CROSSING CONTINENTS - Libya

GIRLS:
Here's our library, now come in here.

NARRATOR:
Right, now show me round the shelves.  What's that? 
 That's a very young-looking Colonel Gaddafi.  Very 
handsome.

GIRLS:
You can say that again?

NARRATOR:
You think he's handsome?

GIRLS:
Yeah, he's gorgeous.

NARRATOR:
How do you see Colonel Gaddafi?  Is he the leader of 
this country?

GIRLS:
He's like a friend really, not a leader.  

In one word, he's a hero.  

Yeah there isn't anyone like him in the world.  

Basically he’s like one of us.  One of the people.  
He just gives us complete freedom, freedom of speech, 
freedom to do whatever we want and I think like if every 
country did that, maybe this world would be much better, 
maybe.  Yeah seriously.

NARRATOR:
I'm with Amira, Reema and Khadeja, who are sixteen and 
seventeen years old, and in their final year here at 
the Revolution Girls School in Tripoli, named after 
Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's revolution thirty-four years 
ago.

GIRLS:
Here is an English lesson, and this is the class --

TEACHER:
Now girls we have here in Section B, answer these 
questions about fossils and for sure you know the 
meaning of the word preserved, alright girls?  Yeah, 
what is the meaning of preserved? 

NARRATOR:
There are forty-five girls in this class obediently 
reciting what they've crammed about fossils.  Before 
I left England I had no idea I'd be able to visit this 
school, or what I'd be permitted to do.  It was difficult 
for me to get into Libya and I'm one of the few British 
journalists to come.  And now I'm here, all my interview 
requests have to be approved and I have to be 
accompanied by government minders who call their jobs 
"Promotional Administration".  But the reason I'm here 
at all is that Libya is desperate to make friends.  
After years of being outcast as a rogue state for its 
support of terrorist groups and its record on human 
rights, it's trying to distance itself from its past. 
 Libya feels maligned and misunderstood and it says 
it  wants to open up: so can we believe it?  That's 
what this week's Crossing Continents is all about.  
And people here – like these girls – are hopping up 
and down, eager to tell me what life here is really 
like.

GIRLS:
Of course I watch lots of movies, that's the most 
important thing of my whole life.

NARRATOR:
Movies, Hollywood movies?

GIRLS:
Yeah, like, I like Antonio Banderas.

NARRATOR:
I like Antonio Banderas too.

GIRLS:
Mel Gibson, he's my favourite.

NARRATOR:
Mel Gibson?

GIRLS:
Yeah, we've got BBC World, we've got Discovery channel.

I watch Larry King Live.

NARRATOR:
Larry King Live!  You know what's going on in the world?

GIRLS:
Yeah we do.

NARRATOR:
In Britain, people think Libyan people are isolated 
and cut off and you don't know about the rest of the 
world.

GIRLS:
That's really wrong, I don't know.

I think like every and each teenager in the UK, we're 
all like each other.  I mean teenagers think like each 
other and we're all the same.

NARRATOR:
Now one thing I notice about all of you, you're all 
wearing khaki green and a couple of you are wearing 
what look like combat trousers.  Now, is this military 
uniform?

GIRLS:
Well yeah it is, that's standard high school uniform, 
I would say.

NARRATOR:
Are you happy to wear this uniform?

GIRLS:
Yeah yeah, I feel like it's cool because all the high 
schools in Libya works on a military system and we have 
military subject.  We have a lesson a week --

NARRATOR:
One lesson a week?  And what do you learn in that lesson?

GIRLS:
All kinds of things like how to aim, how to hold a weapon. 
 I mean you should know about everything in life.

NARRATOR:
Now I have heard about the Green Book.  The Green Book 
is the basis of your revolution and of your ideas.  
Tell me about it, are you taught this in school?

GIRLS:
Yeah we have a subject called Political Grasp.

NARRATOR:
Political Grasp?

GIRLS:
Yeah, and we learn everything about politics in this 
subject.

NARRATOR:
What are the basic ideas?

GIRLS:
OK the Green Book says that there must be no leader 
or there must be no government that tells the people 
what to do.  It says that people have to live for 
themselves, they have to do whatever they want to do. 
 

