Turkish Businesses Look for Improved Ties With Libya

Turkish businesses have been lobbying for almost a year to receive compensation for work they had to abandon during the uprising that ousted former Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. Now it seems their efforts are going to be rewarded as Libya and Turkey move to improve political and economic ties, reflecting Turkey’s increasing clout in the region. Turkish businessmen have been prowling the halls of Libyan ministries and patrolling the marble-floored corridors of Tripoli’s five-star hotels for months to find people who can help get them paid what they are owed for contracts abandoned during the revolution.

Until recently their efforts had not met with much success. The new government has been struggling to solve bigger immediate challenges than reimbursing Turks. But on a recent visit to Turkey, Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zidan pledged to slash through the red tape.

As Libya seeks to rebuild, Turkish companies will play a big role - if for no other reason than cost. Turkish firms can do the work for less than their European rivals, said Libyan lawmaker Abdurahman Al-Shater.

“The advantage of the Turks is not political influence, it is price-wise, the Turkish contractors in the price and the quality much cheaper than if you compare it with UK companies or France or Italy or Greece,” said Al-Shater.

More than 3,000 Turkish nationals evacuated Libya in February 2011, and the debt owed to about 100 Turkish firms is estimated at $20 million. The Ankara government has mounted a concerted campaign to get its businessmen, mostly in the construction sector, to be paid ahead of those from other countries. And it seems to have worked.

About half the outstanding contract payments owed to Turkish firms will be forthcoming in weeks, with some compensation for breach of contract [restitution] paid, as well. But to get the money, Turkish firms will have to begin work again on the abandoned projects.

Libyan-Turkish trade last year stood at around $2.5 billion and Turkish firms are eager to see that grow. At last year’s Libya-Build exhibition, more than 400 of the 800 foreign companies participating were Turkish. The debt settlement is a reflection of Turkey’s growing political clout in the region. Since the Arab Spring uprisings, Turkey has been pursuing an ambitious foreign policy and Turkey’s construction sector is positioning itself as a key player in rebuilding the region’s post-conflict economies.

Richard Griffiths, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Libya, does not agree entirely with lawmaker Shater’s view that there are no politics involved.

“Certainly with the Turks it is a mixture of the two. They have found what I believe is the perfect the combination of political support, which is not too overbearing, and also the effort which I, of course, would like to see from the US companies that they are very much here, engaged and present," said Griffiths. "When there is a delegation or trade show or event you will always find the largest group are the Turks and frankly they are the ones who are reaping the rewards for it.”

For many Libyans there is a natural affinity with Turkey. Islamist modernizers see Turkey as a model: a modern, commercially successful democratic Muslim state.

And for Libyans who fear the growing interest of Gulf countries with a tendency to involve themselves in Libya’s internal politics, Turkey is a useful counter-weight.

President Margriet, Sorry, Margarief

The body of Libya’s bloodthirsty tyrant, Muamar Gaddafi, naked on the concrete floor of a meat locker in Sirte on 20 October 2011, was the shocking start of the Democratic Republic of Libya.

“The tyrant is dead. Long live the new President, “spoke Dr. Ahmed Tabuli, the Libyan ambassador to The Hague during his ceremonial reception on the occasion of the celebration of two years revolution. But who in the world knows the new president, a certain Dr. Margarief Muhammad, a professor of electrical engineering from Atlanta, Georgia U.S.?

His Excellency Tabuli’s face exuded fear about what once was and what still is to come. Once upon a time even this ambassador was handpicked and appointed to the post in The Hague by this bloody tyrant Gaddafi himself.

The new leaders of the Democratic Republic of Libya walked around in dark western business suits rather that Gaddafi’s flamboyant colorful flowing desert robes which became his trademark. Nowhere was even a glimpse of a Bedouin tent either.

In 1981, actor Anthony Quinn shaped the formidable image of Omar Mukhtar with his performance in “The Lion of the Desert” which became the role model for guerrilla leaders of Libya. The brave struggle against Mussolini’s murderous violence and Rodolfo Graziani ruthless troops transformed the terrible Omar Mukhtar into the spiritual father of Colonel Muamar Gaddafi.

Gaddafi became the hero and liberator of his Bedouin people and finally, in his delusional megalomania, the hero of all oppressed on earth. Revolutionary Irish in Belfast, Lockerbie bomb explosions and attacks on wicked nightclubs became the plight of Gaddafi’s holy war. He did not hesitate to engage the enemy, the great Satan, staring him straight in the face, even if it were the U.S.A…

Following a terrorist attack on a nightclub in Berlin on April 15, 1986, President Ronald Reagan ordered the bombing of “terrorist sites” in Jamahiriya, ” a Gaddafi residence.

About 60 people were killed, including an adopted daughter of Gaddafi. Muamar rose to the occasion as an immortal martyr who proudly stood his ground, and was portrayed among the ruins with the flesh torn body of his daughter in his arms.

But the stalwart super hero of the people, the great Solomon of peace, prosperity and wisdom, turned into a bloodthirsty tyrant, greedily scraping every penny he could steal from government coffers.

