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Syndicated News from LibyaItaly: Libya's 1700 km Road Attracts 20 OffersDate Added: Sun, 29 Aug 2010 16:20:31 GMT+00:00
Libya is 'Best Shareholder', Says Generali ChairmanDate Added: Tue, 31 Aug 2010 22:35:34 GMT+00:00
Libya Anti-Drug Unit in Drugs HaulDate Added: Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:54:22 GMT+00:00
Air France could Restart Libya Flights SoonDate Added: Sun, 29 Aug 2010 16:14:06 GMT+00:00
BP Boss Again Rejects US Senate Request to Appear at Lockerbie HearingDate Added: Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:50:14 GMT+00:00
Egypt, Libya plan $100m real estate ventureDate Added: Sun, 29 Aug 2010 16:14:13 GMT+00:00
BP to Start Drilling in Libya by OctoberDate Added: Tue, 24 Aug 2010 20:50:55 GMT+00:00
Libya Sends Relief Aid to Mauritanian Flood VictimsDate Added: Tue, 24 Aug 2010 21:24:24 GMT+00:00
Secretariat of the General People's Congress Establishes Commission to Prepare ...Date Added: Tue, 31 Aug 2010 22:29:34 GMT+00:00
Representatives from 40 countries at Libyan Youth ForumDate Added: Tue, 24 Aug 2010 21:24:28 GMT+00:00
Results 1 - 10 of 7 Headlines for Libya
Libya HeadlinesResults Page: 1,PROXY CONFLICT IN CAR FIRST STEP TOWARD NEW LIBYA-CHAD WARDate Added: Thursday, October 31st, 2002Contributed by: RCN Administrator
A week after rebels launched an offensive seeking the overthrow of the government in the Central African Republic, loyalist forces and their allies succeeded in turning back invading rebels and restoring calm to the capital city, Bangui, on Oct. 31. The rebels, based in neighboring Chad, reportedly were accompanied by Chadian soldiers.
The reports that Chadian soldiers were involved in efforts to invade Bangui remain unconfirmed, and the government in N’Djamena denies them. Nevertheless, because Chad has a vested interest in replacing the regime in the CAR, the reports ring true. This suggests a new level in the conflict within the CAR and, more importantly, in the latent rivalry between the republic’s neighbors, Chad and Libya. These two countries are fighting a proxy war in CAR and, though it remains to be seen how far the situation there will deteriorate, it could be only one front in a coming clash between Tripoli and N’Djamena. Direct clashes between Libyan and Chadian forces in Chad are not yet overwhelmingly likely, but they do remain possible. Given what is at stake -- control over the centrally located and strategically important CAR -- neither Libya nor Chad is likely to back down. The center of gravity in the situation for Bangui lies within the rivalry between Libya and Chad. In the 1970s and 1980s, Libya backed rebels seeking to overthrow successive governments in N’Djamena, and Libyan troops even invaded northern Chad, forcing France to intervene and push the Libyans out. For the last decade, relations between the two have eased on the surface, with Libya providing economic aid to the government of Chadian President Idriss Deby. Even so, Tripoli has continued to back rebels based on the Chad-Libya border and to exploit its role as security guarantor in the CAR to influence the situation on Chad’s southern border as well. Chad for some time has been seeking a way to reduce Libya’s influence on its borders. A surge in revenues from a developing oil industry, concentrated in southern Chad, has provided N’Djamena with funds for purchasing arms and beating back the northern rebels. Now, Chad also has given refuge to rebels from the CAR, and officials see the overthrow of the weakened government of CAR President Ange Felix Patasse -- and the installment of a government led by the rebels Chad supports -- as a means of ousting Libya from its southern border. Stratfor predicted that the rivalry between Libya and Chad would stoke conflict in the CAR. Now the power struggle in Bangui is drawing