NARRATOR:
So everybody is equal?

GIRLS:
Yeah, everybody is equal.  Nobody is better than anyone 
else.

NARRATOR:
Is this an important book for you, personally?

GIRLS:
Yeah it is.  Whenever I have time, I keep reading and 
reading it.

NARRATOR:
You compare different governments round the world.  
Why do you all believe that Libya works best?

GIRLS:
I think every country has its own system of course, 
and Libya I think works best because we basically have 
like the power in our hands.  We make the decisions, 
we make it ourselves.  I mean nobody tells us what to 
do.

NARRATOR:
So people here really seem to believe they have power. 
 They call their system a popular democracy, based on 
consensus.  All Libyans belong to People's Committees 
– like local councils – and once or twice a year there 
is a People's Congress, their equivalent of a national 
parliament.  But they don't have elections or political 
parties and they have had restrictions on freedom of 
speech.  I'm hoping to find out more about this later 
but the most obvious signs of Libya's "opening up" are 
in the economy.  In the late 1970s a Socialist-style 
economy was ruthlessly imposed.  At the time this was 
seen as the right way of applying Colonel Gaddafi's 
Third Universal Theory, as set out in his Green Book. 
 Families could have only one house, savings were 
limited, and the state took over nearly all production 
and commerce.  The only job you could get was with the 
government. On the positive side, all the staples – 
like bread and rice, and even TVs and cars – were, and 
still are, subsidised.  There's also free education 
and free health care.  But the cracks have started to 
show, not least with unemployment at 30 per cent. 

CONGRESS SPEECHES

I'm at the first pan-African oil conference and it's 
hosted by Libya.  Libya has the largest oil reserves 
on the continent.  Most of its export income comes from 
oil, and oil has – until now – covered up the weaknesses 
in its economy.  The conference chairman is Shukri 
Ghanem, the minister for economics.  Dapper, jolly, 
unstuffy, he's the bright new international face of 
Libya, known for speaking his mind.  I've been trailing 
around after him for hours.  Will Mr Ghanem admit what's 
gone wrong with Libya's socialist economy?  Will he 
tell me where all Libya's oil money has gone? 

SHUKRI GHANEM:
Good part of the oil revenue has been spent on the daily 
budget which is kind of money thrown in the sea, so 
you just give a salary, end up importing goods and 
consume it and that's it.  Still there are some part 
of it which has been used into some capital projects 
or investment or development project.  Unfortunately 
some of these projects were not studied very well’ like 
you may call some of them white elephants.  

NARRATOR:
What kind of white elephants?

GHANEM:
There are a number of industries in different fields, 
even in textile, even the steel industry to a certain 
extent can be called a white elephant.

NARRATOR:
Are you saying that the economy is changing in Libya?

GHANEM:
Of course, of course.  I mean this is why I am here, 
anyway.  Well of course I mean for so many years, the 
emphasis was on the public sector and now we are 
changing this emphasis and we are trying to work as 
much as we can to enable the private sector to take 
its good part in the economy, and we have done a number 
of things for example equalising the exchange rate of 
the Libyan dinar, and this has completely dismantled 
the black market of the currency.  We did also 
liberalise the trade.  They can import freely and export 
freely with the exception of very limited goods for 
security reasons.

NARRATOR:
So far from Libya we've been hearing about the Green 
Book economy and the third universal theory.  Are you 
saying that these are unsustainable?

GHANEM:
No, there is a lot of misunderstanding of the third 
universal theory.  Now, there are better way of making 
people understand it.  As any other theory, it can mean 
different things to different people but if you 
understand it fully, it is supposed to support the 
private endeavour anyway without leading to 
exploitation or monopoly, which is in the favour of 
the people.

NARRATOR:
What you're proposing, Mr Ghanem, are enormous and 
remarkable changes in Libya.  Have you got the backing 
of the leader, Colonel Gaddafi?

