Party time as Gaddafi’s Libya turns 40

MILITARY bands, 400 dancers, aerobatic planes and fireworks last night electrified a hot and drowsy Tripoli as its leader Muammar Gaddafi threw Libya’s biggest party to mark four decades since taking power.

The six days of celebrations across the north African country were designed to get the message to the world that the long-isolated oil exporter was open again for business after years of heavy sanctions, organisers said.

But controversy stalked Gaddafi, with the US and Britain angry at the “hero’s welcome” that Tripoli gave former Libyan agent Abdel Basset al-Megrahi who was freed by Scotland last month from a life sentence for the Lockerbie bombing that killed 270 people.

Libya invited dozens of Western heads of state but European leaders stayed away, including Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi, who visited on Sunday to mark the first anniversary of a friendship agreement.

President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela attended and many African leaders, including Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe and Sudan’s Omar Hassan al-Bashir, were expected to be in town for an African Union summit.

“Libya is opening up to the world – that is the basic message,” said Philippe Skaff, who heads the team co-ordinating the centrepiece celebration event. It includes companies from France and Britain.

“This is the first time they actually received thousands of foreigners with open arms. They are granting visas for this like they’ve never done before,” he said.

As Tripoli counted down to its six-day party, lasers beamed out into the Mediterranean through the humid night air from the roofs of new hotels built to cater for the influx of foreigners.

Lights adorned buildings across the city, walls in the old town have been freshly white-washed and rows of green Libyan flags flutter over its dusty streets.

Portraits of Gaddafi adorn billboards and buildings across the city, his features sometimes traced out in colourful neon lights.

The organisers said hundreds of thousands were expected in the capital last night for a three-hour show tracing Libya’s history and offering a glimpse of the future.

In the following days, hot air balloons will rise over the desert and Tuaregs will hold a festival featuring 1,000 camels.

Libya’s ancient coastal cities of Leptis Magna and Sabratha will be modernised by sound and light displays.