in a number of outside players. In fact, the fight for control over the CAR is fast becoming another multifaceted war -- similar to the stalemated four-year civil war in neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). As in that conflict, a number of outside players have troops now deployed -- or reportedly deployed -- in the CAR. On the government’s side, loyalist forces are fighting alongside both Libyan troops and Congolese soldiers deployed by DRC rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba. Rebels from Chad reportedly are part of the presidential guard as well. On the opposing side, rebels who are seeking to overthrow the Patasse government consist primarily of CAR army soldiers led by ousted army chief of staff Gen. Francois Bozize. The BBC reported Oct. 31 that Chadian soldiers also fought alongside CAR rebels. The multitude of troops reflects the manifold and often competing agendas of the foreign players. Though the recent rebel offensive, which Bozize claimed his supporters led, did not succeed in toppling the Patasse regime, the rebels’ deep penetration into Bangui does show their determination. The situation is likely to continue deteriorating: The rebels are still capable of launching attacks, and the government in Bangui continues to exist. Even the United States is getting worried about the possibility of war in the CAR. According to the Pentagon, the U.S. European Command is sending a military contingent to assess the security situation and infrastructure in the area in case U.S. citizens there "require further assistance," AFP reported Oct. 30. In short, Washington is preparing to evacuate U.S. citizens should war break out. A full-scale conflict in CAR -- with a half-dozen players represented -- could have a devastating effect on oil production in Chad. Its developing oil industry is based mainly in the south, around the Doba oil fields, and war in the border region near the CAR could disrupt production. Other countries also could feel the effects. For instance, soldiers in Sudan -- where a civil war has raged for nearly 20 years -- could be redeployed to new positions, perhaps helping or hurting the government’s campaign against southern rebels. The conflict in the DRC also could be re-ignited: With Bemba’s Congolese rebels now active in Bangui, a hole could appear in their defenses against the government in Kinshasa. More important, a war in CAR could trigger direct confrontations between Libyan and Chadian troops elsewhere. Should Tripoli see its hold on the CAR slipping, it may try to divert Chadian resources away from central Africa. To do this, Libya might call on the Chadian rebels it has supported in the past, but Tripoli might see a need to deploy its own troops as well. The situation in the CAR and the underlying rivalries also beg the question: Who else will get involved? During the last Chad-Libya war, France stepped in to save the government in N’Djamena. Though Paris in recent years has reduced its military presence in central Africa, its interest in the region persists. At this juncture, a direct war between Chad and Libya -- rather than this proxy conflict in the CAR -- is not an imminent possibility, nor is French military involvement. However, the history of the region and the logic of the conflict mean that both could emerge in the medium term.Results Page: BRAZIL: ECONOMIC TROUBLES COULD MEAN SHORT HONEYMOON FOR LULADate Added: Wednesday, October 30th, 2002Contributed by: RCN Administrator
On his fourth consecutive attempt in 16 years, Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva finally was elected president of Brazil on Oct. 27. However, his honeymoon could be over before his Jan. 1 inauguration. If the markets don’t like his economic team and programs, both of which have yet to be announced, it could plunge Brazil into a financial crisis.
