MARKERVILLE — Western governments and news media overlook two key details as they follow the uprising in Libya, says a retired oilfield consultant.
Jim Malo lived in Libya during the late 1980s and early ’90s, housed in a compound for western expatriates at Marsa Brega, a coastal city that is the key entry point to Libya’s oilfields.
His wife, Joan, joined him there for three years, spending her days shopping, gardening and making friends with local women and fellow expatriates.
Since returning to their home in Markerville, the Malos have kept in touch with many of those friends, including a Libyan woman whose father was a minister in the government of King Idris, overthrown by Moammar Gadhafi during a military coup in the fall of 1969.
However, they have lost touch with friends in Libya since late January when Internet service there was cut off.
Keeping their TV tuned to news from their former home, the Malos say everything they have seen so far misses the point.
First of all, encouraged by recent events in Egypt and Tunisia, people are finally rising against Gadhafi because they live in extreme poverty, with a small percentage of people sharing most of the country’s wealth, Malo said on Wednesday while thumbing through a scrapbook of the various countries in which he has worked.
Western governments and the United Nations need to recognize that the people rising against their leader are desperately poor and have nothing to lose, he said.
Also key to Libya’s internal friction is that it is actually two different countries, merged together in the early 1950s. King Idris was a Bedouin, whose people dominate the eastern half of the country, while Ghadafi is a member of the Berbers, who occupy its western regions.
The best scenario would be to have Libya divided again, with the borders redrawn to where they had been in 1946, said Malo.
Watching TV with keen interest during an announcement that rebel forces have named a leader, he said the real danger of an overthrow is that there will be incredible bloodshed once the victors take control of the country, including mass killings of people who had been part of the previous government or who had worked as mercenaries.
“After it’s over, and the government gets in, there has to be some kind of deal set up so there are no purges, because the purges will be the worst part,” he said.
“In Iran, they started hanging, chopping heads and killing just about every second citizen out there if they didn’t jail them and starve them to death.”
Western influence is badly needed both to fend off the looming threat of starvation among those who do not receive state favour and to ensure a peaceful transition to a new government, said Malo.
Simply taking Ghadafi out won’t accomplish anything, he said.
Libya’s leader is the head of a group of about a dozen people who will make sure someone else is ready to take his place.
bkossowan@www.reddeeradvocate.com