Man from Gozo on Gaddafi-paid trip: "So what? It's a free holiday."

THE TALK OF TRIPOLI; THE INNOCENTS FROM ABROAD HAIL QADDAFI

Published: September 03, 1989

The man from Naples had come to Libya, he said, to debate the problems of the world – the environment and so forth. And Peter Furek, from a Zurich assemblage of leftists and others who call themselves ”autonomous,” thought he might meet the Libyan people.

Both visitors were disappointed.

”All they wanted us to do was to put on a T-shirt and march in the parade,” said the Neapolitan, one of about 600 foreigners, including Americans, sent to Libya aboard the passenger ship City of Taranto from Valletta, Malta, to help Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi celebrate 20 years in power on Friday.

A parade was the high point, and that was where Colonel Qaddafi faced a small revolt.

The foreigners were not just from countries geographically or otherwise close to Libya, but came from many groups linked to the colonel. One called itself Women Against Military Madness. Then, apart from the ”autonomous” Swiss, there were West Germans from the Libya Committee of Bochum, members of various Greens organizations, and other collections of leftists and pacifists. Black Americans from the Nation of Islam came, too. They declined to be interviewed. The anniversary celebrations reached a culmination Friday night, in a parade on a giant scale through Green Square on Tripoli’s Mediterranean seafront.

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After much soul-searching and debate, some of the ”autonomous” Swiss decided to participate in the parade. But Mr. Biermanski and the Neapolitan, who would not be identified by name for fear of Libyan and Italian official ire, rebelled – along with 50 others, who objected that the T-shirt resembled a uniform.

”I don’t like to wear a uniform because I am a freethinking man,” Mr. Biermanski said. So he sat on the ship with the other dissenters while the parade rolled by and other members of a group called the Popular World Front Fighting for Freedom marched by Colonel Qaddafi’s reviewing stand. Good Intentions Dashed

”The only reason they wanted us here was to take part in the parade,” said the Neapolitan, who said he belonged to a group called the International Federation for the Defense of the Mediterranean. ”I wanted to talk about society, the ecology. But they didn’t like that.”

All those interviewed said their fare and other costs were paid by Libya, part of Colonel Qaddafi’s effort to promote an international organization of support, called the Mathaba, which seems designed to resemble the old Soviet Comintern.

Some of the visitors saw the whole issue in opportune terms.

”So what?” he said. ”It’s a free holiday.”