The situation in the Jamahiriya is not good. The near future does not bode well.
Those coming from the Jamahiriya convey a bleak picture of the situation in the country at various levels, especially after many families in various regions of the country were officially informed of the death of their children and relatives in prison. And the people’s pain was increased by the way it was reported. It was mostly devoid of adequate and satisfactory information. There is no history, no cause of death, no body, no grave.
Receiving the notifications added a dark atmosphere of sadness and gloom to the country, from its east to its west to its south. Funerals and funerals are everywhere.
The economic crisis is getting worse. Despite the availability of goods in the markets and the cheap prices, the majority of citizens are unable to purchase them due to the lack of liquidity and the low purchasing power of the dinar.
Budgets adopted on paper and not spent. Late, delayed or canceled projects. Companies, factories and production establishments suffer from idleness and neglect. Salaries have not been paid for several months.
Hospitals and health centers are in dire straits. Public health services are almost non-existent. Treatment abroad is expensive and requires long and complex procedures.
Financial and administrative corruption is rampant in all state institutions. The oil sector companies – the only source of income – are threatened with financial and administrative collapse.
The Jamahiriya Security Authority is the one that oversees the promotion and distribution of hashish and drugs among young people, especially girls. It controls the quantity of supply according to the general situation in the country.
The poor is getting poorer and the rich is getting richer… and the gap between them is getting wider day by day.
Worse than all of that is the waning of hope for a way out of this suffocation and the absence of indications that things might improve under the current circumstances and conditions.
Sources inside the country confirm that the regime is on the verge of – as it did in 1988 – on prosthetic steps and short-sighted partial solutions to get out of this stifling crisis. This – according to those who know – is based on the mistaken belief that everything depends on solving Libya’s problems with the outside world.
At the forefront of the proposed solutions is the treatment of the “American file”.
It is no longer a secret that the regime has engaged in flirtations and negotiations – some of them “secret” – about the relationship between Libya and the United States. After September 11, it seemed that Colonel Gaddafi was ready to abandon all his previous constants in dealing with America – and in his foreign policy in general – to which he had been sticking for 30 years or more.
He abandoned his anti-American positions and slogans and opened the Libyan security and intelligence files to the Americans. He also opened his arms (and Libya’s treasury) to welcome the “peoples’ vampires” and their “exploited” companies to work and invest in Libya. We saw Libyan officials and diplomats begging American and European companies to go to work and invest there.
Those who know say that dealing with the American file goes on three axes: The
first axis: Chemical weapons and weapons of mass destruction. America continues to accuse Gaddafi’s Libya of possessing nuclear capabilities and the ability to produce weapons of mass destruction, and Libyan officials still deny this. Libya (after September 11) confirmed its readiness to ratify all international agreements in this regard. In this context, Colonel Gaddafi recently issued instructions to transform the suspicious association factory into a pharmaceutical factory within 3 months because he intends to open it for international inspection. With the same motive, he ordered the “cleaning” of other similar sites in Tarhuna and Tajoura.
The second axis:The deliberate neglect of Libyan oil companies by withholding budgets, draining their technical and administrative capabilities, and depriving them of maintenance and development operations. The goal is to create the atmosphere to provide a justification later for the entry of American companies to save them!! The oil industry in Libya is based on American technology, and converting it to other technologies is costly. These companies are currently suffering from administrative laxity and chaos, which makes many European dealers complain about the slowdown in signing and implementing contracts by the Libyans.
The third axis:Changing the tone of the Libyan political discourse towards the United States. Suddenly, the Jamahiriya came to America’s side in the fight against “terrorism” and revenge against “terrorists”, and condemned bin Laden, al-Qaeda organizations and Hamas. The Libyan security services volunteered sensitive intelligence information to the US administration about various organizations and personalities that had or still have relations with them in the Philippines, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Europe and others. The Jamahiriya also publicly rejected even the call to use the oil weapon to support the Palestinian intifada and confront the American support for Israel.
In the aftermath of September 11, the US administration responded – in part – by removing Libya from the list of countries supporting terrorism and not including it with the “axis of evil” countries announced by President Bush at the beginning of this year. But it has finally returned to continuing its pressure on Colonel Gaddafi by returning Libya to the list of “rogue states” and classifying it within the “axis of evil.”
The result – so far – of all these developments is summed up in the failure of Colonel Gaddafi’s plan – which assigned the task of implementing it to Musa Kusa, the external security official (who is affiliated with America) – which he adopted in the aftermath of September 11 to negotiate with the United States to settle the file of relations. The basis of this plan is for Libya to pay significant compensation to the families of the Lockerbie victims in exchange for full normalization and the return of diplomatic relations and American companies to work in Libya.
However, the dispute apparently focused on Libya’s direct recognition of responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing and the amount of financial compensation for the victims.
While we find Colonel Gaddafi ready to pay financial compensation in principle, we see him insisting not to admit responsibility for fear that the confession will turn into a sword wielded over him and his sons after him and a means to blackmail them for an indefinite period!!
The main reason for the accumulation of these economic, political and diplomatic crises is the set of improvised, tense, hostile – and sometimes reckless – policies, attitudes and practices that the regime has adopted since the late seventies. Exiting this impasse today will not be achieved by paying tens and thousands of millions of dollars in compensation here and there to purchase patent certificates or indulgences from America, France and Britain. It will not be achieved by simply giving the impression of abandoning the policies and practices of the past.
What is required is a clear and courageous stand in which Libyan officials face their mistakes, admit responsibility for them, and show their readiness to correct what can be corrected from them. Then they have to present the people directly involved in those abuses and violations to face the judiciary and bear the responsibility of their actions.
Since the regime is ready to reconcile with the outside world, is it not better for it to reconcile with the Libyans inside Libya? And if the blood of the Americans, the English, the French, and everyone who has a horse and a bear has a value, is the blood of Libyans not worth anything in the standards of officials in Libya? Or is the blood of foreigners more honorable, purer and more precious than the blood of the sons of the homeland?
Thirty-three years of experiences and changes.
When will this revolution be completed? When does the incitement and physical liquidations end? When does the role of the revolutionary committees and the stage of protecting the revolution end? When will all political prisoners be released and the fate of those who have disappeared or who have no news of them be revealed?
When does stabilization begin? When will the real work begin to build the state and its institutions, establish infrastructure, and set long-term plans and projects? When does building generations and establishing the future begin?
These are urgent questions and issues for the regime that need to be confronted and addressed with wisdom, realism, fairness and a lot of courage. The American file is not the only file that needs a settlement.
Reconciliation with America is not the only sure way out of the predicament experienced by Al-Aqeed’s Jamahiriya.