Stories that never seem to end

More than ever it seems as if the Libyan debacle is going to drag on and on ad infinitum. The intrepid Colonel, supported by his powerful family of young men about town who have too much to lose, has dug himself into his Tripolitanian bunker and appears to be determined to ride out what he thinks is the equivalent of a summer storm. He may be right.

The coalition is in a state of flux with America predictably reluctant to be primus inter pares yet again. All too often has the US been accused of playing the global policeman out of blatant self-interest. Now that Nato has taken the lead we actually may all breathe easier. The combined effort to nullify a leader who has, by all accounts, outstayed his welcome may now be undertaken with more apparent legitimacy. Let’s face it. Despite the Jovian fulminations of former Prime Minister Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, Muammar Gaddafi has bored the pants off everyone except Dr Mifsud Bonnici with his tantrums, never-ending mumbled speeches and absurdly bizarre dress sense.

He is a global embarrassment. To the Libyans who have suffered exile at best and torture and execution at worst, Col Gaddafi is a disastrous tragedy. As shocking stories about what went on during those four long decades now seep out in dribs and drabs we should collectively hang our heads in shame at having either ignored or gone along with the regime for financial gain. But then who would have risked rocking the boat?

At one point in very recent history, Europe almost managed to sanitise the bogeyman of North Africa. I cannot get the photograph of Tony Blair posing while grinning like a Cheshire cat with the Colonel out of my head. That led to the wiping of the slate in as far as Lockerbie is concerned and the Colonel coming out of that horrendous affair as pure as driven slush if not smelling of roses.

As for the posturing with the cavaliere in Rome, I have, during the last couple of years, commented several times as Col Gaddafi, sporting a tinpot general’s uniform covered in orders and decorations appeared in the Eternal City with this photograph of a Libyan who was hanged by the Italian occupiers before the war fluttering among the dubious nickel, brass and copper medals.

I did in fact look for Malta’s Order of Merit but failed to locate it in the debris. Silvio Berlusconi struck a deal with the Colonel about illegal immigration that actually worked. We all know it was immoral. We all know that would-be asylum seekers were forcibly sent back into the Libyan desert to perish horribly and yet? We all chose to look the other way because it suited us.

So here we are with jets and missiles flying over our heads to pulverise the Gaddafi regime out of existence and still questioning the legitimacy of such actions and with good reason as the majority of countries still maintain diplomatic relations with Tripoli and it is only France that has actually severed relations with the Colonel and went on to recognise and, hence, legitimise the Benghazi leaders as an alternative government per se, which I think is highly premature and dangerous. It was, in fact, this recognition that clinched the no-fly zone decision taken by the UN just over a week ago just in the nick of time before Benghazi was on the verge of being annihilated.

So as the scouring of Libya goes on where does Malta stand in all this? Apart from the occasional skirmish in front of the Libyan Embassy, which still flies the green flag denoting that Malta, like Russia and China, still maintains diplomatic relations with Col Gaddafi’s Tripoli, we are, on the surface, unaffected. But as our national airline crumbles and Air Malta’s internal e-mail system openly advertises recruitment agencies to take over its soon to be redundant staff, Maltese business interests in Libya must perforce be on a downhill spiral to oblivion. Despite the fact that bridge table opinion indicates they should have known what was coming, I have nothing but admiration for these Maltese entrepreneurs who created silk purses out of sow’s ears for so long in circumstances that were highly volatile, unpredictable and risky and hope that, over the years, had made provision for the inevitable pull-out.

We are controversially neutral despite the Constitution stating that, should the UN decide to take action as it has, the neutrality clause falls. It appears as if many people think Malta should actively contribute to the Libyan war effort by being a gigantic aircraft carrier, a sentiment no doubt fuelled by the desire to get rid of our shame-making neighbour once and for all. To be honest, I doubt whether the UK, France and the US care very much either way. And, in fact, the proof of the pudding lies in the fact that, since the trouble in Libya started, we simply carry on regardless as if Malta were an island in the Caribbean and not placed smack in the middle between Italy and Libya!

We are far more interested in what the outcome of the May referendum is going to be and are having a jolly old time rubbishing the tactics of both the anti- and pro-divorce bodies in the media, leaving the Libyan debacle, the Syrian crisis, the Egyptian revolt, the Tunisian tinderbox, the Yemeni deadlock, the Moroccan unrest, the Algerian dilemma and the Bahraini question to CNN, Al Jazeera et al to report and discuss ad nauseam.

kzt@onvol.net