LSE–Gaddafi affair
[3] In a New York Times op-ed piece on 7 March 2011, Roger Cohen wrote, in reference to events that had transpired at the school, "It may be possible to sink to greater depths but right now I can't think how.
"[4] In 2004 Libya's government engaged Monitor Group, a Boston-based, Harvard-linked, consultancy firm founded by Harvard Business School professor Mark Fuller, as advisors on matters of public relations.
[5] According to leaked documents, Monitor Group received £2 million "in order to enhance international understanding and appreciation of Libya and the contribution it has made and may continue to make to its region and to the world."
"[8] During the second visit, Monitor Group organized a panel of "three thinkers" — Giddens, Gaddafi, and Benjamin Barber, Emeritus professor of Rutgers University, author of the book Jihad vs. McWorld — chaired by the veteran journalist Sir David Frost.
"[16] This team consisted of Libyan and foreign academics, led by Professor Omran Bukhres, and included Bruce J. Allyn and Flora Rose, a Cambridge graduate who works for the leader of the House of Lords.
[19] "We read the thesis and examined Mr Gaddafi orally for two-and-a-half hours," Meghnad Desai commented, "at no stage did the supervisors or anyone else suggest to us that plagiarism was suspected and we found no reason to do so ourselves.
[21] According to John Christensen who independently tutored Gaddafi in economics, "Saif lacked the intellectual depth to study at that level, and showed no willingness to read let alone do course work.
[25] George Joffe, a Senior Fellow of the Centre of International Studies at Cambridge University[26] was hired as academic advisor to the North Africa Programme.
"[31] Professor Francis Terry, Dept of Public Management, was academic director for the Libya programme and Julius Sen, LSE Enterprise, the co-director.
While those in favour of accepting the donation argued that "Libya is changing internally," most informed observers agree that while some of the worst excesses for the moment have ceased, the rights of its people are badly protected.
Moreover, Libya's handling of the Lockerbie bombing "has not been characterised by either consistency or clarity," I have in the past, Halliday noted, defended accepting grants from authoritarian regimes such as the Gulf states, "but there should be clear limits on this, depending on the degree of political and human rights abuses perpetrated with them and on their ongoing foreign policy conduct."
We must remember, Halliday concluded, that the "liberal" wing within a regime such as Libya does not have the function of producing change but its role is instead "to reach compromises with internal hard-liners that serve to lessen external pressure."
She also wrote of her official visit that "the real impetus for the transformation rests squarely with a quasi-governmental organization, the Qaddafi Foundation for International Charities and Development" chaired by Gaddafi.
HRW Business and Human Rights Director Arvind Ganesan condemned the London School of Economics (LSE) for allowing "abusive and corrupt officials or their families to launder their images in exchange for money".
According to NGO Monitor, this was despite the fact that David Held, Co-Director of LSE Global Governance, was partially influenced by Whitson's remarks regarding her Libyan visit, referring to Saif al-Islam Gaddafi as a reformer.
"[41] Peter Denis Sutherland, formerly Attorney General of Ireland, European Commissioner, and Head of the World Trade Organisation, finished a 13-year stint as chairman of BP, Europe's largest oil company in early 2010.
Within his own country Saif has spearheaded efforts to open with Islamic militants about the nature and form of their struggle in order to find ways of bringing them back into the political process.
Professor Keane raises several questions, such as: Has the LSE Libya affair not done damage to the scholarly credibility of research programs in the area of democracy?
Fred Halliday, a distinguished Middle East expert at the LSE before his death, criticised the donation in a letter that described the country's rulers as a "secretive, erratic and corrupt elite".
Despite institutional and procedural criticism the Woolf report, however, exonerated LSE staff (including David Held) stating that they acted in what they believed to be the best interests of the school.
I will be chairing this on behalf of Howard Davies, the LSE's Director who unfortunately couldn't make it this evening, but who sends the following message, “You are most welcome here Colonel Gaddafi.
We wish you had been able to deliver some Libyan weather at the same time” -this is the message from Howard Davies -- “We are pleased to be asked to train Libya officials, and we hope the relationship will continue.”Gaddafi used the occasion to denounce the Lockerbie bombing as a "fabrication and creation" of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, and revealed that the Libyan national, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, who was convicted of the bombing and imprisoned in Scotland in 2001, but returned to Libya in 2009 on health grounds, was preparing a multi-million pound compensation claim against Britain for false imprisonment and medical neglect.
[citation needed] At the end of the lecture, Muammar Gaddafi was given a black baseball cap bearing the bright red LSE logo by Brahimi.
[61] In a comment Davies said he had left the job because of "two errors of judgment": 1) his advice that a donation from Gaddafi's foundation was acceptable, and 2) his decision to act as a financial adviser to the Libyan government.
[63][64] Colin Talbot, who holds a PhD degree from the LSE and is currently the Chair of Public Policy and Management at Manchester Business School, told UTv News on 4 March 2011 that Howard Davies should not be blamed for carrying out what amounted to "British diplomatic strategy".
"[67] In an on-line petition, present and former LSE students urged the School to revoke Gaddafi's status as alumnus and to cease all cooperation with the Libyan regime.
"[70] Saif Gaddafi, said Alex Voorhoeve, "seemed genuinely moved by the desire to study democratic ideals and practice and my colleagues had therefore hoped he would have a liberalizing influence on the Libyan regime.
[73] The Financial Times reported on 3 March 2011, that the LSE had started to edit official university websites in an attempt to "remove references to Libyan links from its academics’ workplace biographies".
[76] On 3 March 2011, LSE announced that they had set up an independent external inquiry into the School's relationship with the Libyan regime, to be conducted by the former lord chief justice Harry Woolf.
[81] In the context of the scandal over LSE's Libya connections, it emerged that also Michigan State University had established a program to train future Libyan leaders.
