Parties in spat over who gets tainted with Gaddafi's 'blood'

MORE: James Debono - 'On Libya, the pot is calling the kettle black'

The Nationalist and Labour parties are at loggerheads over who inherits the legacy of deposed Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, with whom both governments enjoyed relations since his 1971 coup right up until the February protests that signalled the beginning of the end for his regime.

The PN has denounced Labour as a ‘blood brother’ of Gaddafi, after a comment by Labour leader Joseph Muscat on Sunday during the collection of humanitarian aid by the Civil Protection Department accusing the PN of “politicising the Libyan conflict.”

“Far from politicising the conflict, the PN – never in cahoots with Gaddafi and his brutal regime – at the first visible signs of the Libyan ‘Spring’ six months ago immediately condemned the brutal ways and means employed by Gaddafi to try and silence the popular demonstrations against his regime.”

In a reply, Labour said Lawrence Gonzi and Eddie Fenech Adami honoured the dictator with the National Order of Merit in 2004, while the current PM had at least three meetings with Gaddafi in the last year, "one of them complete with an 'all in
the family' World Cup match viewing."

Labour said Gonzi visited Libya this time last year, missing the President's annual charity fund raising event, and that the last Gonzi-Gaddafi meeting, "complete with bear-hugs, was held well into the Arab Spring. During the February meeting Gonzi even invited Gaddafi to Malta in June 2011".

The PN has kept up its attack on Labour’s record with Gaddafi, who also addressed party meetings back in the 1970s. “If there is anyone who should be really ashamed of his party’s ties with the Gaddafi regime that is surely the Labour leader himself for since the 1970s Labour has held the Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya’s regime as its blood brother.”

While the PN says that Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi, who was the last leader to visit Gaddafi before the February 17 protests, was among the first to condemn his suppression of the protests in March, it said Muscat should come clean on its past with Gaddafi. “Why it took Labour so long to condemn Col. Gaddafi is simple: Labour and Gaddafi were intimate bedfellows.”

Labour said in its reply that at no time during the CPD press event did Muscat make reference to politics during his address. "The part being quoted by the author of the press release refers to an answer Dr Muscat gave when asked by the independent media, after his address. Had the Nationalist Party media not decided to boycott the event, maybe the author would not have committed such a ridiculous mistake."

Living with Libya

It is clear that both governments have cosied up to the Libyan leader, as pointed out by former Labour leader Lino Spiteri in his column in The Times.

“Labour governments were close friends with him from 1971 to 1987 – 16 years. They made him a member of what became the Order of Merit in 1975. Nationalist governments cosied up to him from 1987 to earlier this year – 24 years (less the 22 months Sant interregnum). They promoted him in the Order of Merit in 2004, making him a Companion of Honour, the highest one can go. For good measure they also made the Tunisian autocratic President Ben Ali a Companion of Honour of the Order of Merit, in 2005.”

Joseph Muscat has also called on the government to strip Ben Ali of his honours, as it did last week with Muammar Gaddafi’s national honours.

In recent years, the Nationalist government maintained a healthy diplomatic relationship with Libya, mainly over the issue of migration control.

In March 2009, Justice and Home Affairs minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici defended the award of EU aid to Libya to act at the Union’s border guard: “Stop criticising Libya… We recognise that immigration is also a problem for Libya, and we are doing our bit by putting pressure on Europe to offer more aid to Libya to help it control its borders.”

Even at the height of Libya’s human rights breaches with migrants and its unwillingness to sign the Geneva Convention, Gonzi lauded Libyan steps to control its coast and said Malta was ready to anything “to get the EU and the Libyan government on the same table and discuss an agreement [about migration].”

Foreign Minister Tonio Borg also supported Gaddafi’s €5 billion request to control migratory flows from Libya as being “in the interest of Malta to have our neighbouring country capable of policing adequately its borders.”

In his description of Maltese relations with Libya, he said in February 2011 that Malta had been close with the country since the 1960s thanks to a “mutual friendship”.

“We even remained close when UN sanctions were imposed upon it. It would be a mistake to stop contacts with countries because they have governments different to ours.”