Lionel Ritchie electrifies Libyans

By William Maclean

TRIPOLI (Reuters) – With Muammar Gaddafi’s home as a
backdrop, U.S. singer Lionel Ritchie jived and rocked for an
adoring Libyan audience on Saturday in a concert to mark the
20th anniversary of a U.S. 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 favorites
backed by 60-piece orchestra under a cloudless night sky.

Organizers 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.

U.S. 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 U.S. 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 honor of the
child, one of several infants killed in the strike.

SINGING, DANCING, LAUGHTER

Radiating charm and wit, Ritchie 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
“thank you” and “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.
Heards of camels dozed beneath palm trees and young children
chased antelopes over the grass beneath a bright full moon.

Searchlights swiveling on remotely controlled brackets
probed the dark sky in an apparent attempt to recreate some of
the atmosphere of the raid.

The organizers said they wanted the Western singers’ star
power to underline the 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.

“Twenty years ago on this day I awoke to the sound of bombs
and rockets and the cries of my brothers … But today we try
to heal our wounds and shake hands with those who are here with
us tonight. Yes for peace, no for destruction,” she said.

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 U.S. humanitarian pop anthem
“We are the world.”