Analysis Brazilian President-elect Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva attracted festive crowds during a visit to Brasilia following his electoral victory last weekend. However, foreign lenders and investors were unimpressed with da Silva’s appointment of a "political coordinator" tasked with choosing the incoming government’s transition team, and Brazil’s currency has continued to weaken as a result, pushing the country closer to a devastating debt crisis. Stratfor forecast several months ago that, regardless of who was elected Brazil’s next president, the country likely would confront a financial crisis in 2003 that would require the new government to restructure its debts. On Oct. 16, we reaffirmed that a financial crisis in Brazil is inevitable, but noted that the timetable for its eruption was shrinking, as international lenders and investors reduced their exposure more rapidly than we had anticipated several months earlier. Stratfor also predicted that da Silva’s statements and actions during the two-month transition period leading up to his inauguration would determine whether Brazil hurtles rapidly toward default or whether the new government will have enough time in 2003 to get its bearings and start negotiating a voluntary debt-restructuring process with creditors. Three days after da Silva was elected with 63 percent of the vote, our forecast of how the markets would react appears to be on target. Royal Bank of Scotland said the president-elect’s selection of Antonio Palocci, who coordinated the campaign program of da Silva’s Workers Party’s (PT), as "political coordinator" of the new government’s transition team "disappointed the markets." Also, an analyst at J.P. Morgan said Brazil’s hard-currency bonds "are becoming vulnerable to the transition process," according to news reports. This is a diplomatic way of stating that Brazil’s risk of default is growing as the real’s slide continues. Recently, two Brazilian economists calculated that a 25 percent devaluation of the real increases Brazil’s debt load by the equivalent of 8 percent of GDP. Since da Silva’s election, the Brazilian currency has lost more than 4 percent of its value, according to news reports. Despite such warnings, da Silva said Oct. 29 that the two-month transition would be the best in the country’s history, according to the daily O Estado de Sao Paulo. However, his effusive mood could vanish rapidly if Brazil’s financial crisis grows worse before his inauguration. The most critical economic issue he must confront is Brazil’s looming debt crisis. The country has a combined domestic and external debt of approximately $350 billion, according to different sources, including the Brazilian federal government and private estimates. Of that amount, Brazil’s net external debt at the end of second quarter 2002 was about $172 billion, which is equivalent to about 40 percent of GDP and 330 percent of annual exports, according to the Institute of International Economics (IIE) in Washington. The private sector’s share of the total external debt is about $120 billion. Overall, the public sector’s debt is equivalent to 58 percent of GDP -- compared with only 30 percent in 1994, when lame-duck President Fernando Henrique Cardoso was first elected. Moreover, as of August, about 42 percent of Brazil’s public debt was linked to the U.S. dollar, another 8 percent was linked to inflation and 37 percent was linked to the Brazilian Central Bank’s overnight interest rate. Since 80 percent of the public sector’s debt and 70 percent of the country’s total debt is domestic, a default would devastate Brazil’s economy for years. The financial system would be crippled, credit would vanish and the economy would be plunged into a deep recession that would cause a huge jump in unemployment and poverty, as well as demolish da Silva’s popularity in record time. Stratfor argued Oct. 16 that da Silva’s options were limited to defaulting or continuing to work with the International Monetary Fund, in which case it might be possible to restructure the country’s debts in an orderly manner instead of falling into unilateral default, as Argentina did nearly a year ago. However, an orderly and voluntary debt-restructuring process, in which the government gets lower interest rates from both foreign and domestic creditors, would require the appointment of a top-notch economic team at the Central Bank, Finance Ministry and Planning Ministry. The longer da Silva waits before making public the names of his economic team, the more likely it is that Brazil will topple into default sooner rather than later. By the same token, if da Silva’s economic team fails to meet the market’s expectations, the real will continue to plunge and Brazil’s debt crisis could erupt in full force before he is inaugurated or very soon after he assumes the presidency. Standard & Poor’s Corp., which has a negative outlook on its B+ rating for Brazil, said Oct. 28 that "positive signs" it seeks from da Silva include "the formation of a strong technocratic economic team, the rapid development of an effective economic program and the negotiation of sturdy political alliances." However, if da Silva does the things lenders and investors are expecting in order to calm the markets and ease fears about Brazil’s future economic policies, he runs the risk of losing important support from within his own party. In fact, hard-line PT officials already are demanding jobs in the next government and a break with the centrist political coalition that elected da Silva. Da Silva’s political dilemma is that he cannot govern effectively without negotiating with the center and right in Congress, where the PT holds only 14 of 81 senate seats and slightly more than 90 out of some 500 seats in the chamber of deputies. Moreover, the party’s gubernatorial candidates won only three of 27 state elections, and in every state da Silva outpolled other PT candidates by large double-digit margins, which indicates that popular support for da Silva does not extend to his party.
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ABU NIDAL ’BOASTED OF BEING BEHIND LOCKERBIE BOMB’Date Added: Friday, August 23rd, 2002Contributed by: RCN Administrator
He is also said to have threatened to kill any of his lieutenants who leaked his confession. Atef Abu Bakr, a member of Nidal’s Fatah Revolutionary Council in Libya in the late 1980s, told the London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat that Nidal, who was reported to have died in Baghdad at the weekend, was adamant that he had masterminded the 1988 attack which claimed 270 lives.
