1-26 WORLD NEWS 26 APRIL 1998-THE SUNDAY TIMES

Gadaffi opens upliterary offensiveIT PROMISES to be an unusualtome. Colonel Muammar Gad-affi, the Libyan dictator asso-ciated with ruthless oppressionand international terrorism, isconsidering writing a book ofmemoirs to be marketed in theWest in an effort to improve hisunsavoury image.

Not content with inflictingon America a volume of his"short stories" which appearedfor the first time in English thismonth, Gadaffi, renowned forhis exotic costumes and femalebodyguards, has been negotiat-ing with a Canadian publisherabout producing a book of"memories" of his life andtimes.

"Gadaffi is a writer, a manof letters," said Donald Smith,spokesman for publisher AlainStanke, presenting a portrait ofthe Libyan leader at odds withthe more usual depiction of acrazed despot suspected ofordering the bombing of PanAm flight 103 over Lockerbiein 1988. "He has a lot of in-teresting stories to tell. Hereads Rousseau and great writ-ers from across the world."

Smith said Stanke, a formerCanadian television personalityand sculptor, met GadaffI amonth ago to discuss the mem-

by Matthew CampbellWashington

oirs. The idea was for Stanke tospend three weeks in Libya inJune to help extract the bookfrom Gadaffi in a series ofinterviews. "Then it would beready for the Frankfurt bookfair in October," said Smith.

To help him in his literarycareer, a Gadaffi promoting in-dustry appears to have sprungup in Canada, where Stankehas already published the firstEnglish edition of GadaffI'soeuvre under the title Escape toHell. Stanke evidently believeshe is on to a winner. "My taskis to bring out literary talents,"he said. "I sincerely think wehave an original thinker here."

Cast in the role of Gadafficheerleader-in-chief, however,is Pierre Salinger, the eccentricjournalist and former press sec-retary to John F Kennedy, theAmerican president. Salinger,whose penchant for conspiracytheories extends to the claimthat a missile was responsiblefor the crash of TWA flight 800off the coast of Long Island in1996, has written a fawningpreface to Gadaffi's collectionof short stories, jeopardising

whatever credibility he has left.Salinger recalls how he person-ally "interrogated" the twosuspects in the Lockerbiebombing and concluded thatthey were not involved. "Iknow that at a certain pointGadaffi stopped terrorism,"Salinger said last week. "Hestopped chemical weapons andeverything else."

Instead, Salinger enthuses,Gadaffi has selflessly servedhis country: "He effected hugechanges in restructuring the na-tion to make sure there were nohomeless people or unem-ployed or badly paid citizens."Amnesty International takes adifferent view, focusing insteadon the "arbitrary arrest, torture,extrajudicial executions, and'disappearances' " of hundredsof Libyans.

GadaffI is unlikely to make itinto the bestseller lists. Hisbook is more of a jumbled rantabout politics, religion, deathand damage to the environmentthan a collection of short storiesin the conventional sense.

He sounds particularly de-pressed in one passage, inwhich he describes life in thecity as "merely a worm-likebiological existence where manlives and dies meaninglessly".

Man of letters: Gadaffl, auspected of ordering the Lockerble bombing, Is considering a book of memoirs to Improve his Image In the WestIn another section, entitled The and I was surprised," he re- itself again when he issued a a tourist industry as a way of Part of his public relationsAstronaut, the central figure re- called. "I didn't know that decree ordering all the window compensating for American offensive was a satellite inter-turns to Earth and, after a Gadaffi wrote and I found them shutters in Tripoli to be painted trade sanctions, it is unclear view, to be broadcast aroundconversation with a peasant to be interesting allegorical green. how Gadaffi expects his writ- the globe next month. Theabout its size relative to other tales about nature." More recently he has shown ings to do anything other than world can look forward to moreplanets, commits suicide. GadaffI's legendary obses- an eccentric streak by claiming confIrm his reputation as an un- of Gadaffi's inimitable ravings

Smith, a professor of lit- sion with all things green first that Dodi Fayed, companion to balanced egomaniac. The pub- if Stanke gets his way. Iferature at Carleton University surfaced in his Green Book, a Diana, Princess of Wales and lisher said Gadaffi would be Gadaffi agrees to write hisin Ottawa, was impressed. "I three-volume treatise encap- who died in the Cll( crash that donating any royalties from the memoirs, said Smith, "wewas asked to read through his sulating his views on politics killed her, was a Libyan citizen. book to Unicef, the United Na- would want distribution in sev-short stories to give an opinion and economics. It manifested While Libya tries to develop tions Children's Fund. erallanguages".

Dutroux: policeblame cash cuts

AS recrurunations intensifIedover the brief escape of MarcDutroux, the suspected childkiller, from a Belgian court-house last week, the authoritieswere asked why he had beenguarded by only two gen-darmes. "Spending cuts,"came the reply, writes PeterConradi in Brussels.

The ease with whichDutroux, accused of raping andmurdering four young girls,was able to overpower hisguards and slip out of the Palaisde Justice in the southern townof Neufchateau last Thursdayhas astonished even Belgians,long inured to the incom-petence of their police.

~e. guns th~ two gendarmes

Belgians want Jean-LucDehaene, the prime minister, toresign after last week's events.

They also revived sugges-tions of official complicitywhich have dogged Dutroux' scase since he was arrested aftera bungled investigation in Au-gust 1996.

There was speculation yes-terday that the convictedpaedophile, who drove justseven miles after hijacking acar, had planned to meetaccomplices in the forest nearthe French border, where hewas eventually arrested after ahuge police operation.

Dehaene, who secured theresignation of his justice and in-terior ministers within hours of

survive a vote of confidence onTuesday, but more heads seemcertain to roll.

The "white committees",groups formed in support ofDutroux's alleged victims afterhis initial arrest, are planningdemonstrations to increasepressure for a wider purge ofthe police and judiciary.

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standard practice, apparently.after too many officers shotthemselves in the leg. Rules onsuspects' rights preventedDutroux from being chained upduring visits to the courthouseto consult his case flies.

A poll published yesterdayby La Demiere Heure news-paper showed that 55.5% of

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