Malta can't sit on the fence with this one
No bunga bunga with Muammar: there are going to be plenty of regrets for all the sucking up that Malta and Italy had to do
Britain’s foreign secretary condemns the killing of people in Libya and says that he hopes other countries will do the same. Now our own foreign minister speaks to the BBC and the dead, the dying and the quelling of protests by violence are the last thing on his mind. In fact, he doesn’t even mention them.
Here’s Tonio Borg about an hour ago (that’s UK time):
1024: More from Malta’s Tonio Borg, who says if people start to leave Libya because of the unrest, his country will struggle to cope: “We saw what happened in Tunisia where, because of the instability, you had 5,000 immigrants arriving in five days on Lampedusa, and just to give you an impression, one migrant who arrives in Malta is like 150 who arrive in Sicily or, proportionately, 200 who arrive in Germany.”
1016: Malta’s Foreign Minister, Tonio Borg, who is also in Brussels, says Malta, as a neighbour of Libya, is concerned with what is happening there: “I think that would create instability in the region and therefore I also think that the European Union should be in favour of the territorial integrity of Libya as well as whatever happens in the future,” he said.
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What a shame that our prime minister and foreign minister were so recently with Gaddafi, when trouble was brewing already.
We can’t say that they went there to ensure that Maltese interests would be safeguarded, because it makes no sense to negotiate with the man at risk of being ousted. He won’t be there to safeguard them.
When I argued from the beginning that revolution in Libya was inevitable with what had happened in Tunisia and had begun to happen in Egypt, I was told that it wouldn’t happen because Libya is the best of the lot and people are comfortable.
I argued back that the opposite was true, that happen it would, but the reason it would take longer and be far more difficult is precisely because Libya is the worst of the lot and people more fearful and oppressed.
As one of the people commenting on this blog so aptly put it: with the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt there was hope and even jubilation. But with Libya, there is only fear and dread, in Libya itself and elsewhere. This is because Gaddafi is not just a dictator. He is also abnormal and capable of going to any cracked length to survive, in the vein of Saddam Hussein.
A friend with considerable business interests in Tripoli has just rung to say that – contrary to what Agence France Presse reported and I quoted in an earlier post – state television has not been taken over. “The building is like a fortress. It would be impossible to get in,” he said. His offices are close by.
His employees told him that last night was mayhem, with running street battles and shooting. They had to stay below window level because of the risk of stray bullets. But this morning, they said, the city is eerily silent. “They said it’s not a normal silence,” my friend said. “It is the sort of silence that presages something. The belief is that Muammar Gaddafi, if he hasn’t left the country already, is on standby to leave. There is no sign of him.”
“We are all very worried,” my friend told me, “because we don’t know what is going to become of our investments. Those who are owed money by the Libyan government might now never be paid, and even if we are, what is Libyan currency going to be worth? What about all those non-Libyans with property investments in Libya?”
I know. But that’s the price of ignoring the wisdom of the maxim that those who sup with the devil need a long spoon. If he doesn’t get you, his enemies will.
Pacts with dictators cannot be permanently fruitful. The trouble is that people seemed to believe that Gaddafi was permanent, and that the nature of business with him firmly in place would carry on unchanged. The reality is that the risks were enormous, but we all preferred to ignore them.
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The report below is from The Guardian’s website late last night is very evocative. The picture shown here did not accompany the report and the caption is mine.
www.guardian.co.uk, last night
Libya protests: gunshots, screams and talk of revolutionBenghazi student says fear of Muammar Gaddafi’s regime is ebbing away
Angelique Chrisafis
Afraid to leave her barricaded home on the outskirts of Benghazi, a student blogger and member of Libya’s youth protest movement sat shaking as she described the violence unleashed on the Mediterranean city in five days of demonstrations against the Libyan regime.
“I’ve seen violent movies and video games that are nothing compared to this. I can hear gunshots, helicopters circling overhead, then I hear the voices screaming. I can hear the screeching of four-by-fours in the street. No one has that type of car except his [Gaddafi’s] people,” she told the Guardian by phone, occasionally crying. “My brother went to get bread, he’s not back; we don’t know if he’ll get back. The family is up all night every night, keeping watch, no one can sleep.”
The student, an expert in subverting net censorship, had regularly posted messages online to gather support for protests that began last week, but now her internet connection is down, landlines cut off, mobile coverage interrupted, electricity sporadically cut off and the house plunged into darkness. “There are even stories here that he [Gaddafi] has poisoned the water, so we dare not drink. If he could cut off the air that we breathe, he would.”