"Abu Nidal said during an inner-circle meeting of the leadership of the Revolutionary Council, ’The reports which link Lockerbie to others are false. We are behind what happened’," Abu Bakr told Al-Hayat in an interview published today. He said Nidal added of anyone who broke his confidence: "I will kill him even if he is in the arms of his wife." Bakr did not say when or where Nidal’s confession was made, or who Nidal was working for. Nidal, who was responsible for dozens of terrorist attacks in the 1970s and 1980s after breaking away from the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, set up his headquarters in Tripoli in 1987. He was put under house arrest when the Libyan leader, Col Gaddafi, came under international pressure to act against militants after the Lockerbie bombing. The New York-bound PanAm airliner blew up over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in December 1988, killing 270 people. A special Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands convicted a former Libyan agent Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, of taking part in the bombing and sentenced him to life in prison. But speculation that others were behind the bombing has continued.
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MUGABE TRADES WHITE FARMS FOR OILDate Added: Friday, August 9th, 2002Contributed by: RCN Administrator
PRESIDENT Mugabe may be forced to give Libya much of the prime land he is seizing from white farmers in order to pay for an oil deal with Colonel Gaddafi, diplomatic sources said yesterday.
The full extent of the bizarre arrangement between the Zimbabwean and Libyan leaders was revealed hours before Mr Mugabe’s midnight deadline for 2,900 white farmers to leave their properties. The sources said that Mr Mugabe owed Libya so much for imported oil that he was preparing to give thousands of acres to his “friend”, Colonel Gaddafi, to repay his debts and to stay in power. The net result would be to negate Mr Mugabe’s avowed goal of returning land to Zimbabwe’s black population. The extent to which Mr Mugabe is “in hock” to Colonel Gaddafi was not an issue apparently discussed with Mike O’Brien, the Foreign Office Minister, who returned last night from Tripoli after meeting the Libyan leader in the desert for talks about Lockerbie bomb compensation and the war on terrorism. Mr Mugabe depends on Colonel Gaddafi for supplying his country’s oil needs — about 800,000 barrels a month. Seventy per cent of that comes from the Libyan oil company Tamoil, whose ultimate owner is the Libyan Arab Foreign Investment Company. Last December Mr Mugabe visited Tripoli to secure a deal with Colonel Gaddafi under which oil worth $360 million would be supplied to the National Oil Company of Zimbabwe. However, for 21 days in May, Tamoil turned off Zimbabwe’s oil because Mr Mugabe had failed to pay for the fuel supplies. According to oil industry sources, the desperate Zimbabwean leader contacted Colonel Gaddafi to plead for the oil supplies to be resumed. One diplomatic source said: “Colonel Gaddafi has always had this dream of being the leader of Africa and he has engineered it so that Mugabe is totally dependent on him. So he agreed a special discounted rate for the fuel, which was disastrous for Tamoil. It was only Colonel Gaddafi’s personal intervention that forced Tamoil to resume oil supplies.” While the oil company is now having to face the consequences of the arrangement between Mr Mugabe and Colonel Gaddafi, the Libyan leader is spreading his influence and his investments in Zimbabwe. As part of the deal fixed in Tripoli, Libya agreed to provide the fuel in exchange for shareholdings in Zimbabwe’s state-run companies. Libya now has a controlling stake in the Jewel Bank, formerly