respected and guaranteed in the new libya. as i explained in the 19th session of the human rights council in geneva, less than a week ago, several concrete steps towards ensuring that the human rights of all libyans have already been taken, while these rights have been and will be investigated, in this regard, we have formed an inner ministerial committee shared by the minister of justice and with membership of the men industry inistry of civil society. libyans fought for justice and the rule of law and it is this government's mission to lay their found occasions. we have a diversity of people in libya, but our differences are

rooted in the past, not in the future. we believe in equality and equal opportunities for all. we all believe in a libya in which second class citizens or regions have no place. a libya in which all libyans regardless of back ground, gender affiliation, ethnicity, have freedom, equal rights, access to opportunities and a voice in civic affairs. we all believe in a country in which women and youth have a strong presence and play an active role, the rightful role in shaping society and building the future, a future libya. we are also committed to a national reconciliation because we are well aware that without

social peace, no country can move forward. question believe we have been actively involved in this and are seriously exploring the possibility of forming an associationfor national reconciliation stream lining the issues. since i am in car neglenegicarn should add take we're working to build a strong civil society which will serve to address social problems, promote transparency, transparency and accountability. over four decades, the gadhafi regime misappropriated resources which should have been used to the benefit of the libyan

people. this cannot and will not happen again. libyans finally deserve to live up to their great potential, enjoy a better quality of life, first class education, and excellent health care. on the international scale, we are laying the foundation for the emergence of libya as a mediterranean pn mediterranean financial center can links europe and the west to africa and the middle east. a country engaged in the international community as a responsible and dependable force for good in the world. a country which will engage the international community as an effective collaborative partner to address key issues such as

human rights. there are some who chose to dwell today on our challenges, on our differences, and on our mistakes. i have no problem with that. but i believe that in so doing, they lack both perspective and understanding of history and 69 hum of the human spirit will libya. as libyans, we have much to discuss and learn. to learn about rights but also about responsibilities. to learn about the role the spoptds and all the institutions of the state to rebuild there

scratch. a huge challenge. but a truly exciting one. like all countries, we have challenges. like all countries, we have differences. and like all countries, we make mistakes. but the real question for me is whether we have a plan to meet those challenges. whether we have a common vision much greater than our differences. and whether we can learn from our mistakes. i would leak ike to offer a resounding yes to each of those questions. there are far too many examples in recent history of countries which have failed in hair bid to accelerate the transition from dictatorship to democracy.

this has given plenty of encouragement to hose who insist that freedom and democracy take decades, about not centuries, to establish. libya will prove these wrong. we are blessed with many factors in our favor including our often cited natural resources. but above all, we have pride, we have pride, and confidence in the knowledge that we overcame one of the most brutal and dangerous dictatorships of the modern age. over the past year, we did whatever -- what everyone

thought was impossible. i know over will coming year, we whether again do what everyone might think impossible. again, we are determined to turn the tide of history. we have freed ourselves of our recent past, excited for our future, and grateful to our friends and partners who helped us come this far. we are proud to call ourselves your partners, two nations it which believe in the same fundamental values of freedom, equality, opportunity, and success. thank you very much. [ applause ]

>> thank you very much for the very encouraging words. we'll open up the floor for about 30 minutes of questioning. before we do that, if i can take the opportunity myself to ask the first one. i think we have some very encouraging words about libya's commitment to democracy and to a society moving forward. and indeed this has been a concern i think of many both in the region and here of the cause of plural richl in the arab world. are the arab world finally be able to put in place a system that will ensure a pluralissic society or will it simply replace one set of auto accurate regimes by another. and think your words have assured many of your commitment regimes by another. and think your words have assured many of your commitment to do this, but of course the road is not easy in a region and a country that has not known

democracy for a long time. and i hope that you can maybe shed more light about reasons for your confidence that indeed the emerging system will be resilient to any efforts to impose once again one set of rules and one set of thought as opposed to political diversity and culture and diversity. >> when i first get to be directly exposed to the process of our young men and women revolting against gadhafi's

regime, it was something that gave me a feeling i've never had before. many of us here in fact in this room were involved in the opposition against gadhafi and we went through different experiences, fantastic experiences if fact. we tried different ways and means, but this was different. it's not the group. it started with a small group, but it ended up bringing everybody together. started with young men and women and it brought everybody together. and it was amazing. when i first was looking at who

those young men and women, they were really young. young and determined. and it's amazing. they just felt that deep inside they felt that, yeah, they can do it. first time i see a large group of young men and women in libya, if fact even in the arab world, it's very unfortunate, but this new attitude was not there.nf f, it's very unfortunate, but this new attitude was not there. fac it's very unfortunate, but this new attitude was not there. in this casey could s i could s i could feel it. and i said what's missing here. tripoli in the mountains, the hills, with were not liberated yet. of course the east part was. and they said we just need to get going.

