Fall of Gaddafi Regime Eminent: Libya Opens for Foreign Investment

Nathan Crites-Herren
The Paw Print

Libyan Rebels continue their siege of the capitol city of Tripoli where they have just recently captured Col. Mummar Gaddafi’s compound, but have yet to locate the whereabouts of Gaddafi himself.  The capture of the compound is a hugely symbolic victory that appears to put an end to the 42 year long Gaddafi rule.  Gaddafi remains defiant, releasing a statement from an undisclosed location on the eve of August 24.  “All the tribes in Tripoli, out of Tripoli, youths, senior people, women, men and armed communities must attack Tripoli and comb the streets and eradicate the traitors and rats. They will slaughter you and desecrate your bodies,”
Meanwhile, on August 30, Libya’s U.N. envoy, Ibrahim Dabbashi predicted the Rebels will have completely overtaken Tripoli and the entire country in the next 72 hours. “We expect Sirte, which is the natal city of Colonel Gaddafi, to fall in the hands of the freedom fighters within the next 48 hours. Our forces are coming from both sides, from the west starting from Misurata and also from the east starting from Ras Lanuf and Brega. We expect Libya to be totally liberated and totally calm and peaceful within the next 72 hours,” said Dabbashi.
International recognition of Libyan Rebels is fast coming, the Arab League announced on August 30 their consideration in granting an official seat to the Rebels at the League.  Over 30 countries have recognized the National Transitional Council including European nations and the U.S. Furthermore, on August 24, British announcement of the un-freezing of Libyan assets to aid the National Transitional Council are further signs of growing, international recognition.
The Rebels political wing, the National Transitional Council which has declared a democratic transition of power has begun to increase talks with the U.N. and NATO over possible agreements with Gaddafi, who has refused to cooperate with the Rebels.  The U.N. and NATO have also begun to draw up business plans for a post Gaddafi Libya.  According to Gilbert Acher, professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and author of NATO’s ‘Conspiracy’ Against the Libyan Revolution, NATO has been an open player in the Rebel struggle from their inception, providing air strikes for insurgents and also playing roles in political and business circles.
“It’s a very open scheme that has been developing there from the beginning, actually, of NATO’s intervention. Ever since it appeared that it would be a longer perspective kind of intervention, schemes were designed actually to keep the situation, the war, going on, in some sense, not to precipitate its conclusion, while trying to get to some kind of business agreement between the regime of Gaddafi and the rebels. And this has been until the very last period,” said Acher.
U.N. and U.S involvement in decisions based on oil contracts after the fall of Gaddafi have raised some concern within the international community.
Phyllis Bennis a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies says that the Leader of the National Transitional Council, Mustafa Adbel Jalil has been making business promises directed towards oil contracts to U.S. and other U.N. supporters. The New York Times also reported on September 2 a list of the oil companies who have already secured contracts to extract oil and other resources from Libya, BP of Britain, Total of France, Repsol YPF of Spain, U.S. companies like Hess, ConocoPhillips and Marathon have all been chosen.
“We have to look at the speech, for example, of the Leader of the National Transitional Council, who spoke yesterday (August 29) at a very celebratory press conference, I think rather prematurely, in which he thanked the international community as a whole for their support but went on to specifically single out the countries that had provided specific support to the TNC and to the opposition in Libya and indicated very directly that they would be given—they would not be forgotten. They would be given, presumably, special privileges in the future, if the TNC, when the TNC, in his view, should take power,” said Bennis.