Rice meets Gaddafi on historic Libyan visit
The US and Libya sealed a historic turnaround after decades of terrorist killings, American retaliation, suspicions and insults with Condoleezza Rice’s peacemaking visit to mercurial strongman Muammar Gaddafi.
“The relationship has been moving in a good direction for a number of years now and I think tonight does mark a new phase,” secretary of state Ms Rice said after a traditional Ramadan dinner – the evening meal that breaks the day’s fast during the Muslim holy month – at Mr Gaddafi’s official Bab el-Azizia residence.
It is the same compound hit by US air strikes in 1986 in retaliation for a deadly Libyan-linked terrorist attack in Germany. The attack killed Mr Gaddafi’s baby daughter.
“We did talk about learning from the lessons of the past,” Ms Rice said. “We talked about the importance of moving forward. The US, I’ve said many times, doesn’t have any permanent enemies.”
Ms Rice is the highest-ranking American official to visit Libya in a half-century. The US considers Mr Gaddafi rehabilitated since the days when former US president Ronald Reagan called him the “mad dog of the Middle East”, because of the Libyan’s surprise decision in 2003 to renounce terrorism and give up weapons of mass destruction.
His government has also agreed to resolve legal claims from the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, and other alleged terror attacks that bore Libyan fingerprints.
“Libya has changed, America has changed, the world has changed,” Libyan foreign minister Abdel-Rahman Shalgam said after a meeting with Ms Rice. “Forget the past.”
Mr Gaddafi welcomed Ms Rice in a room redolent of incense. Wearing flowing white robes, his trademark fez and a green pin of Africa, Mr Gaddafi bowed slightly and put his right hand over his heart in a traditional Arab greeting. The two did not shake hands, but Mr Gaddafi did shake the hands of Ms Rice’s male aides.
They then exchanged pleasantries, with Ms Rice offering Mr Gaddafi greetings from US president George Bush and Mr Gaddafi asking about the hurricanes that have hit or are heading for the US mainland, before reporters, photographers and television camera crews were ushered out.
Their small talk belied almost 30 years of dismal US-Libyan relations that hit their low point in the 1980s when Mr Reagan ordered the retaliatory air strike and Mr Gaddafi swore revenge.
“We’re off to a good start,” Ms Rice said later. “It is only a start, but I think, after many, many years, it’s a very good thing that the US and Libya are establishing a way forward.”
The US withdrew its ambassador from Libya in 1972 after Mr Gaddafi renounced agreements with the West and vilified the US in speeches and public statements. Washington cut off diplomatic relations with Libya after a mob sacked and burned the American Embassy in 1979.
Mr Gaddafi is known for often unpredictable behaviour and has cultivated images as both an Arab potentate and African monarch since taking power in a 1969 coup. In a televised address to the nation this week he said he considered the US neither a friend nor an enemy.
In an interview with Al-Jazeera television last year, he spoke of Ms Rice in most unusual terms, calling her “Leezza” and suggesting that she actually runs the Arab world with which he has had severe differences in the past.
“I support my darling black African woman,” he said. “I admire and am very proud of the way she leans back and gives orders to the Arab leaders. ... Leezza, Leezza, Leezza. ... I love her very much. I admire her, and I’m proud of her, because she’s a black woman of African origin.”
Ms Rice is the first American secretary of state to visit Libya since John Foster Dulles in 1953 and the highest-ranking US official to visit since then-vice president Richard Nixon in 1957.
