Libya, 2011

At the

outset, allow me to thank most sincerely the

Ambassador of sisterly Qatar on his election to the

presidency of the General Assembly at its sixty-sixth

session. I should like also to thank Secretary-General

Mr. Ban Ki-moon on his reappointment to a second

term as Secretary-General.

I stand before the Assembly today feeling sadness

and awe at the loss of the more than 30,000 martyrs

who sacrificed their lives for my country. Their sacred

blood was shed to write a new history for the new

Libya. By the same token, I bow before the mothers

who now know that their sons’ sacrifice was just and

rightful. Had the same events been repeated, mothers,

fathers, sons and daughters would have done the same,

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in order to write the new history. From this rostrum, let

me salute all the martyrs whose blood was shed, and all

the mothers and fathers in Libya. I also salute the

thousands of wounded in hospitals both inside and

outside Libya.

Two years ago, in this very Hall and on this very

spot, Muammar Al-Qadhafi stood before the Assembly

and tore up the Charter of the United Nations. That was

a pathetic, theatrical move that disdainfully flouted

international values. Even though we might have some

reservations about the rules that govern the work of

international organizations, they should not be judged

in such a manner or treated in such a theatrical way,

which is harmful to the people of Libya, to the

Secretary-General of the United Nations, to the

President of the General Assembly and indeed to the

entire Organization.

I stand before the Assembly today to show the

world that a new Libya is being born, a Libya that

looks ahead with a vision of development and self-

realization, a Libya that wants to heal its wounds,

overcome its pain and reach out to the entire world.

This new Libya wants to rebuild and to reform its

history.

The vision of the new Libya is that of a civil,

democratic State governed by a clear, unambiguous

constitution that sets forth rights and obligations, that

does not discriminate between male and female, one

faction and another, one political belief and another,

between east and west, nor along racial or ethnic lines.

All Libyans are the sons and daughters of this

nation, a nation that is now determined to heal its

wounds and move on after 42 years away from the

international community. It seeks to be an active party,

like other countries of the world, one that can

contribute to a human civilization.

We do not claim to have a magic wand, as

Muammar Al-Qadhafi did when he looked at himself in

the mirror and suddenly discovered that he was an

almighty prophet with a solution to every problem on

Earth, except for Libya’s.

After 42 years, one fifth of Libya’s people live in

poverty, and the country’s educational and health

systems and services are the worst in the region.

Infrastructure is falling to pieces, and youth

unemployment is over 30 per cent. Those are the

solutions bequeathed to us by Muammar Al-Qadhafi.

Libya is witness to that.

The new Libya of which I speak did not arise

from a vacuum. It has been watered by the blood shed

since 17 February of this year, when Libyan youth

decided to turn a new page in Libyan history. The

entire Libyan people — young and old, women and

children — paid the ultimate price. All the sons and

daughters of Libya have written this page. No one can

claim to lead this revolution or own it; only the Libyan

people can claim that.

In the very first week of March of this year, a

parallel action was launched alongside the act of

revolutionary youth in all cities of Libya. A group of

people, including myself, was working day and night to

provide political support and to interpret the just cause

of the Libyan people on Libyan soil, to interpret the

prevailing oppression and dictatorship and the lack of

any development for the past 42 years. Friendly,

sisterly countries responded to that call. They reached

out to the hands that had reached out to them. The

world helped us to shed injustice.

On behalf of the Libyan people, I wish here to

thank all friendly States, all sisterly States and all

regional organizations. I wish to thank in particular the

United Nations for Security Council resolutions 1970

(2011) and 1973 (2011), which were a determining

factor in eliminating injustice and protecting civilians

and preventing any further massacres in my country.

On the basis of such continuous diplomatic

efforts, I can say today that that mission has been

accomplished. Now we have a new mission. Let us

make another attempt. Let us reach out to those who

need technical assistance. Let all funds be unfrozen so

that, having freed themselves from tyranny, the Libyan

people can now rebuild.

Libya today is at the crossroads of realities on the

ground, expectations and rightful dues. The facts can

be summarized quite briefly. The land is not yet fully

liberated. There are still some fronts to be liberated. It

is our right within Libya to liberate our own land, and

we hope to do just that sometime soon.

Our infrastructure has been destroyed. There are

many wounded and martyred in all Libyan cities. More

than 63 schools have been destroyed. There are more

than 50,000 injured. Amputees number more than

1,700. They await help and succour so that they can

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once again effectively contribute to rebuilding their

country.

The social fabric needs healing, having been torn

by Al-Qadhafi. He tried to turn some tribes and

communities against each other and some regions

against others.

The economy is broken down. Oil sits, needing to

pumped and exported. Although production is being

resumed, we believe that more assistance is required in

that regard.

Funds and assets have been frozen. The

announced lifting of the freeze certainly does not rise

to the level of what is required in order to enable

reconstruction and rehabilitation of the country. State

institutions need to be re-established and rebuilt,

particularly because the country has been deprived of

any real institutions for over 42 years. Libya is a State

that had no law or institutions. Social and political

demands are jostling each other, not just in terms of

participation but also of setting priorities.

