Libya in the New
LIBYA programme was relaunched thanks to the "people of Daewoo" (a South Korean public works enterprise). Previously, the dry climate only permitted the traditional system of oasis agriculture; now self-sufficiency was set as the objective, using up-to-date techniques. A policy of "key" fields* was followed by the irrigation of the Jaffara and Djebel Akhdar plains by
THE American attack on Tripoli and Benghazi in 1986, and the
1988 air raid in the "Gulf of Defiance", as the Libyan regime has called the Gulf of Syrta since then, were meant as warnings to a regime whose "unpredictability" had for a long time been an embarrassment to imperialism. Imperialism was particularly perturbed by Qadhafi's military build up and his support for various nationalist or anti-imperialist groups. The Reaganite assaults can now be seen to have prefigured the anti-Iraqi
In fact, however, the Libyan regime pursued a cautious line over the Gulf conflict (denouncing the annexation of Kuwait, offering mediation in the framework of an "Arab solution") to the extent that demonstrators in Southern Tunisia were to be heard chanting "Bush, Mitterrand, murderers; Gorbachev, Qadhafi, traitors!" At the same time the media of the neighboring countries did not spare their praise for "Qadhafi's return to reason."
LUIZA MARIA
NTIL 1980 Libya enjoyed pros-
U perity based on an exceptional oil income. This income was redistributed in a way unusual in a bourgeois state, aiming for egalitarianism based on a traditional culture. This ensured the regime a type of social cohesion called jamahiriyya 1 and social peace, baptized as "revolution". Another part of this income was directed towards supporting a variety of liberation movements, with a view to making these instru-
Libya's of
Libyan policy.
ments exhibitionist displays of aid were a way of putting pressure on imperialism.
The oil recession shook the Libyan edifice to its roots and resulted in the brutal expulsion in 1985 of the immigrant workers who had been attracted to the country during the boom of the 70s. There was a big disproportion between the oil income and locally available labour power; Libmoved traditionally cultivators, yans, massively into administration. The country called in 20,000 Koreans, 12,000
Thais and 8,000 Filipinos for public works; 50,000 Turks for public transport;
17,000 Pakistanis and 18,000 Indians for work on state farms, while Tunisians did most of the work in commerce and industry and Egyptians maintained national education and worked in administration.?
Monetary reserves fell from $13bn in
1980 to $500m in 1986. Money owed to foreign firms has gone up to 54bn and the
Soviet Union is owed some $5bn (according to the Journal de l'Economie africaine, no. 77).
The crisis forced the regime onto the road of economic and democratic reforms and a reorientation of its foreign policy. In the first phase, development and installation projects, as well as the volume of were cut back. Propaganda had exhorted the people to work, pressed small businesses and the land register since "the land does not belong to countries, the isolation of Libya, knew it could not rely on Arab solidarity given the reduction of the Arab share of Accords between Egypt and Israel, preaggressions, including an embargo on crude oil, an economic blockade, the freezing of Libyan assets in American and Italian banks, the Rabta affair and, alleg edly, bacteriological warfare. In 1990 alone, the red fly, which Qadhafi claims was introduced into Libya by the US, has been responsible for the deaths of 12 people and 12,000 sheep.
The regime found its room for manoeuvre reduced. Internally, the fall in oil revethe nue diversification of sources of income and the maintenance of social peace. There was the beginning of a relative economic liberalization, including the opening of the frontiers, free circulation of people and goods, the re-establishment of small businesses and a review of import policy.
Furthermore, an ambitious agricultural an artificial river which, by pumping up the available water table, was to double the country's cultivatable area, assure self-sufficiency and make Libya the region's leader in cereal production.
The status of "wage worker" was abolished and state enterprises, including farms and businesses, turned into cooperatives, although, of course, the "abolition of wage work" does not affect immigrant
However these undertakings turned out to be less rewarding than anticipated. The state coffers have remained empty, so that Libya has had to fall back on barter and make payments in oil. The agricultural benefits are still awaited, notably owing to the blockade on imports needed for carrying out the irrigation and the cost of the operation against the "red fly". Social discontent, temporarily damp ened down by the opening of well stocked shops, has begun to show itself, under the instigation of the clandestine opposition.
The Libyan "restructuring" is something rather different from the Algerian and Tunisian Intifitah (opening), however. Whereas in neighbouring countries, where fundamentalist pressure is strong, these policies have been imposed by strikes and riots, in Libya the fundamentalists do not present a danger to the
Prisons empty - then fill up
In 1988, Qadhafi himself took the initiative, announcing liberty; with great media fanfare, prisons were demolished; all foreign and hundreds of Libyan prisoners were freed; the hunting down of oppoabroad was curtailed, and their police files were destroyed in public;
the death penalty and special courts were abolished; as a part of a new "Green Charter of Human Rights" the "Qadhafi Peace
Prize" was created, Nelson Mandela being the 1989 recipient; and this year a very relaxation of control of the press was authorized.