the Commercial Bank of Zimbabwe, as well as the state travel company, Rainbow Tourist Group. It is now believed that as part of the deal to pay back the Libyan leader for his generosity, Mr Mugabe will hand over some of the most valuable farms to Colonel Gaddafi. Sources said that Colonel Gaddafi’s “misguided support” for Mr Mugabe had brought Tamoil to the verge of bankruptcy. Tamoil’s European investors and creditors — the company has offices in Monaco, London, Milan and Geneva — had also been placed in a vulnerable position by the Libyan leader’s political manoeuvres, the sources said. Mr Mugabe’s acceptance of the special oil deal with Colonel Gaddafi, for which he could not pay, had also left Zimbabwe exposed as the Libyans tried to seize assets and recoup losses. The other 30 per cent of Zimbabwe’s oil needs are supplied by IPG of Kuwait and overland from South Africa. In the past Libya has granted Zimbabwe a 120-day moratorium after every delivery, which amounts to $30 million worth of fuel each quarter. The Libyans set three conditions: cash payment, investment in properties and businesses or bilateral trade in exchange for fuel. If the conditions were not met, the fuel was cut off. The diplomatic sources said that with Colonel Gaddafi now having such a hold on Mr Mugabe, Zimbabwe was facing the equivalent of “colonial bancruptcy”. The Libyan leader, with his ambition of becoming a pan-African leader, has been engaged in acquring substantial assets in Zimbabwe for some time. The Times reported earlier this year that Colonel Gaddafi had acquired a significant shareholding in Noczim, Zimbabwe’s state-owned energy company. He was also given a controlling interest in the oil pipeline that runs to Zimbabwe from Beira in Mozambique and in two of the country’s biggest oil refineries. Colonel Gaddafi had also made it clear that he wanted shares in a state-owned hotel at Victoria Falls and the Sheraton Hotel in Harare, the capital, The Times reported. He was also understood to have presented a gift of £1.3 million to Mr Mugabe’s Zanu (PF) party, even though there was supposed to be a ban on any political party receiving foreign donations. Mr Mugabe was alleged to have given 10,000 Zimbabwean passports to Libyan citizens, making it easier for them to travel abroad. Up to 1,500 Libyans were said to have been given homes, work permits and jobs in Zimbabwe. The diplomatic sources said that the Libyan leader’s wholesale asset-grabbing in Zimbabwe was part of his dream of spreading his personal power and influence in Africa. One of the consequences of the deal with Mr Mugabe was that Tamoil now faced a serious problem in funding an upgrade of an oil pipeline which runs from Genoa, in Italy, to Collombey, in Switzerland. The Swiss authorities have said that they want the 212-mile pipeline moved deeper because at present it is only one metre below road surfaces and runs close to the St Bernard tunnel. After the recent fires in the Mont Blanc and St Gothard tunnels, the Swiss are concerned that Tamoil’s pipeline might pose a risk. The diplomatic sources said that Tamoil might not be able to afford the upgrade, because of Colonel Gaddafi’s deal with Zimbabwe. An official at Tamoil in London said he was concerned only with “business matters” and was not involved in the politics of the industry.
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GADDAFI ASSURES OF PLANS TO FIGHT TERRORDate Added: Thursday, August 8th, 2002Contributed by: RCN Administrator
IN A nondescript brown Bedouin tent on the sandy shore of the Mediterranean, the first British minister to hold talks with Colonel Muammar Gaddafi was assured yesterday that Libya would settle the Lockerbie case as soon as possible, accept responsibility and pay compensation.
