| I love success stories. |
FOR Libya, 2004 was the year where everything changed, politically with its return to international grace, and economically with the start of reforms cutting away at state-controlled management. It was a giant step that kicked off the year of change: Tripoli, on December 19, 2003 surprised most of the world by exposing its programme for weapons of mass destruction and then pledging to abandon it. The revelation and promise followed months of secret negotiations with Washington and London."The world has changed," acknowledged Libya's leader Colonel Moamer Kadhafi, speaking on September 1, the 35th anniversary of his accession to power in a coup, in explanation of his country's opening up to the world. "We insulted each other a lot, but at the end of the day we were all losers," he said, justifying his determination to end the rogue image his country had endured for more than 20 years. Since then, Libyan officials and media have repeatedly chanted the mantra of today's world: "there is no eternal friendship, nor eternal hostility, only interests".
One by one, Libya has sorted out its conflicts with Western countries. The Kadhafi Foundation, headed by Saif al-Islam, the eldest son of the Libyan leader, has been the guiding hand behind these settlements which have depleted Libya's budget by billions of dollars. Libya signed an accord with France to compensate the victims of the attack on the UTA airline DC-10 in 1989 in which 170 people died. It pledged to pay out 170 million dollars. Tripoli also decided to pay out a total 35 million dollars to the 168 mainly German survivors of a 1986 bomb attack on La Belle discotheque in Berlin which killed two US soldiers and a Turkish woman. The woman's family was included in those being compensated.