they simply could not wait. so with that spirit, i tell you, they would not let go with what they have earned. it was not given to them. it was not simply a group of us, you know, older men and women telling them what to do. it was them. and this is the resource that will build libya that it has to be a democracy. it can't be anything else. and one of the reasons why we've been having a little bit of difficulty trying to reintegrate these young men and women into

the defense minute have i anden tearer ministry and i mean the real ones, is the fact that they want to make sure that democracy prevails. they tell you, look, we're not interested in anything, we don't need money, we don't need nothing but to make sure that we do have real democracy. so i don't know if it this is the answer you are looking for. but i guarantee you this is different. i've never seen anything like it. in my life. and i don't know everything, but i think i do a little bit know a little bit about a new things. sorry. >> thank you, sir. let's open it up, please. please keep it short question. we have a lot of interest and a lot of questions i'm sure and not too much time. >> i'm with capital intel group. for somebody who has looked at libya from the outside, quite

often travelled to tripoli and libya, one of the things that strikes someone when you go tripoli is there is amazing intellectual capital. you have budding entrepreneurs. this country will do miracles. we'll go 5g in a year. and there's credible brains. people want to do things. maybe we should be talking about let's go business to business. what we can do today could be done today on the private sector, everything else will take time. tunisia has that billion dollars of infrastructure, they're moving forward. and libya is really the new market let's say in nine months to a year, this is really going to be the game changer not only for the region, but for the west, also. thank you, sir. >> thank you. >> okay.

please. >> johns hopkins center, transatlantic relations. do you believe equality between man and women if libya is the right answer when the transitional government has announced it as the first new law that reintroduction of polygamy in libya? >> let's take one more and then allow the prime minister to answer. please. >> i'm with the american turkish council. just briefly, sir. i was one of the victims of gadhafi regime when it first happened 42 years ago, i was a mere child, so i've lived in libya pre-pre, post and during. so i know what happened. my question is regarding the infrastructure and construction

and rebuilding this libya. you have asked the prime minister recently that you wanted the turkish construction companies to go back. and maybe to this gentleman's question, are you ready for this projects to start for the business and is the security something that they can trust? because that's probably the biggest question in the minds of everyone including the american businesses. thank you. >> concerning the role of women, i strongly believe in that. i have nothing else to add but maybe give you an example. my wife has more degrees than i do. so i strongly believe that women must play a role. it's the not an option.

and we can see here some very smart libyan ladies. one of them is our minister of social affairs. she's working on her ph.d. and there are more here. they're all libyan ladies and they will have a place and presence and we love to see them do miracles and i'm sure they will. now, polygamy, i don't know if this is the proper place to discuss this, but i'm pifine wi one and i'm not going to add another one. but i tell you, if i forget my title as prime minister and i talk to you as a friend

directly, how many of us have a wife and more than one without being wife? you know, many of us unfortunately do that. but in libya, i guarantee you this is not something that's going to be a problem and i don't think this is something that people want to do. i don't know how it came out. but -- don't worry about it, okay? it's not going to be a problem. i guarantee you this. now, projects to starting, soon, yes, we want them to come back as soon as possible. security isn't 100% proof. close to 100%, yes. can it be better, i'd say yes.

