Washington renews diplomatic relations with Libya after a break of more than two decades. But minor problems still need to be ironed out, writes Gamal Nkrumah Absence, they say, makes the heart grow fonder. After a 24-year break, the US, which imposed sanctions on Libya in 1986 claiming it supported international terrorist groups, has this week resumed low-key diplomatic relations with the north African country. Libya has not, however, been removed from Washington's list of rogue states sponsoring terrorism. The late US President Ronald Reagan pointed an accusing finger at Libyan intelligence for the 1986 bombing of a Berlin disco frequented by US troops. Two American soldiers were killed and more than 250 people maimed or injured. In retaliation, Reagan ordered the bombing of the Libyan capital Tripoli. Scores of Libyans were killed, including the Libyan leader's own adopted two-year-old daughter. Gaddafi's official residence was laid to waste, its ruins remaining an eerie tourist attraction to this day. But times are fast changing and Libya has come a long way. Gaddafi's pledge to scrap Libya's weapons of mass destruction programmes last December was the latest in a series of moves to end his country's international isolation and shed its image as a rogue state. For example, while Libya has still not accepted full responsibility for the bombing of a Pan-Am airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 in which 270 people were killed, it agreed to pay a hefty compensation of $2.7 billion to the families of victims of the attack. As a result, the Lockerbie affair is practically a closed chapter in US-Libyan relations. Recently, Libya's humanitarian assistance to the victims of violence in Darfur, Sudan, has attracted the attention of the Americans. On Tuesday, President Bush dispatched US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs William Burns to Tripoli to assess the situation. In addition to reviewing the state of bilateral relations, Burns specifically wanted to know how Libya could be of help in providing an alternative route to delivering humanitarian assistance to the war- torn Sudanese province of Darfur, which is currently facing a humanitarian catastrophe the United Nations has deemed the world's present worst. The Libyans have offered landing facilities to the Americans in the airport of the Libyan oasis of Kufra not far from the Sudanese border, which would be a staging post for US emergency relief convoys to Darfur. In effect, the Libyans are violating the sovereignty of Sudan. They are planning to allow the Americans to send emergency relief convoys into Darfur across Libyan territory without the consent of the Sudanese authorities. The Sudanese authorities, in response, have angrily questioned the legitimacy of the deal between the US and the Libyans. The founder of the London-based Libyan Human and Political Development Forum, Guma El-Gamaty, stressed that if one looked beyond the diplomatic niceties, it would become clear that the Americans still hold grave doubts and reservations about the Libyan regime. It was not lost on Tripoli that Burns was accompanied by J Cofer Black, the State Department's chief counter- terrorism officer. Libya has handed over to the Americans several "terrorism files" including those relating to the southern Philippines, Indonesia, Northern Ireland and a large number of African flash points. "I would like to make a clarification first," El-Gamaty told Al-Ahram Weekly. "What was announced yesterday is not a full resumption of diplomatic relations between the US and Libya. The US is opening a liaison office in Tripoli, and not a full diplomatic mission," he explained. In April, the Bush administration restored trade and investment relations with Libya but, as El-Gamaty explained, there is no US ambassador in Libya yet. The opening of the US liaison office in Tripoli is an important step towards the establishment of a fully-fledged US Embassy in Libya. "No one can deny that there has been a rapprochement between the Libyan regime and the Bush administration. But Libya is still on Washington's list of countries supporting terrorism. Diplomatic relations cannot be fully restored until Libya is dropped from that list," El-Gamaty explained. "The Gaddafi regime has made major concessions," Al-Gamaty said, but he stressed that Washington now holds all the cards. In other words, the US controls the pace of reconciliation. Belgium has represented US interests in Libya during the 24-year break in diplomatic relations between Washington and Tripoli. But it now appears that with growing mutual interests in Africa and elsewhere, Washington wants a more tangible presence on the ground. "In essence Libya is offering itself as a strategic ally to the US," Gamaty said. Libya is strategically located and straddles a vitally important stretch of the central Mediterranean Sea's southern coastline commanding busy shipping lanes. American oil interests have long been pressing US President Bush to lift the ban on doing business in Libya. The so-called "seven sisters", a group of US-based oil multinational corporations, had previously conducted brisk business in the country with the third largest oil reserves in the Arab world after Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Several issues that could potentially sour bilateral relations with Washington remain unresolved, and big question marks still hang over three outstanding files -- the Africa file, the human rights file, and the political reform and democratisation file. The Africa file is by far the most complex. Libya has extensive relations in Africa, and has long been at the centre of many an African crisis. At the moment, the most pressing crisis on the continent is Sudan's war-torn province of Darfur that borders Libya. The human rights file is the most contentious, with human rights organisations -- both local and international -- arguing that the US will cynically turn a blind eye to Libya's deplorable record because of the budding bilateral economic, trade and political interests. The political reform and democratisation file is also another possible bone of contention. But again at this point in time, says Al- Gamaty, the US seems to be "soft-peddling and only paying lip service" to human rights violations in Libya. The visit to Tripoli by Burns and Black coincided with the visit to Libya by Chadian President Idris Deby. Chad, like Libya, is keenly interested in the outcome of the Darfur conflict. Hundreds of thousands of Sudanese refugees have fled the fighting in Darfur to seek safe havens across the border in Chad. President Deby is an ethnic Zaghawa, the same tribal group that the Sudanese authorities accuse of instigating the fighting in Darfur, and Chad has been playing the mediator in the Darfur conflict. Vast quantities of oil have been discovered recently in Chad, and both Chad and Sudan are poised to become two important oil-exporting countries. US companies are leading exploration, production and marketing of Chadian oil. Libya, Chad's northern neighbour, is keenly interested in coordinating oil politics with Chad. And the Americans, no doubt, also want to be part of the picture.
