Dad, Can I Borrow The Country?

The son of Libya's mercurial leader, Muammar Gaddafi, says he wants to change Libya. But there are stiff obstacles to reform

  • Sabri Elmhedwi / EPA

    Saif Gaddafi, possible heir to Muammar Gaddafi

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    One of the answers is that there are plenty of people who don't want change. Libya's powerful security organizations — often fingered by human-rights groups for conducting arbitrary arrests and torture — are resisting reforms. Also opposed are members of the revolutionary committees, who have garnered wealth and political benefits through their close association with Libya's leader. "There are a lot of people for whom reform is not in their personal interest," says Shukri Ghanem, a former Prime Minister who heads the Libyan National Oil Corporation. "It will not be a walk in the park."

    At the same time, critics of Saif say that talk of serious change is merely a ruse. "It is all just a game," says Hassan al-Amin, who runs an exile website from London. "Saif cannot do anything without his dad's blessing. They have a great relationship." Skeptics point to Syria, where President Bashar al-Assad promised change but has brought few reforms since his father Hafez died in 2000. In neighboring Egypt, Hosni Mubarak's son Gamal could face a similar predicament if he runs in next year's presidential elections.

    Mindful of such pitfalls, Saif rejected his father's proposal last year to assume the country's second-highest post. "I would not accept [a position] because you need to have a constitution," Saif says. "You need transparent political rules of the game." He's also prepared to test the system. Tensions erupted into full view last December after Saif invited the Washington and Middle East directors of Human Rights Watch to launch its report on Libya's human-rights violations at a press conference in the heart of Tripoli. Few groups had ever been allowed to speak out publicly against the government, and security forces attempted to disrupt the event. Some Libyans scheduled to attend were blocked from traveling to the capital. Those who addressed the press conference and recounted heartrending tales of relatives killed in prison were shouted down by security officers in the audience, according to news reports. "There is no possibility for real political organizing, so people are chipping away at the corners," says Heba Morayef, North African researcher for Human Rights Watch. Saif, she says, "is the only person who can stand up to his father."

    Sending Mixed Messages
    Really standing up to Gaddafi will require confronting one of the strongest themes of his rule: opposition to the West. Despite the lifting of sanctions, Gaddafi's ban on things such as English signage remains. Even the street signs to Tripoli's international airport are in Arabic only. "In our cooperation with the U.S. and Europe, we are not serious enough, we send confusing messages," Saif says.

    But the West, and especially Washington, could also play a more active role in encouraging reforms. Washington promised billions of dollars of private investment to help revamp Libya's economy if Tripoli dropped its nukes program. So far, interest has fallen far short of that. Libyans were also outraged when the U.S. Department of Homeland Security added the country to a security watch list after the attempted bombing of a plane over Detroit last December. "We extended a friendly hand and got slapped in the face," Gebril says.

    To Saif, nothing illustrates the divide with the West more starkly than Libya's bizarre feud with Switzerland. It began when Gaddafi's son (and Saif's half brother) Hannibal and his wife were arrested in July 2008 in Geneva for allegedly assaulting their servants. Charges were dropped, but in the tit-for-tat battle that has run ever since, a Swiss businessman has been jailed in Tripoli, Libya has pulled billions from Swiss banks, and Switzerland has barred Gaddafi and other top Libyans from entering its country. In January, Libya blocked access to YouTube and several websites run by Libyan exiles, and in February it stopped handing out visas to most European citizens. When I visited Libya's biggest gas-export facility in February, the Italian manager was stuck in Rome, with no visa to return to work. To all this, Saif sighs, clearly exasperated. "There is a big gap between ... our mentality and the Western mentality," he says. "I think we are not ready to deal in the right way with the Western world." Not yet.

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