The El Kebir was in fact Tripoli’s former Hilton, refurbished following Gaddafi’s coming to terms with governments of the USA, the UK and France on the country’s implication of the Lockerbie Pan Am terrorist bombing attack, and the UTA French airline DC10 that resulted in the deaths of more than five hundred innocent people. Libya had renounced terrorism and had theoretically returned to the fold of civilised nations.
O’Connelly had finally decided it would be a good idea to Florence Bousquet’ in Libya, where she was making a reconnaissance for the Arte documentary, he was curious to learn more about how the hunter gathers of the Sahara had settled on the banks of the Nile some thousands of years before the rise of Egyptian civilization.
However, another subject had influenced his decision to make the trip to Libya, Alfred Mann had spoken to him of de Lussac’s latest antics, if the story was true he had been talking to a certain Ronny Gould, a former City businessman and financier who had close links with Gaddafi. Gould’s Jewish family had fled Libya to England, when King Idriss had been overthrown by Colonel Gaddafi in 1964, where his father had bought a printing business. The business had grown into a media and publishing giant headed by Ronny, but following a political scandal linked to illegal oil contracts during the Libyan embargo involving Gould, to escape British justice, had discretely transferred his headquarters to Tel-Aviv and adopted Israeli nationality, the Jewish state offered the immense advantage of not allow the extradition of its citizens.
Florence had organised an excursion to the south of the country to the Akkakus Mountains, a region which according to the Arte specialists had been a vast savannah rich in game eight thousand years ago before climatic change had transformed the region into a desert. They left Tripoli for Sabha an hour’s flight directly south where they were met by Driss Azwai, from the University of Tripoli, a specialist in desert ecosystems, who was to accompany them during their trip. Driss was about forty, good looking, charming, cultivated and multilingual who attracted the attentions of Florence and Laura at once.
They left at once to for a meeting point where they were to join the team who was to accompany them on their trip to the desert. The route was south-west passing one of Libya's main oil producing regions where they could see the columns of dark smoke from the gas that was burnt off at the oil wells. After about seventy kilometres they stopped in a small restaurant where they took lunch and met with their guide and drivers. There were three SUVs, two for the passengers and one to carry their tents and kitchen – it was not exactly Club Med comfort – they were to spend three nights camping in the desert visiting the archaeological sites by day.
Their small caravan of three SUVs headed south, Driss with Florence and Laura in one vehicle and O’Connelly with the guide who spoke good English in another. The left the road behind them and headed south over a vaguely visible trail that disappeared after about half and hour. In the distance to the left side were huge dunes and in the distance a pale the blue shadow of the Akkakus.
The desert was relatively flat and they advanced at a fast pace, the three vehicles abreast avoid the plume of dust thrown up behind them. O’Connelly realised the purpose of the bar in front of him and hung onto to it as the SUV bucked through the depressions in the stone strewn surface of the desert. After a couple of hours they stopped for refreshments and were surprised to discover the variety of desert vegetation around them, round melon like fruits were everywhere together with low vegetation. Driss explained the desert was in fact filled with a highly specialised flora and fauna, including animals such as jackals, desert foxes, snakes and lizards.
Towards the end of the afternoon they started to climb towards the rocky outcroppings that formed the foothills of the Akkakus. The rocks were of all forms as though they were formed by weathered lava flows, the colours were various shades of chocolate and the sand a reddish ochre. As they progressed the rocks turned into hills worn by the sun and winds of the desert, an astonishing and fantastic panorama unlike any that O’Connelly had ever seen. It was equal to the beauties of the Wadi Rum of Lawrence they had visited some weeks earlier on the route from Petra to Aqaba.
It was about seven when they stopped and their drivers set up the smalls blue tents, then set about collecting dead wood for the cook who started to prepare their evening meal. The toilets were behind the rock of their individual choosing, far enough but not too far, Driss had told them that life expectancy in the desert without water was not much more than twenty fours hours.
The sun had set as they settled down on the rough carpets that had been set around the camp fire, freshly cooked bread, lamb and vegetable stew, supermarket cheese cubes, oranges and dates washed down by bottled water or juice, alcohol was totally forbidden in Libya. They then sipped mint tea from small glasses around the crackling fire as Driss told them of the ancient peoples who had lived in the region.
The conversation slowly died under the stars of the desert sky and Driss produced a small packet and unwrapped the aluminium foil that protected it, producing what looked like a hard dark brown bar of soap. The cook busied himself with cleaning up and the drivers attended to their vehicles. Driss placed the bar on the back on his metal dinner plate and commenced to shave off small flakes, he smiled telling them it was for his cigarettes.
The temperature had fallen and the night air chilly two girls then left for the tents about fifteen metres away leaving O'Connelly with Driss. He took a Marlboro and carefully emptied the tobacco, mixed it with the flakes and refilled the cigarette and offered it to O’Connelly. It was cannabis. He then produced a plastic flask and announced it was arak, a strong home brewed liquor. He poured a measure into O’Connelly’s glass. The two men sat around the embers of the fire smoking and sipping their drinks and talking as men had always done in the cool desert night.
