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.