Word: gaddafis
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...infected with Western values," says Noman Benotman, a former leader in the militant Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, or LIFG, who fought alongside al-Qaeda in Afghanistan until 2000. Benotman is a lot less famous than al-Megrahi, but his collaboration with Saif may actually be the clearest sign that Gaddafi Junior is serious about reform. Saif brought Benotman to Libya in 2007 and then helped him negotiate a truce with hundreds of jailed LIFG militants, effectively severing their links with al-Qaeda. On March 23, Saif secured the release of 214 LIFG members from jail, including its three top leaders...
...socialist coup. Already a Saif-created National Economic Development Board, run by U.S.-trained economist Mahmoud Gebril, is at work overhauling Libya's regulatory system. Saif has also proposed a new penal code, which would entail drafting a constitution for Libya, a move regarded for years by Muammar Gaddafi as unrevolutionary. "There must be an independent judiciary, and protection of the rights of people," Gebril says, pointing to postapartheid South Africa as a model. That would be a sharp departure from current-day Libya, where even the intellectuals who gather in Tripoli's cafés in the evenings, over...
...country where most people have only ever known his father's rule, Saif says Libyans have grown impatient for change. Last February, when President Gaddafi ended his one-year term as the head of the African Union, the organization passed a resolution giving itself the power to expel or impose sanctions on leaders who seize power through force. The message was not lost on Libyans. "In black Africa, we see real democracy, real elections, real parliaments, real constitutions," Saif says. "Why don't we have the same as them...
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. (See "Gaddafi vs. Switzerland: The Leader's Son on What's Behind the Feud...
...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...