THE GREENS OF LIBYA

NOW COMES TALK OF Muammar Gaddafi ordering the destruction of his oil wells in a fit of spite against his own people and the West. Yesterday he  gave a rambling and incoherent diatribe against those protesting against him, promising  them  his vengeance in ways so bloody that  he hopes his people will be cowed by such a prospect and desist from their heroic confrontation with him.

            Heroic, is for once being used in its truest  sense, for to take up arms against  this modern day Caligula, truly requires enormous amounts of courage; courage which has to take account of failure and the retribution that will surely follow such an end.

            The Libyan people have crossed the Rubicon, and there is now no way back. Those now standing up to Gaddafi have to see it through to some kind of end – either for them or Gaddafi. There is no compromise to be reached with this unhinged demagogue, for he will renege upon any promise he makes. The only promises he will keep will be those he made in yesterday’s speech, to hunt down protesters “house by house”, and to “fight on to the last drop of my blood”. Those he called “cockroaches”, but who we know as very brave people will fight on – for there is nowhere else for them to go.

            In Benghazi and Tripoli hundreds, or even thousands, are dying because this vain old man, who craves power and prestige will not do what his contemporaries in Egypt and Tunisia have done. He is fully prepared to drown his country in blood and destroy its economy, which means blowing-up the oil wells.

            I think he will be forced to go, but what horrors will he be able to unleash before he does remains to be seen.

WHAT WILL NOT BE forgotten however (at least in this country), is how this particular leader was courted by the last government. It is notable that the Labour Party has remained silent over the events in Libya. Both Blair and Brown  courted the tyrant, while Lord Mandelson lay claim to the friendship of Gaddafi’s son.

            When the Lockerbie terrorist Megrahi  was released from a Scottish prison on health grounds, Gordon Brown denied any involvement in the decision by the English government, suggesting that the whole episode should lay at the door of the Scottish parliament and  its Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill.

            We now know that the Labour government had been making overtures to Gaddafi as far back as Tony Blair, who sought trade links with Libya.

            Neither Blair, Brown or Mandelson have sought time on the media to lend us their expertise on the current volcanic eruptions in the Middle East. Blair in particular has shied away from the cameras. One would have thought that a statesman given the role of overseeing a Middle East peace process would have something to say on the subject of Libya.

            The last government, still no doubt intoxicated by the early success of the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland, wished to apply the same formula in our relationship with Gaddafi. But we had to pay a high price for bringing the likes of Gerry Adams in from the cold, as many of the IRA’s victims will readily testify.

            Now Blair embarked upon the same strategy with the Gaddafi regime; a regime that had actually sent an arms shipment to the IRA. The nub of Blair’s stratagem was to ignore the victims and concentrate upon changing the behaviour of their murderers.

            Unfortunately Gaddafi was on the way out anyway. But Blair felt that a dynasty had been created in Libya and whenever Gaddafi stepped down one of his son’s would replace him. So overtures and friendships were created with his sons.

            Enter Lord Mandelson who spent a yachting holiday with one of Gaddafi’s son’s. If the papers are to be believed he formed a friendship; believing no doubt that his new best friend would one day be ruling oil rich Libya, or at least a shareholder in its wealth.

            No wonder this current government are  working overtime to mend the pot holes created by the last government’s relationship with Libya.

 

WHEN GADDAFI GOES, a peaceful transition of any kind will be far harder to achieve than, for instance, that now taking place in Egypt. Libya is a tribal nation, who, for the past 43 years has been under the tutelage of Gadaffi’s little Green Book.

            This slim volume coupled with ruthlessness has allowed Libya to function as a nation state. Which means that when Colonel Gaddafi says that his departure will result in chaos, he speaks what may turn out to be the truth.

            Libya  could descend into civil war with or without the Colonel in charge. The country knows what it does not want  as well as what it does want. This is clear. But the country  may not have the inbuilt apparatus (like many of its neighbours) to transform it into a functioning democracy based upon free speech.

            So the West awaits the outcome of events in Libya, as it has done in other parts of North Africa; hoping that when the ructions have subsided, what will be left is a part of the globe that still seeks friendship with the West.