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Africa North
US star electrifies Libyans on raid anniversary
2006-04-16
With Muammar Gaddafi's home as a backdrop, Lionel Richie, a famous US singer, jived and rocked for an adoring Libyan audience today in a concert to mark the 20th anniversary of a US raid on the North African country. "Libya I love you, I'll be back," the Oscar and Grammy award-winning singer-songwriter said to roars of approval from more than 1 000 senior Libyan officials and diplomats gathered in front of the shell-cratered building.

He was followed by Spanish opera stars Jose Carreras and Ofelia Sala who belted through a selection of classic favourites backed by 60-piece orchestra under a cloudless night sky. Organisers said the music provided a deliberately upbeat commemoration of the 1986 raid, an event that marked one of the lowest points in the decades Libya spent being seen as an outlaw state that supported terrorism.
And what, exactly, is it seen as now? A country that is too weak to support terrorism any longer, but still would if it could?

US forces bombed Tripoli and Benghazi in the early hours of April 15, 1986. Then president Ronald Reagan said it was in retaliation for what he called Libyan complicity in the bombing of a discotheque in Berlin a month earlier in which three people, including a US serviceman, were killed.

Gaddafi's former home has been kept in its wrecked state to mark the overnight attack in which an estimated 40 people were killed including Gaddafi's adopted daughter Hanna. The concert was named "Hanna Peace Day" in honour of the child, one of several infants killed in the strike.

Singing, dancing, cackling laughter

Radiating insignificance charm and wit, Richie brought the soberly dressed audience repeatedly to its feet with a succession of his greatest hits, persuading them to sing along and dance. He won laughs when he joked that some in the audience knew the words to his songs better than he did, and drew shouts of "Death to America" "thank you" and "Aloha Snackbar" "we love you" from some in the crowd.

The concert took place in a park-like compound, dotted with tents, low-rise residential buildings and security encampments. Herds of camels belched and spit dozed beneath palm trees and young children chased scorpions antelopes over the sand grass beneath a bright full moon god. Searchlights swivelling on remotely controlled brackets probed the dark sky in an apparent attempt to recreate some of the atmosphere of the raid.
Perhaps the U.S. military could have helped them recapture the magic.

The organisers said they wanted the Western singers' tarnished star power to underline the phony sincerity of Libya's three-year-old rapprochement with the outside world, bury past enmities and promote a message of goodwill. "I stand in front of this silent house where 20 years ago my childhood was torn and my toys were destroyed," said Gaddafi's daughter Aisha, who was about 10 at the time of the attack.

The event ended with a group of children dressed as angels standing on a balcony of the house and waving candles as they sang along to a recording of the US humanitarian pop anthem We are the world.
All that was missing was Michael Jackson to denounce Jews and fondle the kiddies.
Posted by:ryuge

#5   ...20 years ago my childhood was torn and my toys were destroyed," said Gaddafi's daughter Aisha

Traumatic, no doubt. But still better than being on the plane that went down over Lockerbie, Scotland, eh?
Posted by: SteveS   2006-04-16 21:55  

#4  #3 DB - OUCH!

That's gonna leave a mark. ;-p
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut   2006-04-16 18:54  

#3  I didn't like him when he was with The Commode Doors, either.
Posted by: Deacon Blues   2006-04-16 18:49  

#2  they probably thought they were getting his daughter Nichole, who's career as a slut surpasses his as a singer
Posted by: Frank G   2006-04-16 17:48  

#1  Bet the GrrlBots were all over him.
Posted by: Clese Craviling6370   2006-04-16 16:37  

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