble across Africa and the Middle East.
Libya hosted terror training camps and funded Palestinian fighters, the IRA and even the Abu Sayaf in the Philippines…a history they’re proud of.
SEIF GADDAFI: We supported the freedom movements in Africa but now they’re in power, therefore there is no need to support them again because now they are in power.
WILLIAMS: In a series of attacks, Libya targeted Western interests with deadly precision.In the eighties it bombed a Berlin nightclub killing a US serviceman. For the US it was the last straw.
GEORGE JOFFE: At that point, American attitudes changed very radically indeed and Libya became in itself a target of hostility.
WILLIAMS: In 1986, Washington sent its bombers to Tripoli.
Then Libyan agents were involved in the bombing of Pan-Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland – killing 270 people.
More people were killed when a French airliner was brought down.
In London British police office Yvonne Fletcher was shot from within the Libyan embassy during a protest.She died soon after….Libyan dissidents in places like London were equally at risk.
ASHUR SHAMIS: It was Gaddafi himself who announced the
launching of the so-called liquidation campaigns, physical liquidation campaigns of opponents of the regime and enemies of the revolution.
Gaddafi openly called for the killing of everybody who’s opposed to the revolution from their point of view even if they go to the North Pole he said.
It was at this time the US banned American companies from doing business in Libya until the Gaddafi regime admitted responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing and compensated relatives of the dead.
As those sanctions bit and his socialism failed, Gaddafi was caught.
GEORGE JOFFE: There was a very genuine threat and the United States would be prepared in the end to intervene, if it felt that Colonel Gaddafi was a real danger and that Libya was far too weak to resist such a threat, unlike say Iraq or Iran, Libya was really very vulnerable and that he knew from 1987 onwards.
WILLIAMS: As part of his re-engagement with the U.S. and Britain - Gaddafi finally agreed to pay 10 million U.S. dollars compensation to each family of the Lockerbie dead.
But senior Libyans insist paying off the west with blood money does not admit guilt – it was simply to buy the peace.
SIEF GADDAFI: Officially we accept responsibility,
but still a lot of people here in Libya like me or even in the United Kingdom like some of those families of the victims and even in the States, they still believe that we are innocent and we have nothing to do with Lockerbie. And one day the people will realise the real criminal.
WILLIAMS: Who is the real criminal?
SEIF GADDAFI: I don’t know.
WILLIAMS: Soon after the US invasion of Iraq supposedly in search of weapons of mass destruction – Libya owned up to its own program.
It had some chemical stockpiles and plans for a nuclear bomb.
GEORGE JOFFE: They did have detailed knowledge of how they could actually create an atomic bomb, but it doesn’t appear that they actually had the real materials to do it.
WILLIAMS: Then U.S. agents found a boatload of nuclear centrifuges heading for Libya.
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GEORGE JOFFE: It is believed that actually the Libyans told them the ship was on the way and therefore one is left with the uncomfortable feeling that perhaps this latest stage of a nuclear program was set up with the express object of being discovered, because Libya knew once the program was discovered and disclaimed, then of course the Americans could have no more grounds to accuse it of being involved in weapons of mass destruction programs and that would aid the process of re-establishing diplomatic relations.
For Washington and London, Libya’s WMD surrender was a badly needed win…but what of the West’s commitment to democracy and freedoms in the Middle East… well Gaddafi it seems doesn’t have to worry about it.
SEIF GADDAFI: We negotiated with the Americans a deal on WMD
issues and what we are going to take out of it for Libyan society. We have never ever discussed with them whether they are going to topple the regime or not. First of all, nobody discussed this with them, and number two, it’s not in their interest because their interest was WMD. That’s it.
ASHUR SHAMIS: People feel that he’s not paying attention to the suffering of the Libyan people themselves, like we said, the people who have died, people who’ve disappeared without trace.
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WILLIAMS: So why are the Americans and Europeans so eager to paper over the past and once again greet Gaddafi as their friend?
GEORGE JOFFE: Well there’s a very simple answer to that and it’s called oil.
Libya happens to be a very attractive oil province, in fact one of the most attractive oil provinces in the world, in terms of location of resources and the cheapness of producing them. American oil companies have been kept out of Libya since 1986. They very much want to go back.
WILLIAMS: In fact Libya has the eighth largest known oil reserves in the world, earning it $12 billion U.S. dollars a year.The end of U.S. sanctions should quickly treble that … oilmen believe there’s much more to find.
But Gaddafi’s new partners should remember, access is due to one thing.
GEORGE JOFFE: Colonel Gaddafi in the end is a survivor. That’s the fundamental concern that he has, to keep his regime in being, and keep himself in the position that he’s in. And he came to the conclusion many years ago that to achieve that, he would have to change his policies.