GHANEM:
We have to convince everyone that what we are doing 
is good for the country, and the leader of course will 
find that what we are doing is good for the country, 
he will support it.  But of course we consult with him, 
we talk to him.  This is what we believe that this is 
good for the country and I think so far he's blessing 
it.  You see the whole world is changing and we will 
be with the rest of the world.  I mean we cannot sing 
alone.

NARRATOR:
So what can I take back with me to England?  What is 
your slogan for the new Libya?

GHANEM:
Our slogan, you may say that the private sector should 
have a bigger role, bigger and bigger and bigger, and 
we are opening our doors to the foreign investment and 
to the foreign people to come and invest and work in 
this country.

NARRATOR:
Mr Ghanem, thank you very much, goodbye!

I'm in Green Square, the very heart of Tripoli, created 
after the revolution for the sole purpose of mass 
rallies.  Six billboard-size portraits of Gaddafi the 
hero beam down on me.
There are some glorious, if crumbling, Italian 
buildings here, the old Turkish castle, and behind me 
the glittering Mediterranean.  This is the prettiest 
part of Tripoli and this is where you can see clear 
signs of change, the opening up of Libya's lumbering 
state-run economy.  All Tripoli's main shopping streets 
lead off from here and they're packed with private 
shops.
Now I'm heading up September 1st Street, named after 
the date of the revolution.  This area is thriving - 
SORRY!  BBC Radio.  Yes, BBC.

OK so I've been stopped recording.  I'm recording very 
openly in the street here.  A policeman's come up and 
asked me who I am, what am I doing, and he's just going 
to check with his superiors whether we're allowed to 
do this.

Now that was a policeman asking to see my official 
permit.  That means that simply holding a microphone 
in a public area like this is suspicious.  Obviously 
a lot of opening-up still needs to be done.

Well, that attempt to see private business wasn't 
entirely successful, and while Tripoli's shops are 
proof of some emerging enterprise, there is a long way 
to go.  From 1978 to 1988, in the darkest days of the 
revolution, private business was banned completely and 
it will take a big effort to revive it.  But today my 
government hosts have promised me a trip out of town 
to see recovery in action.  They are, as every day, 
gruffly kind but breathtakingly inefficient. 

We've been brought here to this industrial town, Zawiha, 
and it's about an hour out of Tripoli, and I had no 
idea until I arrived at the doors of this oil terminal 
where we were coming but we've come with Mr Mohamed 
Badri, who works for - I'm not quite sure who he works 
for, I'm not quite sure who most of the people with 
us work for but you brought me here to where, where 
are we exactly?

MOHAMED BADRI:
Yes I am Mr Mohamed Badri from the Foreign Information, 
we just arrived to Zawiha city exactly company Repsol 
operation and we're just meeting chairman of this 
project and this factory.

NARRATOR:
Does the chairman know we're coming?

BADRI:
Yes he just coming now.

NARRATOR:
He knows, when did he, when did he know we were coming?

BADRI:
There is somebody, his name is Mansour.

NARRATOR:
So the chairman doesn't know we're coming?  But we will 
talk to somebody, somebody knows we're coming?

BADRI:
Yeah.

NARRATOR:
Yeah, you think, you hope?  We'll go in, we'll find 
out.  

BADRI:
Repsol company, Repsol oil company.

NARRATOR:
It's the Repsol oil company, right.

BADRI:
This is mixed company, Libyan and Spanish.

NARRATOR:
Libyan and Spanish?  Are you sure of that?

BADRI:
Yes.  

NARRATOR:
OK well we'll find out, we'll find out.  

Well, that was a total waste of time.  I've just emerged 
from Repsol Oil and I learned almost nothing, except 
that Libyans are hospitable, evasive and loyal to the 
regime – even when taken by surprise.  

My entourage and I have moved on to see a small 
electronics factory in Zawiha, where we ARE expected! 
 Ishara Electronics was one of the first private 
businesses to re-open in 1988, so how is it faring? 
 It's low-key, modest.  Here at the circuit board 
assembly line there are only six men working, but the 
boss Hadi El-Khoumani – fifty-three years old with nine 
children! - is refreshingly dynamic.  He's been here 
since the start.

Mr Hadi, why did you want to work in private business?

HADI:
The motives which is available in this environment is 
not exactly as in the state.  

