Following are excerpts from an interview with former US congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, which aired on Libyan TV on June 14, 2011:

Cynthia McKinney: We were all stunned when we heard the allegations, because you see, in the United States we do not have free health care. We do not have free education. So the politics in the US right now is around health care issues. It is around education issues.

People inside the United States are losing their homes, and the government of Libya is building homes for people. So when we came here, we saw a society, an economy, a country on the rise, and setting the appropriate leadership model. Libyans were not content to just rise by themselves. They were bringing an entire continent along with them. In so doing, they were bringing all of us, from the Americas, from Europe, all of us Africans – they were bringing us along with them.

I almost didn’t have any choice but to come back, so that I could understand just exactly what my government was doing. That's why I am here.

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Those black leaders, throughout the history of the US, who have tried to correct these imbalances, have been targeted and demonized by the US government, and the newspapers were a part of that demonization process. Those of us who have been so targeted inside the US by the press understand it when we see it. It was clear that the people of Libya, the leadership of Libya, were being targeted.

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