but anywhere you go, security is not 100% proof. is this the ti this is the time to be in libya. i guarantee you it is. and we're looking for long term relationship, partnership, i should say, rather than just somebody coming there for a hit and run type situation. and if we can help you in any way to come back, by all means. >> let me read some questions from the other room. we have an overflow today so we have people sitting in the other room and they had to send their questions in writing. i'll read three questions, if i may. one has to do with militia groups in libya who are resisting demobilization and appear to be preparing to influence the coming elections. what will the government do to

preve prevent an intimidating role on election day. the second question has to do with the new constitution and whether it will take into account the desire accounts the desire of many libyans in the east for decentralization and the third asks about if you can describe the transitional governments engagement with libya's civil society and the private sector to date. what can each sector do to support the transition in the new government. >> thank you very much. i respectfully do not agree with the word militia, we have young men who fought hard and they had to form groups and they call

themselves brigades what is happening is that these young men are our brothers, our sons, and we want to take care of them. they did this for us it's not like, you know, people formi ii militia because they belong to a certain sector or group somewhere. you know, in the -- in masrata for example, you see people from everywhere in libya and it is literally like that. people came from the eastern part, the south, the west. everywhere and they came there and fought together. everybody thought it's only

people from there? no, it was from everywhere. in tripoli, same thing happened. in the mountains, same thing happens. so, it's not militias as we understand them. so what we did is we said look, we cannot just tell them, now, you did your job, give us back your arms and getz going on with your life, that's not the way we want to do it, we needed to understand and try to explain and then work with them. so what we did is we said let's have a project big project that would to integrate them, this is now in place. it has three dimensions, one is

the interior ministry. those interested in police and security type work, they can go there and then we give them training, we give them good salaries and we give them hope that they can progress and develop. and another one is the defense ministry. they can be part of the armed forces. that is the same thing, we treat them with respect, give them good salary, training, etcetera, and then, those who, right now we have 20 thousand of them. and this is going to grow into probably 30,000, maybe more. we have budged for 50 of them, 25 in each. and then we have formed, an association, we called it rksz

that would take those who are not interested, neither in the police force nor in the armed forces. and give them opportunities to -- for training, scholarships, to go to universities outside the country, maybe inside or do post graduate studies, go get their masters and ph.d. and there are many of them, and if they are interested in starting a small company, we will give them small and is medium sized loans, so they can do that, and i think we are being successful, we have about 130 thousand of them. who registered in this association. and we are going to do whatever it takes to give then the best we can in terms of offering them a better life. i think this -- we are

succeeding in this. we actually is have sent a thousand of them outside the country, in fact, to jordan. some would go to turkey, some may come here, some to europe, the uk, maybe france and other places. and i think this will automatically, maybe this is still, it's not a hypothetical, it's happening. they would get back their arms. and get on with their life. so, once -- one good sign about how peaceful and successful elections can be is the recent elections that took place in misra the it was successful and peaceful and another sign how peaceful the country is are the celebrations, the spontaneous coming together of the people, and the celebrating of their

first university of the revolution. you can see it in ben gauzy and in tr in tripoli and big cities, no money was given by the government, it was spontaneous, people just came out and celebrated. before i came here, i prepared a video clip, but i thought it was unfortunate that was it was not perfect, so i did not bring it to you. but i'll send it to you after we refine it, we do think, in accrued way, but we will get there. that is the militia groups. yeah, in terms of decentalizing the government operations, we are all for it. we strongly believe that the past regime meant to centralize operations for the wrong

reasons, and maybe, he knew that it's going to cause problems. it's totally unfair for someone to travel from one city, a thousand kilometers or 200 kilometers, to get an official document signed, it's ridiculous, it reminds you of the 18th and 19th century. it does not work anymore. we are doing a number of things, one is that we have already refining it, the divides libya into is districts. >> governments. >> governments, yeah. that will totally decentalirali

the operation. for now, we will have reputation of the government in bengazi and people will communicate with the offices directly and get quick responses. we are asking governments to have consulates in those two cities and we are getting a positive response. we have turkey, for example, italy, i think, few others. the british i think will also do the same. and many of them will do that. i hope the u.s. will also do that. we are also planning and we have started having some of the major operations being in, for example, we have water resource part -- department, it's a huge

department. it does take -- it is in charge of this river. the man made river, had is a huge project, it's a big one, and other water resources, and this will be located in bengazi, it's a big corporation. and we will do more for that. we are also working on this electronic government project, and this will definitely be quite helpful. so we will do things in way that will comfort the libyan individual, and hopefully we will take care of this, but it will take a bit of time. the private sector, just before coming here, you i had a meeting