The bloodiest revolution
Gaddafi: grenades propelled into crowds of demonstrators in Benghazi
Gaddafi has threatened the European Union to stay out of what is happening in Benghazi or he will let floods of illegal immigrants through to Europe.
I trust nobody is surprised, not even Marketing Campaign Muscat.
There were people who thought that despite the fires raging throughout the Arab world, Libya would be unaffected – when all along it was obvious that Libya’s protests, when they finally came, would be the bloodiest and pose the worst conundrum to Europe.
Gaddafi is no Mubarak or Ben Ali. He has no qualms about having his militia hurl grenades into crowds of demonstrators or snipers pick off civilians. So he is going to have no qualms about retaliating harshly against any perceived interference from Europe.
Allowing thousands of illegal immigrants to leave for Europe, death or disaster in rickety boats once again might well be the least of it. This is the sort of man who would think nothing of seizing the business interests of Europeans in Libya if he thinks Europe is rather too enthusiastic in voicing its concern about explosives propelled into crowds of civilians in Benghazi.
The European Union is in a double bind. While Gaddafi’s threats amount to an even greater incentive to shore up the demonstrators and get rid of this menace on our doorstep once and for all (strike while the iron is hot), the reality is that Europeans have a great deal invested in Libya and stand to lose it if an attempt to push out Gaddafi is unsuccessful.
I can’t see him doing a Ben Ali and jetting out with his millions, or holing himself up and emerging at intervals to address the nation, like Mubarak, while the nation hurls shoes and strings up effigies of him disguised as Hitler.
So the European Union has to decide whether to help safeguard human rights or safeguard its investments instead. It’s not a good call.
Malta is in an especially difficult position. Our prime minister was there only the other week. Sucking up to Gaddafi appears to be necessary for all sorts of reasons that have to do with feeding the lions so that they don’t eat you instead. No Maltese prime minister since Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici has liked Gaddafi or approved of him, but both have felt it necessary to keep him sweet, lest he let loose a warship or a flood of immigrants, or make life hell for Maltese investors.
Gaddafi has got us by the short and curlies. We are in the appalling situation of having to be nice to a dictator who gives instructions for grenades to be thrown at people who are demonstrating against him.
The prime minister’s conscience, which so afflicts him over divorce, must be giving him an especially hard time now. At least, I hope it is. On the scale of human wrongs, divorce comes rather further down below blowing people up and shooting them dead.
As for those benighted immigrants, if Gaddafi can let them leave, then he is preventing them from leaving, which is why we haven’t had any over for some time. But we knew that, didn’t we, and so did that awful Berlusconi.
I shudder to think how he does this, but in our relief at not having to contend with the problem here, we prefer not to think of what is being done to them there.
As long as we don’t have divorce, then we are square with our conscience.
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http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20080819/local/mintoff-wins-gaddafi-prize-for-human-rights
http://f1plus.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20101129/local/karmenu-mifsud-bonnici-presents-gaddafi-prize-in-tripoli
I do not think that KMB is a betting man given his track record: Church schools, EU, Libya,1987/1992 elections..
He might usefully offer some of that money to help the people deprived of their rights under Gaddafi’s regime.
Absolutely!
Libya’s top of the news agenda on BBC World and CNN.
Austrian and UK media report that a rescue plane carrying a medical doctor, a psychologist and a paramedic, has been dispatched to Malta.
http://www.libyafeb17.com reports that there are “Huge clashes between protesters and armed mercenaries at Green Square – RIGHT NOW”
The debate on http://www.livestream.com/libya17feb rages on, even though live transmission has now been cut off.
On Twitter, there were 5072 new messages about Libya in the last three minutes alone.
And the top story in our main online news source is that the FKNK condemns the shooting of spoonbills.
Shooting into crowds of civilians attending a funeral – now *that* is a real news story.
I am glad the outside world is finally waking up to the massacres that are going on in Libya: 300 dead and over 800 in critical condition in hospitals which are running out of vital supplies.