She was still afraid to utter Muammar Gaddafi’s name over the phone but said that now hundreds of protesters had been killed in Benghazi, Libya’s second city, people’s fear was ebbing away and they were talking openly of revolution.
“Now people are dying we’ve got nothing else to live for. What needs to happen is for the killing to stop. But that won’t happen until he is out. We just want to be able to live like human beings. Nothing will happen until protests really kick off in Tripoli, the capital. It’s like a pressure cooker. People are boiling up inside. I’m not even afraid any more. Once I wouldn’t have spoken at all by phone. Now I don’t care. Now enough is enough.”
Benghazi, 620 miles east of Tripoli, has always been a bastion of opposition to Gaddafi’s 40-year regime, with residents complaining they have seen little of Libya’s wealth from the largest oil riches in Africa. But , as doctors gave details of more than 200 unarmed civilians killed by large-calibre automatic weapons, there was a feeling that the uprising had turned a corner and that the state-organised violence would bring more people out on to the streets in outrage.
Protests began in the city last Tuesday night but escalated over the weekend as demonstrators periodically came under attack from security forces firing out of their high-walled compound. As thousands gathered for funeral corteges to bury the dead, the mourners’ processions passing the city’s barracks were fired on. Unarmed protesters were reported to have attacked the barracks with stones and some petrol bombs. They were reportedly fired on with automatic weapons.
One local doctor, Brayka, told the BBC a massacre was under way in the city. “Ninety per cent of these gunshot wounds [were] mainly in the head, the neck, the chest, mainly in the heart,” she said. A Benghazi resident describing the demonstrations and funeral processions on Saturday said: “A massacre took place.” He said security forces had used heavy weapons, adding: “Many soldiers and policemen have joined the protesters.” Another resident described a crowd of 10,000 protesters heading for a cemetery “to bury dozens of martyrs”.
On Sunday thousands of people, including women and children, came out on to the seafront and vast crowds gathered near Benghazi’s northern courthouse as ritual prayers were recited in front of 60 bodies laid out. “The protesters are here until the regime falls,” one demonstrator told Reuters. A tribal figure said security forces were confined to their compound. “The state’s official presence is absent in the city and the security forces are in their barracks and the city is in a state of civil mutiny.”
With no foreign media or local journalists allowed into the city and phonelines down, information was hard to verify. The dead were said to be mainly aged between 13 and 35,, although one 80-year-old was reportedly killed, according to doctors interviewed by French and UK TV.
Libya’s al-Yawn website quoted a doctor who claimed 285 people were dead in Benghazi alone. There was confusion over who was firing at the crowds. Automatic fire was believed to have come from elite security forces. Several residents suggested mercenaries from neighbouring countries such as Chad had been paid to shoot demonstrators. “They are wearing yellow helmets,” one resident told French radio of the reported mercenaries.
One resident, Moftah, told al-Jazeera the city had become a war zone. Local residents had formed vigilante groups to keep watch over neighbourhoods.
The protest movement spread to Tripoli, where dozens of lawyers held a sit-in in front of the courts in protest against the regime. Gunshots were reported in the Fachlum and Tajura suburbs. In working-class areas of the Gourghi neighbourhood in western Tripoli, protesters against the regime gathered chanting slogans against Gaddafi. Residents said the Libyan security forces fired teargas and live ammunition to disperse the crowds. Al-Jazeera reported clashes between thousands of protesters and Gaddafi supporters in the city’s central Green Square. Near the square, one hotel worker told Reuters: “There are disturbances … We haven’t had such disturbances before.”
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“Chicken Little” Gaddafi says “Muammar Gaddafi, our leader, is leading the battle in Tripoli, and we are with him.”
OK, so let’s have normal democratic elections and we’ll see how many Libyans are with him or against him.
Daphne …oh come on. All Governments suck up to big business – actually Malta does very little, because we have very little clout.
Do you for a moment think there was no connection between the British stand on Megrahi’s release and BP interests in Libya?
[Daphne – No, I don’t. I think it was a tactic admission that he was falsely accused and found guilty on the spurious claims of the intellectually challenged owners of Mary’s House in Tower Road, which is why negotiations for his release were successful after Tony Gauci admitted that he had been bribed by the US to say what he did. Perhaps you remember Tony Gauci at Mary’s House (or maybe not – it was a place where Sliema mothers bought pajamas for children, but boys don’t log these things). There is no way on earth he could have remembered Megrahi or what he bought, just as there is no way on earth that claims of fabric from a suitcase containing explosives which blew up could even survive, let alone be traced back to that suitcase and thence to the shop. Maybe Megrahi was guilty, maybe he wasn’t: but that trial was a mockery of justice.
