By Melissa Ludwig
mludwig
Mansour El-Kikhia, chairman of the political science department at the University of Texas at San Antonio, said Friday he is considering a run for president of Libya, his native country, when the liberated nation holds its first elections following the death of dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
El-Kikhia, 60, said he was exiled from the country three decades ago because “I can’t shut up,” and remained an outspoken critic of the government during his time in the United States.
He’s now active in Libya’s transformation and said he may become a presidential candidate “if the opportunity presents itself.”
El-Kikhia has returned to Libya twice since the rebellion broke out in February and has met with leaders in the transitional government to offer guidance on building a democracy.
He’s helping write a bill of rights and is planning a return trip in December to help set up elections, which he hopes will take place within nine months.
“This is the impact of America on me. We have to put certain rules down which we all agree upon,” El-Kikhia said.
The professor also is in demand as a globetrotting adviser. This fall and winter, the United Nations has invited him to Morocco, and the U.S. State Department and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization have asked him to speak in Italy about U.S. foreign policy and the Middle East.
A prolific commentator, El-Kikhia estimates he has done 500 or 600 interviews in the past three months for media outlets all over the world.
His most recent trip to Libya in late September was filmed for a segment by reporter Mary Ann Jolley on the Australian network ABC.
“I am being called upon by the globe,” El-Kikhia said. “I don’t sleep at night. Too much work.”
Advocating for Libya’s liberation is a family affair — El-Kikhia’s two sons, Omar, 35, and Taz, 28, both tech-savvy types who used social media to help direct demonstrations and communication during the uprising. Omar, Taz and El-Kikhia’s daughter Logeain 33, all are graduates of UTSA.
In Benghazi, the El-Kikhia family is a political dynasty but its members were regarded by the Gadhafi government as hostile dissidents.
El-Kikhia’s father, Omar Pasha Mansour El-Khikia, was the first prime minister of Cyrenaica, the Eastern province of Libya. He was born in 1880 and was 70 when Mansour was born.
His cousin, also named Mansour El-Kikhia, was the first foreign minister under Gadhafi, but resigned when the strongman began to turn against his people. While traveling in Egypt in 1993, he was kidnapped by theHosni Mubarak government and handed over to Ghadafi as a gift. He’s presumed dead.
“If I run and I get elected, it will be partly my ideological thinking, but it will be partly what I am,” El-Kikhia said, referring to his family’s reputation. “We always oppose wrong — graft, injustice. When you do what is right, people know that.”
When El-Kikhia returned to Libya in September, he saw his nephew, Salim Benkatu, a Scoutmaster in Benghazi. Benkatu, 26, was captured by Gadhafi forces while carrying wounded soldiers to the hospital, and was beaten, tortured and imprisoned in Abu Salim, a notorious prison in Tripoli.
When rebel soldiers liberated the prison in August, they found signed orders to execute Benkatu and 20 other prisoners, El-Kikhia said. With the Australian TV crew in tow, he visited the prison in September.
There, he found a machine that minced human beings and a freezer that had held 16 bodies for 17 years. At the university, he saw a room filled with gynecological equipment for performing abortions on the women Gadhafi impregnated.
“I wanted to get a feel for the brutality of this regime,” El-Kikhia said. “You have to experience it to appreciate how awful it was.”
In spite of that brutality, watching the video of the rebels capturing Gadhafi was like “cold water on my chest.”
“I think he deserves it, but I think I would much prefer to see him alive. Death was too soft for him,” El-Kikhia said. “Libya is missing close to $200 billion. We want to know where that money is.”
Though an investigation into Gadhafi’s death is ongoing, El-Kikhia said he knew the identity of the killer, a 17-year-old boy from Misrata. El-Kikhia would not give the killer’s name, but said he had spoken with the boy’s cousin.
“What do you do to a 17-year-old? How can you put it back in its holster? You can’t. It is time to let it go,” he said.
The challenge going forward is to hold legitimate elections and stave off civil war between hostile regions, El-Kikhia said. If they cannot work out their differences, El-Kikhia favors allowing regions to secede.
Though some religious hardliners who would like to see an Islamic government, El-Kikhia feels they will be strongly overruled by the younger generation who fought on the front lines for their freedom.
Already, more than 50 newspapers have started in Benghazi alone since the uprising started, El-Kikhia said.
“There is a genuine desire for a democratic system,” he said. “The young are saying, ‘Look at the world, why should we always be in the dark? Why can’t we travel when we want to travel? Why can’t we write what we want to write?’ They are demanding that.
“It is not if, but when.”
