compiling shim against libevent2 static fails

compiled and installed libevent 2.0.8-rc. cloned latest shim.git, configured as: LIBEVENT_LIBS=/usr/local/lib/libevent.a ./configure --disable-direct-connections && make.

make errors out with:

gcc -I./compat -g -O2 -Wall -o shim shim-main.o shim-proxy.o shim-httpconn.o shim-conn.o shim-headers.o shim-log.o shim-util.o /usr/local/lib/libevent.a /usr/local/lib/libevent.a(event.o): In function gettime': /home/phobos/Downloads/libevent/event.c:352: undefined reference to clock_gettime' /usr/local/lib/libevent.a(event.o): In function detect_monotonic': /home/phobos/Downloads/libevent/event.c:326: undefined reference to clock_gettime' collect2: ld returned 1 exit status