The Hijacked Wealth

2014, Crime  -  51 min Leave a Comment
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The question is still open about the destiny of the Libyan investment in Europe after military intervention in Libya. How can it possibly come back to the country? Many chapters of Gaddafi's lifetime are connected with his relationship with the West. It passed through many ups and downs, which made a full stop at the end of his life.

For understanding the secrets of the black-box of this relationship we should trace its details from the very beginning when Gadhafi took command of Libya in 1969.

When Gaddafi undertook the revolution Libyans thought what happened was a "revolution." At that time, there were three powers present in Libya; the Americans, the British, and, somewhat, the French. The US base was very close to Tripoli. But, unfortunately, they were fanciful enough believing there was a revolution to terminate the presence of these bases.

Responding to the Western request for a naval base in Libya, Gaddafi told the American diplomats that he will no longer welcome a US military strategic base. Hence it was the beginning of a turbulent phase for Libya's leader. But, when he blasted the Lockerbie airplane in 1988 the Libyan people started suffering.

Libya was embargoed for 14 years and the Libyan dinar instead of being equivalent to 1 or 2 dollars, was worth 60 Egyptian piasters. So every action Gaddafi was taking affected the Libyan people negatively. The turning point in Gadhafi's relationship with Europe and America was 9/11. He was very careful to be amongst the first to express his sorrow to the Americans about what happened. That was a sign that he wanted American and to some extent European help.

From 2004 Libya began to become more integrated in the international community and in particular there was great interest from Western firms in the prospect of doing business in Libya. What western companies were interested in was managing Libya's oil wealth. Reciprocally, Gaddafi made a lot of investments in companies, banks and funds in Western countries through the Libyan Investment Authority. It was a huge economic operation to push money out of Libya. All that money was lost after his fall.

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