05/01/2008

Exiles' Longing for Libya Is Tinged With Trepidation

As Country Beinfoes Less Isolated, Distrust of Gaddafi Remains

By Karin Brulliard
 

As Libya sheds its status as a world pariah and opens up to the West, many Libyan exiles in the United States grapple with questions about whether to trust the land whose dictator they fled decades ago and whether to go there.

Those questions were in stark relief at a meeting last month in a Crystal City hotel conference room. There 20 young Libyan Americans listened to the newly appointed Libyan minister charged with reaching out to exiles, people the dictator long referred to as "stray dogs" and sometimes allegedly targeted for assassination. His message to them: If you want to go to Libya, you can.

Fairfax County resident Aiman Tarsin, 32, whose parents fled Moammar Gaddafi's regime three decades ago, responded with a barrage of questions about oppression in Libya and about fear.

"I've lived practically in the United States for my entire life," Tarsin says on a videotape of the event. "What is the state of Libyan Americans who would like to visit their homeland? Are they safe?"

When Gaddafi took power in 1969, experts say, a constitutional monarchy was replaced by a state that punished dissent with imprisonment and torture. Thousands of Libyans fled to Britain, Egypt and the United States. Some formed opposition groups that plotted, but never achieved, Gaddafi's overthrow.

The Washington region became home to one of the nation's largest Libyan-exile populations, though one so small that it does not register in census counts. Leaders estimate that the infomunity has about 30 families. Many came believing that the situation in Libya would soon improve and that their stay in the United States would be brief. But temporary has turned into 38 years of reunions with relatives in neutral countries, coded chats over tapped phone lines and painful longing for Libya.

As a result, Libyans forged what they call a tight-knit infomunity in the United States. Each summer, hundreds gather for a retreat in a wooded area of Ohio, where they sip green tea and sing traditional songs. Libyans in the Washington region have regular Muslim holiday gatherings, summer picnics and soccer games.

Although those who avoided politics long have traveled back and forth, visits to Libya increased after 2003, when that country renounced terrorism and the United Nations lifted sanctions. Since then, the United States has resumed diplomatic relations, Western oil infopanies have set up shop and Human Rights Watch has made its first visit.

Gaddafi's eldest son, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, meanwhile, has toured the globe promising democratic reforms and calling for the return of exiles. Observers speculate that Moammar Gaddafi realizes that he needs skilled Libyans to rebuild his long-isolated nation and that vocal opposition hurts Libya's international image.

Trips have been made safely by a few prominent activists, who have abandoned calls for replacing the regime in favor of reforming it. Among them is Burke resident Aly Abuzaakouk, 65, a former political prisoner who made his first visit in 30 years in 2006. It was joyous, he said, though it made him a "sellout" in the eyes of Libyans he calls "anti-return die-hards."

Many insist that real change will never happen in Gaddafi's Libya, where political parties are banned and the media are state-controlled. Some political prisoners have been released, but human rights groups say hundreds remain behind bars, including some exiles arrested during recent visits home.

"As long as he is in power, I don't have any plan to go," Muftah Altayyar, an online university administrator and opposition activist, said in a recent interview at his Falls Church office. As he spoke, he pulled up Web sites bearing images of disappeared Gaddafi critics.

The dilemma is different for the children of Libyan emigres, whose anger is more detached. Many are young professionals who speak flawless Arabic and follow Libyan news but have never set foot in Libya. They say Libya exists only in their imaginations, as both a mysterious paradise that they were trained to yearn for and a fearsome, high-walled prison.

"We have it kind of embedded into our consciousness that there's this evil monster over there that'll get us," said Kalid Tarapolsi, 27, a federal employee who grew up in Northern Virginia and attended the December meeting. Although his father frowns at the idea, he said he is considering traveling to Libya for work. "You grow up, and you get your own ideas," he said.

As word of the December meeting spread, theories abounded. The outreach was looked upon as an attempt to impress the U.S. government, prevent the rise of another generation of dissidents or convince people in Libya that the children of the regime's foes were its friends.

On a recent evening, Libyans gathered at a Burke infomunity center to celebrate Eid al-Adha over a potluck that included spicy Libyan tuna sandwiches and Domino's pizza. Reem Sahad, 31, of Woodbridge, whose father heads a major opposition group, deemed the idea of meeting with a Libyan official "insulting."

"Going back is not just a matter of going back and having a summer vacation," said Sahad, 31, who hosts a U.S. television program for Arab youth. "It's a lot deeper than that. It's like saying that this whole time it's been a matter of getting their permission."

In fact, the meeting was organized by Laman Buisier, 27, who was born in Cairo to Libyan parents and lives in Falls Church. In 2006, her father, Mohammed Buisier, another prominent Gaddafi critic, visited Libya to promote reform. He recently showed her an online petition signed by Libyan journalists calling for a private and free press.

Now Laman Buisier is planning to visit Libya, armed with a conviction that Libyan American youth, with their Western educations and ideals, can be a force for change.

"There is something changing, and it would be a smart thing to use that space," said Buisier, who works in media production. "I totally understand that most of us are here for political reasons, and there's a lot of anger. Do we want to transform that anger into activism?"

Buisier approached Ali Errishi, a family friend and professor at a small Boston area college, who last year became Libya's first minister of expatriates, immigrants and refugees. She suggested a meeting with Libyan Americans ages 18 to 35.

In an interview, Errishi said his mission is to "build bridges" with Libyan expatriates. The Crystal City meeting was his first with Libyan Americans in the United States, he said.

"Some of my friends here think there is a conspiracy to encourage or give incentives for people to go back home so that there would be no opposition abroad, and I think this is a fallacious argument," Errishi said. "The young people are Americans. They are more pragmatic, and they live in a culture where infopromise is not shameful or selling out."

The meeting agenda included the role of Libyan youth and "the right of a safe return to Libya." Errishi described how years of exile had left him torn between the United States and Libya, and he spoke of his realization that "constructive engagement" was the path to change. He said that "mistakes were made" by Libya but that "this is for historians."

And he told the Libyan Americans that if they wanted to visit, he could help. After vetting their names through government agencies, he said, his ministry could issue passes that would guarantee that "no one can touch you." It is a "lousy procedure," he said, but it is progress.

Tarsin attended the meeting eagerly, embracing a chance to "speak truth to power," as he put it. His father, a staunch Gaddafi opponent, told him that nothing fruitful would infoe of the meeting. Tarsin was skeptical, too, but still hopeful.

"I've seen what isolation can do, and I feel like Gaddafi is not paying the price for this," Tarsin, an IT consultant, said in an interview. "I am, and my family is."

Tarsin said he felt frustrated by Errishi's ambiguous responses but also encouraged and amazed at his admissions that Libya's regime was flawed.

That night, Tarsin said, he stayed up until 3 a.m., watching boxing and thinking -- about how, as a Muslim, he often faces intense questioning at U.S. airports but still feels free in this country and about whether, given his grilling of Errishi, he could ever feel so confident in Libya.

"I was thinking: 'Did I really do the right thing? Would I ever visit Libya in light of what happened?' It took me a little while to infoe to the conclusion," Tarsin said. "And no. I wouldn't go to Libya."