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[ocean waves]
[ocean waves, louder]
[tape recorder starts]
How are you, uncle?
How are you?
Do you remember the days when you were here with us?
Do you remember when we used to go to the seaside?
And when I'd try to leave the house with you
you'd say, "No way!"
I'd say, "Uncle, uncle, can you take me with you?"
Do you remember that?
Do you remember?
Do you remember that?
- Allahu akbar.
[shouting, cars driving]
[distant gunfire]
[indistinct shouting, gunfire]
[screeching tyres]
[indistinct shouting, gunfire]
[dramatic synth music]
- Muammar Gaddafi has been killed.
Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton
got the news in Kabul this morning.
Wow!
We came, we saw, he died.
- Ashur Shamis is a Libyan journalist that
has been in exile in London for 40 years.
What is the mood in Libya this morning?
- The mood is jubilant.
People who have achieved the aims of the revolution.
It is not a NATO operation that brought about the end of Gaddafi
it is the Libyan peoples
and young people who fought
and it is also a moment of contemplation as well.
- My dad opposed Gaddafi for most of his life.
And for the 40 years he was in exile in England,
it felt like killing Gaddafi was more important to him
than living with us.
So when the chance came for him to go back home,
he took it.
A lifetime's dream had now become reality.
The Libyan had become an Englishman
with an exile's fantasy of home and freedom.
[dramatic synth music]
[car driving]
[dramatic synth music]
Blood is merged,
a precarious mix.
Neither black nor white. Maybe "other" I tick.
Far detached from a sun and a sand,
for all I know is
England.
Off to the prep and a pothole we miss
sometimes in the centre,
sometimes in the sticks.
Born 'n' bred, I never knew care.
As long as hometime came
with my pals im'a share.
[music, slowing]
[birds, suburb ambience]
Baba grew up in a mountainous town south of Tripoli.
It was the centre of Libyan resistance
against the Italian colonisers.
[clock ticks]
I grew up in Croydon
a nice leafy London suburb.
While he was in Libya helping to build the new country,
I took the chance to explore his study.
A place I had no access to as a child.
I was free to scan the shelves and search the drawers.
[tape recorder clicks on]
How are you uncle Ashur?
How’s Abdullah? How’s Shamela?
- Tell him to give Abdullah some kisses from us.
We thought we’d send you a tape.
Some words from your mother, the kids, your sister.
So you won't miss our voices.
- I’m waiting hour by hour and
minute by minute for you to come home.
Hey uncle come and have a cup of tea with us here.
May God protect you and give you contentment.
I've been waiting for you.
I thought you would come back to me.
[tape recorder clicks off]
- I'm joined now by a spokesman from the
National Front for the Salvation of Libya
who understandably wishes to remain anonymous.
[static]
- Some of the earliest memories I have of my father
are of him on the evening news.
- The opposition living outside Libya
against the Gaddafi regime.
As I said the earlier, it will be difficult to identify these
and there are actually active groups
and individuals inside Libya.
These people might turn against each other
because there is very little love lost between them.
All Libyans who are opposed to the Gaddafi regime
are in some sort of danger.
[static]
[tense classical Arabic oud music]
[tense music, city traffic]
[tense classical Arabic oud music]
I’ll tell you a joke...
this one guy
bought himself some new shoes
and went to the mosque.
He put his shoes outside and went to pray
then he came out and found his shoes had been stolen.
"Bring back my shoes or I’ll do what my father did!"
Everyone got scared, thinking he’d do something big.
Then someone asked him, "What did your father do?"
"He went home barefoot."
[tense classical Arabic oud music]
On this glorious night
truth had triumphed over the people's enemies!
[crowd chants]
[slow music]
[birds chirp]
[clock ticks]
- Khalid?
I need the Arabic coffee.
In the middle cupboard.
- Is there anything you think I should ask Baba
about this period in Libya
or afterwards?
You were saying he's in some desperation.
He just...
Before, I used to say
"Now what's happening in Libya, what's happening?"
And he'd give me a little run down.
Now when I say, "What's happening in Libya?"
He says, "There's no Libya, now stop asking."
Because there's nothing to talk about.
[classical Arabic background music]
Yes, um, y'know...
A person who knows me in the security service
got this file and brought it to me
when I was working in Libya in 2012.
In the name of A'Daal, Ashur Abdullah Shamis.
