TRIPOLI: Libya celebrated the 40th anniversary of the coup that brought Col. Muammar Qaddafi to power with a parade, lavish dance spectacles and fighter jets streaking overhead on Tuesday.
The festivities were designed to showcase the former pariah state’s acceptance on the world stage after renouncing nuclear weapons and terrorism. But new controversies over the return of the Lockerbie bomber, the detentions of two Swiss businessmen and even the color of smoke emitted by planes at the ceremonies revealed the tenuous nature of Qaddafi’s relations with the West.
“I think that Libya is changing very rapidly. It is opening up — Libyans have much more confidence in themselves,” Philip Skaff, the main architect of the anniversary celebrations, told Associated Press Television News.
The Libyan leader known for his outlandish outfits and penchant for conducting state business in tents kicked off the celebrations before dawn Tuesday, timed to coincide with the start of the coup. He began the four days of celebrations with a feast at a former US air base that was turned into a Libyan military camp.
Libya invited many heads of state to the anniversary celebrations. But many sent lower-level representatives or stayed away in a sign of the still-touchy relations and concern over how to treat the African nation while a new controversy is swirling over the return home of the only man convicted in the 1998 Lockerbie bombing that killed 270 people.
Scottish officials released Abdel Basset Al-Megrahi on Aug. 20 on compassionate grounds, saying doctors determined he suffered from terminal prostate cancer and had only three months to live. His release and warm welcome in Libya outraged many of the victims’ families and US officials.
Since Al-Megrahi’s return to Libya, he has been hospitalized and his health has quickly deteriorated, Libyan officials said. Asked how long Al-Megrahi could still have to live, the head of Libyan State Information Agency, Majid Al-Dursi, said: “Only God knows when it will be over. But he is dying now.” There was no way to independently verify his condition, and it was not clear how long Al-Megrahi has to live.
To mark the anniversary, Libya held a military parade followed by a large-scale celebration in a Tripoli stadium in the evening. Ahead of the parade, large numbers of soldiers gathered on a street along the Mediterranean Sea that leads to Tripoli’s Green Square, a sweeping plaza decorated with green Libyan flags.
Qaddafi came to power with a military coup in 1969, and was ostracized for decades over accusations Libya supported international terrorism, including the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.
More recently, the Libyan leader has tried to restore his country’s standing in the world and transform it from a pariah state to an accepted member of the international community.
Qaddafi surprised the world by agreeing to dismantle his country’s weapons of mass destruction programs. The United States restored ties with Libya in 2006 after Libya agreed to resolve the Lockerbie case in a deal that included paying compensation to the victims’ families.
Qaddafi will make his first visit to the US later this month to address the United Nations in what was expected to be the culmination of years of effort to repair his international image.
Swiss officials said Tuesday that the Mediterranean country broke its promise to free two Swiss businessmen by Sept. 1 who have been held since last summer. The two men were caught up in a spat between Libya and Switzerland following the arrest last summer of Qaddafi’s son. Geneva police briefly detained Hannibal Qaddafi and his wife in a luxury hotel for allegedly beating up two of their servants.
Libya retaliated by severing business and diplomatic ties with Switzerland, and detaining the businessmen, allegedly for violating immigration rules.
Even the anniversary celebrations hit some bumps. In a sign of how tightly the government was trying to control the festivities, Italy said Libya wants an Italian air force acrobatic team flying over Tripoli to only emit green smoke — a color Qaddafi associates with his regime.
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, criticized for visiting Qaddafi in Tripoli on Sunday to celebrate the first anniversary of a friendship treaty that has unleashed major contracts for Italian firms, said it was red, white and green, or nothing.
“I agreed last night with the defense minister that the Tri-Color Arrows will only fly with the tri-color display,” he said on a visit to Poland. The Italian jets later did their overfly spewing out the three colors of the national flag.