There is an urgent appeal for blood donors. An 18-month-old baby lost his life yesterday in the protests. Yesterday as many as 15 mourners attending one funeral were shot dead.
http://www.youtube.com/verify_age?next_url=http%3A//www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DAAAYXk2ZnCg
For updates on the situation in Libya; http://www.libyafeb17.com
I hope I’m proved wrong (wouldn’t be the first time, mind you) but the bigger picture is what we should look at here. The Arab nation has gone beserk and from the Atlantic to the Gulf it looks like regimes are being swept away.
I don’t hold out much hope that democracy and reasonableness will take root in the governments that replace the despots.
As we know from first hand experience, democracy is a fragile thing. Even with our so-called Christian mores and 164 years of Anglo-Saxon influence (only Britain, America and Scandinavia never strayed from democratic government once it was developed/introduced), we soon got rid of democracy here. Call me racist but I think it is unlikely that Arab and, especially, Islamic countries, most of whom have the most potent economic weapon – oil – in hand will settle into a peaceful, democratic system.
I hope I’m wrong, but I’m not holding my breath. Gaddafi’s replacement(s) will soon prove themselves to be as bad as he is. Assuming he’s ousted of course – which is beginning to look likely to me.
At least, despite Labour’s opposition, we’re in the EU so there is a ray of hope.
Sarkozy has raised this in a G20 meeting. He said that all member nations should help Tunisia and Egypt in their road to democracy.
Malta’s response to the current situation in Libya should be part of the EU’s response.
But I am very concerned about what roles that the United Nations and America are taking about this crisis.
300 dead and 800+ critically injured and no statement from the UN. Are Libyan lives so worthless?
Oh, how I miss Ronald Reagan.
Who? The very personable and telegenic idiot who tripled the US’ national debt, supported apartheid, backed Saddam, crushed workers’ rights, created a mother of all white elephants (Star Wars) and backed death squads throughout Central America?
The guy who had a secret deal to delay delivery of the hostages in Iran so Carter would look like an incompetent fool?
If you think for a second that the cold war was stopped by Reagan’s charm then I have to assume that you confuse foreign politics and geopolitics with cowboy films of yesteryear…
But I’m sure Hitchens will do a better job of destroying the false myth:
http://www.slate.com/id/2101842/
God knows a Ronald Reagan is needed in this already troubled millennium.
You probably miss John Wayne too.
Dear Daphne, I agree with you almost 100%, except for your apparently quite strong wishful thinking vis-a-vis the Egyptian “revolution”, which you tend to depict as an antifascist uprising when you talk of a “nation [hurling] shoes and strings up effigies of [Mubarak] disguised as Hitler,” even if only in a comparison.
But didn’t you say just a short time ago that the devil is in the details?
If there were clear identifications of Mubarak with Hitler, I am quite sure that they were made mainly for CNN, and, for that matter, a little bit also for Fox News and everybody else except for the likes of the most assiduous visitors of “Vivamalta,” and of course because in these times many people, when they hear the word “Hitler”, immediately associate to it “the Israelis” as today’s real Nazis.
On the other hand, CNN and especially the leftist MSM, and of course the “Western branch” of Al-Jazeera blinded themselves willfully to the fact that there were lots of placards at the demonstrations in Tahrir Square branding Mubarak as a Jew, with a star of David on his forehead or elsewhere, while there was one star of David, too, on the tie of the hanged effigy of him, as they blinded themselves against the not so few sexual assaults against Western women that seem to have occurred there.
Besides, it is no coincidence that Al-Jazeera tried to inflame the Islamic democrats in the square further by falsely reporting that Mubarak was about to flee to Israel, which is probably the last place he would ever take into consideration for that.) John Rosenthal has collected some of said art works of the Tahrir Square democrats.They can be admired here.
As far as Gaddafi is concerned, there are of course much less probabilities of him being associated with “the Zionists” and by implication with the evils of Western democracy and freedom. He has always worked hard for this not to happen.