"A'Daal" means the stray dog.
Officially, this is official.
This file has a number of documents.
They're all related to me.
That we conducted a lot of activity against Libya generally
and that we should be held to trial.
And of course when you come to the report by Musa Kousa himself
the head of Libyan external security,
the most feared man in Libya,
you don't just laugh, you go "gaga".
It's about five pages, full of inaccuracies and things.
I got hold of chemical and germ weapons.
- Really? - Yes.
- And, did you?
[he laughs]
This is ridiculous.
Now this is very funny.
Ashur Shamis gives lessons in politics and Islamic studies
to a group of heretics about Jihad. And so on.
In a special place for training
in Manchester United city.
[laughs]
The city of Manchester United.
In London.
- He doesn't mention your kids?
No, no. They don't mention my kids.
- Tell me how did the dream start and why?
- From the beginning we opposed Gaddafi's revolution.
It's a copycat of Nasser's revolution
and we were against Nasser's revolution.
- I see.
- We know that a military regime will always turn out nasty.
[mysterious music]
We used to publish a magazine from here in Arabic
called Al-Ghuraba, The Exiles,
criticising some of Gaddafi's activities.
And I was told, "Don't come back your name is on the list."
[mysterious music]
I mean Gaddafi put in prison
people who were nationalists, communists, liberals.
They were all put in prison together in 1973.
He called them sick people.
They are taken to these prisons to be treated.
[mysterious music]
He was absolutely radical
you know, for the sake of radicalism.
His sole objective was power, was control of Libya.
- But then, politically -
politically you were all Ikhwanis (Muslim Brotherhood)?
- Yes, I was with the Ikhwan.
- So you came from an Ikhwani Islamist background.
But not Socialist, not Nationalist?
- Definitely.
- And then became Nationalist Islamist agenda?
- Exactly.
- But not Ikhwani at all now? - No, not Ikhwani.
- So what did you then expect
to implement after taking Gaddafi down?
We imagined a society in Libya
that would have freedom of expression, justice
and look forward to development of society.
You know, materially, economically, socially
and of course religiously,
that was the objective in the first place.
And the Muslim society to us is a varied society.
[classical Arabic background music, crowd cheers]
- The first open threat from Colonel Gaddafi
came in February 1980.
Then he warned that:
"All opponents of the government currently living abroad
should make arrangements
to return to Libya by June the 11th 1980
or face physical liquidation."
[classical Arabic background music]
[wind rustling]
Colonel Gaddafi referred to opponents abroad as "Stray Dogs"
who would be liquidated.
"The Libyan Arab people," he said
"will meet their full responsibility
of liquidating escaped agents of America.
And now it must pursue the rest abroad."
[bomb blast]
Another bomb is discovered in London at an Arab restaurant.
As the foreign office demands assurances
that Libya stops those responsible
from fighting it out on Britain's streets.
In April 1980, a Libyan journalist
Mustapha Ramadan was shot dead
outside the mosque in Regent's Park London.
A few days later, a dissident Libyan lawyer
Mahmoud Nafa was shot dead in his offices in Kensington.
Libyans arrested for the killings admitted
they were part of a six man death squad
sent to Britain for those and other murders.
Musa Kousa was expelled from Great Britain
for organising and approving
the assassinations of Libyan exiles.
And that two more victims had been selected.
Kousa reportedly said, "I approve of this."
- I was very close to Ramadan, Muhammad Mustapha Ramadan.
We were friends from Libya.
We used to be together every day or every other day.
And the people who arranged the killing,
basically Musa Kousa,
they also had me in their sights.
And in fact they were looking for two people at the mosque
they might find two people
so I was told by the security here,
"You can't work in your usual place."
In other words, "You have to go underground."
And that's exactly what I did.
MI5 and Scotland Yard really were sympathetic to us.
Sometimes we did seek their help,
but they never did like the Arabs.
They never gave us passports or anything like that.
[soft synth music]
- And then Jehad was born.
- Yes.
Mummy was pregnant with Jehad and he was coming any time.
So I decided after two weeks to come to this house,
and a few days later I attended Jehad's birth here in the house.
We had a different name for him, we had the name Harith.
Then we thought, Harith?
If we use Harith in English it will become Harry.
You know...
I said, well, the whole relationship
between us and Gaddafi has now exploded
and we are in a state of jehad
against Gaddafi and the Gaddafi regime
why don't you call him Jehad?
