THE NATION WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 31, 2011
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NEWS ENDGAME IN LIBYA Cameron chairs National Security Council meeting
Zimbabwe expels Libyan Ambassador Taher Elmagrahi
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HE Zimbabwean’ government has announced the expulsion of Libya’s Ambassador, Taher Elmagrahi, who last week abandoned Col Muammar Gaddafi and switched allegiance to the rebels. For joining protesters who stormed the embassy and raised the pre-Gaddafi flag, the envoy and the entire embassy officials were given 72 hours to leave the South African country. Zimbabwe’s Foreign Minister,Taher Elmagrahi said it did not recognise the rebels under the aegis of the National Transitional Council (NTC). President Robert Mugabe has been a close ally of the embattled Libyan strongman, who bankrolled the African Union (AU). Only a few members of the AU have recognised the NTC. South Africa had last week blocked moves at the United Nations (UN) to give the NTC access to Libyan government funds. Zimbabwe’s Foreign Minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi, from Mr Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party, said Mr Elmagrahi and all his staff now had 72 hours to leave the country. “Once you renounce the authority that gave you the letter of credence and then proceed to pledge
allegiance to another authority... it means that act deprives you of your diplomatic standing,” he said. When he switched sides last week, Mr Elmagrahi said: “I am not Gaddafi’s ambassador. I represent the Libyan people.” Reports say Mugabe and his allies are wary of the revolutions which have toppled three long-serving North African leaders this year. More than 40 activists were arrested in Zimbabwe in February after watching videos about the Egypt uprising. Mugabe has condemned Non Allied Treaty Organisation (NATO) intervention in Libya and alleged that oil was the main cause of the conflict. Banks face myriad difficulties in trying to return corrupt Gaddafi money BANKS are facing enormous legal and logistical challenges as they try to repatriate the billions of pounds worth of frozen Libyan assets invested in the war-torn North African state, industry officials said yesterday. The process could take years to resolve even though the United Nations (UN) has already unfrozen some $1.5 billion in humanitarian aid which will be sent to the country. The fears followed the dislodge-
ment of Col Muhammar Gaddafi’s dictatorship by rebel fighters and the formation of Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC) in Tripoli. It is estimated that as much as $120 billion of Libyan assets are sitting in bank accounts across the world, including up to $17 billion in the United Kingdom (UK) alone. UK foreign secretary William Hague said yesterday that it might take a while to repatriate frozen Libyan assets. The United States (U.S.) and South Africa last week struck a deal that will see $1.5 billion of frozen money released for humanitarian aid by the U.N. The South African government initially had concerns about money being sent to the NTC, which it has not recognised. But diplomacy has softened the South African stance over this. Alan Bacarese, special counsel at Peters & Peters, the London law firm, pointed to the difficulties that Austria had recently in trying to return money frozen by U.N. sanctions to the rebel forces in Libya. He said that the Vienna government wanted to hand over some •1.7 billion but was faced with the thorny question of who exactly to return the money to. Banks will face this dilemma even
•A scarecrow depicting Gaddafi stands in central Tripoli ...yseterday.
B •Gaddafi
after the U.N. reverses its sanctions against Libya. Bacarese, who was previously head of legal and case consultancy at the International Centre for Asset Recovery in Basel, Switzerland, said that usually a central bank would be the recipient of the repatriated money — not a rebel group that has just overthrown a government. “That isn’t going to chime in these days of enhanced due diligence. Banks and indeed, governments, depending on where the assets are held and how, have got to ensure that they are returned to the right organisations. Of course, if they don’t, and they return it to the Central Bank of Libya in Tripoli, which at the moment is the subject of one of the targeted sanctions, they could be technically in breach of the sanctions. They are really caught until the sanctions are lifted,” he told Thomson Reuters.
