Tonio Borg says Gaddafi’s Libya could not be ignored

Foreign Minister Tonio Borg defended the past connections Malta had with Muammar Gaddafi’s Libyan regime insisting nobody could have ignored a neighbouring country as if it did not exist.

“I will not condemn anyone who had contacts with the Gaddafi regime because not having such contacts would have meant simply ignoring a major neighbouring country as if it were a black hole,” Dr Borg said yesterday when addressing a meeting of the Malta-EU Steering Action Committee (Meusac).

However, even if in passing, he did draw a distinction between relations at governmental level and personal commercial ties. “As for individuals who had personal commercial ties with the Gaddafi family, everybody must shoulder his responsibility,” Dr Borg said.

He was answering a question by Alternattiva Demokratika’s foreign affairs spokesman, Arnold Cassola, about the political, personal and commercial ties some individuals may have had with the Gaddafi family. He also asked whether the names of Maltese business associates of Gaddafi family members would be made public in the wake of reports showing how one of Col Gaddafi’s sons had BoV credit cards bearing a Maltese address.

But when talking about the €87 million in frozen assets held in Malta and belonging to members of the Gaddafi family, Dr Borg said the government could not reveal details of to whom they belonged or whether Maltese were involved in handling the accounts. Focusing on developments in the post-Gaddafi Libya, the Foreign Minister said Malta had nothing to fear from an “Islamic democracy”.

Soon after Col Gaddafi’s death, the new leadership said Libya would build a democracy based on moderate Sharia law. There was nothing wrong with having an Islamic democracy, Dr Borg said, in the same way as there was a Christian democracy. “It is important though, that basic rights are observed.”

Dr Borg said Malta should be happy that three of its North Africa neighbours – Tunisia, Libya and Egypt – would have some form of democracy but he cautioned that, at this stage, one should not expect the fully-fledged democracies which the West was used too.

“I may be an optimist but I cannot see people who shed their blood for freedom allowing a return of dictatorship,” he said.

Looking back at the dramatic events that unfolded in Libya since February, Dr Borg said the government had complete backing from the opposition on the way it handled the situation.

He said Malta planned to send a large delegation to Libya headed by the Prime Minister and including businessmen but the government was waiting for the formal setting up of a Libyan government.

“We could have gone there soon after the regime crumbled but it would have been simply a photo opportunity. We want substantive talks and this can only happen when we know who our interlocutors are.”

Apart from trade, Dr Borg said priority areas included oil exploration, migration, fishing rights and the pending payments to Maltese companies by Libyan entities.

The issue of pending payments was also raised by the director general of the Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry, Kevin Borg, who said this was an issue of concern for many businesses that operated in Libya.

He said the pending payments ran into millions of euros. He welcomed the government’s cautious approach of wanting to visit Libya when the government there was appointed.