Reply #82: The significance of the Cameron/Sarkozy visit to Libya

[pinboy3niner]

From AJE's Live Blog:


Al Jazeera's Anita McNaught has just been reporting live from Tripoli, ahead of a visit by British PM David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

We're expecting two very senior leaders of two very important delegations. ... This is all about building confidence. Of course France and Britain took leading roles in the intervention in Libya, but it's much more important now that in this post-Gaddafi period, even though Gaddafi of course has not entirely disappeared from the picture, that France and Britain be also seen to be leading the recovery.

This is a city many, many months ago when I was here back in March, as a place that looked like it had been hit by a neutron bomb: the buildings were standing but the people had disappeared. Britain and France need to engage to show the world that there is a post-conflict plan. There is security, there is stability, there is confidence. And they're coming here one would imagine to start that ball well and truly rolling.

One shouldn't only imagine it's about the oil. I don't think anyone in Libya is suspicious of big business contracts either, at least not at the moment. Look, there was enormous foreign business going on in Libya under Colonel Gaddafi. Every major American company had a presence here. We've seen Haliburton's signage all over the country as we've travelled through here. There were massive construction contracts going on with China, with Turkey. And one of the most crucial things that the NTC has said again and again is that we will honour existing contracts. Because in truth the pause button was hit: what Libya needs most of all right now is for those countries that had ongoing business here to pick up where they left off. Get their foreign workers back in and start making those very necessary public projects.

http://blogs.aljazeera.net/liveblog/libya-sep-15-2011-1039