[television test tone]
[programme introduction music]
Brother viewers
peace be upon you and God's mercy.
Once again, welcome Dr. Magharief
we hope he can first tell us first about how
the National Front for the Salvation of Libya
came to be founded, where it is based
and the reason for the timing of its announcement.
- The person behind the whole idea is Dr. Magharief.
He was ambassador in India. He just said,
"I resigned from the regime
and I am joining the opposition."
- He who loves our homeland Libya
loves every spring of water in it
and every plant
and every particle of its beloved land...
- We grew very fast. Other countries joined, like Algeria,
Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia and Iraq.
- They were all against Gaddafi?
- Yes, at that time there was a very strong wave of
opposition to Gaddafi, even from Arab regimes.
We met the top politicians,
the top people in the army said:
"You can come, you can have training camps."
They gave us passports right away
there was movement, there was dynamism.
[intriguing synth music]
This is the material, notes and minutes of meetings
1980 and in '81.
This, by the way,
is an old suitcase which I used
to use a lot when I used to travel
to Morocco, to Egypt, and to the United States.
- American Tourister. - American Tourister, yes.
- What's the code?
007?
- No.
Top secret.
All about the military activities we used to do.
"The battle inside Libya: When and How."
This is a code for names we gave ourselves.
If you take the number from the top
and you go from the bottom or something.
8 and E... Elaaina.
So every word has got a special... special code.
- What was your code name? - I don’t know.
- You don't remember? - No.
My name was Abu Abdullah.
As my name.
And also
I had a number of passports which I used to use.
[laughs]
This is my Libyan passport from the Kingdom of Libya.
Tunis.
Shams El Din was my pseudonym.
Moroccan passport.
Abed Abdella.
Now Sudan.
Shams El Din Mohamed Ibrahim.
It's a diplomatic passport.
- Is it still valid?
[laughs]
[futuristic nostalgic synth music]
[tape recorder click on]
[tape recorder voices]
She means, "Ashur is coming to see us on an aeroplane."
Tell him to reply to this tape.
- Yeah! Tell him to reply to this tape!
[tape recorder click off]
[futuristic nostalgic synth music]
[static]
Joining us now is a London based member
of the National Front for the Salvation of Libya,
the chief opposition group to Colonel Gaddafi's regime.
Have you gone in danger or at least in fear for your own life?
Well all Libyans who are opposed to the Gaddafi regime
are in some sort of danger,
whether in this country or in other European countries.
[tense synth music]
- And this? - Better not, better not.
- Let's see this.
Was this the kind of thing you were looking to buy?
- Things like that, yes.
- And did you buy these?
- I don't remember really.
This is a very special weapon for all special uses.
- It's like a Rambo gun.
- Um.
- You can shoot little rockets.
- And it's a shotgun. - Yes.
- Did you handle one of these? - No, I don't remember.
I handled a Kalashnikov.
What's that?
- More guns?
What are these?
These are pistols with silencers.
- They don't belong to me necessarily.
So the intention from the beginning was to
overthrow by military means?
Not really overthrow.
Okay, that is a possibility, but
to use force
in whichever way possible against Gaddafi and his--
- By any means necessary? - By any means necessary.
Because he dared to come out and...
and kill people.
So there's no more an excuse
for us not to use the same method
in order to frighten his people.
- Yourself, you were ready to go with a gun
and shoot people?
- Yes of course, I was trained militarily,
I was trained how to handle the weapons, how to shoot and so on.
But I didn't really go with the military
because I had other responsibilities in the Front.
I was in charge of the media here in this country
and then the contacts with Libyans
in the UK, Libyans in Europe Libyans inside Libya, because
people were still coming out and back to Libya
and these were very valuable assets to us.
We thought that we will galvanise Libyans abroad
and that will in turn galvanise the Libyans inside the country.
- Which is kind of what happened.
- Yeah. It took much longer, much longer.
- Does the prospect of assassination
worry you at all or do you
ignore that concern?
- Pardon?
- Does the possibility of an attack on you
by maybe people here, or people outside
does that worry you?
No, I'm not a friend.
I am not afraid, sorry.
I am not afraid about such...
[laughs]
[tense Arabic oud music, army drill]
- The Algerians said, "We will provide you with logistics."
And we arranged for a lot of people
to move for military activities.