NARRATOR:
So motives are different?

HADI:
Yes, motives, completely and the main reason is that 
in that sector it's very limited.  You don't have to, 
just our salary, that's all.

NARRATOR:
In the state system you just have a salary.

HADI:
But here, but here there is a possibility to increase 
the income easily by, with work, more work, more 
production, more benefits.

NARRATOR:
In private business?  So you're a rich man now?

HADI:
Not exactly but I am a satisfied man.  I don't need 
more money, I am living well, that's OK.  I feel that 
I am completely satisfied. 

NARRATOR:
How much do you earn?

HADI:
It's approximately one thousand dinar per month, which 
is three times if I were in the state company or state 
department.

NARRATOR:
I can confirm that, that is three times.  Now that is 
about five hundred pounds a month.  That's quite a high 
salary for Libya.  The fact that private business was 
allowed here in Libya is thanks directly to your leader, 
to Colonel Gaddafi.  He permitted private business to 
start up here but he also stopped it at one point, and 
then started it up again.  Do you blame Mr Gaddafi for 
anything?

HADI:
Not exactly because we are responsible here as a people. 
 We are responsible, it is not Mr Gaddafi who is 
responsible.  

NARRATOR:
This is the first room, the first office I've been to 
in Libya which does not have a portrait of Colonel 
Gaddafi.  

HADI:
Yeah, maybe because we're not belonging to the 
government, and there is no law for example to oblige 
us to make portrait for Gaddafi.

NARRATOR:
There's no law telling you you have to have a portrait 
of Gaddafi in your company?

HADI:
No, that's free.  I like Gaddafi but you are free as 
a people you know.  

NARRATOR:
So there is genuine change, but still no criticism of 
the leader. Before I came to this country I'd been 
warned that even talking about Colonel Gaddafi was a 
no-go area, but again there are extraordinary paradoxes. 
 I'm back in Tripoli, checking my e-mails at this 
internet cafι.  These are popular places for young 
people to meet.  There's hardly anywhere else to go 
- no bars, no discos. The internet is cheap and there 
are no restrictions, even to anti-Gaddafi sites.  Now 
let's try.  

I've just logged on to an American site which lists 
Libya alongside Iraq and Iran as "a pariah state on 
the axis of evil", and on this British site I can read 
about the "mad dog dictator" and his "weird revolution" 
with all its cruelties and its lunacies.  So after 
economic openness, is political honesty next?

Everyday from my hotel window I've been able to look 
down on the British flag flying from the roof of the 
British Embassy.  It's only been back in business for 
a few years, and if you think of our history with Libya, 
this is a minor miracle.  In 1984 we severed diplomatic 
relations after the shooting of WPC Yvonne Fletcher. 
 Then there was the 1986 bombing of the Berlin disco, 
then the suspicions that Libya was bankrolling the IRA 
and the PLO,  Then there was Lockerbie.  But engagement, 
and British business interests, are the watchwords 
today.  Time for me to meet the British Ambassador 
Anthony Layden.

ANTHONY LAYDEN:
Libya is definitely on the right side in the war against 
terror.  The Libyans tell me that they regard themselves 
as a target for Osama Bin Laden and his organisation. 
 Indeed Libya issued an Interpol arrest warrant for 
Osama Bin Laden in 1998 well before the 11th September 
events.

NARRATOR:
But this is still a country the west has problems with 
for its alleged possession of weapons of mass 
destruction?

LAYDEN:
We have told Libya that in the post-11 September world, 
countries like this have to assure countries like ours 
that weapons of mass destruction programmes are not 
carrying on in their countries.  Libyans have responded 
very well to this.  I think their position is that they 
are willing to sign up to any international agreement 
we would like them to sign up to, to reassure other 
countries that this sort of thing is not going on.  
At the moment Libya remains on our list of countries 
of concern on this issue and it is a thing we shall 
have to continue discussing with them.

NARRATOR:
Colonel Gaddafi and his eccentricities, his 
unpredictabilities, still govern the image of Libya 
abroad.  Is this a big problem for the British 
government and its dealings with Libya?

