Libyans Urged to Become Bourgeois : Kadafi Loosens Reins on Economy, Society

Not far from Revolution Square, a vast expanse of lime-green asphalt that has become the symbolic stage for Col. Moammar Kadafi’s Libyan drama, a young Algerian named Ali Mahmoud stood under a Moorish arch selling Marlboros, cassette tapes and electrical appliances from a stall fashioned out of a cardboard box.

“Business is mumtaz --wonderful,” said Mahmoud, as fellow vendors sold heaps of blue jeans, perfumes and wedding dresses from under beach umbrellas that shielded them from the glare of a November sun.

Outwardly Transformed

The area known as the Turkish market was formerly a decrepit zone of barren shops and old men in baggy white trousers and embroidered vests who eked out a living mending clothing. But in the last few months, the market--indeed, much of Libya--has been outwardly transformed by a wave of changes being implemented by Kadafi.

The changes, all within the last six months, have come so quickly and have been so numerous that one Western diplomat humorously dubbed them “Green Perestroika ,” a combination of Kadafi’s eccentric revolutionary philosophy, as set down in his “Green Book,” and the fundamental change of course being pursued in the Soviet Union.

Whatever the name, the reforms appear to have saved the country from the state of near collapse that prevailed only a year ago.

In recent weeks, Kadafi’s government has opened the country to imports from neighboring states such as Tunisia. It ordered 90,000 cars from Japan, enough to give a new vehicle to one in four households in the country. The black market, the only reliable source of goods and services for the past decade, is now an official market, Kadafi decreed, because it is a “people’s market.”

“All Libyans are called upon to become bourgeois. Do not be afraid or ashamed,” Kadafi--who snuffed out private enterprise in his country in 1975--exhorted on Libyan television recently. “Produce and become a bourgeois. Create a farm, breed sheep and be their shepherd. Set up a cooperative. Become rich. That is all right.”

Along with sweeping economic changes, Kadafi has taken steps to ameliorate the harsh living conditions experienced by Libya’s 3 million people over the last few years.

The so-called Revolutionary Committees, a political vanguard that became a vigilante force with sweeping powers of arrest and trial, have been sharply curtailed.

“People feel free again,” said one Western diplomat. “I would say 99% of the oppression is gone.”

Restrictions on travel abroad have been removed, and Kadafi publicly tore up his notorious “black list,” which denied passports to many Libyans.

The Libyan leader has attempted to appear more accommodating in foreign policy as well, making peace with Chad after years of disastrous warfare with his southern neighbor, tearing down his border posts with Tunisia in the west and restoring diplomatic ties with moderate, pro-Western governments in Zaire, Gabon and Liberia.

Beneath the changes, Kadafi remains as quirky as ever, remarking at one point last month that all of the great prophets of modern times had come from the desert and were uneducated: “Mohammed, Jesus and myself.”

More importantly, the changes have not been accompanied by any change in ideology, raising the question of whether they are merely window dressing or fundamental reforms.

“The key question is whether Kadafi really wants to change things or wants only to keep people quiet,” said one Western diplomat here. “Something had to change. There was increasing grumbling. Kadafi acted before things got out of hand.”

Indeed, to a visitor, Tripoli still seems as run-down as a town in Romania or Burma, hardly the capital of a petroleum producer with annual earnings of $6 billion. Libya’s per capita income is by far the highest in Africa, yet that is barely reflected in the living standards of the country, where such commodities as toilet paper and light bulbs are still in short supply.

“In the past four years, Libya has been sliding downhill for 3 1/2 years, and six months ago it stopped sliding down,” said one Western diplomat. “It is not going uphill, but it’s not going down any more either. I suppose you could call that an improvement.”

Welcome Relief

While diplomats debate whether the recent changes really constitute a basic reform, conversations with Libyans suggest that they are a welcome relief from the austere past. During a recent tour of a market, even a “guide” from the Information Bureau could not resist shopping for new trousers.

The changes implemented recently seem all the more significant because for the first time, Kadafi appears to be dismantling the Alice-in-Wonderland system of governance he himself designed and imposed on the country.

In the years since taking power in 1969, Kadafi pursued a revolutionary philosophy composed largely of slogans such as “Partners, not wage slaves.” All business was nationalized. Factories were turned over to people’s committees. Foreign ownership was banned.

Billions of dollars were squandered trying to establish industrial projects, while basic commodities began disappearing from the market. Two years ago, fistfights flared in shops over soap powder.

Perhaps the most significant of Kadafi’s reforms was his decision to reopen the border with Tunisia, which had been closed since 1985, when he expelled thousands of Tunisian workers.

Now Libyans, formerly confined to the country, can cross the border after a two-hour drive, shop or even buy an alcoholic drink, long forbidden in Libya. The border now resembles the frontier between Lebanon and Syria, with men waving rolls of cash at motorists for the last 2 miles offering “money change” at black market rates.

So far this year, an estimated 750,000 Libyans--almost a quarter of the population--have traveled to Tunisia.

Now, Libyans, as well as several thousand Algerians, Moroccans and Tunisians, bring goods into Libya for sale on the newly legalized black markets.

Wasteful Ways Continue

While the change has produced an immediate improvement in the supply of consumer goods, there has been little significant progress in reforming the wasteful ways of the economy. While private investors are technically free to resume factory production, the government has made no provision for the import of raw materials and, as a consequence, most industries are idle.

A team of 75 Arab mechanics was recently brought to Libya to work on the government’s motor vehicles. They found thousands of cars, trucks and buses--worth an estimated $3 billion--lying unused for lack of simple repairs and spare parts. The mechanics went home after two months because they were never paid.

At Tripoli’s most advanced hospital for cardiac diseases, the hallways are jammed with sophisticated medical equipment--all of it in disrepair. Whenever a machine breaks down, nurses push it into the halls because there is no one around to repair it.

Because of payment bottlenecks, some Western firms demand payment of four or five times actual value to compensate for delays.

Western companies appear to sense an improved marketplace, however, and the Al Kabeer Hotel, once filled with national liberation groups on the Libyan dole, now is filled with Italian and British businessmen carrying deal memos.

Western diplomats said businessmen have reported a rise in corruption among Libyan officials, in part because the fear-inducing Revolutionary Committees have been tamed by Kadafi.

Speaking at a public debate this spring, Kadafi acknowledged that the Revolutionary Committees had been guilty of abuse of power and said that a number of committee members had to be executed as a result.

The groups had virtually seized the prerogative of the police to maintain order, stopping people in the streets and holding rump courts. Kadafi released hundreds of prisoners at the same time, many of whom were still mystified about why they had been imprisoned.

Kadafi had been expected to simply disband the committees, but on the Sept. 1 anniversary of the revolution that brought him to power, the Libyan leader said the committees were being limited to the task of political inspiration and no longer needed to serve as the watchdog of the revolution.

Nonetheless, victims of the Revolutionary Committees began taking revenge for the injustices of the past, a sure sign that the power of the committees had all but evaporated.

Kadafi also announced that he was disbanding the formal army and the police, but neither of these changes has been implemented.

Significantly, Kadafi has made the changes on the basis of his “Green Book” without altering his philosophy of world revolution.

“He is the prophet and the interpreter,” said one Western diplomat. “These are tactical changes which could last a long time. But in the back of every Libyan’s mind has to be the fear that Kadafi could change his mind again.”