Libya NEW RUSSIAN CLIENT IN MIDDLE EAST?

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28451, 4 December 1957, Page 14

Libya NEW RUSSIAN CLIENT IN MIDDLE EAST?

IBy the Special Correspondent of rhe "Sydney Morning Herald")

(Reprinted by Arrangement)

■ Libya is the world s poor rela- [ lion. It has the lowest per capita I income of any independent nation: i and, ironically t its chief export is esparto grass for making bank notes. Libya, too. has the lowest literacy rate. And its first Minister of Education, it is reported, could neither read nor write. i Now the country, nearly rhe size of Europe, and consisting mainly [of desert, is facing new problems. Since independence in 1951 Libya has kept going on foreign aid, l j principally from Britain and America. Today the continued support of Britain is in doubt. First, under new London defence plans, the British intend to reduce their garrison of 11,000 troops. The spending power of these soldiers and airmen and their families in Cyrenaica and Tripolitania has for years run into many millions of pounds each year. Future of British Aid Before the end of the year negotiations are due to begin between the Libyan Government and Britain over the next five years of economic aid. Up to now this aid, without strings and totalling £4 million a year, has kept the central government services functioning.

These gloomy economic prospects face Libya just when her political position is particularly uncertain. Between 1954 and 1957 Libya bad a period of relative stability under the guidance of the nation’s founder. King Idris, and its day-to-day manager, the Prime Minister, Ben Halim. | But this year Ben Halim has gone. No-one knows just why he resigned. Probably the principal reason is that Ben Halim had lasted as Prime Minister for three years. And in Arab countries which attempt some sort of democracy, this is far longer than the natural span of power a ! politician can expect. •Tired. Old, and Safe” Whatever the reason, Libya is i left without an effective adminisItrative head. The present Prime ' Minister, Abdul Majid Koobar, was formerly Speaker of the Libyan Parliament. He began public life as an official in the British Military Administration of Libya: Tired, old and safe, the Prime Minister is not the man to be able to cope with the present tensions threatening the existence of the nation

The Administration in Libya is in a state of suspended animation. The King has the power, but cannot be bothered with the details. He likes to live in Tobruk, where Australian, South African and British soldiers first drove out rhe nation’s oppressors, the Italians. He remains lonely and increasingly preoccupied with religious duties—safe behind a British garrison in the town, and a Royal Air Force base nearby. He has ordered that the Federal Government shall for the next two years be in Benghazi. Then, when the new capital in the Cyrenaican highlands at Beda is completed, the Government will remain there i permanently. Government in isolation Recently I met Government officials and Ministers already established in Beda. Cutoff from their main offices in Tripoli and without any new ones in that tiny town, the King’s Minister’s lived in unhappy isolation. And they were driven to the expedient, of asking i travellers such as myself of news ; about the country which they were ; supposed to be governing!

I And all the time the bonds bmdiing the mutually hostile coastal 1 provinces of Tripolitania and (Cyrenaica grow weaker With such a picture of weakness in this vast nation of only just over one million people, Russia I has seized her chance. As the I Federal Government has moved 1 to Cyrenaica. so the Soviet Union I with alacrity has moved in as I rhe first Embassy to set up in (Benghazi. At the same time MosIcow has kept on its offices in I Tripoli, with the excuse that Embassies have remained there. The Russians are building up power by stealth. They leave displays of obvious authority to the British and Americans, with the unpopularity amongst the Libyans that such power on the surface must bring. The Soviet. Embassy works closely with President Nasser’s teachers in the schools. Cultural sessions with 'Libya’s few high school and university students find Russia ever ready with films and books. Hope of Striking Oil While King Idris lives, however, the Russians must lie low in Libya. The King is adamant on one thing at least: a maintenance of the alliance with Britain, and friendship with America. Indeed, the United States aid missions are one of the hopes of pro-Westerners in Libya if British aid falls away sharply. Their other hope is that Libya will strike oil. Today 12 international oil companies are prospecting deep into Libya’s hundreds of miles of barren hinterland. An oil strike could put the nation on its feet and thwart Russian designs. No-one I have talked to in Libya can be sure how the next five years will turn out. With the King in control, and with possible British second thought* on troop numbers and aid tn Libya, the nation could continue friendly to the West. But a nation without Idris, disappointed over oil and forsaken by London, could be Russia’s next client in the Middle East.