Why Gaddafi reminds me of Labour

By Simon Busuttil, MEP, for The Times (Malta)
24 August
Reproduced with Dr Busuttil’s permission

Reacting to the liberation of Tripoli on Monday, the Labour Party stated that it was always close to the Libyan people. The truth is that it was always close to Muammar Gaddafi. Right to the bitter end.

Since last February, the PL had pointedly refused to condemn Col Gaddafi even as his forces unleashed a barbaric repression of the Libyan people’s rightful quest for democracy. Instead, the party accused our own government of “rushing” when it recognised the National Transition Council.

This was not surprising for the PL had long been in bed with Col Gaddafi’s regime. During its spell in power in the 1970s and 1980s, it invested heavily in blood-brotherly relations with Col Gaddafi and experimented with some of his authoritarian policies on all of us in Malta as its guinea-pigs.

All this bears recalling. For it is part of our history. No matter how much the PL tries to conceal it.

When Labour took power in 1971, with Dom Mintoff at the helm, our relations with Col Gaddafi’s Libya flourished. Col Gaddafi was Mr Mintoff’s guest of honour at the ceremonies to mark the closure of the British base in March 1979.

He was the only head of state to attend the festivities. He came to shower his dubious blessings on Malta in its new role as a non-aligned and neutral state; a superb way of stamping Malta’s neutrality.

For decades, Col Gaddafi exercised a lot of influence on Labour in Malta. At the zenith of his influence in Malta, abundant copies of his Green Book were distributed freely and Col Gaddafi’s portrait, in full military regalia or in traditional tribal dress, often “graced” our public buildings.

Libyan finance played a leading role in the building of the first mosque in Malta, when a Muslim community hardly existed here. Prime property in Valletta, Ta’ Giorni, Rabat, Sliema, Birkirkara and Marsascala was handed over to Libya.

Arabic was made compulsory at Maltese schools and feelers were thrown out seeking Arab support for Malta to join the Arab League. And, oh, our passport was green and it displayed a map of the region in which Libya was more pronounced than our own country.

The PL had slowly but surely turned us into “blood brothers” of Col Gaddafi’s regime. And we ended up stuck with a label of a maverick state that was difficult to shake off for years. For Labour had prickly relations with the West but was hopelessly in love with a Libyan dictatorship that sponsored international terrorism and was caught red-handed supplying arms to the IRA.

Labour ministers and – until recently – high party officials, right up to the present Labour leader, frequently visited Libya as guests of Col Gaddafi. And on each anniversary of the September Revolution many travelled on sponsored trips to Tripoli to attend the celebrations as guests of the regime and to listen to Col Gaddafi’s endless speeches glorifying his “revolution”.

This complex association and closeness between Labour and the Gaddafi regime may well explain, at least in part, why, between 1971 and 1987, Labour treated the principle of “one man one vote”, the most hallowed principle in a normal democracy, with such disdain. And why it acquiesced to political violence and thuggish behaviour against its political opponents.

Likewise, it may explain why, when in government, Labour leaned towards state control of education and the media and state-centric economic policies that were rife with corruption and nepotism.

Look no further. That was how Col Gaddafi ran his Libya.

One casualty of the demise of the Gaddafi regime will surely be the spurious Gaddafi International Prize for Human Rights, a dubious award that was granted to Mr Mintoff and to despots of the likes of Cuba’s Fidel Castro and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez.

Some time ago, former Prime Minister and leader of the anti-EU brigade, Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, travelled to Tripoli to present the prize to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. At least this recipient is a democrat.

So it came as no surprise when, bizarrely, Dr Mifsud Bonnici reacted to Col Gaddafi’s imminent downfall last Monday by stating that Col Gaddafi had no option but to fight to the end. To think that our country was ruled by this man and his party.

The end of the Gaddafi regime should induce all countries the world over to undertake a serious self-assessment of why, for years on end, we humoured this cruel dictator. And, yes, that includes us.

For even if the last time Col Gaddafi visited Malta was under a Labour Administration, we too retained close relations with Libya until very recently.

But it is the PL that has the deepest soul-searching to do. For the end of the Gaddafi regime brings to the fore a long and inglorious chapter in the history of the Maltese Labour Party.

This may well be a footnote when compared to the immense significance of the Libyan revolution in the broader context of world events. But it is nonetheless a footnote of great significance from a Maltese perspective.