Showing posts with label celebration of 40 years in power. Show all posts
Showing posts with label celebration of 40 years in power. Show all posts
Friday, August 28, 2009
TIMES ONLINE: You are never alone in Libya. From the moment you arrive at Tripoli international airport, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi is with you.
Wherever you go, the Great Leader and Father of the Revolution watches benevolently over you, never more so than now as he prepares to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the coup that brought him to power.
As befits Africa’s longest-serving leader, he stares down from a thousand billboards, from great banners draped down the sides of skyscrapers, from bunting stretched across streets, from official portraits in every shop and hotel lobby, from hoardings at the remotest junctions in the desert. Nobody else gets a look-in.
His image is reproduced in neon, on mosaics and across the sides of the hot-air balloons tethered in Green Square in readiness for next Tuesday’s celebrations. It appears on the huge electronic clocks counting down the minutes to that great occasion.
His is a personality cult that makes Mao Zedong, Saddam Hussein or Kim Jong Il look self-effacing. >>> Martin Fletcher in Tripoli | Friday, August 28, 2009
Monday, August 24, 2009
TIMES ONLINE: It will be the biggest party Libya has ever thrown, and the whole world is invited. Whether next week’s jamboree to mark Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s 40 years in power completes his country’s journey from pariah-hood to respectability depends on one question: will the Lockerbie bomber be among the guests of honour?
“Why not?,” replied one Libyan official when asked whether Africa’s longest-serving leader would invite Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi to appear alongside him at next Monday’s celebrations.
“It would be daft,” countered a Western official, who said that an appearance by al-Megrahi would deepen the outrage engendered in the US and Britain by his rapturous welcome home last week. European contractors brought in to organise the extravaganza strongly hope that Libya’s notoriously flamboyant and unpredictable leader does not take a step that would undermine all that they are trying to achieve. But, one admitted: “No one knows what he’ll do.”
The celebrations are entitled "Celebrate Libya" and intended to mark not just the 40th anniversary of the coup that overthrew King Idris and brought Colonel Gaddafi to power, but Libya’s final break with its dark, terrorist-sponsoring, WMD-building, West-baiting past.
It has invited heads of state or government from every country and expects 60 or 70 to attend. These include most African leaders, Silvio Berlusconi of Italy, Russia’s Prime Minister Putin, President Sarkozy of France and the King and Queen of Spain (they will each be given solid gold pendants in the shape of Africa with Libya marked by diamonds). Following the row over al-Megrahi’s jubilant homecoming, however, Britain and America are likely to be represented only by their ambassadors.
Libya is taking the almost unprecedented step of admitting scores of journalists and television crews from around the world, and it is sparing no expense to ensure that its guests are suitably dazzled.
An army of workers is planting thousands of palm trees along Tripoli’s long-neglected seafront, laying acres of grass on arid sand and resurfacing miles of road. Yet more are installing ornate streetlamps, removing rubbish, refurbishing hotels, demolishing or concealing unsightly buildings and painting others a brilliant white.
The streets are festooned with green flags and festive illuminations. Hot-air balloons bearing impossibly youthful pictures of Colonel Gaddafi have sprouted like mushrooms across Green Square. The city is plastered with hoardings displaying the great man in various triumphant poses and curious sartorial attires, and extolling his leadership with slogans such as “It is an honour to live in your country” or “Without you the impossible would not happen”. >>> Martin Fletcher in Tripoli | Monday, August 24, 2009
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