Dubai: In the mid-1970s, Ramadan Ben Amer was an A-grade student attending medical school in Benghazi. Two years into his studies in April 1976, he and a group of other students decided to demonstrate, demanding an increase in their rights.
Ben Amer was expelled from his university and exiled from Libya.
"They shot many of us. I was lucky to survive, but I was not allowed to complete my education. So I had to live out of the country," he told Gulf News from Egypt.
Because of his good grades, Ben Amer — now 53 — was awarded a scholarship from Occidental Petroleum and studied petrochemical engineering in the US.
Having spent a quarter of a century in the US, he relocated to Al Ain, UAE, where he established the Al Ain Times newspaper and raised a family.
Thirty-five years after his exile, he has returned to Libya to find his homeland drastically changed, and he encourages others to take the same step.
Leaving his home in Al Ain approximately 40 days ago, the Libyan flew to Tunisia, and then on to Benghazi where he was born.
"Libya will stand on its feet, it will become the new force of the new Middle East because of its resources — because of its human resources, because of its geography," he said.
Party founder
In July this year, Ben Amer co-founded the New Libya Party with Rajap Zatout — also a Libyan who had been living in the US — in Benghazi itself. In April this year, he started publishing the New Libya News from Benghazi in both English and Arabic.
When he spoke to Gulf News, Ben Amer was visiting party members in Cairo.
He drove more than 930km from Benghazi to Alexandria in Egypt over long, dusty roads, before catching a train to the capital.
"I've never seen all of Libya, but I'm seeing lots of it that I haven't seen before. This is the first time I've seen Libya piece-by-piece," he said.
The country has almost 2,000km of coastline along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea — a selling point for tourism he said, akin to the way Dubai has attracted tourism with its untouched stretch of Gulf coast.
The Party now has approximately 2,000 members. Many of its members are Libyans living outside of the country — in Egypt, the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, the UK and other European countries, he said.
"Our party stands for salvation, loyalty to Allah and our country and supervision. Our vision is to form a national democratic party that's moderate, responsible for all its actions and transparent — for all the people of Libya," he said.
Rebuild
One mission of the party is to establish itself as a party to rebuild Libya. "Now is the time for people to build a new Libya," Ben Amer said, "We need to show the new Libya that Gaddafi has controlled."
The New Libya Party believes in equality for Libyans and equal rights for women and all people from different parts of the country, he continued.
Members have to be Libyan, but associated members can be non-nationals.
"Libya is a great country. We ask all Libyans to come back and rebuild the country: partly because that's our goal, but to build our country because this man [Gaddafi] for 42 years destroyed this country," he said, "Libya will be another country, inshallah (God willing.)"
