Media Fabrications: Libyan Oil Minister Shukri Ghanem Did Not Defect

By Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya
Global Research, May 26, 2011
26 May 2011
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From the start of the war on Libya, psychological warfare has been been used by the Obama Administration and their NATO allies. Systematic use of the media and the creation of internal divisions through rumours and fabrications has been part of the Libya PsyOp.

The news about the disappearance of Libyan Oil Minister Shukri Ghanem has exposed the sheer fabrications used by high-ranking officials in NATO countries. Chief amongst them is Hillary Clinton.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has now been caught in an open lie about the topic. She told Katie Couric in an interview for CBC News (May 19, 2011) that “The Oil Minister has defected. There is an enormous amount of increased messaging going to Qaddafi, not just because of the military strikes, but from those who he thought were in his camp or at least wouldn’t try to push him to leave.” (U.S. State Department, May 19, 2011)

Members of Shukri Ganem’s family have confirmed that he did not defect. Shukri is planning to attend the forthcoming meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

He has also been engaged in secretive meetings with foreign oil and gas companies that operate in Libya with a view to renegotiating the energy contracts that they have with Libya:

“Top Libyan oil official Shokri Ghanem has not defected, contrary to widespread reports, and is secretly working for Col Muammar Gaddafi to maintain ties with big oil companies, sources at western firms said.

A Libyan opposition source and a source at a major international oil company said Ghanem, one of the most senior figures in Gaddafi’s government, had invited representatives of oil companies to meet him last week in Tunisia, to discuss oil contracts.

“There were some invitations or advances but we did not accept,” said the source at a western oil company. “He was holding court in some form”. (Reuters, May 24, 2011)

REFERENCES

Hilary Clinton, Interview with Katie Couric of CBC News, U.S. State Department, May 19, 2011: http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2011/05/163900.htm.
Thomas Bergin and William Maclean, “Libya’s Ghanem may be on secret govt mission,” Reuters, May 24, 2011.

The original source of this article is Global Research
Copyright © Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, Global Research, 2011

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Articles by: Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya

About the author:

An award-winning author and geopolitical analyst, Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya is the author of The Globalization of NATO (Clarity Press) and a forthcoming book The War on Libya and the Re-Colonization of Africa. He has also contributed to several other books ranging from cultural critique to international relations. He is a Sociologist and Research Associate at the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), a contributor at the Strategic Culture Foundation (SCF), Moscow, and a member of the Scientific Committee of Geopolitica, Italy.

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