1. Literally, the "Republic of the Masses". There are no political parties in Libya; a decision of the regime.
"The world will become a Jamahiriyya" prophesied
Oadhafi on French radio after the Gulf war.
2. 1984 figures.
3. The Pharma-150 factory at Rabta, presented by the
Libyan govemment as a pharmaceuticals plant, was used as a pretext for the American assault in 1988.
Reagan insisted that it was really a chemical weapons' factory.
4. In 1979, an agreement with the French SATEC company introduced irrigation through the tapping of
50.000 hectares. May 13, 1991 • #206 International Viewpoint
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World Order
LIBYA / KURDISTAN
The limits of this democratization quickly became clear. No sooner were the prisons emptied than they began to fill up again with thousands of oppositionists, for the most part Wahabite fundamentalists or supporters of the Party of the Islamic Revolution, who had been exploiting the discontent of the families of the 2,200 Libyan prisoners in Chad.
The difficulties in Libya are due to two external factors - the fall in oil prices and the cut in production intended to stem it, and imperialist policy, including the economic blockade and the bombings — but also to Libyan foreign policy, which country's resources in regional conflicts in Chad, Uganda and
Cutback in foreign commitments
After Oadhafi's defeat in Chad's Aozou Strip his Kuwait - at the hands of the International Court of Justice, reversals in Benin and Sierra Leone, he cut back on his foreign commitments. Freeing foreign trade also involved the suppression of the "artificial ports" at the frontier posts. Libya has joined the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU, which brings together Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, and Qadhafi has been its president since January this year. He has made peace with the "conquered one" of Camp David (Egypt)S, and offered a million jobs, to avoid the transfer of foreign currency and the indemnities due to immigrant workers expelled in 1985. He has played a role in the freeing of the Valente children held by the Abu Nidal groups, and, as a result of the Soviet retreat, was a part of the concert of Arab bourgeoisies (apart from Syria) which existed prior to the Gulf conflict.
Oadhafi has benefited from the latter event. On the one hand the rises in the oil price brought unexpected income, even if it was reduced by the American sanctions, which were re-imposed for the sixth year running in 1991. However as a result of this Libya has been unable to benefit from the increase in output decided on by the
Organization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries (OPEC) during the crisis.
On the other hand, his fundamentalist opponents have been embarrassed by their links with Saudi Arabia and were obliged to be discreet over the Gulf. Qadhafi took the opportunity to solidify national unity and organize carefully prepared monster demonstrations — including one of a million on January 21, 1991 (the population of Tripoli is one million). The slogans ranged from "the right of Kuwaitis to decide their own fate" to "Colonel, do not leave Saddam alone"
The region's masses, above all in Tunisia, tended to view Qadhafi's position as camouflage. Qadhafi had well understood the import of Washington's threats dis10 she confict, he wished to play a role in suading him from military involvement in International Viewpoint #206 • May 13, 1991 the AMU; and he had long-standing con-
For the past four years, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Iraq, with French agreement and the backing of the former president of Chad, Hissène Habré, had been involved armed destabilization operation against Libya. An armed force recruited among Libyan prisoners in Chad was trained. Iraqi participation is revenge for Libya's material support for Iran during the first Gulf War. Iraq delivered arms to Hissène Habré and took part in training these Libyan Contras.
Recently, however, the leader of the opposition to Hissène Habré, Idriss Deby, backed by Libya, came to power in Chad, this time with the blessing of France, which dreams of replacing an insolvent Irag with a newly respectable Libya as its
Deby was to send back the Libyan prisoners of war to Chad. But France and the United States, (in complete contravention of the Geneva Convention on prisoners of war), spirited them away from under the nose of the head of the Libyan secret services to Nigeria, Zaire and Kenya. This latter country was repaid for its cooperation by the cancellation of a $40.4m debt with the prospect of the cancellation of another $38 m debt in 1991.
Meanwhile, the Sudanese junta, also a client and ally of Qadhafi, has been denounced as pro-Iraqi by imperialism. The latter is applying economic pressures (at a time when there is the prospect of a terrible famine in that country which Egypt and Saudi Arabia are supporting, and funding the struggle of the People's Army for the Liberation of Sudan of John Garang against recently introduced Islamic law (sharia).
At the end of the Gulf conflict, imperialist counsels have been divided. Valente and Deby affairs, and Libya's support for a negotiated resolution to the crisis, make Libya appear as a possible client of a France desperate for markets. However the US is attempting to limit exports of certain technologies to tain" Third World countries. Bush is repeating the Reagan line: Libya represents "an extraordinary threat to national security and the US' vital interests."
The European Economic Community (EEC), has close links to all the Meditercountries through cooperation agreements, passed in 1972, which exclude Albania and Libya from possible funding. The Europeans, especially the British, are under strong pressure from Washington and are no longer exporting to Libya, leading to a shortage of spare parts for industry.
Thus, contrary to what Qadhafi stated at the end of the Gulf war, Libya will not escape the consequences of the "New World Order." * 5. In Arabic, Cairo means "the victorious". Qadhafi took to calling it Makhoura — "the conquered".