[tense Arabic oud music, army drill]
We knew there was going to be blood,
we knew there will be fighting,
there will be a lot of unpleasant things.
[typing]
In the name of God, the most Merciful, the most Beneficent.
Praise be upon God.
He who humiliates oppressors and subdues tyrants
in order to overthrow the Gaddafi regime
one of the most glorious aspects of which
was the operation against Bab Al-Aziziyah camp
which was glorious, daring and eternal.
On this historic and blessed day.
Long live Libya!
- So would you say you were training
freedom fighters or terrorists?
- We were training an army for Libya,
more than freedom fighters, more than anything else.
[haunting slow synth music]
- At the top of Colonel Gaddafi's hit-list must be
the group who attacked
his military headquarters yesterday.
The National Front for the Salvation of Libya.
About 30 men stormed the barracks, 15 were killed.
Virtually a suicide mission.
But their leader has threatened more such attacks.
- I'm sure that if Gaddafi remains in power,
innocent people, thousands of them,
will lose their lives.
- Is it at all on your conscience
that it's your activities
that are enabling him to turn his attention to them?
- No, I think, no.
It is not our intention.
If Gaddafi does this
it will be his own mistake and his own deed.
- The importance of the death of this man
shot down on the Libyan border with Tunisia on Sunday
is now clear.
He was a senior member of The National
Front for the Salvation of Libya
and had been sent to Libya
to mastermind yesterday's attempted coup.
The Libyans claim he was backed by the British government
and showed off his passport with its British visa.
- His name is Ahmed Ibrahim Ahwas.
He was in Libya to organise
various military activities in order to destabilise the regime.
[soft slow tense synth music]
- After the attempted coup,
Gaddafi set up a super-prison complex just outside Tripoli.
Abu Salim prison.
[static, distorted voices]
In the apartment I met Hamad Bourniyah
then last February Al-Sadiq Al-Shuwaihidi.
I went with him the next day and saw
Salim Al-Hassi and Osama Shallouf,
whom I met for the first time and hadn't known before.
I never heard from him again after that.
I joined the runaway group of the Muslim Brotherhood.
- List the aspects of your crime.
Joining the stray dogs and the Muslim Brotherhood.
This is a crime.
And not reporting this is also a crime.
- So you are a criminal?
Yes, a criminal.
Entryist.
Traitor.
- You are nothing but infiltrators.
Do you know what infiltrators are?
- Yes.
[bell chimes]
The defendant Mohammad Seid Ali Al-Shabibani
admitted the following.
One: Of his membership to what he calls
the Muslim Brotherhood traitors.
Two: He was fully aware of the plot that the stray dog deviants
intended to carry out in the State of the Masses.
The Congress decided on the need to eliminate the traitors
the saboteurs and stray dogs both domestic and abroad.
[cheering, static]
My name is Sadiq Hamed Shwehdi.
I was studying in America.
I joined the stray dogs in America in 1981.
No mercy for traitors, hang them in the squares.
[ringing whine]
[distant cheering]
[tense hypnotic music, cheering]
[music, distorted voices]
[static]
- I was shattered.
It was really a very very sad occasion.
I never recovered from it.
[slow ambient music]
- What did you think would have happened if
maybe you would have been killed?
- At that time I never thought about it.
- I'm just trying to understand how it would be
with a family in the house planning these things.
I mean, while we were in the other room watching Rambo
you guys were planning Rambo.
- You know, your lives,
the children's and the family's lives
have never been disrupted.
You went to school you went to your friends
you moved in and out of the house normally.
I think we told you
not to say you're Libyan or something like that
or, "Don't talk about what your father does" and so on.
That's it. But your life went on normally.
You think that was part of your choice not to tell us?
- It was. Because we always had the feeling that
it was going to be over in a few months time.
Every time we go on a different programme
we think that this programme will lead us to Libya.
From day one, you know
we always thought that it's a matter of months
and then we will be in Libya
and the years went by and nothing happened.
[tape recorder, family voices]
All the family in Libya, they're all fine and send their regards.
Your sister and her kids are fine.
We just saw all the Gharyan family at Mabrouka’s wedding.
They’re all fine and are asking about you.
I've missed my boy very much.
- Are you afraid we'll lose your boy over there?
- What loss is there over there?
What do you mean the loss over there?
All the Libyans are off to Britain
they're all becoming Londoners.
