TRIPOLI, 28 October 2003 — Libya yesterday restored international telephone links and reopened its ports after isolating itself for 24 hours to mourn thousands who were deported during the Italian occupation and never returned.
On Sunday, flags flew at half-staff, black banners hung from public buildings and civil servants wore black armbands, while state television broadcast only in black and white, said an AFP correspondent resuming dispatches yesterday.
In the schools, teachers began the day with a speech reminding pupils of the “drama of their grandparents.” Both airports and seaports were closed but have since reopened, the AFP correspondent said.
The state-run news agency JANA said “more than 5,000 Libyans were uprooted from their land and deported to Italian islands by colonizers starting on Oct. 26, 1911,” in order to break the will of the resistance. JANA said that the Foreign Ministry stressed that “Oct. 26 each year is a day of mourning in memory of thousands of men, women and children and elderly who were deported starting in 1911.
On Oct. 7, Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi threatened to boot Italian companies out of Libya if Rome did not provide compensation for acts committed in the colonial period from 1911-1942. In July 1998, Rome and Tripoli signed a joint statement on the colonial period in which Italy apologized officially to the Libyan people for damages it caused during the occupation.
In the document, Italy pledged to help remove thousands of landmines still left in the country from World War II and build a hospital. Qaddafi is demanding compensation, but Rome considers the issue settled by an agreement concluded in 1956 with King Idriss, who was overthrown by Qaddafi.