WILLIAMS: This – the biggest new gas plant in the world will funnel oil and natural gas to Italy…but others are here – including Australians. Michael Hession represents Australia’s Woodside Petroleum.
Today’s party is to celebrate a concession to extract fuel and sell it to Europe…Libya’s oil promise is enormous.
MICHAEL HESSION: We think if the thing comes off and we make some major discoveries, we could be looking at a net present value of hundreds of millions to billions of dollars of value.
WILLIAMS: What’s the biggest dilemma for you in dealing with the government that’s still here?MICHAEL HESSION: It’s not really a dilemma, I mean we as a company believe in positive engagement.
The people in power in this country have realised the benefits of being economically with the outside world, the people want that, we’re gradually being brought closer and closer together.
WILLIAMS: Engaging with the world means forgoing conflict – especially with the United States.
At Tripoli’s leading school, a mural reminds students of the U.S. air attack that killed Gaddafi’s adopted daughter.
Yet in class, young Libyans are already preparing for a new future of friendship with the West, among them 14 year old Sarah.
SARAH: Everyone likes America, everyone likes American people, because it’s nothing to do with the people, it’s to do with the presidents themselves. So we like the American people, we always welcome them in our country as well as we do the English and any other culture.
WILLIAMS: But Libya’s young are still subject to the old ideology.
Their exercises punctuated with chants of Gaddafi’s most recent revolutionary campaign– African unity.
STUDENTS: Africa… Africa… Africa! Africa is the biggest!WILLIAMS: Western investment promises a brighter economic future for many – but no-one’s sure what system will best manage market reforms.
So no change to political system that runs Libya?
SEIF GADDAFI: In theory it’s not bad. I accept it, I like it, it’s fantastic for us, for a country like Libya, but how to deepen our democracy, how to make it more effective, how to make it real democracy.
WILLIAMS: There is a change at the moment, isn't there?PROF.
ALI KHUSAIN: Why do you insist it is a change. It is a development you can say, this is the word, ‘development’ not ‘change’.
WILLIAMS: Not change?
PROF. ALI KHUSAIN: No, no, no. We are keeping our own system of democracy, we are keeping our own way of running our own society, and being open – that doesn’t mean we have changed.
WILLIAMS: A star to some – Gaddafi’s younger son Saadi is seen by critics as profligate, wasting state funds on personal obsessions…but living in Italy has perhaps shown him other ways of running a country.
Do you think democracy needs to come to Libya?
SAADI GADDAFI: Yeah democracy is the solution a good solution yeah.
WILLIAMS: Democracy as in Western style democracy?SAADI GADDAFI: Yeah, yeah, yes this gives a chance for everybody to play a role and help the country.
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WILLIAMS: Back home and the Libyan team owned by Saadi is playing a Tripoli rival.Music
WILLIAMS: Soccer – once banned by Colonel Gaddafi – is one of the few avenues of release for young Libyans … and it shows …
Many celebrate their nation’s re-engagement with the world … and as it happens, Saadi’s team wins – as it often does.
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WILLIAMS: But Libyans face an uncertain future.
Gaddafi could change tack again … or the old guard could simply resist.
Where do you see the big resistance in Libya to these changes?
Is there any resistance?
SAADI GADDAFI: You know, for me I think the resistance against our future, our development, it’s the old people staying there in the head of the state.
WILLIAMS: In government positions?
SAADI GADDAFI: The government, yeah. We should bring in new blood from the young generation
WILLIAMS: How do you do that?
SAADI GADDFI: My father will do that..
WILLIAMS: But to some his father is the problem.The Colonel wants the excesses of his cruel rule forgotten … but he might not get away quite so easily.
Many still silent Libyans might seek justice.
ASHUR SHAMIS: Most Libyans who have suffered
either economically or in human rights terms, have lost dear ones or peoples’ lives were destroyed, they blame Gaddafi personally.
WILLIAMS: In the rush for Libya’s black gold, we’re told Gaddafi will change himself – but there’s been little talk from the West about democracy for Libyans.
Does there need to be political change in Libya to match the economic reforms that you’re now doing? And if so, what sort of changes can we see?
SHUKRI GHANEM: Well I mean we are … what you mean by political change … well what’s happening now … we are concentrating basically on our economic development and this is my main interest.
ASHUR SHAMIS: My fear of the immediate future is that Gaddafi will become re-entrenched again in the country
and he will go back to the old methods. I wouldn’t discount that one bit, especially against Libyans, he will become more repressive, he will become more autocratic because he feels that he has nobody to account to and he that doesn’t have to justify his actions to the West.
WILLIAMS: We are told the accommodation with Gaddafi will improve Western security by removing a threat … yet that security might still be undermined by propping up yet another Arab dictatorship.
Reporter: Evan Williams
Camera: Geoffrey Lye
Editor: Simon Brynjolffssen
Producer: Mary Ann Jolley