So hopefully you won't miss Libyans any more.
God willing you'll be in Libya next year.
I hope!
Khalid.
Give me a cup.
The foam comes up
and when you put this coffee in the cup
the foam should sit on the top.
It's still a bit bitter.
- Did you know much about what Baba was up to in those days?
- I knew very little then but I knew there was a little talk,
"They are going in, they are going in,
is it ready, is it time?"
But in Arabic. And I'd ask him, "What's happening?"
And he'd say just a little bit but not much.
- How was he, was he excited about it?
- Yes, he was young excited, he was positive.
It must have been
exciting.
[soft snoring]
Baba once had to be escorted
and he had to change his clothes and go in another car.
Like a spy!
That's what he told me, I don't know.
That's why he's so tired now, he's asleep.
- What would you have done if Baba was killed?
No, no...
I knew Baba is doing something
and if he thinks it's the right thing
who am I to tell him it's not right?
- You're the mother of his children.
Well he knows what he is doing.
During those days, the Front days
where was he getting his money from?
- He wasn't not working--
- But who was funding the Front? You don't know?
- Various people. That's very complicated, don't ask me.
Was it undercover money?
Do you think it was blood money?
No, what blood money?
Well you know at some point they were buying arms to arm an army?
That was their story, I have nothing to do with it.
You mean blood money, killed people?
Well he could have.
No, Baba was not involved in that.
- They were buying arms to arm an army.
- Yeah, so?
- He was an arms dealer.
- He was not an arms dealer.
Do you remember when I found that bulletproof vest?
That was because they were protecting him
the vest was for his protection.
Not because he was an arms dealer, don't be stupid.
And those knives?
Shut up!
What else?
Do you think he was a terrorist?
He's ISIS, he is working in Syria.
- You want me to say that? - No, like how does--
He wasn't, what do you call a terrorist?
Exactly, I don't know. I'm asking.
He wasn't a terrorist
he worked to free the country
from the dictatorship of Gaddafi.
Freedom fighter?
What else?
I just left it to them.
He was doing it with his friends really.
I wasn't fighting his fight with him.
You never really felt part of it?
This was his journey, not mine.
I was too busy.
I had to get things...
I couldn't go in a corner and hide myself
or lock myself in a room.
I was bringing up... you.
You were my revolution.
[light nostalgic music]
Love that taint of Arabische
on the tip of the tongue yet gibberish
[light nostalgic music]
A duck 'n' a dive safe houses
no fixed addresses.
[light nostalgic music]
Stig of the Dump was about this time.
It was Top of the Pops a Thursday drum.
[light nostalgic music]
Stress is hidden but still danger exists
was real.
I must admit
[light nostalgic music]
Fletcher, Ramadham, Abu Zeid all get likked.
Baba and Jumu'a?
Next on the list.
[light nostalgic music]
- The children of the activists in those days were kept away
from the hustle and bustle of opposition work
for their safety.
I wasn't here all the time
and we tried to keep them, you know...
In the dark.
[light nostalgic music]
[footsteps, traffic]
This building with the white cover
being renovated was the embassy building.
We came from this side.
The demonstration, the police were filling this whole area.
Barricades were put the night before.
There was a group of Gaddafi supporters on that side
you know, shouting against us.
Suddenly shots rang from that second window there.
I was right in front of the demonstration.
The reality came when Yvonne Fletcher, right here, fell.
She was hit with a ricochet bullet right in the spine
and she fell right here in front of us.
- Did you think it had your name on it?
- Yes definitely, I mean it was quite clear.
- The whole area is now sealed off
and police marksmen have the building in their sights.
[helicopter]
- This tree was planted in memory of WPC Yvonne Fletcher
17th April 1984.
Very nice, MashAllah, it's very nice.
- Gaddafi says, "Lift the siege in London."
His people demonstrate outside the British embassy in Tripoli.
Scargill cheered after the union changes its voting rules.
Torvill and Dean meet the Queen on a sunny day in Nottingham.
The image of Libya in the outside world was very bad.
Of course at that time there was the Palestinian issue,
he was supporting the IRA in the UK,
there was bombings all over the world.
He became famous for being
a supporter of international terrorism.
Scotland Yard came to exchange information.
What is what and who is who.
[bomb blast]
[sirens]
A bomb exploded, hundreds injured.