In almost three hours of talks in a surreal setting at the Libyan leader’s desert retreat, Mike O’Brien, minister responsible for the Middle East, was told that Libya had no time, money or interest in building weapons of mass destruction and was ready to sign further international agreements to demonstrate its good faith in fighting terrorism. Colonel Gaddafi said that al-Qaeda was a greater threat to his plans for a free and equal society than it was to the West. The meeting, in the hot afternoon sun, took place with a shiny black Mercedes parked outside the tent, armed guards surrounding the beach and two vast caravans pulled up near by. It looked for all the world like a circus. Inside looking remarkably robust, relaxed and healthy, the Libyan leader dressed casually in chinos, linen shirt, dark glasses and a quaint Tyrolean hat. He ranged over all the unhappy history between Britain and Libya and insisted that he was ready to start a new chapter of relations and settle Lockerbie, the issue of the murder of WPC Yvonne Fletcher and all other unresolved matters. Speaking in London, Queenie Fletcher, the mother of WPC Fletcher, who was shot outside the Libyan Embassy in London in 1984, welcomed the talks. “I think contact has got to be made otherwise nothing will ever be resolved,” she said. Mr O’Brien flew to Sirte yesterday morning and waited a mere four hours to see Colonel Gaddafi, using the time in intensive discussion with three key officials, Abdur Rahman Shalgam, the Foreign Minister, and two other senior diplomats involved in the ongoing Lockerbie discussions. When he was finally summoned to the tent he handed Colonel Gaddafi a letter from Tony Blair in which the Prime Minister said that he was very pleased that discussions had reached this stage. As the afternoon wind blew through the open tent sides, Colonel Gaddafi listened to a list of British concerns and demands. The meeting, described as frank and friendly, concentrated particularly on British worries over Libya’s failures so far to sign the Chemical Weapons Convention, but Libya expressed interest in Mr O’Brien’s suggestions for steps that it should now take to assure the world that it was serious in outlawing all weapons of mass destruction and in joining the international fight against terrorism. “We’ve started to fight terrorism before you,” Mr Shalgam said later. “Those fundamentalists are against our projects to establish social programmes. They are against the freedom of women, against science and against technology. They are more an enemy to us than to you.” Mr O’Brien said afterwards that Colonel Gaddafi had clearly regarded the meeting as important, although he wanted it on his own terms: “He said all the right things. The important thing now is that his words are subject to proof.” The main concerns raised by the Libyans in all discussions of compensation and admission of responsibility for Lockerbie was that Libya should not subsequently be sued by victims’ families or that the admission would be used as proof in court to prosecute any Libyan official arrested overseas in the way similar to that of General Augusto Pinochet of Chile. They were also worried about how much they would have to pay. Mr O’Brien told them that the sum, now rumoured to be $10 million (£5.5 million) for each victim, would have to be large enough to prevent any American court insisting on a higher award. They said that this would damage their economy. On terrorism, however, Colonel Gaddafi was clear and forthright. He said that Osama bin Laden was a threat and so were his extremist followers in Libya. He said that the Libyan Government had to keep a tight grip to prevent “rogue Muslims” who might cause problems throughout Africa. Clearly Africa is Colonel Gaddafi’s new obsession. Huge posters with maps of the continent line the broad desert road from the airport to the town of Sirte. “Africa is heaven on earth,” one slogan says. “We are so proud to be Africans,” claims another. Colonel Gaddafi said that he wanted to hear first-hand from Britain about the quarrel with Zimbabwe because he was willing to tell President Mugabe what he should do to settle the row with Britain. Mr O’Brien left a copy of the Lancaster House agreements for the Libyans to refute Mr Mugabe’s claims of British duplicity. Libyan officials were astonished at the warmth, length and businesslike seriousness of the meeting. The Foreign Office also believed that the Libyans had made an unusual effort to meet British demands and were anxious to hear what more they needed to do to rekindle former close links. Colonel Gaddafi clearly hoped that Mr O’Brien’s visit would help to soften Washington’s hardline approach. But although the most recent US statement on nations supporting terrorism noted that Libya had made “significant progress” recently, there are few signs that the Bush Administration is ready to take any initiative in restoring relations.