LAYDEN:
I think on the contrary, he's the sort of man that you 
can engage in philosophical discussion, in a reasonable 
discussion of policy.  Colonel Gaddafi is somebody we 
can talk to.  

NARRATOR:
Can you spell out exactly what his role is?

LAYDEN:
Yes of course. The colonel is not the head of state. 
 The head of state is the Secretary of the General 
People's Congress.  Colonel Gaddafi is described 
officially as the leader of the revolution.  He is in 
effect the person who takes all the decisions.  The 
decisions are taken formally by the General People's 
Congress but most of the proposals put to that Congress 
are put to them by Colonel Gaddafi, so his role is 
absolutely crucial.  He is the key to understanding 
what happens in Libya and relations with him are the 
key to making progress in normalising relations here.

NARRATOR:
So when I am told by interviewees that the People's 
Congress, the basic People's Congress, makes the 
decision.  It then goes up to the committees and so 
on and right up to the top, it is in fact Colonel Gaddafi 
who will always have the final say?

LAYDEN:
That sounds rather as though you're saying he doesn't 
listen to anything the people tell him.

NARRATOR:
Well this idea of direct democracy, popular democracy 
which is laid out in the Green Book, it's not true?

LAYDEN:
Well, how can you say it's not true?  It's a principle 
that Colonel Gaddafi has stated very clearly and which 
I believe he believes in.  I think it would be right 
to say that at the end of the day it would be Colonel 
Gaddafi who would take the decisions but he's certainly 
very mindful of what his people think and what their 
views are also.  I don't think you can run a country 
like this for thirty years without being concerned 
about what people think and having concern for their 
interests.

NARRATOR:
Is there freedom of expression in Libya?

LAYDEN:
No there is not freedom of expression in the way we 
would understand it.  There is more than immediately 
meets the eye.  If you look at the proceedings of the 
General People's Congresses, you will see that there's 
a lot of talk about things that need to be done better 
in the country.  There are red lines.  You will never 
see anyone in public criticising the revolution or the 
leader of the revolution.  That is true of every country 
in this region.

NARRATOR:
I must say I was surprised to hear such an enthusiastic 
defence of the Libyan leader from the British 
Ambassador, but these days Libya is full of surprises. 
 In a decision that has been called both "grotesque" 
and "enlightened", Libya was made this year's chair 
of the UN Human Rights Commission.  It can even boast 
its first home-grown human rights organisation.  It's 
called the Gaddafi Foundation and this is its office, 
the walls plastered with the most horrific anti-torture 
posters.  The Foundation was set up by Colonel Gaddafi's 
son, Saif al Islam, and it's already making waves in 
the West, meeting with Amnesty International and 
voicing taboo subjects such as torture and detention 
without trial.  It has also secured the release of about 
two hundred political prisoners.  But this interview 
is already proving problematic.  It was postponed once, 
the minders are jumpy, my interviewee was late and now 
he keeps disappearing.  He's the Foundation's director, 
Salah Abdal Salam, and this will be his first interview 
with a British journalist - soon, I hope.

We have heard that there are figures anything between 
three hundred and six hundred political prisoners in 
Libyan jails.  Is that correct, can you confirm any 
of those figures?

ABDAL SALAM: [translated] 
This is not true.  He said there is no political 
prisoners in prison except people who are a danger for 
the other people.  They are fundamentalists.  

NARRATOR:
Now no one outside Libya in the international community, 
NGOs and so on, believes, no one believes you have no 
political prisoners in Libya.  In fact one official 
in the Libyan Embassy in London told me to ask why there 
are still political prisoners here in Libya.

ABDAL SALAM: [translated]
I assure you that there is no political prisoners in 
prison right now, and which earlier I told you there 
are some fundamentalist.

NARRATOR:
Is it possible for a Libyan to go down to the Green 
Square, your main square in Tripoli, to protest against 
Colonel Gaddafi, to protest against the government?

ABDAL SALAM: [translated]
He said they now protest against. The people who are 
in the People's Congress, they are expressing 
themselves and they confront the government itself.

NARRATOR:
Is it possible to criticise Colonel Gaddafi?