As for sucking up for business, yes, I agree that it happens and that it’s necessary from a strictly pragmatic point of view. But why did it always have to be Malta taking this blood brothers thing a step too far, and getting that little bit too cosy? Now look what’s happened: despite British and American interests in Libya, Britain and the US have been forceful in condemning the killing of protestors. And Malta, whose representatives were there last week or thereabouts, feels awkward saying anything.]
Very good report
The ugliness of the Libyan regime is reflected in the sentiments of anyone watching what is happening. When there was unrest in Tunisia and in Egypt, there was hope. The same can be said of Bahrain and Morocco, and possibly Jordan and Yemen too.
In Libya, there is only fear.
Daphne,
Why is a post about Maltese interests in Libya accompanied by a photo of Italy’s PM? How about this instead:
http://www.di-ve.com/files/billeder/MediaDB/Thumbs/11/gonzi_gaddafi_square_jpg.jpg
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110221/world-news/gaddafis-son-warns-of-civil-war
DGalea(1 hour, 29 minutes ago)If anyone watched Speciale TG1 last night, he/she would have realised the sort of serious situation we may find ourselves in ,as a result of the fall-out of the serious trouble a few hundred kilometres away.
The energy bills are going to skyrocket and there is nothing anyone will be able to do about that except grin and bear it. Several Maltese families will be directly affected by the instability in Libja and we will be facing an influx of migration from north African shores the likes of which we have never ever witnessed.
One hopes that the people’s representatives, in between bouts of verbal sparring aimed at scoring points on each other, are aware of the seriousness of the current situation and actively collaborating for the future good of our country.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110221/local/protest-outside-libyan-embassy
Rise in oil price because of Libya unrest. Will Joseph Muscat continue blaming the government when fuel prices rise? Perhaps he was thinking that had he been the PM the income from the increased tourists that came to Malta instead of going to Libya would make up for the extra cost.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12522291?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
Chilling
http://www.libyafeb17.com/
http://tvnewsroom.consilium.europa.eu/story/index/story_id/16155/media_id/38341
Human rights abuses, quelling protests with rocket propelled grenades? No way is he going to mention them – and he smiles while he says this. Talk about inappropriate facial expressions.
Disgusting.
Foreign Minister Tonio Borg – and the whole of Malta Parliament now busy hiding its head in the sands of the divorce issue – should cut the crap and treat Gaddafi for the degenerate exploiter that he really is.
Direct contacts with relatives in Libya today refer to ‘many hundreds of people massacred in different places’ and say that the situation is now the common people vs Gaddafi and his henchmen.
Residents in Tripoli suburbs, though poorly equipped to fight and seriously lacking medical supplies, are guarding their districts and setting up barricades in fear of attacks by mercenaries.
Meanwhile, The Times today usefully informs us in a front page headline that ‘The Maltese in Tripoli are packing their bags’ with only an incidental reference to the known 230 persons shot down in cold blood, 50 of whom were massacred yesterday in Cyrenaica.
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timesofmalta.com Monday 13.03
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110221/local/pm-condemns-bloodshed-in-libya-helpline-announced
“PM condemns bloodshed in Libya – Helpline announced
The Prime Minister said this afternoon that Malta was closely watching events in Libya and condemned all forms of violence and bloodshed.
Speaking at the Auberge de Castille, Dr Gonzi said the evolving situation was discussed at a Cabinet meeting and Malta hoped that the best would come out of this situation for Libya and the region and that Libya’s territorial integrity was respected.
Dr Gonzi also said he had no information about an Air Malta aircraft having been trapped at Tripoli airport.
However the flight, due to have arrived at Noon, had still not arrived at 1 p.m.with no word on when it is due.
Meanwhile, the Foreign Ministry has set up a helpline for those who have relatives in Libya.”
It’s in the headline, but it was an afterthought – and there was no condemnation of what the Libyan government is doing.
What a muppet. Who exactly is going to disrespect Libya’s territorial integrity? Tunisia itself in the grips of a revolution? Egypt? Chad, where it was Libya that violated territorial integrity?