The American government seized on the death
as the reason to retaliate against Gaddafi
to justify bombing Tripoli.
- The incidents have all the ingredients
of being the work of Gaddafi's revolutionary committees.
Despite our repeated warnings, Gaddafi continued
his reckless policy of intimidation
his relentless pursuit of terror.
He counted on America to be passive.
He counted wrong.
[jets taking off]
- Tripoli is under attack.
[air raid sirens]
[anti-aircraft fire]
[explosions]
[sirens]
[explosions]
[distant gunfire]
God is great!
- Tell me about Chad.
God is great!
- Chad, we went to Chad in 1987
because we couldn't find anywhere else to work from
and Chad had a war with Gaddafi which Gaddafi lost miserably.
[closer gunfire]
[explosions]
[gunfire]
[army drill]
- So the idea was to start another war?
- Yes but it was a long shot.
It was a very ambitious programme.
It was too big for us.
This sort of thing, you cannot leave it
to drag for a year or two years
and I felt that the Front has become
a tool in the hands of most likely the CIA.
It began to dawn on me that we are just wasting our time.
I became convinced that
it is going to break the back of the Front.
I left the Front at the end of the Chad episode.
- Was there any bad blood?
- There were sort of differences, arguments and
things like that, but...
I became resigned to the fact that Gaddafi is there forever.
Gaddafi is going to go and his children are going to take over
another 50, 60 years, nothing is going to happen.
[slow tense music]
- Mayday!
- Rescue teams from all over Britain
are heading for the scene of what looks to be
Britain's worst air crash tonight.
- Death and destruction in the sky
brought death and devastation on the ground below.
- There are growing fears that sabotage
did bring the Pan Am jumbo jet crashing down
into the Scottish town of Lockerbie last night.
- The whole of the 1990s Libya was under sanctions
and the country was going down all the time.
[slow tense music]
We opposed any relations between ourselves
and the United States and Britain
because they are killers and murderers
and we opposed to any relations with Thatcher
she's the criminal and she's the murderer
and she's the terrorist.
[slow tense music]
- It was a period of darkness.
There were long long moments
periods of months and years re-thinking and re-considering.
Did we do the right thing?
[gunfire]
How can we at least recoup
some of the things that we have achieved in the past?
[sirens]
[music]
But the revolution became digital,
that was the flood of satellite TV.
And then I started appearing on television.
In the open you know,
I had no more camouflage or anything like that
and that was extremely successful.
- Did it feel liberating to be able to not hide?
Yes, exactly.
No one can deny the existence
of a religious and political revival
in the Islamic world today.
I worked for the BBC, Al Jazeera,
ANN and MBC that could transmit to Libya
and the regime could do nothing about it.
[Arabic sound bite]
[helicopter]
1996, there was an incident in June in Tripoli.
Abu Salim prison.
There was a tiff between the prisoners and their guards
and the regime went into that with force
and ordered the prisoners to go back to their cells
and they refused.
So they simply shot them.
[cheering]
[gunfire]
They killed 1,276 prisoners in two days.
Nobody knew how they were killed
where are they buried, who are they?
People used to go to the prison
and take food and clothes for their sons or their husbands
and they would take it from them
and not tell them they're not alive.
They tried by all means to hide that massacre.
The situation carried on like this until about 2000.
In the website Akhbar Libya
we broke it out to the world that there was this massacre.
Akhbar Libya was purely political
and purely aimed at the regime.
We have no weapons, we have no guns
but we will fight you with words.
[chanting]
The frustration and popular anger in Libya against Gaddafi
was building up like mad.
We began to publish things which had never been published before
and straight away it was hacked.
Gaddafi personally wanted
to destroy me or destroy the website.
But then we have recovered within three or four days
and back in business again.
It was at that time that the regime started thinking,
We have to talk to these people.
Well good evening to you all
and welcome to this special Ralph Miliband lecture
on the past, present and future of Libya
presented by Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi
and let me say right from the beginning
what a pleasure it is for me to have him here.
At the same time Saif al-Islam, the eldest son of Gaddafi
appeared in the scene.
Gaddafi wanted to show a new regime face
talking about human rights and democracy and so on.
Over the past three decades
Libya has conducted a grand scale social experiment
to try to create an alternative to the dominant model
of party-based representative democracy.
A democracy based
on the principle of direct participation.
Of the spirit of ancient Athens.