His sons ruled the enslaved even harsher, as an implacable Rehoboam, with a knout and a whip and funneled hundreds of billions to offshore accounts through ingenious corporate structures in Amsterdam, trust companies and banks on Curacao and in Austria.

Pecunia non olet always was and still remained the Vespasian device of the trading nation of The Netherlands. Oil invest and Green Stream BV at Strawinskylaan Amsterdam, facilitated the Gaddafi clan with the construction and exploitation of world’s longest subsea pipeline, while Haskoning BV built ports. Both companies did business for billions of dollars.

President Muhammad Margarief has to step into Gaddafi’s giant shoes or rather desert slippers. . Damen Ship yards got a little job for eight 48–foot coastguard boats to patrol the 2,000-mile long Mediterranean coastline. The crews, eight men per boat, will also be trained in the Netherlands . It can hardly be called a mega order.

The invoice for the sixty revolution casualties, who languished for months in Dutch hospitals, is still not completely paid. Less than two third has been received of the six million Euro’s outstanding, leaving money strapped hospitals with ugly and unwelcome losses.

Gaddafi’s nasty hang over will be on President Muhammad Margarief coat tails for a long time to come.

Margarief may want to try the flowing robes of a galebya instead…

Gaddafi defenders stall advance on Libyan town

Battle-hardened Libyan combatants joined the fight to capture a desert town from well-armed loyalists of Muammar Gaddafi on Sunday after the head of Libya's interim council warned that the ousted leader still posed a threat.

Gaddafi troops firing rockets and mortars held up local fighters trying to push into the northern outskirts of Bani Walid, which lies 150 km (95 miles) southeast of Tripoli.

Scores of uniformed soldiers and experienced fighters of the ruling Transitional National Council (NTC) reinforced their comrades who have met fierce resistance from Gaddafi forces since Friday, saying they would attack within hours.

"I've been a soldier in the Libyan army in the 1980s. I have a little bit more experience than these local boys," said one new arrival, Omar Swaid, a truck driver from Kansas.

"They are great -- very enthusiastic but they don't know how to fight. We're going help them. The Gaddafi forces, some want to surrender. I hope this is the last fight. I don't want to see any more blood," he said in a broad American accent.

NATO warplanes, which Reuters witnesses said launched at least seven strikes on Gaddafi positions on Saturday, again patrolled the skies. NATO confirmed its aircraft had flown missions over Bani Walid but would not comment on any bombing.

"NATO dropped many bombs yesterday, targeting Grad rocket launchers. It is really helping us. When we enter the city, NATO should give us more protection from the sky," said Ibrahim Bakkar, a 20-year-old fighter, outside Bani Walid.

The original plan was for local men to enter the town of 100,000 to reassure residents and to encourage Gaddafi fighters to lay down their weapons and stay indoors.

But NTC officials, who first estimated they were facing only 150 Gaddafi loyalists, now say their opponents number about 1,000 after an influx of extra men from other Gaddafi strongholds such as Sirte on the coast and Sabha in the south.

"Last night the enemy fired many Grad rockets and mortars. We were under a hail of Grads. We don't know what we're going to do now. I have to admit, they have more experience than us," said Mohammed Ibrahim, a local anti-Gaddafi fighter.

GETTING A GRIP

It is vital for the NTC to capture Gaddafi's last strongholds and find the fugitive former leader to assert its grip over the vast oil-producing North African country and begin a countdown to elections and a new constitution.

NTC chairman Mustafa Abdel Jalil, a former Gaddafi justice minister who had run the council from the eastern city of Benghazi, arrived in Tripoli on Saturday for the first time since bands of anti-Gaddafi rebels captured it on Aug. 23.

"Brotherhood and warmth -- that's what we will depend on to build our future. We are not at a time of retribution," Abdel Jalil declared. "This is the time of unity and liberation."

The NTC has said it will complete its move to Tripoli this week, although previous timelines for this have slipped.

Establishing a credible interim government in the capital would mark an important step for Libya, where regional and factional rivalries among forces united only by contempt for Gaddafi could trouble efforts to reshape the country.

The NTC is anxious to show it can restart oil production, virtually stalled since the civil war began six months ago.

Interim Oil and Finance Minister Ali Tarhouni said on Saturday oil would be pumped at some fields within days and pre-war output levels would be restored within a year.

But Abdel Jalil said Libya could not yet be declared "liberated" from the man who ruled it for 42 years.

"Gaddafi still has money and gold," he said. "These are the fundamental things that will allow him to find men."

The NTC had given Sirte, Sabha and Bani Walid until Saturday to surrender or face attack, although fighting around Sirte and Bani Walid erupted a day before the deadline.

Anti-Gaddafi fighters believe one or two of the ousted leader's sons may be holed up in Bani Walid. Some NTC officials have even suggested Gaddafi might be there.

The struggle for the town appeared far from over.

Abdulkarim el Elwani, a former Libyan army soldier who defected, now commands a unit of about 100 men who arrived at the front on Sunday, visibly better-equipped and in uniform.

"They asked us to come here because the Bani Walid rebels have failed to take the city," he said. "There's a lot of resistance. We have orders to advance in two hours."