The recent release of the Libyan prisoner Abdelbasit Al Megrahi by the Scottish authorities, on the eve of the 40th anniversary of Colonel Gaddafi's coming to power, brings into sharp focus the continued external support enjoyed by dictators like the ruler of Libya. Contrary to the phony celebrations on state controlled TV, for the people of Libya the last forty years have been like a recurring nightmare. They have witnessed forty years of oppressive dictatorship, forty years of external interference from the West and forty years of corruption and mismanagement.

Yet, despite this track record of despotic rule, western leaders like Brown, Obama and Berlusconi are only too keen to embrace the Libyan dictator in his tent with open arms and provide him with political legitimacy. Many in western capitals see Libya as a country rich in resources, a country that has 3% of the world's proven oil reserves, a country which western politicians and western multinationals like BP, Shell and ExxonMobil are queuing to access. Yet, ironically for a country that has such abundant resources, the ordinary people in Libya have failed to see the fruits of such wealth: poverty corruption and lack of jobs for the country's youth are the watchwords of the Libyan government which continues to operate a brutal police state to ensure all criticism is ruthlessly suppressed.

The West's continued support for the worst leaders of mankind is one more testament to the corruption of their politics, the bankruptcy of their values and the absolute greed that drives their economic vision for mankind. 

Our key messages are the following:

• The West's embrace of dictator's like Gaddafi exposes the real face of capitalist foreign policy - supporting dictators and despots in the Muslim world whose sole policy is to oppress, torture and kill political opponents, whilst ranting on about democracy at home.

• Ÿ Libya does not need forty more years of dictatorship, torture, states of emergency or the sham of economic reform. Libya must establish a true Islamic constitution. This constitution should guarantee elections, true accountability, an independent judiciary and the rule of law.

• Ÿ Libya needs to establish an Islamic society that is vibrant, forward looking, which is technologically proficient and which embraces all its citizens irrespective of their gender, sect, religion or race.

• Ÿ Libya needs to urgently tackle its chronic domestic problems of corruption, and political and economic mismanagement, especially within its energy sector. Only serious long term solutions from Islam's rich ruling system can solve such problems not the cosmetic secular solutions provided by the current ruling elite.

• Ÿ Lastly, Libya needs to chart its own independent course in foreign policy, and must not be a conduit for the United Kingdom. Libya's future lies as part of a unified Muslim world that constitutes a quarter of the world's population, who control key strategic waterways and who sit on a majority of the world's energy reserves. Only a unified Muslim world can confront the challenges that will emerge in the 21^st century from the United States, the EU, Russia, India and China.

We believe that Libya in conjunction with the rest of the Muslim world can attain a new leadership and new Islamic system that will herald a new dawn for states like Libya. A new leadership, which has not been tainted with the corrupt Libyan political establishment; a new leadership from other than the current elite who favour hereditary rule over real elections; a new leadership who do not believe in outsourcing their foreign policy to London and a new leadership that seeks to make Libya's economy strong and secure by keeping the wealth from energy resources within the state not by siphoning it off into western multinationals and overseas assets of nearly $200 billion.

The Islamic Khilafah "Caliphate" system we propose will guarantee everyone's rights whether they are poor, dispossessed or sick. It will eliminate oppressive taxation on the poor and replace them with wealth taxes for the rich. It will guarantee a rule of law, proper elections and true accountability as compared to the phoney slogans from Gaddafi who espouses democracy at the local level while practicing hereditary rule and a police state at the national level. It will ensure high quality schools and hospitals, and law and order for everyone in society irrespective of their financial status. It is a new system that will not just tackle corruption, but the causes of corruption found in the higher echelons of the ruling mafia. It is a new system that will chart a new course for Libya built on the Islamic beliefs of justice, economic redistribution for the poor, political unity, sovereignty over foreign policy and true accountability.