So, in theory
Libya is the most democratic state in the world.
[laughter, applause]
He did ask me to come to Libya and I said, "Not yet."
He said, "You can work better in Libya."
- It would have been a trap? - Yeah.
He said, "You can have Akhbar Libya from Libya
and you'll have the news."
I said, you know, "It'll have to wait."
He did hint at offering me money
but I never encouraged him to do that
and of course by 2006/2007 it was clear
that Saif has no agenda but the agenda of his father.
- Does Libya accept responsibility
for the attack on Lockerbie?
Yes, we wrote a letter to the security council
saying that we are responsible
for the acts of our employees, or people.
But it doesn't mean that we did it in fact.
- So to be very clear on this, what you're saying is
that you accept responsibility
but you're not admitting that you did it?
Of course.
That, to many people, will sound like a very cynical way
to conduct your relationship with the outside world.
What can you do? Without writing that letter
you will not be able to get rid of the sanction.
34 years since Gaddafi's last official visit to France
the former "bête noire" of the West
supporter of terrorism, now has the honour of French Republic.
The Colonel Gaddafi has abandoned
his nuclear programme and collaborates
in the fight against terrorism.
It is with this man that the French President shakes hands.
The hour-long meeting discussed arms contracts and human rights.
[anthem music]
[crowds cheer]
Gaddafi came back
and started having new relations here in the West.
Muammar is the leader, everything else is rubbish.
The revolutionaries are here.
How can you convince anybody that things have changed?
They haven't.
He will go back to the old methods
I wouldn't discount that one bit
specifically, especially, against Libyans.
- Why do we think that you have changed?
It's the world that has changed.
My principles have not changed.
Why has it not happened before?
The old generation... the old guard are revolutionaries.
So it's up to the young people?
So leading up to 2011
there was no idea that the Spring would happen?
- No.
In the first week before the 17th of February
the families of Abu Salim prison were demonstrating in Benghazi.
Benghazi wake up, the day you are waiting for has arrived!
Blood of the martyrs will not go in vain.
Gaddafi and his son came in true colours.
There was no more pretence.
[tense, driving music]
Remember my words very well.
Today we are at a cross roads
and a historical decision for us in Libya.
We ask now as a final solution
before it is too late.
Instead of crying over 84 killed people
we'll be crying over thousands.
Blood will flow, rivers of blood
in all the cities of Libya
and you will emigrate from Libya.
Make them ashamed, embarrass them.
I am in the midst of the crowds here in Tripoli, in Green Square
We shall defeat any aggression with an armed people
and if so we shall break open the weapon silos
and arm the entire Libyan people.
Sing and dance he said.
1, 2, 3
4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.
Yes, yes, that's fine, thank you.
What is the story of hallucinatory drugs in Libya?
This is propaganda created by the regime.
These accusations have no truth in them whatsoever.
We must go to the core of the crisis:
this man has no legitimacy,
he is not wanted any more and has no future in Libya.
He has to choose the way he is going to leave Libya
dead or alive.
This is why I say we have to leave the matter to the Libyans.
- Mr. Gaddafi, there are large areas of this country
which you don't control any more.
There are even people in towns quite near here
who are part of this rising, this rebellion.
What are you going to do about all of that?
[laughs]
What is the question?
[TV news background]
- It's a big time, it's a big day.
[TV news background]
It's exciting isn't it?
It is very.
- Exciting?
All these years we've been waiting for these days.
Well many people have done the same
but it's still out of their reach.
- What are you going to do if Baba has to go to Libya?
Well...
- You might be first lady of Libya.
No.
Of course it's exciting, it's worrying,
it's exhilarating.
- So how long do you think it will take now?
I hope, God willing, a few days.
Allahu Akbar.
Didn't they tell you yesterday that Gaddafi is in Venezuela?
And here I am.
It's time to work! It's time to march!
It's time to triumph!
No going back! To the front! To the front! To the front!
Revolution! Revolution!
- Who sent you a message?
This Libyan man, he's very funny.
[TV news background]
This is after Gaddafi spoke and disappeared.
[laughter]
What did he say?
Some tea Shamela, please.
[slow tense music]
[cheering]
We announce to the world that Muammar Gaddafi has been killed
at the hands of the revolutionaries
[slow tense music]
and Gaddafi's tyranny and dictatorship
has been finally ended, and this chapter
has been closed for Libya and for all the world.
