A BUS TO MRS GADDAFI

Charles Glass finds that objectives in Libya are easier to state that to achieve

Tripoli ORDINARILY, on the day after the wife of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi made a statement to the foreign press, I would write about what she had said, how she looked, how her two older boys stood at her side as she condemned the men re- sponsible for destroying her house, terrify- ing and wounding her children and killing the little girl the Gaddafis insist was their 16-month-old adopted daughter. But it would be difficult for me to describe the occasion in any detail, because I was not there. I had planned to be there. In fact, I got on one of the Ministry of Information buses which was going to take me there. So instead of reading about Mrs Gaddafi, who, I am reliably told, conducted herself with the utmost dignity and solemnity, you have before you an instructive account of how things can go wrong in Libya. It was early evening, that time when we hoped the working day was drawing to a close and the little men from the ministry, whose job it is to provide the several hundred journalists here with a program- me, would have no more rabbits in their little hats. It is rare we have such a moment in which to reflect before we write our daily stories. As the sun set in the direction of Tunisia, it seemed such a moment had finally arrived. But it was not to be. The ministry men had discovered, if not a rabbit, then a hare coursing through their little hats, and they promised it to us. They announced it in the usually desultory fashion, grabbing hacks in the lobby of the Hotel Al-Kabir and telling them, 'Get your friends.'

`What for?'

'The buses are ready.' This is a phrase, often echoed through the cavernous lobby of this pseudo-moorish Holiday Inn man- qué, which means roughly: 'A bus may leave sometime in the next two hours. It may take you to a meeting with Colonel Gaddafi or to captured American pilots. It may take you nowhere. Can you afford to miss it?'

'Where are we going?' I asked, as pointlessly as I had asked the same ques- tion 20 times since the American bombing of this city on Tuesday morning, 15 April.

`You'll see,' said Hassan Walli, a minis- try functionary, who had threatened me only the night before with expulsion from Libya. (Expulsion from Libya — the thought tantalises like a warm fire, my family beside me and a glass of cognac. But it was not to be. It is nearly impossible to be expelled individually.) 'You'll see. This time, the trip will make you very happy.'

`Is it the leader?' someone asked him.

`You'll see,' the little man said again, as he retreated into one of the hotel confer- ence rooms in which the ministry men hide from the press.

There were two buses parked in front of the hotel on Tripoli's lovely sea front. They were more or less ready to go. 'When are the buses leaving?' someone asked. The inevit- able answer came: 'Now.' Scribes from half the countries of the known world, televi- sion camera crews, and, the lowest form of press life, French photographers, all stood around as evening became night. After an hour or more, we boarded the buses.

Most of the gentlemen of the press and the French photographers boarded the first bus. The overflow, which seemed to in- clude most of the ladies of the press, not to mention David Blundy of the Sunday Times and myself, got on the second. We sat for about 20 minutes, listening to a Dire Straits cassette, wondering what the Lib- yan driver of the bus would make of the lyrics, 'Money for nothing and the chicks for free'. But we did not have to wonder. The bus had no driver. We watched in some dismay, as the first bus, carrying the Frogs and some of our competitors, drove off. When someone pointed out to one of the ministry men that our bus had no driver, one was duly (that is, in the time it takes to smoke 20 Marlboro) found. The driver then amid considerable fanfare from the few hacks on the bus who actually feared that we might miss something worthwhile, drove off. He went about a quarter of a mile, to a road near the People's Palace, formerly the home of the late King Idris, where he stopped. We were still listening to Dire Straits and didn't notice that he was asking for directions. Not receiving any from passers-by, he turned the bus round and returned to the hotel.

Back at the hotel the ministry men were huddled in one of their conference rooms, enjoying a respite from the demands of the press corps. The driver ran in, asked one of them where he was going and ran out again. He set out the second time, now with a sense of purpose. We drove the five miles or so to the Al-Azizieh barracks, Colonel Gaddafi's former home, and apparently the main target of President Reagan's air strike on Libya. The bus driver went up to one gate, was told by Military Police he could not enter without a pass and then 'drove to another gate. At the second gate, he broke rule number one of life in Libya: never, if you have no weapon of your own, contradict a man with a gun. He argued.

The M.P. sent him straight back to, you guessed it, the hotel. There was dissensioti in the bus itself, particularly among the women, some of whom had no affection for one another. Blundy's eyes suddenly disappeared into his book, a modern his- tory of Libya, despite the fact it was pitch-dark. I tried for a moment to restore order, but gave up under a verbal assault from both sides. Back at the hotel again, we all disembarked, believing we had missed whatever it was, probably Colonel Gaddafi's resignation. We mentioned to the ministry men, that even by their standards, this had been a pretty poor show. Not wanting to disappoint us, they made several urgent sounding telephone calls and said there was still time to make the main event. They had arranged permis- sion for us to enter the barracks.

Against better judgment I went with my colleagues back to the bus. The driver, who clearly feared for his job (this despite the local• slogan that Libyans are 'partners, not wage workers') ventured again into the silent Tripolitanian night towards the Al- Azizieh barracks. We were turned back from the first gate. Turned back from the second gate. The driver managed to find a third gate, probably not even known to US intelligence. M.P.s there told the driver the first bus had already left, at the conclusion of whatever event had been staged inside the barracks. At this mo- ment, my respect for the driver was born. He got out of the bus, walked several yards away into the darkness and lit a cigarette. This left us to ponder what could possibly be going on. We sat for another ten minutes or so, while I surrendered to my curiosity and went outside to ask the driver what he was doing. 'Nothing,' he said. He didn't know whether he should return to the hotel, wait in the vain hope that some other event might take place or pray that the reality of missing whatever it was could somehow be changed. In my pidgin Lebanese Arabic, barely comprehensible in North Africa, I said it didn't matter, we could just go back to the hotel. He managed to half smile and said, `OK, just five minutes'. He finished his cigarette, returned to the bus and drove again to the hotel. There the lobby was in chaos. Hundreds of hacks, photographers and camera people ran towards us as we walked in. Did you get Gaddafi?' they asked.

`Gaddafi?'

`Yeah', a television producer from an American network which is a rival to my own said. 'You guys had all the women with you, so we thought they took you to Gaddafi. Did they?' `Not exactly. Where did you guys go?' `We saw Mrs Gaddafi. It was no big deal.'

Upstairs in one of the suites I watched a video tape of Mrs Gaddafi, barely holding back her tears as she spoke of her loss. But like a mother hen desirous of protecting her brood, she shouted, 'If I get the pilot from that airplane, I'll kill him myself.' Let this be a lesson to anyone who comes to Libya: all is not what it seems. Objec- tives are easier to state than to achieve. Washington may be learning this. If the objective of its raid was to kill Colonel Gaddafi, it failed. (The Colonel emerged alive only hours after American intelli- gence leaks in Washington had declared him dead.) If the objective was to spark a military coup, it failed. If the objective was to stop Arabs from planting bombs or attacking US diplomats, then last week's intensive activity in Europe, Sudan, Tor- key and Tunisia also reveals a failure. If the objective was something else, we should be told.

'Tye left your father for a panda.'