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BRITAIN MOVES TO BRING LIBYA ON BOARDDate Added: Wednesday, August 7th, 2002Contributed by: RCN Administrator
British Foreign Office Minister Mike O’Brien arrived in Libya Aug. 6 for the first visit by a high-level British official to the North African nation in almost 20 years. O’Brien is expected to meet with Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi to discuss the country’s commitment to the U.S.-led war against terrorism and to curbing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
O’Brien’s visit is a leap forward in Anglo-Libyan relations and signals a victory for Tripoli, which has tried for years to emerge from its status as a pariah state. Despite Gadhafi’s efforts, London and Washington still consider Libya a wildcard in the region, although the prospect of reduced sanctions and revived British investment there could make Libya more cooperative. Both the U.S. and British governments are moving to solidify a policy for dealing with several issues concerning North Africa and the Middle East. Chief among these are Arab states’ support for the U.S.-led war on terrorism, the manufacturing of weapons of mass destruction and a potential military campaign to topple the regime in Baghdad. O’Brien is traveling to Tripoli -- at the behest of British Prime Minister Tony Blair -- to suss out Gadhafi’s position on these issues. According to Libyan government sources, Tripoli has cooperated in the war against al Qaeda by sharing some intelligence on Islamist militants. But according to sources within the British Foreign Office, London will ask for more up-to-date information about militants and radicals. In the past Tripoli has supported alleged international terrorists, Libyans have been linked to al Qaeda and the U.S. State Department lists the country as a state sponsor of terrorism. Another key issue O’Brien will address is Iraq. The United States and Britain want Libya to lie low during a U.S.-led war against Baghdad. O’Brien will try to get Tripoli to approach its fellow Arab states and temper its public opposition to a U.S. military campaign against Iraq. Libya could play a minor but nonetheless important role in solidifying U.S. and British efforts to expand intelligence-gathering networks in Arab countries. Fiery rhetoric from Tripoli in opposition to a military campaign in Iraq would do much to stir the masses in Arab countries. But its silence, or a moderation of such rhetoric, would remove a potentially explosive element from the geopolitical environment, which in turn would ease pressures on fellow Arab states cooperating with the United States and Britain. There is a good chance Libya will provide a greater level of intelligence sharing, which would be relatively cost-free from the Libyan point of view and score major points with Washington. Tripoli also may promise not to organize any practical assistance or opposition coalition in support of Iraq, according to a Europe-based Libyan diplomat. In exchange for helping out London and Washington, Tripoli likely will push for an end to U.S. and U.N. sanctions. Libya has proposed to pay $2.7 billion to the families of the 270 people killed in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. Forty percent of the money allegedly would be paid when U.N. sanctions are lifted, another 40 percent when U.S. sanctions are removed and the remaining 20 percent when Libya is taken off the U.S. State Department’s list of sponsors of international terrorism, The Associated Press reported May 29. The Bush administration did not weigh in on the proposal because lawyers for the Lockerbie victims’ families and for Libya are negotiating the deal directly. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher has said that although Tripoli’s effort to compensate the families of the Pan Am flight was a step in the right direction, it did not resolve all of the problems the United States has with the Gadhafi regime. Should Libya prove receptive to O’Brien’s entreaties, Britain easily could reward Libya by tacitly encouraging British energy companies to consider investments there. Although not currently active in the country due to the sanctions, British energy companies already have sent delegations to explore business opportunities in Libya. O’Brien’s visit is an important step in London and Washington’s efforts to push forward with a campaign against Iraq while continuing to prosecute the war against al Qaeda. Bringing Libya on board would be a major fait accompli for the U.S. and British position. They likely will get some degree of cooperation both on al Qaeda and later perhaps on Iraq, and in exchange Libya will come a step closer to ending its isolation.
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VENEZUELA-LIBYA TIES SURFACEDate Added: Monday, July 29th, 2002Contributed by: RCN Administrator
Libyan government sources have confirmed STRATFOR’s report earlier this month that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez requested a $5 billion government-to-government bridge loan from Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. The money is needed to avert a financial crisis and help Venezuela’s government cover a fiscal deficit estimated to be more than 8 percent of GDP in 2002.
