Cover Profile: Ambassador Ali Suleiman Aujali Libya Makes Headway Courting West, Though Verdict on Reforms Still Out by Larry Luxner Five years ago, the mere mention of Libya evoked images of a brutally repressive dictatorship that bombed civilian airliners, pursued weapons of mass destruction, threatened foreign doctors with execution for intentionally spreading AIDS, and tortured anyone who spoke out against the regime. These days, Col. Muammar Gaddafi still rules Libya with an iron fist, but his image abroad has softened considerably, though the eccentric revolutionary is hardly the poster boy for good behavior. Still, he’s worked hard to at least shed his status as a pariah in the international community. In February, Gaddafi was elected (some say anointed) rotating chairman of the 53-nation African Union. Early last month, a senior Libyan diplomat — Ali Treky -— assumed the presidency of the U.N. General Assembly. And after lots of ups and downs, the oil-rich North African country today enjoys full diplomatic relations with the United States. That’s made Ali Suleiman Aujali’s life a lot easier. This month marks the fifth anniversary of Aujali’s arrival in Washington, an event made possible by the Bush administration’s decision to establish low-level ties with the Gaddafi regime for the first time in 17 years. In the beginning, the Libyan Interests Section was officially an annex of the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates, staffed by exactly three people. Aujali in fact just recently received his official accreditation as ambassador in January this year, before which he was formally known as director of the interests section in Washington. “When we came here in 2004, we were still on the State Department terrorist list and Libya was still under sanctions,” the 65-year-old diplomat said in a recent interview. At that time, Aujali and his staff were issued U.S. visas for only three months at a time, and could only travel within 25 miles of the Washington Monument. “But since then, we’ve been able to have all the sanctions removed.” Aujali’s arrival followed an agreement by Gaddafi to pay $2.7 billion in compensation to the families of the victims of Pan Am Flight 103, which was ripped apart by a bomb over Lockerbie, Scotland. Libya also accepted responsibility for the 1988 terrorist attack in a letter to the U.N. Security Council, which immediately lifted all sanctions. Shortly after that, Gaddafi’s abandonment of a secret program to develop weapons of mass destruction prompted the Bush administration to end the U.S. travel ban against Libya. The freeze ended with the May 2006 resumption of bilateral ties, followed two years later by then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s historic visit to Tripoli that effectively concluded three decades of hostility. But not everyone warmed up to the reformed dictator, and ardent opposition remained in Congress and elsewhere against cozying up to a regime tied to a string of terrorist attacks in the 1980s. As such, the resumption of relations didn’t happen as quickly as Aujali had expected. The envoy spoke to The Washington Diplomat back in January 2005 for the cover story “Libya Shedding Its Pariah Status,” in which he said, “We’re very optimistic…. Our relations are warming up, and we hope we’ll reach full diplomatic relations between our two countries as soon as possible.” Since then, Aujali has lamented that Libya was not rewarded sooner for its decision to scrap nuclear weapons, complaining in an April letter to the New York Times that “our experience sends the opposite signal to countries like Iran and North Korea,” he argued. “The United States needs to send a stronger message that Libya has made the right decision.” Aujali spoke to The Washington Diplomat more recently from the comfort of his basement family room at the official residence on Wyoming Avenue, with his 2-year-old granddaughter Danya looking on. Over glasses of mint tea and California dates, Gaddafi’s man in Washington conceded that “2008 was a very difficult year for us.” “Congress adopted another resolution to impose more sanctions against Libya. We had to work very closely with the American delegation, but we’ve been able to settle all issues of compensation as of August 2008.” Libya overcame the sanctions by paying $1.5 billion into a fund to settle the final claims by families of Americans killed in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. That allowed Gene Cretz — the first ambassador to Libya in 36 years — to take up his post last December. “He’s a very serious man, an experienced diplomat. I know him personally,” Aujali said of Cretz, who previously served at U.S. embassies in Tel Aviv, Egypt, Syria and elsewhere. “Sometimes ambassadors are negative, but not this one. He wants to improve our relations.” The U.S. Embassy in Tripoli opened in 2004, initially operating out of the Corinthia Hotel. The embassy now rents half a dozen villas and is looking to construct its own mission. Meanwhile, U.S. officials have begun issuing visas directly from Tripoli, eliminating the need for business executives and students to travel to neighboring Tunisia to apply for visas. “We have very good relations with the U.S., we’re working together in Africa, and various technology agreements and memos of understanding have been signed,” Aujali said proudly. “When I arrived, we had no Libyan students here in the U.S. Now we have 1,500 students here. All the American companies are back doing business, and many members of Congress have been to Libya.” The attraction, of course, is oil — lots of it. Libya has proven petroleum reserves of 36 billion barrels, nearly 3 percent of the world’s total. But because only one-fourth of the vast desert land has been explored for oil and gas deposits, there may well be another 50 billion to 100 billion barrels underneath the Libyan desert just waiting to be discovered. “Libya is one of the world’s two great undeveloped oil frontiers. The other is Iraq,” David Goldwyn, executive director of the US-Libya Business Association, told The Diplomat in 2007. “Libya is a low geological risk, it’s politically stable, it’s close to the European market, and they’ve been hugely successful with their international tenders.” But it’s been slow going so far to tap the country’s potential. Libya’s development target is to boost oil production from the current 1.6 million barrels per day to 3.5 million barrels a day by 2020, the equivalent production rate in the 1970s. At the same time, it hopes to increase reserves to 20 billion barrels of oil equivalent. To achieve this, Libya’s state-run National Oil Co. (NOC) is targeting a minimum of 50 wildcat wells drilled per year. All that oil and gas has made the energy-hungry Europeans very interested in Libya. Gaddafi, who seized power in 1969, has met several of Europe’s top heads of state in recent years, including Great Britain’s Tony Blair in 2007 and Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi in 2008 and last month. But Gaddafi’s biggest moment will come this month, when he’ll represent the African Union at the G8 summit in Italy from July 8 to 10. President Barack Obama is also scheduled to attend the specific part of the gathering dealing with African issues, making it likely that the two men will meet. If that actually happens, it would be the first encounter ever between Gaddafi and a U.S. president. Next Page

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