Adriaan Pelt
Encyclopedia
Adriaan Pelt was a Dutch journalist, international civil servant and diplomat, most famous for drafting the post war constitution of Libya
Libya
Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....



As a reporter for the newspaper De Telegraaf
De Telegraaf
De Telegraaf is the largest Dutch daily morning newspaper, with a daily circulation of approximately . De Telegraaf is based in Amsterdam...

 he lived during the First World War in London and Paris. There he studied diplomacy at the Ecole libre des sciences politiques. He married a Frenchwoman.

From 1920 to 1940 he worked as an adviser to the League of Nations
League of Nations
The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...

 and from 1934 as head of information. He visited many of the inter-war trouble spots in the world, such as Manchuria and India.

During the Second World War he was head of the Government Press Office, later Netherlands Government Information Service
Netherlands Government Information Service
The Netherlands Government Information Service is a Dutch government agency. The RVD is the official information service of the Dutch government and is the spokesbody for the prime minister, the Council of Ministers and the Dutch Royal House...

 (RVDRijksvoorlichtingsdienst now), in London. There he founded the Anep Aneta-on, the free counterpart to the Algemeen Nederlands Persbureau
Algemeen Nederlands Persbureau
The Algemeen Nederlands Persbureau is the largest news agency in the Netherlands. ANP was founded on December 11, 1934 by the association of Dutch newspapers NDP...

 (ANP) in the occupied territories. He started radio Orange Brandaris broadcasting Dutch programs to the occupied territories using English channels. And he also helped monitor the Dutch Radio news.

In 1945 he went San Francisco with the Dutch delegation to help draft the United Nations Charter
United Nations Charter
The Charter of the United Nations is the foundational treaty of the international organization called the United Nations. It was signed at the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center in San Francisco, United States, on 26 June 1945, by 50 of the 51 original member countries...

. Early 1946 following his election as Under-Secretary-General, under Trygve Lie
Trygve Lie
Trygve Halvdan Lie was a Norwegian politician, labour leader, government official and author. He served as Norwegian Foreign minister during the critical years of the Norwegian government in exile in London from 1940 to 1945. From 1946 to 1952 he was the first Secretary-General of the United...

, he was responsible for UN conferences and general services, and later for European issues.

On December 10, 1949 he was appointed High Commissioner for Libya
Libya
Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....

 by the UN. He was the last of the colonial heads of Libya
Colonial heads of Libya
List of Colonial Heads of LibyaFor continuation after independence, see: List of heads of state of Libya...

. He brought together the English regions of Tripolitania
Tripolitania
Tripolitania or Tripolitana is a historic region and former province of Libya.Tripolitania was a separate Italian colony from 1927 to 1934...

 and Cyrenaica
Cyrenaica
Cyrenaica is the eastern coastal region of Libya.Also known as Pentapolis in antiquity, it was part of the Creta et Cyrenaica province during the Roman period, later divided in Libia Pentapolis and Libia Sicca...

, with the French region of Fezzan
Fezzan
Fezzan is a south western region of modern Libya. It is largely desert but broken by mountains, uplands, and dry river valleys in the north, where oases enable ancient towns and villages to survive deep in the otherwise inhospitable Sahara.-Name:...

 to form a Libyan state, before its independence on January 1, 1952. He successfully brought together the tribes and peoples from the three regions, they help a with administration and drawing up a constitution.

The mutual distrust of the people who had to form the new state was great. Even so Pelt timely drafting of a constitution, and on December 24 he was transferred the state to King Idris. He returned to the headquarters of the UN, and from 1952 until his retirement in 1957 was director of the European Office of the UN in Geneva.

Adriaan Pelt became very popular in Libya, and a main street in Tripoli is named after him.

The Libyan Freedom and Democracy Campaign
Libyan Freedom and Democracy Campaign
* Support for the National Transitional Council as a useful expedient to help the transition to Democracy, but noting that it does not have legal legitimacy....

 is working for a similar commission to ease in democracy in Libya in the event of the Fall of the Gaddafi regime.
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