First and foremost, we must agree on the rules

and principles of participation. In addition, as the

Assembly knows, there are many expectations, from

our people within and from members of the

international community without. As the Assembly

considers how soon the transitional period will begin

and how the transitional Government will be created, it

is calling for respect for human rights and for respect

for foreign workers, asking that we deal with them in

accordance with international norms. The Assembly

calls for us to include everyone, without exclusion, to

build institutions at the required speed, to achieve

national reconciliation and end the arming and

militarization of our streets and towns, and to maintain

the unity of the homeland. The international

community is also asking us to include it in

reconstruction.

That is a great deal by any standard.

Nevertheless, a people that was able to bring down its

regime and face political initiatives from all sides

could not accept that its situation was at a standstill.

The Transitional National Council has always rejected

compromise solutions. Through their will, the Libyan

youth and Libyan people proved that those calculations

were wrong, proving that they can win the battle and

face all the challenges, despite all the doubts and

problems that I just mentioned.

National unity without a unified land or without

national reconciliation is an illusion. Achieving

security and national reconciliation are urgent

imperatives for any Government, whether interim or

transitional. No political participation is possible

without rules, rights and obligations. Therefore, it is of

the utmost importance to put a draft constitution to the

Libyan people for referendum. We want the rules of

political participation to be fair and to govern the

dialogue and competition, giving rights to all, without

excluding any individual or group.

The assets freeze on our funds must be fully

lifted as soon as possible. Let me appeal to the

Assembly from this rostrum and to the Security

Council to adopt the historic resolution to lift the

freeze soon. The regime has fallen, even though we

have not yet liberated the entire homeland.

We seek the help of the United Nations, the

unconditional help of friendly and sisterly countries.

We believe it to be a legitimate and undeniable right of

all States to enjoy sovereignty, whatever the nature or

size of assistance that is sought and needed.

The Libya that we want is a State of law, an oasis

for human development in the Middle East. We believe

that Libya, through geography, history and its

geostrategic importance in the world, is a cultural link

between North, South, East and West. Libya must

resume that role, a role that has been denied to it for

more than 40 years now.

I believe that development solutions that Libya

may propose could help find unprecedented solutions

to the phenomenon of illegal migration from the

southern part of the African continent to Europe. We

believe that the twenty-first century will be ruled to a

large extent by demography, and we believe that Africa

has the greatest capacities in terms of geography and

human resources. We believe that hundreds of millions

of young Africans will be driven by poverty and

unemployment to move northward. Libya can be the

gateway to development, instead of being the obstacle

to migration from South to North.

African labour, skills and competencies that

satisfy the needs of the European economies can

contribute to European economic growth, particularly

in the light of the fact that in the next 30 years Europe

will be facing a much smaller, ageing population. In

2050, the population of Europe will have diminished

by 72 million; Africa’s population will be nearly

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2 billion. We believe that all this can contribute to

European economic well-being and development

through an agreement between Libyan capital and

European technology.

On the political front, Libya must be a civilian

democratic State that gives full opportunities and

participation to all its sons and daughters. Women must

have a major role in the reconstruction of such a State.

Women in Libya, about 50 per cent of the population,

enjoy a very high level of education, because many

continue their education beyond high school. We

believe that women have a genuine role to play in

rebuilding and developing Libya.

As for foreign policy, we need a vision that

radically reviews Muammar Al-Qadhafi’s foreign

policy, which was designed to sow fear, terrorism and

blackmail in many regions of the world. Rare is the

region of the world that escaped suffering from

Muammar Al-Qadhafi’s practices and plots to

destabilize them through terrorism. Our new foreign

policy must be based on mutual respect and respect for

mutual interests, and on non-intervention in the

internal affairs of others, just as we do not accept that

others intervene in our affairs. International

instruments, conventions, treaties, norms, values and

ethical principles must be respected. These are the

terms of reference for all relationships today.

Rebuilding Libya into a civilian democratic State

is an important matter, not only for Libya but, in our

view, for the entire region as well. Libya is capable of

becoming, and has the opportunity to become, a model

of democracy and successful development. The

negative effects of the separation of a country’s politics

from its economy have brought many problems and

difficulties to this region.

The time has come for a vision of development

that puts young people and women at the very top of its

list of priorities — not just because they make up

67 per cent of the population of the Arab world, but

because the future belongs to them. It is they who

started and led this revolution and the other revolutions

of the Arab Spring. We therefore need a new vision that

responds to the dreams of youth, a vision that the

international community must support; otherwise, the

region will only be subjected to successive waves of

instability.

Supporting Libya in this development paradigm

is no less important and critical than protecting

innocent civilians. The international community, whom

we thank, did this in implementing Security Council

resolution 1973 (2011). In this context, we are

proposing a clear initiative, which could be termed

“building the new Libya”, to which our brothers and

friends contribute. However, the United Nations must

play a pioneering and leading role here, one through

which its specialized development agencies can

provide expertise and technical assistance. We must

give those agencies precedence over private companies

in order to avoid any possibility of corruption or lack

of transparency and fairness.

We believe that roads are made by the feet that

walk on them. The Libyan people have now begun

their march towards rewriting their history. We have

great hopes in this international Organization, which

has travelled hand in hand with us. It was a

trustworthy, reliable friend — as was, indeed, the

entire international community — and prevented an

imminent massacre in my country by intervening at the

right time to save civilians. That makes a reality of the

Arab League’s call for an intervention, and we thank

the League for that. Just as the United Nations was a

faithful friend at that time, we believe it can now be a

trusted and supportive partner in the rebuilding of my

country. This is the major battle, for which we appeal

to the Assembly for assistance — political, economic,

financial and technical.