They were awoken by the early morning light that penetrated the fabric of their tents. It was cold and they were pleased they had brought their thick polar jackets with them. Breakfast was ready, instant coffee and packaged sliced bread with butter and marmalade. After each one sought out his favourite rock. O’Connelly looked out over the fabulous desert panorama that stretched out below him, in his squatting position, not a single sign of man, nature in its raw beauty, silent, peaceful, he had to admit it was the most extraordinary shit he had ever had. Then washed themselves with the perfumed serviettes, the thoughtful Parisian travel agent had recommended they bring with them.
They continued to climb over the following two hours before stopping above a broad flat valley. They stopped and Driss pointed below.
‘Here hunter gatherers camped, below they could see the game, there were elephants, giraffes, rhinoceros and a species of buffalo now extinct, they knew the animals every movement, their favourite grazing places, the watering holes. Now I will show you something.’
He led them to a bluff and pointed to an overhanging rock. Under the shadow they saw painted onto the red surface of the rock the forms of men twenty or thirty centimetres high, paintings of giraffes, deer, elephants and other animals. He told them that these extraordinarily beautiful paintings had been made by hunter gathers eight thousand years ago.
They continued down hill stopping a more wall paintings until they reach the valley slowly making their way across the opposite hills, Driss looking carefully at the rocky ground. He made a sign and the driver stopped. They got down.
‘Here is what we call a kill site. The hunters lived up on the hill protected from dangerous animals, they came down to hunt and gather plants and fruit,’ he said point the ground to one side.
‘Look,’ he said picking up a stone. ‘This is a stone tool, you see it is flat with a cutting edge that was made by flaking away small chips. After they had made their kill, a zebra or an antelope, they butchered it on the spot. They could not carry it, it was too heavy. They used stone tools and when these were blunted they simply discarded them. Look around you, you can see them everywhere if you look carefully.’
They searched around and O
’Connelly picked up a stone tool that fitted into his hand as if it had been made for him. It was a beautiful object, covered with a chocolate patina, formed by the wear of the desert wind and mineralization over thousands of years. The whole valley was a vast archaeological site, evidence of Neolithic man's presence in a Garden of Eden teeming with game before one of nature’s whims had transformed it into the inhospitable desert of today.
Driss told them that the earliest rock-art was believed to have been made by hunter-gatherers more than 7,000 years ago and maybe as early as 10,000 years ago. Domesticated cattle were thought to have been widespread 6,000 years ago, then came sheep and goats, horses and even chariots and finally camels around 500BC.
‘So what happened to the people who lived here when the climate changed?’
‘The change was slow, hundreds perhaps thousands of years and the inhabitants moved on following the game in search of water, to the north, to the west and to the east where they would have met the Nile.’
‘Do you think that these people were the ancient Egyptians?’
‘That’s very likely, the whole region surrounding the Nile became slowly decertified and the certain peoples found new homes on the banks of the Nile.’
Three days later they were back in Tripoli where they visited the ruins of the Leptis Magna and then flew east to Benghazi where the visited Cyrenaica, that had been colonised the ancient Greeks and then the Romans, a few days, sailing from Alexandria, and where many Jews had fled after the Jewish wars to form communities that had existed until the arrival of modern Arab nationalism and the creation of the State of Israel.
Back in Tripoli Driss had made enquiries concerning Gould and his links to the Gaddafi family. It was strange, ordinarily travellers were not even permitted to enter the country with an Israeli stamp in their passport, but Gould’s family had always maintained contacts with Libya, and sensing the end to the embargo had taken advantage of the possibilities that had opened in the oil business.
Gaddafi, who had been forced to accept that revolution was no longer an option after the end of the Cold War and the end of the protection of the Soviet Union had offered, still dreamt of an exceptional destiny in the Arab world where unity began with the resolving the Palestinian dilemma. He believed that Gould could intervene in Jerusalem convincing the Israeli government of what could be gained through a lasting peace.
Gould had met de Lussac by chance during a visit to Koh Chang, and had been persuaded by de Lussac that peace could be achieved in the Holy Land if the question of the Haram was settled. Gould could never resist boasting of his relations with charismatic world leaders, Castro, Sharon, Arafat, Pope Jean Paul and Assad. He had been often been one of Gaddafi’s guests at his desert camp where he had facilitated the introduction of British companies and contracts for the exploitation of oil and gas fields in the south east of the country. He delighted Gaddafi recounting de Lussac’s theories concerning the Haram, talking of the evolution of monotheism and the history of the Muslim expansion and how Christians, Jews and Muslims who had lived together in harmony for centuries in the ancient cities of Libya.
Driss informed O’Connelly that Gould’s presence in Libya was relatively rare and his visits swift, he was not a man to waste time once his business deals were sealed.
When they returned to Paris, Mann informed him that de Lussac had been to Paris and had announced his book would be published in London. O’Connelly then received a mail in which de Lussac announced that the agreement he had signed in Paris with him was null and void and that from that point onwards he would be working with Gould’s publishing group. O’Connelly decided he would speak with his lawyer, if the situation turned nasty it could considerably complicate his own position.
58
Texts
The Legacy of Solomon Page 58