On Libya, the pot is calling the kettle black

The latest bipartisan consensus on stripping Gaddafi from the honours bestowed upon him by both parties in government (in 1975 and 2004) may well serve as an act of expiation by both major parties.

But we should be wary of a historical revisionism, which ignores context and is based on selective memory. MEP Simon Busuttil’s tirade on Labour contains a grain of truth but ignores completely the ties cultivated by his party at a time when the human rights abuses of the regime were even more well known than in 1975.

Busuttil writes that “during its [Labour] spell in power in the seventies and eighties, it invested heavily in blood-brotherly relations with Gaddafi and experimented with some of his authoritarian policies on all of us in Malta as its guinea-pigs”. Blaming Mintoff for cultivating friendship with a regime which was two years old in 1971, definitely cannot be cited as evidence of collusion with the crimes the regime was to commit in later years.

Mintoff may well have read the signs of the times when he sought the friendship of a nascent secular Arab nationalism, ushered in by Nasser’s coup in Egypt, which was asserting itself with a degree of public support at the time. Mintoff’s fondness for Arab socialism was not so different from those who look with optimism at the Arab Spring today.

Mintoff was not alone. Earlier on, even elements in Italian Christian democracy like ENI founder Enrico Mattei sought to build an energy partnership with Arab countries and break the monopoly of US-owned companies. Moreover, despite the expulsion of the Italian community from Libya, Aldo Moro did his best to restore ties with the Colonel.

Unfortunately over the years Mintoff lost sight of his original vision of Malta as a “neutral” EU member serving as a bridge between north and south, as outlined in his New Statesman article in 1959. Malta’s drift to authoritarianism and autarky run in parallel with a greater symbolic association with a Libyan regime, which by the mid-1970s had already gained notoriety for public hangings at home and support for terrorism abroad. The romance even went beyond Mintoff's cynical policy of milking money from the West by cosying up to Arab and communist dictators.

Gaddafi was not just a neighbourhood tyrant with whom we were simply forced into a rapport by geographical caprice, as we could not move home. He was someone who addressed Labour party mass meetings and whose green book was distributed in the thousands during the Malta Trade Fair.

The rapport was strong enough to survive Gaddafi’s gunboat diplomacy in frustrating Malta’s petroleum ambitions, to the extent that Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici claims to have saved the Colonel’s life in a 1986 US bomb raid (a retaliation against bombing the La Belle disco in Berlin). Interestingly Bettino Craxi made a similar claim.

The change in government - which coincided with the isolation of Libya after Lockerbie - did lower the intensity of the rapport which became one of convenience and lost the bizarre ideological twist. But that did not prevent Malta from awarding Gaddafi another national award in 2004-something, which surely went beyond pragmatism. 2004 was not 1975. It came eight years after Gaddafi committed one of his greatest atrocities - the massacre of 1,270 prisoners in Abu Salim prison. It came in the full knowledge of the regime’s complicity in international terrorism.

One may say that Malta was simply trying to join the western rush to rehabilitate the regime. The logic probably was: if tyrants like medals why deny them one if it helps us to conduct business in Libya? But the relations went beyond medals and honours.

In the past years Malta was actively supporting Gaddafi’s Libya’s demand for financial support (amounting to €5 billion) in return for closing the tap on illegal immigration. Both government and opposition were willing to trust the murderous regime in taking care of migrants pushed back to Libya.

In September 2010 radio interview, in order to justify Mr Berlusconi’s pushback policy, the Prime Minister said conditions inside Libyan detention centres “as witnessed by an MEPs delegation led by Simon Busuttil, are not entirely bad”. This policy was bipartisan. When I asked Joseph Muscat (shortly after his visit to Libya in 2010) on the conditions of migrants sent back to Libya, he said that he had not seen any 'mainstream reports' about poor conditions of migrants in Libya.

So one might safely say that up till some time ago the same bipartisan consensus which exists on stripping Gaddafi of his medals, was reflected in consensus on accommodating the colonel.

Still this does not absolve Labour from its obscenely loud silence after the February 17 revolution. After a generic condemnation of the "violence" when it was clearly evident who was conducting the violence, the Nationalist government had cautiously condemned the regime. Gonzi was indeed the last western leader to visit Gaddafi in his tent when a day of rage was already being publicised on Facebook. But he found the courage to say that Gaddafi must go, two weeks after the uprising.

By not condemning Gaddafi in the period between February and August is another self-inflicted auto goal by Labour. If it was a question of pragmatism Labour has a serious foreign policy problem. It raises questions on the quality of advise labour has on foreign policy. If it was a question of not alienating old labour elements-some of which co-opted in strategic positions in the party, the matter is even more serious.

Anyone with a grasp of foreign policy or who had some on the ground information had foreseen the demise of the colonel. And even if there were doubts on whether Libya would embrace the rebels with open arms (as actually happened), dealing with the Gaddafi regime after his “zanqa zanqa” speech (in which the Libyan leader threatened to eliminate the rebels alley by alley) was inconceivable.

It was on February 28 (after this revolting speech) that both parties should have agreed on stripping Gaddafi of his honours. Labour has lost an opportunity to free itself from one of the bizarre legacies of old Labour. Foreign policy does not swing voters but it tarnishes Muscat’s attempt to project himself as a safe pair of hands.

Labour’s Libyan auto-goal comes in the wake of Muscat’s own slip when he suggested that Malta should unleash a tourism publicity campaign in view of the unrest in Tunisia and Egypt. If Labour really means business it should immediately conduct a foreign policy revamp.