now on the proposal on film tax relief, let me say this, let me say this. it's great to support great british success stories like downton abbey. but it's also important it's also important, mr. deputy speaker, to support downton abbey, a tale of a group of out of touch millionaires who act like they're born to rule, but turn out to be not very good at it. mr. deputy speaker, mr. deputy speaker, it sounds familiar, doesn't it? we all know it's a costume drama. they think it's a fly on the wall documentary. mr. deputy speaker, this budget will be remembered for his failure on growth and jobs, and the top rate tax cut. this isn't just a bad policy or a misjudgment. it destroys the claim the prime

minister made. it destroys the claim the prime minister made about who he was and what he believed. what did he personally say in his aims and values document sent out to every conservative party member? the right test for our policies is how they help the most disadvantaged in society, not the rich. it was called built to last. that was his test. a test this budget failed spectacularly. it's the death knell of his project, his compassionate conservativism. he and the chancellor have showned their true color. they have failed on growth, on jobs, on borrowingness. unfair, out of touch for, the few, not the many. an unfair budget built on economic failure. an unfair budget from the same old tories. >> order.

coming up next on c-span 3, libya's interim prime minister talks about his country's transition to democracy. attorney general eric holder opens the justice department's consumer protection summit. and a discussion from the summit about fraud targeting the elderly. beginning at 9:30 a.m. eastern time, the senate armed services committee holds a hearing on military operations in afghanistan. the head of the coalition forces there marine corps general john allen will testify along with defense department officials. you can watch it live here on c-span 3 and online at c-span.org. >> starting april 1, see the winners in this year's c-span student cam documentary on the theme the constitution and you, as middle and high school students from across the country showed which part of the constitution was important to them and why. we'll air the top 27 videos,

mornings at 6:50 eastern on c-span, and meet the students who created them during "washington journal" each day. for a preview of the winning videos check studentcam.org. and congratulations to everyone who participated in this year's competition. abdel rahim el-keib was named the interim prime minister of libya in november after the fall of moammar gadhafi. in a recent individual to washington, he spoke with the carnegie endowment for international peace about the effort to establish democracy in libya. this is an hour. >> good morning. let me just before we start mention that for security reasons, the doors of the room will be closed for the duration of the event. i hope we can call on your understanding. good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

i'm marwan muasher. i with like to thank you for joining us for what promises to be a very fascinating discussion. by now i think it should be apparent to all the data that the awakening will not be measured in months or maybe even years, but in decades and maybe generations. in the last 14 months, long-time autocrats like ben alli, mubarak, saleh have fallen. in syria, assad's days also seem to be numbered. these are hugely important developments, brought about by people of tremendous courage. but they're only the beginning of the story. now begins the painstaking work of governing and rebuilding. and while less dramatic than the fall of a dictator, the decisions made today by leaders in tunis, cairo, tripoli, and

elsewhere will powerfully shape the future of the arab world. in libya's case, the fall of gadhafi raises a host of challenging questions. how do you rebuild political institutions hollowed out by 42 years of misrule. what can be done to ensure government is transparent and responsive to the will of the people? and how do you disarm and reintegrate the country's militias? how do you breathe life into the economy? our guest this morning is intimately familiar with all these challenges. as many of you know, his excellence abdel rahim el-keib was a dissident under the gadhafi regime. exiled from libya in the '70s, he was educated in the united states and served as professor of electrical engineering, so a problem solver at the university of alabama for several decades.

he dropped everything early last year to join the uprising against gadhafi, and played an integral role, helping finance and lead the revolution. last october, he was elected prime minister of libya by the national transitional council and is today responsible for overseeing the country's rebuilding effort and shepherding libya to elections this summer. it is our great pleasure to have him here at carnegie today. ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming his excellency, prime minister abdel rahim el-keib. [ applause ] >> thank you. excuse me. distinguished ladies and gentlemen, good morning.

i'm honored, very pleased to be here with you today. and i want to thank the carnegie endowment for international peace for their kind invitation and for their outstanding program which supports and promotes the rights of people to freedom and dignity worldwide. very pleased to be here. for many libyans, myself included, freedom and dignity in our country were distant dreams only eight months ago. to retain his grip on power in libya, gadhafi used the most repugnant tools in his arsenal. gadhafi used the most repugnant tools in his arsenal.

pervasive fear, systematic repression, and brutal violence, brutal violence. his regime's priority was the dehumanization of our people. his personal political theory was self-serving to his ego and his interests and his alone. after over 40 years of silence, libyans could be silent no more. driven by a desperate desire for dignity and an iron resolve for freedom, they erupted. on the 17th of february, a little over a year, a little

over a year ago today, our young libyan women and men took to the streets of benghazi. protesting peacefully the unjust imprisonment of libyan activists. a few days later, just a few days later, this was echoed in tripoli. when the tripolitanians took to the streets chanting, "benghazi, we sacrifice our lives and blood for you." eventually other cities followed. they followed suit. and the first popular revolution in the history of libya broke out. however, the road to dignity, equality, and freedom was very costly.

the brutal regime could not adhere to the will of the libyan people without a vicious fight. it promised, and i quote, rivers of blood. close quote. and i quote, hundreds of thousands of deaths, close quote. and it was determined to deliver on that unwavering promise the most violent attacks were launched against our people, supposedly his people. fire was opened on unarmed protesters, and heavy weapons were used to crush them and crush them forever. but they were not to be crushed.