ABDAL SALAM: [translated]
Why you ask this? I answered you, that here in Libya 
-- well the same thing, you know the country is run 
here by the People's Congress and People's Committees 
here and if there is any criticism, they will say it 
there in their attendance, in their meetings.

NARRATOR:
So just when I thought Libya was opening up politically, 
I've hit a wall.  We're not speaking the same language. 
 Western human rights groups are eager for contact with 
Libya, but they have less information about conditions 
here than they have about say Burma or North Korea. 
 For three decades Libya has been one of the world's 
most secretive and isolated states.  If it's sincere 
about change, it has a huge PR job ahead. 

I'm sitting in my minders' office, drinking coffee, 
watching TV.  My whole trip's been full of this - 
inactivity and inefficiency, countless people just 
hanging around.  I'm waiting for them to organise my 
final interview, with the man you could call Libya's 
PR boss, the Information Minister, Ali Farfah, and, 
crossing my fingers, it's about to happen.

I've been carrying around a question in my head all 
week.  How genuine is Libya's attempt to open up to 
the rest of the world?

ALI FARFAH:
Well we have not closed up in order to open up.  I think 
closing up was a decision that was imposed on the 
country by wrong decisions through the Security Council 
which were of course promoted by certain powers which 
you know, and now we are trying to seek the normal path 
which we initiated from the very beginning.

NARRATOR:
If Libya is opening up, moving on, why is it still so 
difficult for a journalist like me to get a visa to 
come to Libya?

ALI FARFAH:
Well I know from the people who are in charge of the 
foreign media sector that they had previously some 
problems with some journalists.

NARRATOR:
So what, in the end?

ALI FARFAH:
So what!

NARRATOR:
I mean if you have some journalists saying bad things 
about Libya?

ALI FARFAH:
It's not saying bad things.  They say the wrong things. 
 I mean they say --

NARRATOR:
What are the wrong things about Libya?

ALI FARFAH:
The wrong things about Libya?  They come to the country 
and they say Libya is closing up for example, Libya 
is a dictatorship and we see that the country is poor. 
 We see that the country is very disorganised, you know 
these things which --

NARRATOR:
But it's true, I mean it is, there is poverty, there 
are sort of ramshackle buildings and huge pot holes 
in the streets and lots of rubbish all over the place.

ALI FARFAH:
That's true, this is something that you can find in 
Chicago and you can find in New York, you can find in 
London, you can find in Paris.  I have been to several 
parts of the world which you can find but you have to 
be objective if you say that.  There are good sides 
and bad sides, this is what I understand under 
journalism.  I'm not telling you that all things in 
Libya are positive but we are trying to work out a new 
path where people have say in their affairs.  This is 
something that is good.  I know that we have done things 
in the wrong way through our bad administration, but 
people are trying their best to do the right thing to 
correct that.

NARRATOR:
What happens in a country like Libya which has been 
so shaped by one leader, one man?  What happens after 
that person goes?  What happens when Colonel Gaddafi 
dies?

ALI FARFAH:
Well everybody is going to die some time.  But I think 
what Colonel Gaddafi would be leaving, what Libya is 
having now, is the People's Conferences, this is --

NARRATOR:
This system of direct popular democracy, as you call 
it?

ALI FARFAH:
Yes.  That's right, that's what we are working toward.

NARRATOR:
What would happen to all these pictures and portraits 
of Colonel Gaddafi you've got in all your offices and 
all your rooms and shops?

ALI FARFAH:
Well they will stay of course because these are related 
to the person who made these drastic changes possible, 
so I think Libyans throughout their generations would 
look at him to this big achievement, that before people 
were just following the path of their rulers.  Now for 
the first time in the history of Libya, that people 
at least have a say in their own affairs.

NARRATOR:
So this is as good as it gets – as I will get, and I 
didn't expect to get this much.  Colonel Gaddafi is 
extraordinary.  He has survived where other dictators 
haven't and his people seem to believe in him.  At least, 
they all sing from the same song sheet.  His portraits, 
all along this stretch of road to the airport, may still 
be everywhere but the face of Libya is changing.