THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume VI, Issue # 151, July 10, 2004
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
THE SAME OLD QADDAFI:
BEFORE WE GET TOO COZY WITH LIBYA,
CONSIDER THE HUMAN RIGHTS REALITY THERE
By Michael Rubin
FULL STORY:
On June 28, 2004, Assistant Secretary of State William Burns opened a U.S. liaison office in Tripoli, Libya, reestablishing direct
diplomatic relations with Libya, after a near quarter-century break. The move caped a months-long effort to improve relations. In
December, 2003, Libcyan dictator, Muammar Qaddafi, announced that he would dismantle his weapons-of-mass-destruction
programs. On April 23, 2004, the White House announced that the U.S.A. would ease its economic embargo against Libya.
President George Bush has expressed his enthusiasm for the process. Speaking in the East Room of the White House on March 12, 2004,
Bush noted the release of Libyan dissident, Fathi El-Jahmi, and said, "You probably have heard, Libya is beginning to change her
attitude about a lot of things."
Well, maybe Libya has changed her rhetoric, but not her attitude. Speaking in Cairo on March 24, 2004, Saif Islam Qaddafi, the
Libyan strongman's son, lectured Arab governments about democracy. "Instead of shouting and criticizing the American initiative,
you have to bring democracy to your countries," Saif said. But, as Saif spoke, Libyan security forces surrounded the home of
El-Jahmi, shortly thereafter arresting him, his wife, and his son. Libyans interpret the move as a signal from Qaddafi that President Bush is
insincere and weak.
As Burns legitimized Qaddafi with a new State Department office in Tripoli, I sat down with Husayn Shafei in a conference room at
the American Enterprise Institute. Just as Burns has not met with El-Jahmi or made his arrest a stumbling block in Foggy Bottom's
drive to reestablish U.S. ties with Tripoli, State Department officials have not sat down with Shafei. His story might be inconvenient, but
he repeated it, on June 29, 2004, at the Washington office of Freedom House.
In December, 1988, Shafei was a 20-year-old electrical-engineering student at a technical institute in Benghazi, Libya's second
largest city. In Qaddafi's Libya, students at high schools, vocational institutes, and universities must attend mandatory sessions
on why the political philosophy of the great leader is the only acceptable ideology, superior to constitutional democractic political
theory and to Western-style constitutional democratic government. When the speaker asked his captive audience if they had any
questions, Shafei stood up and, in front of his peers, said:
"Libya is not democratic. We should have [political] parties and an open media.
We should negotiate with different groups and discuss ideas."
Less than two weeks later, Libyan police surrounded Shafei's home, arresting him. Hooded, they hustled him onto a military flight
and took him to Tripoli's notorious Abu Salim prison. He spent the next three months in a hot, humid, poorly ventilated
nine-square-meter room, with 21 other political prisoners. All were beaten; Shafei still bears the scars of his torture; part of his ear
has also been shaved off. After three months, he finally met an interrogator who fired off questions:
"Why do you speak of democracy? Are you a member of a secret party?"
The line of questioning was serious. Revolutionary Command Council Law 71 mandates the death penalty for political-party
membership. Shafei convinced his interrogators that he may have been naïve and idealistic, but was no political-party member.
Classified as a low-political-risk prisoner, he returned to his cell, where he was subject to mental and physical abuse for the next
eight years (he never had a trial). His family could visit him for ten minutes every five months. Neither he nor other Abu Salim
prisoners saw any representative from the United Nations or the Red Crescent during that time; a researcher from Amnesty
International did visit.
Prison officials assigned Shafei work as a cook; he prepared food and helped deliver rations to the Abu Salim's approximately
1,200 political prisoners. Shafei was in the kitchen on June 29, 1996, when a scuffle broke out between guards and prisoners in
Abu Salim. Guards killed seven prisoners and wounded 17. In the melee, prisoners seized two guards. Abdullah al-Sanusi,
Qaddafi's brother-in-law, led negotiations. (Al-Sanusi is a close confidant of Qaddafi, implicated both in the Lockerbie bombing
and the subsequent downing of UTA flight 772). A delegation of four prisoners met al-Sanusi and outlined demands: Treatment
for the wounded, basic rights, and healthcare for those suffering from the tuberculosis endemic in the prison. Al-Sanusi agreed.
112 sick and wounded left the compound to go to the hospital. They never made it. Out of sight of the main gate,
al-Sanusi had them shot. The following day, security personnel under al-Sanusi's command set up anti-aircraft guns on the roof
overlooking the courtyard. At 11 A.M., al-Sanusi's men began shooting into crowds of prisoners. At 1:30 P.M., soldiers wielding
Kalashnikovs entered the compound to kill those who had escaped the initial violence. At 2 P.M., a crew of guards finished the job,
walking among the dead and dying, firing pistol shots into their heads. Over the course of the next three days, guards loaded the
corpses onto wheelbarrows, dumping them into a trench on prison grounds. First, though, they removed watches from the
prisoners, giving them to Shafei to wash. Prisoners in adjacent cellblocks — and residents outside the prison — heard the shooting
but could do nothing. The prisoners interviewed by Amnesty International perished.
On the first anniversary of the start of U.S. military action to liberate Iraq, President Bush declared, "We have set out to encourage reform and
democracy in the greater Middle East as the alternatives to fanaticism, resentment, and terror." Bush may have been sincere. But,
there is a growing gap between his rhetoric and action which is straining America's credibility throughout the Middle East, doing
far more damage among residents of the region than the Abu Ghraib scandal.
Bush should take a lesson from 20 years ago: Against the advice of the State Department, President Ronald Reagan pressed for the release of
dissidents and refusniks in the Soviet Union. If Bush truly believes in freedom and liberty, it is time he speaks up for Fathi
el-Jahmi and Libya's other political prisoners who, unlike Shafei, still suffer under Qaddafi's brutal grasp. Bush may want to order his
Assistant Secretary of State to quit the company of the Libyan dictator, and, instead, meet the freedom-seeking Libyans who today
have again filled the ghost barracks of the Abu Salim prison.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
The Middle East & the Arabs
The Threat of Radical Islam
More on the Threat of Radical Islam
War & Peace in the Real World
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
U.S. National Security Strategy
Michael Rubin is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and Editor of The Middle East Quarterly The
foregoing article by Rubin was previously published by National Review Online and the Middle East Forum and can be
found on the Internet website maintained by each.
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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