that was the moment and the tenacity in which the tide of history was turned. our brave men and women armed with nothing but courage and resolve faced the well prepared and well equipped gadhafi army. untrained, but determined men thirsty for freedom, picked up weapons to fight, picked up weapons for the first time to fight. women pushed their sons, brothers, husbands, and fathers to join the quest for dignity and freedom. others, and some of them are here, worked the phones and the internet to plea for help from

the international community. it was a difficult battle, to say the least. the gadhafi killing machine would not slow down. libyan lives were harvest and harvested in thousands. body parts of thousands of our young men were lost. literally thousands of them. and i'm not sure if i should say this, but you need to know that many of our young men and women were raped, and others -- and for others, their productive organs were literally cut off. as the revolution was entering its second month, things were looking painfully grim.

and we all held our breath. but courage, resolve, and the decisive point of no return was reached. and this turned events around. you, the international community, chose not to sit quiet and watch as we were being massacred. to our gratitude, the international community decided to implement the u.n. resolution to protect civilians and rallied to our support. the international community was united under the u.n. resolution, the cornerstone of which was to protect innocent civilians. and it acted accordingly.

these enormous efforts were initiated by our arab brothers and sisters in the arab league, and later with our friends and partners around the world. and i take the opportunity to tell them all thank you. such efforts gave us the motivation we needed to continue our fight and push forward unyieldingly. our citizen army of teachers, mechanics, lawyers, students, engineers, doctors, professors, and businessmen suffered great losses. along with the rest of the civilian population, but stood strong. stood strong in their pursuit of democracy, shared governance, and rule of law.

with great courage and sadly, sadly also with great loss, we managed to push back gadhafi forces from the east of libya. we endured and broke the inhuman siege of hmozrata. we took control of the western mountains, and then we liberated tripoli. and sirte. after a few months and thousands of deaths and wounded young men and women, we freed our holy country from the grip of the tyranny and declared the liberation of libya on october 23rd, 2011.

it was the latent energy, latent energy, and the thirst and hunger for equality and democracy within the libyan people, which has brought to life freedom and gave us back our dignity. the libyan revolution is the proof of the incredible resilience and tenacity of the libyan people. whereas gadhafi may have believed that he had contained, even extinguished libyans' dreams of freedom and dignity over four decades, he was proven wrong -- comprehensively and graciously wrong. when he uttered his now infamous question "who are you?" the cry went up all libya.

we are libyans, and we will be free. yes, now we are all free. today a year after the outbreak of our great revolution, its electrifying spirit is still alive on the streets of our country. it is exciting. it is liberating, and it is truly humbling. humbling specifically to those of us who are entrusted with political responsibility during this period. it is perhaps tempting to speak overall of guardianship. but that would be too presumptuous. all libyans are guardians of this revolution, all of them. i see our road as interim government as being primarily to

facilitate and to focus the tremendous energy of the libyan people to help try to ensure that it is used in such a way as to realize the aims of the revolution and keep it alive. we acknowledge that the times ahead will be challenging. 42 years dictatorial rule have taken their toll on our country -- 42 years. we cannot build our new country overnight. we cannot build new institutions overnight. we cannot build awareness, understanding, and acceptance of a new order overnight. all this will take some time. and mistakes will be made.

however, libyans will prove their perseverance and resolve yet again and rise up to the challenge. there may be times when things in libya may appear to be outside world to be deviating from their track. but we, the libyan people, would bring them back on course. libyans are learning for the first time in four decades to have trust in their government. most libyans have never known a government and never cared to know that government, which served them or which deserved their respect. quite the on it is. it is for the members of my government to prove that we are different. that we understand and respect the principles and the spirit of

the revolution, that we are acting in the interest of all libyans, and that we are building the future with them and for them. the principles of the revolution need to be nurtured and promoted if they are to be upheld. libyans fought for democracy, and it is our job as interim government to pave the way for democracy to take root in libya. we are working hard to build it. we realize that democracy is not just a concept, but a system which has to be built up piece by piece. therefore, the national transitional council, our presiding body, recently passed the election law and appointed

the election commission that would carry on the job for the election. soon we will be electing the national assembly, the first democratically elected body in over 40 years. my government will do its part to ensure that these elections are a success because we understand that these elections are the first stage of libya's accelerated path to genuine democracy. there is surprising parallelism between the libyan and american experience in fighting for democracy. take, for example, the formation of the continental congress as a transitioning government body of the united states. during and after the american revolution, it led the states both along the path towards an

elected government and to a convention which drafted the american constitution in much the same way the national transitional government has represented the libyan movement during and after the uprising, and would also guide the upcoming election of the national assembly in june. the national assembly will oversee the drafting of the constitution, which will serve as a bedrock, as the bedrock for our democracy, and insurance peaceful transitions between elected governments. it will define the rights and responsibilities of all libyans. george washington once said, and i quote, the constitution is the guide that i will never abandon. and libyans too embrace this idea as we move forward with our democratic transition.

libyans also fought for human rights, and as interim government, we must pave the way so that human rights are 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. violations of these rights have been and will be investigated. in this regard, we have formed an interministerial committee chaired by the department of justice and with the ministers of defense and culture and civil society. libyans fought for justice and the rule of law, and it is this government's mission to lay their foundations.

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 background, 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, the future libya. we are also committed to

national reconciliation because we are well aware that without social peace, no country can move forward. we believe we have been actively involved in this and are seriously exploring the possibility of forming an association for national reconciliation, streamlining the process of reconciliation and related issues. since i am in carnegie, i also should add that we are 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 financial center, which 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 of the human spirit in libya. as libyans, we have much to discuss and to learn as citizens of our newly free country, to learn about rights, but also about responsibilities, to learn about the role of civil society and the free media. and we have, and i make no

apology for repeating this again, all the institutions of the state to rebuild from 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 like 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 their bid to accelerate the transition

from dictatorship to democracy. this has given plenty of encouragement to those who insist that freedom and democracy take decades, if not centuries to establish. libya will prove these wrong. we are blessed with many factors in our favor, including our oft 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,