PHOTO: AFP
RITISH Prime Minister David Cameron yesterday chaired a National Security Council meeting on Libya Yesterday’s parley was prior to a scheduled international conference, taking place in Paris, France, which Cameron will co-host tomorrow. A Downing Street spokeswoman said the meeting had “discussed developments on the ground, the humanitarian situation and the unfreezing of assets, and they looked ahead to the Paris conference”. Asked about details of the Paris conference billed for tomorrow, the spokeswoman said the agenda was still being worked through with French officials. The spokeswoman said the possible capture of Muammar Gaddafi was a matter for the Libyan people, but added that Britain was supporting the National Transitional Council (NTC) in the “broadest terms”. Asked to confirm that the United Kingdom (UK) was playing no role in the hunt for Gaddafi, the spokeswoman added: “We are not going to go into detail, but we are contributing”.
Ojudu urges world leaders to save black migrant workers
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HE international community has been asked to stop the systemic killing of black migrant workers by Libyan rebels. Senator Babafemi Ojudu in a statement in Ado-Ekiti, said it is disturbing that innocent black migrant workers are being targeted and killed by Libyan rebels. Ojudu said since the rebels are people who claim to be fighting for freedom, there was no need for them to be killing those who are darker than them in complexion. While condemning the act, the lawmaker representing Ekiti Central maintained that world leaders must caution the freedom fighters before it gets out of hand. He noted that several reports had shown that migrant black workers from countries like Nigeria, Ghana and other nations had been killed in their numbers, as their dead bodies litter the streets of Libya, adding that President Goodluck Jonathan should also be able to caution the rebels since he seems to be familiar with them, as he had openly endorsed the National Transitional Council (NTC). Senator Ojudu, who explained that the AU had attributed its refusal to endorse the NTC to the senseless killing of migrant blacks, said this is not a time for President Jonathan to bury his head in the sand, but rather a time to set a clear line between the fight against oppression and racism. He said if the rebels did not stop the act at once, they would have successfully told the whole world that they are racists and not freedom fighters.
Counsel predicts legal battles over repartriation of Libyan funds
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SPECIAL counsel at a London law firm, Peters & Peters, Alan Bacarese, has predict-
ed a spate of legal challenges to the movement of funds back to Libya. He pointed to UK court cases brought by corrupt Nigerian state officials trying to prevent their money being returned to Africa. Gen Abacha died in 1998; his family and associates are estimated to have looted some $3 billion public funds. Bacarese said that although there was often overwhelming evidence that such officials had been involved
in corruption the legal process was long winded. “None of the money that is the subject of sanctions is going to move anytime quickly. Much more problematic is where it is going to and who is it going back to,” he said. Robert Palmer, a campaigner at anti-corruption body Global Witness, said that the issue with the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA), the country’s sovereign wealth fund, was clearer. Banks would know whose customers’ assets had been frozen. The problem lay with other Libyan in-
vestment vehicles which are vaguer about their ownership. There is even less clarity in Africa and the Middle-East about what does and does not constitute Libyan money, he said. “Governments outside the European Union (EU) and the U.S. have been less determined in implementing the U.N. freezing sanctions,” he told Thomson Reuters. Earlier in the year, Global Witness published a leaked document detailing how the LIA held nearly $65 billion worth of assets, including more than $1 billion with HSBC.
Palmer said that it was unlikely that the frozen Libyan money would be unlocked in one go and handed directly over to the NTC and that there would be checks and balances to ensure that the money did not find its way back into the hands of Gaddafi or his cronies. The lifting of sanctions could also cause some money to slip under the radar. “If you lift the sanctions it means that smaller pots of money that governments are not aware of will be able to be liquidated and moved,” he said.
Palmer said that the way transactions were structured meant it would be very difficult for institutions to identify assets that dictators controlled. Gaddafi is believed to have used the son-in-law of his daughter to hide his assets and the fact that his name was unknown helped Gaddafi hide and control these assets. Palmer called for cooperation between any new Libyan government and the authorities in the U.S. and UK to identify and return stolen assets.