[slow tense music, distant cheering and gunfire]
Dog!
[slow tense music]
The dream of Libya has always been with me.
[slow tense music]
A place of oasis and dust.
An ancient language
traditions of the ageless.
A family I had never met.
A dictator that pervaded everything.
It was a closed place
a place of mystery.
As it looked like Libya was finally going to be free
the question remained
would my father's dream share Libya's dream for itself?
[slow tense music, cheering, gunfire]
[crowd cheers]
Uncle Ashur.
Call your grandmother. Where is she?
- Grandma!
- When you move to the new house, please tell us.
- So we can come and see you. We’ll bring you a sheep.
- Yeah! Soon!
Sheep travel on planes, right?
Yeah, they put them in the back.
They’ve got a place for them.
- We’ve been consoling ourselves saying
"This year Ashur will come, we’ll get a car
he can take us to see the country."
But Allah decided that who knows how many more years.
So we accepted.
[celebratory Libyan music]
When I went to Libya...
it is a feeling impossible to understand and explain.
It was unbelievable.
[celebratory Libyan music]
My own birthplace.
[celebratory Libyan music]
They were all crying
[celebratory Libyan music]
We sit together and say,
"Are we really in Libya?"
- He phoned his sister
and then he told them,
"I'm here, I'm coming to see you in the next half an hour."
"Our Khali is here!"
They were ecstatic.
[celebratory Libyan music]
That was the moment I may have missed.
[celebratory Libyan music]
[light nostalgic music]
Recital three, Oasis.
Made me wonder
question myself, stop to ponder.
A 40 year exile ends -
no longer.
Forget the writing nuff blood I can see it on the walls.
Trust me.
I'm here for the bazeen and couscous
reconnecting with Eshdeda and Sundus.
Leptis Magna, Gharian, Tarablous.
That olive tree that original mint tea
sweltering heat, that sweet fresh cut meat.
Shed no tear here for that new beginning is done.
Politics killed it but faith insists a song.
[light nostalgic music, crowd cheers]
I tell you what, the time I spent in Libya
after the revolution.
It was not settled at all, I wasn't settled.
Of course there were the militias
the other political groups
whose main interest is money and power.
I couldn't find a direction in which to work for the government
and with ordinary Libyan people.
I was not accepted.
I mean Libya, you never lived there,
experienced the texture of the social life and so on.
It's the one thing that I feel despondent about.
It's all gone, it's all completely fizzled out.
Now, who to blame for this?
[slow mournful music]
The exile always comes back
to the old country he left.
But now I'm in exile again.
Good heavens.
- Do you want to go back? - Yes, I do want to go back.
But not to go back in a situation like this.
It's like going into a war zone.
It is sad, it's disappointing, it's painful
but what can you do? There is very little you can do
where there is no more room for people like myself.
In Libya there were so many factors
that have destroyed the spirit of reconciliation
and working together.
And now of course, it is,
what I call "The generation of Gaddafi".
Who were brought up under Gaddafi.
They are the people who are ruling.
There's a new breed completely.
They had their own ideas and their own interpretations
of what should be done.
So do you feel like you are ready now to let it go?
No I can't let it go,
I mean it's in my DNA, I can't let it go.
But, uh...
But I can't get involved as much as I used to.
If a good government emerges
and the situation stabilises somewhat
we might still go back
and play a role, there's no doubt...
- The dream is still there? - It's still there yes.
But the dream is fractured now,
the dream doesn't exist any more.
I can't even go back to visit my own family
my own friends, my own country which I left 40 or 45 years ago.
I mean this is unprecedented
and it's not fair.
I mean there is political fight,
I accept there should be a political fight and so on.
But to turn the country into a non-touchable
a non-approachable at all
is crazy.
There's nothing really worth
worth fighting for.
[slow nostalgic music]
I always knew Baba was in exile by the way he liked his tea.
Not in those big protective mugs that the English like,
with the splash of milk and the teabag left in
like an anchor securing them to place and pride.
[slow nostalgic music]
He preferred loose leaf with a hand-full of garden mint
thrown together without choice
into an ocean of sweet hot water.
Always served in a thin glass, always on the verge of breaking
threatening to abandon its passengers across the tabletop.
But it never did.
- Abdullah, where's the tea?
[slow nostalgic music]
[dramatic synth music]