Chavez reportedly sent the request to other OPEC countries, but only Libya agreed to consider it. However, the sources said that instead of loan guarantees or other forms of collateral, Gadhafi wants equity participation in existing or future oil and gas assets owned in Venezuela or internationally by state-owned oil monopoly Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA). The Libyan government has not replied officially to Chavez’s request yet, which may be due to the fact that majority foreign ownership of any energy assets in Venezuela is prohibited by law. Also, the book value of PDVSA’s European assets is significantly less than $5 billion, and the U.S. government likely would block the sale of any part of U.S. oil company CITGO -- which is entirely owned by PDVSA -- to Libya. However, sources in the country’s military intelligence agency and its oil industry told STRATFOR July 26 that the loan sought by Chavez apparently forms part of a larger evolving commercial and political relationship with Libya. Such ties may include a major joint Venezuelan-Libyan investment in Cuba’s Russian-built Cienfuegos refinery, as well as possibly some Libyan participation in major natural gas projects PDVSA has planned in eastern Venezuela. The Cienfuegos refinery was built during the 1980s with financial and technical help from the former Soviet Union, but it was shut down in 1992 because the facility was technologically obsolete. Several times in the past decade, there have been reports that PDVSA would invest substantial sums in re-engineering and upgrading the refinery’s technology. However, two separate feasibility studies by PDVSA and a private consulting firm concluded that it was not economically or technologically viable to invest any money in the Cuban refinery. There was also a concern at PDVSA that such an investment would sour ties with the United States. STRATFOR’s sources in Caracas say that state-owned Cuba Petroleum Company (CUPET) is participating actively in the Venezuelan-Libyan discussions on possible joint investments in the Cienfuegos refinery. Although the deal does not appear to make much sense economically, both Venezuela and Libya may be pursuing it for political reasons to get closer to the regime of Cuban leader Fidel Castro. These sources also reported that Crown Resources AG, a Russian-owned crude oil and refined products trading firm, appears to be a direct party to the Cienfuegos talks. The company was known previously as Crown Trade & Finance Limited (also known as the Alfa Group), which was formed in the British Virgin Islands in 1992. Sources at a multinational law firm with subsidiary offices in Caracas and Moscow told STRATFOR July 26 that Crown Resources, which failed in 2001 to acquire a global commodities trading company owned by recently pardoned U.S. fugitive Marc Rich, allegedly has ties to Russian organized crime. STRATFOR’s attempts to speak with the company officials in Caracas, Moscow and its corporate headquarters in Zug, Switzerland, were unsuccessful. However, Venezuelan sources with longtime ties to Rich said negotiations with Crown Resources ended last year when a due diligence investigation turned up "troubling indications" of links with suspected Russian mobsters. Rich, who fled to Switzerland to avoid tax-evasion charges and was pardoned by former President Bill Clinton in January 2001, may have feared running afoul of legal authorities in the United States and Europe if he closed a deal with the firm. If the allegations involving Crown Resources are accurate, it would indicate that high-level officials in the Chavez regime are involved not only in questionable loan and investment negotiations with the governments of Libya and Cuba, but also with a company alleged to have ties to some members of Russia’s criminal underworld. Senior Venezuelan government officials believed to be involved in the Cienfuegos talks include PDVSA president Ali Rodriguez and Foreign Minister Roy Chaderton, according to military intelligence and oil industry sources in Caracas. The disclosure that Rodriguez is representing the Chavez regime in the negotiations has caused an uproar at the highest levels within PDVSA. Company vice president Jorge Kamkoff, a veteran oilman who is widely respected within the oil industry in Venezuela and internationally, has reportedly objected strenuously to undertaking any investments in the Cuban facility. Kamkoff did not return STRATFOR’s calls seeking confirmation of these reports. However, other sources in PDVSA said July 26 that Kamkoff will be forced to retire in weeks or even days and likely will be replaced by Aires Barreto, a naturalized Venezuelan citizen who was born in Goa, India. Barreto reportedly is widely despised within PDVSA because he conducted a purge of veteran middle- and senior-level company managers during the controversial tenure of former PDVSA president Hector Ciavaldini. STRATFOR’s sources in the company also said that the Chavez regime’s recent announcement that oil shipments to Cuba would be renewed Aug. 1, plus the disclosure about the possible investment in Cienfuegos, has infuriated many career oil-industry employees and managers. Moreover, their rage is being fanned by what appears to be an intensifying campaign of surveillance and intimidation of PDVSA employees who do not publicly support the Chavez regime’s attempts to forge closer commercial and investment relations with Cuba and Libya. A recent internal company document warns that many PDVSA managers and employees are once again discussing the possibility of staging work slowdowns and possibly even a general strike in the coming weeks, which could shut down Venezuela’s oil production and exports and possibly force Chavez out of office a second time after a brief coup earlier this year. |