Where is Ranier Fsadni with his gushing praise for Libya’s parades now? Or Sceberras Trigona?
Where the hell does Gaddafi get his military uniforms?
What’s with the mops hanging down his shoulders?
http://www.france24.com/en/20110220-iranian-ships-yet-to-sail-through-suez-canal-egypt-israel
We are talking about divorce as though it is the most important issue while Europe discusses economic issues and North Africa is fighting for freedom and democracy. It looks like we have nothing worse to worry about or else we’ve got our priorities confused.
First we go on and on about wasting taxpayers’ money on this and that, and now we urge the government to throw away a couple of millions for a referendum on divorce. What’s all the rush? It’s not as though divorce can’t wait until the 2013 general election, once we’ve waited so long already.
Now is the time to really show that Malta’s strategic position makes it an excellent interlocutor between Europe and Africa. We need to be tough but we have to remember that these situations are never clear-cut and easy to handle.
And what if Gadaffi is not ousted as happened in Iran? Have you ever thought of the repercussions?
We have business interests in Libya and people working in Libya. What do we do, shut them all out of our country because of some hasty condemnation?
[Daphne – There are far more British people and British interests in Libya than there are Maltese, and it didn’t stop William Hague. You don’t get anywhere by appeasing bullies of any scale. They just have to be faced down. The problem is that Gaddafi wasn’t faced down 42 years ago, and look how much suffering there has been since – suffering that was ignored because money could be made out of it. It is easier to do business with a dictator through bribery and corruption than it is to compete on the free market in a democracy.]
I will agree with you if you suggest that the USA bombard Libya like Ronald Reagan did, and only thanks to the traitor KMB that Gadaffi wasn’t hit.
But it’s obvious that UK and US will release rhetoric in favour of the protestors – they consider themselves the ‘paladins’ of free speech, democracy, freedom and all that, simply because they are comfortable enough to do so.
Yes, they have business interests there, but as a % of their GDP such business is far, far smaller than Malta’s business interests there.
Speaking in favour of the protestors is obviously a more ’21st century’ and ‘western’ thing to do, but it could may well come at the cost of damaging severely business ties with a close partner – can we afford this?
[Daphne – Yes, we can, because it never pays to shore up a psycopathic dictator because at some point the situation is going to bite you in the ass. That is what is happening now. This is Europe’s ‘reward’ for colluding with Gaddafi for 42 years so as to be able to sell him things and buy his oil. That Franco Frattini in Italy said the damnedest thing today: that we shouldn’t export democracy to Libya because we run the risk of having the country split with one bit becoming an Islamic state on our doorstep. He failed to explain how that would be more frightening or worrying than having Gaddafi on your doorstep.]
The US and UK can in this case, but would the US do the same if things got ugly (as they do) in Mexico? They entered (started, even) NAFTA (righly so) for trade reasons, even though Mexico isn’t exactly a haven for human rights.
Well OK, Frattini is a racist – but still, expecting little Malta to speak out blatantly against a longterm ally in such a precarious situation is being a bit unrealistic I think.
[Daphne – We haven’t made a Faustian pact with Gaddafi, Ian. And Malta can’t be too little to speak up and yet big enough to join the European Union.]
That was a cowardly act of Reagan’s that would have created more problems.
Daphne i do not agree with your views about the case of Maybe Magrah. Why should he be picked up and not an other person if there was no real evidence against him.
Secondly please do not compare our tiny island with large and powerful counties. Common sense tells us that because our proximity and our size, to be cautious in our approach because we are the ones to be first hit if things go wrong. No other country will come to our aid. We would have to face the music alone. So the least we open our mouths at this moment the better.
[Daphne – I don’t understand your first two sentences. As for the rest, we are part of the European Union. An attack on Malta is no longer an attack on Malta, but on the European Union. I am astonished you fail to be aware of this.]
Am fully with you on this one, Daphne. It’s a crying shame.
Well looking at the way the EU treats foreign affairs I do not want to imagine what would happen in the case of a member state being attacked.
The EU, in the guise of that foreign policy chief who looks like a headmistress, would issue a stern condemnation. Then it would go back to discussing GMO regulations and the latest aid package to some corrupt third world hole.
Tonio Borg’s comments are ignorant, blinkered and parochial. The reactions, or lack of them, of the Maltese politicians fill me with shame and disgust. An abnormal, psychotic mass murderer is unleashing fighter jets and tanks against his people and all our foreign minister is capable of are asinine comments.