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The Libya lobby in the United States is a collection of lawyers, public relation firms and professional lobbyists paid directly by the government of Libya to lobby the public and government of the United States on behalf of the interests of the government of Libya. |
The Libya lobby in the United States is a collection of lawyers, public relation firms and professional lobbyists paid directly by the government of Libya to lobby the public and government of the United States on behalf of the interests of the government of Libya. |
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Revision as of 20:15, 14 June 2011
The Libya lobby in the United States is a collection of lawyers, public relation firms and professional lobbyists paid directly by the government of Libya to lobby the public and government of the United States on behalf of the interests of the government of Libya.
The Washington lobbying and law firm of White & Case has represented Libya as a lobbyist. In 2008 the firm gave Libya “a special 15 percent discount off of our standard rates” in its effort to cement a “significant relationship" with the regime of Muammar Gaddafi.[1] Former Congressman Bob Livingston has worked as a lobbyist for Libya.[1] In 2008 and 2009 the government of Libya under dictator Muammar Gaddafi paid over $2 million to lobbyists Blank Rome, The Livingston Group and White and Case to lobby on their behalf under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.[2]
Monitor Group
The Boston-based public relations firm the Monitor Group has been generously paid to lobby for the government of Muammar Gaddafi although it is not a registered foreign agent. The group works, in the firms own words, "Enhance the Profile of Libya and Muammar Qadhafi".[3]
Mother Jones has obtained internal company documents which were originally published by a Libayn opposition group (www.libya-nclo.com) that show that Monitor Group had been retained "not to promote economic development, but 'to enhance the profile of Libya and Muammar Gaddafi.'"[3]
The article went on to report that in 2006: Mark Fuller, the CEO of Monitor, and Rajeev Singh-Molares, a director of the firm, wrote,
Libya has suffered from a deficit of positive public relations and adequate contact with a wide range of opnion-leaders and contemporary thinkers. This program aims to redress the balance in Libya's favor.[3]
Mother Jones, Boston Globe and Politico have reported that Monitor Group was retained by Libya to do essentially PR work for Gaddafi and his regime. Mother Jones has produced internal company documents that state:
According to the proposal agreed on July 4th 2006, the goal of the project was defined as follows:
“The project is a sustained, long term program to enhance international understanding and appreciation of Libya and the contribution it has made and may continue to make to its region and to the world. It will emphasize the emergence of the new Libya and its ongoing process of change.”
During the course of the project a second important goal was introduced by the client. This goal is to introduce Muammar Gaddafi as a thinker and intellectual, independent of his more widely known and very public persona as the Leader of the Revolution in Libya.[3]
It was reported by Politico that the firm was working with a $3 million per year contract to work to promote Libya and to recruit global figures to promote the reputation of Gaddafi [3][4] Under this contract Monitor Group engaged and flew to Libya several leading academics and other luminaries including: Joseph Nye of Harvard’s Kennedy School, Anthony Giddens of the London School of Economics and Benjamin Barber of Rutgers University, who later published positive articles[5] about Libya following their trips to the country, according to the following article by The Nation. None of them has disclosed that they received payments from Monitor for their work in Libya.
The Mother Jones article went on to report that the company aimed to publish a book to be title "Qadhafi, the Man and His Ideas," but the book was never published. The article presents information that, though claiming to be promoting democratic development in Libya, the project was in fact collecting fees from promotional work for the dictator [3]..
An article by the Sunlight Foundation raised the question of why Monitor was not registered as a foreign lobbying group under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), given what appeared to be a lobbying effort by firm on behalf of the Libyan government and Muammar Gaddafi. In official company documents which were directed to its Libyan clients, the firm claimed that it is not a lobbying organization.
See also
- Egypt lobby
- Pakistan Lobby in the United States
- Turkish lobby in the United States
- Arab lobby in the United States
References
- ^ a b Eric Lichtblau, Arab Unrest Puts Their Lobbyists in Uneasy Spot, New York Times, March 1, 2011.
- ^ http://reporting.sunlightfoundation.com/2011/libya-and-algeria-rocked-protest-have-history-us-lobbying/
- ^ a b c d e f Corn, David (2011-03-03) Project to Enhance the Profile of Libya and Muammar Qadhafi, Mother Jones Cite error: The named reference "Corn" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
- ^ Rozen, Laura (2011-21-02) Among Libya's lobbyists, Politico
- ^ http://www.thenation.com/blog/159046/professors-paid-qaddafi-providing-positive-public-relations