Berlusconi to visit Gadaffi in Tripoli
Wednesday 02 September 2009By EU Reporter Correspondents
The release of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Al Megrahi has caused huge embarrassment for the British government, which apparently did not expect the convicted, but rather unwell, terrorist to be greeted with a spectacular hero's welcome. The US government is furious, Prince Andrew has had to cancel his semi-secret trip to Libya, and Presidents Sarkozy and Medvedev have pulled out of planned trips.
However, Colonel (formerly "Mad Dog") Gaddafi, once the world's most open supplier of arms and resources to terrorists, can count on at least one European head of state to help him to celebrate his 40 years of rule; Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who will visit Tripoli on Sunday to lay a foundation stone on a new Italian-funded motorway. Afterwards, the two leaders will have dinner together. Italy wishes to make amends for the horrors inflicted on Libya during its colonial rule.
A touch of contrition is always good for politicians, but Mr Berlusconi might want to consider the fact that following the Gaddafi coup of 1969, political parties were banned in Libya. In the 1970s and 80s, dissent was dealt with ruthlessly, with those who disagreed with the leader being termed as "stray dogs", and the authorities introduced a policy which they quite cheerfully referred to as "physical liquidation", a term which even Alistair Campbell would have had trouble putting a positive spin on.
As well as sponsoring terrorism abroad, of course, the Libyans themselves were not adverse to machine-gunning the occasional woman police officer in London, or bombing nightclubs. As well as the Lockerbie atrocity, there was also the bombing of UTA flight 772 over Niger in 1989, which resulted in the deaths of 170 people.
Most recently, the Libyan government has used the "war on terrorism" to justify further clampdowns on free speech, but quite possibly western leaders might not want to criticise too harshly in this particular respect. According to an Amnesty International report in April 2004, political activity outside the prevailing system remains banned, and dissenters still face the death penalty. As well as capital punishment, corporal punishment which can include flogging and cross-amputation (amputation of the right hand and the left foot) are still practiced in Libya.
The Italians may be rightly repentent over their colonial past, and a little self-flaggelation might salve the nation's collective consciences, but in agreeing to visit Tripoli at such a sensitive time, Berlusconi will merely serve to give credibility to a dictator, in what will be presented to the Libyan people as support for the regime, with all its own "horrors".
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