Prodi welcomes Gaddafi with open arms

Date: 29/04/04

IT WAS surely the oddest spectacle witnessed in the European Commission's Brussels headquarters for some time.

Adopting an incongruously regal pose for a self-declared republican, Muammar Gaddafi strolled to his designated lectern, flanked by a largely female bevy of bodyguards in blue khaki uniforms. Outside a throng of cheering well-wishers carried large posters of the Libyan leader clad in traditional robes, hailing him as the architect of African unity.

In an anodyne statement to mark the first visit by Gaddafi to Europe in 15 years, Commission President Romano Prodi applauded the "bold moves" that Tripoli has made over the past few months in dismantling its weapons of mass destruction programme.

Guarded references were made to "open issues" between Germany and Bulgaria on one side and Libya on the other, with Prodi stating: "I've listened carefully to Colonel Gaddafi's remarks on these issues today and am fully confident that we will see satisfactory solutions in the next few weeks."

He did not elaborate much on the substance of the "open issues": the failure by Libya to pay compensation to victims of the 1986 bombing of La Belle disco in then West Berlin and the detention of six Bulgarian medical staff in Tripoli since 1999 on charges they deliberately infected 426 children at the al-Fateh hospital in Benghazi with the HIV virus.

Meanwhile, Prodi made no reference to the similarly unresolved issue of the murder of police officer Yvonne Fletcher by a gunman within the Libyan embassy in London two decades ago. Her killer has still not been brought to justice.

Nor did Prodi attempt to deliver even a mild rebuke - in public, at least - to Gaddafi over the continuing violation of human rights attributed to his regime. These were highlighted in a report this week by Amnesty International.

Although the campaign group noted there had been "limited steps" to address the human rights situation taken by the Libyan authorities since 2001 - including a series of releases of political prisoners - it accused Tripoli of using the international "war against terrorism" as a pretext for repression.

The Amnesty report drew attention to an August 2002 speech made by Gaddafi, in which he argued that following the release of political prisoners, those still in jail were either common criminals or "heretics" with links to al-Qaeda or the Taliban.

He vowed to treat those in the latter category in the same way as the US had treated the al-Qaeda and Taliban suspects held in Guantanamo Bay and to deny them access to lawyers.

According to the campaigners, that policy was reiterated by the Tripoli authorities when an Amnesty team visited Libya in February.

The group also found that the six Bulgarians detained in Libya in connection with the HIV scandal could have been tortured and that they have often been given only "intermittent access to the outside world", including their relatives and legal counsel.

Amnesty cited evidence too that executions are still being carried out in Libya, 15 years after Gaddafi stated that he wished to abolish the death penalty. Tripoli failed to respond to a request from the campaigners for details on executions carried out in the past few years.

The "open issues" to which Prodi referred appear to be the main impediments to having Libya fully integrated into the Euro-Mediterranean partnership (the Barcelona Process), which underpins relations between the EU and 11 states in the Middle East and north Africa, as well as the Palestinian Authority. Until now, Tripoli has had observer status at EuroMed meetings.

The objective of the Barcelona Process is to establish a series of free-trade deals between the Union and the southern and eastern Mediterranean, as well as to create a "common area of peace and stability", based on human rights and democracy.

During his visit to Brussels, Gaddafi made clear he wishes Libya to be a fully signed-up member of the partnership. However, it is doubtful whether this will lead to a reinvigoration of the Barcelona Process. A recent World Bank report noted that despite the partnership, the Middle East and north Africa was the region in the world marked by the most pronounced declines in trade and investment during the past decade.

Others have observed how the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been a disincentive to economic and political progress in surrounding countries.

It is not just Prodi who has been deepening his friendship with Gaddafi in the past fortnight. While the US continues to regard Libya as a sponsor of terrorism, President George W. Bush has decided to lift most of America's economic sanctions against its regime. This should provide a boon for US oil companies, eager to resume doing business with the country. Marathon, Occidental and ConocoPhillips all have assets in Libya but have been prevented by the US government from operating there since the mid-1980s.

Last month UK premier Tony Blair was criticized by Michael Howard, the leader of the opposition Conservative party, for travelling to Libya for talks with Gaddafi just after attending the state funeral in Madrid of those killed in the 11 March train bombings.

The British government was careful, though, to ensure the premier's visit had the blessing of families who lost loved ones due to the 1988 bombing of a PanAm jet over Lockerbie, Scotland. Libya accepted responsibility and agreed to pay compensation last year for that atrocity, as well as the bombing of a UTA airliner over sub-Saharan Africa in 1989.

For Prodi, Gaddafi's visit was the culmination of five years work. He had previously proposed inviting Gaddafi to Brussels in 2000 but withdrew the offer after coming under intense pressure from some member states.

Following the 11 September 2001 atrocities, Prodi then advocated that Libya should join the international coalition against terrorism.

It seems certain nonetheless that this week's visit would not have been palatable for a number of EU countries had it not been for the landmark decision in December that Libya would scrap its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programme. Gaddafi has seized on this to try and give his country an air of moral authority; on Tuesday (27 April), he called on all countries "from America to China" to similarly abandon WMD.

More sceptical observers believe, though, that his moves were motivated by concerns he could go the way of Saddam Hussein and be toppled by the US.

Meanwhile, many Brussels-based observers commented this week how Prodi's embrace of Gaddafi could have more to do with the former's ambitions to be Italy's next prime minister than anything else.

Italy, after all, had stayed a major importer of oil from Libya despite international sanctions against Tripoli, while Italian oil and gas concern ENI is a major investor in the country.

Report of a visit to Brussels at the end of April 2004 by the Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi.