When we loved the Colonel

In a rare display of bipartisan consensus, both parties in parliament have agreed to strip Colonel Gaddafi of honours conferred by different administrations. But that has not prevented them from engaging in a tit for tat war on who was closest to the regime

Two honours, different contexts

Colonel Muammar Gaddafi was made honorary member of Xirka Gieh ir-Repubblika in 1975, six years after the coup which had brought him to power. In 2004, he was made honorary companion of the National Order of Merit 35 years after he took power.

When the first honour was conferred, the young colonel was at the peak of his popularity in Libya, investing oil money in much-needed Libyan infrastructure. He had also propped up Mintoff in his long standoff with the British over the renegotiation of terms over the use of the NATO military base.

But he had already shown his repressive side, by creating the Revolutionary Committees in 1973 to tighten his grip on Libyan society.  However, his notoriety for brutal televised executions at home and terrorism abroad only reached its peak in the 1980s and 1990s.

By the time he was awarded the second award in 2004, the list of Gaddafi’s atrocities included the massacre of 1,270 prisoners in Abu Salim prison in 1996. It also came in the full knowledge of the regime’s complicity in various acts of international terrorism.

But it also came in the wake of the regime’s decision to give up its weapons of mass destruction programme and the re-establishment of relations with the United States and the United Kingdom. 

Labour’s romance with Gaddafi

In Mintoff’s scheme of things, Libya was a useful trump card with which to possibly blackmail the West in his quest for financial aid for Malta, then still a fledgling State.

Malta’s drift to authoritarianism and autarky run in parallel with a greater symbolic association with a Libyan regime, which by the late 1970s had already gained notoriety for public hangings at home and support for terrorism abroad.

Gaddafi was not just a neighbourhood tyrant with whom we were forced into a rapport because of geographic caprice; but someone who addressed Labour party mass meetings and whose Green Book was distributed by the thousands during the Malta Trade Fair. 

Despite the pragmatic nature of this relationship (and perhaps aware of the strong prejudice against the Arab world), Mintoff also embarked on a cultural offensive to change the prevailing mentality.

Libya became useful for Mintoff as soon as he was elected in 1971. When he issued an ultimatum to British troops – to either pay higher rents for military facilities or quit the island altogether – it was Gaddafi who bankrolled Malta to the tune of about $3,000,000 to replenish the government’s diminishing social security fund.

As the British made plans to evacuate Malta, a Libyan air force cargo plane discharged 44 men in civilian clothes at Luqa, lugging four-foot wooden crates. Government spokesmen insisted that the Libyans were “technicians” who had come to operate at Luqa when British air-traffic controllers leave; their crates merely contained technical gear.

But Mintoff’s stratagem worked and finally, the UK accepted to dish out more money to Malta as the lease for the naval base was extended to 1979. Libyan investment in Malta increased, even as the British troops prepared to leave.

Several hundred Maltese workers found employment in the Libyan oil industry, which supplied Malta with all its petroleum needs.

Yet despite the arrival by boat of hundreds of Libyans to celebrate the departure of the last British troops, the relationship between Malta and Libya proved more fragile than it appeared.

A major incident occurred in 1980, when Libyan gunboats and a submarine used force to stop Maltese naval vessels in a dispute over oil exploration. Malta had to back down as it continued to buy oil from Libya at a preferential rate. Although the incident created a climate of outrage among the populace, political relations with Libya survived the incident.

Relations under Mintoff’s successor Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici were so strong that the former Maltese Prime Minister reputed to have saved Gaddafi’s life when Libya was hit by a US air strike in April 1986.

“An hour before the bombing, we had informed Libyan air traffic controllers that unidentified, unauthorised planes were approaching their region,” Mifsud Bonnici said, recalling the fateful attack on the night of 15 April, 1986.

Former US President Ronald Reagan – who called Gaddafi “this mad dog of the Middle East” – ordered air strikes on Tripoli and Benghazi after the disco attacks that killed three – including two US servicemen – in Berlin.

Culturally, the friendship between Malta and Libya was reflected in the Labour government’s decision to make Arabic a compulsory requirement for students wishing to enter University.

This resulted in the arrival of hundreds of teachers from Libya who swelled the ranks of the local Muslim community.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Libya also administered two cultural centres on public land handed to Libya: one in Villa Drago in Sliema, and the other in the Main Guard opposite parliament in Valletta. Both buildings were adorned with quotes from the Green Book, which celebrated Gaddafi’s brand of socialism.

Post-1987 relations

Relations cooled after 1987, as the newly elected Nationalist government shifted its foreign policy focus away from pariah Libya towards Europe.

But the government continued paying homage to the Libyan leader and commercial ties with Gaddafi’s Libya outlived the local regime change, as Maltese companies expanded their operations in Libya. 

Following the imposition of UN sanctions over the Lockerbie bombing, the sea link with Malta provided the only link between Libya and the world.

Despite its past friendship with Gaddafi’s Libya, Malta played little role in Libya’s rehabilitation in the international community, following Libya’s unilateral abandonment of a nuclear and chemical weapons’ programme in 2004 and following the US invasion of Iraq.

It was in this context that Malta awarded its second honour to Gaddafi in 2004, a year after Malta joined the European Union.

The immigration threat

But relations with Libya grew in importance as Malta found itself inundated with African migrants and asylum seekers smuggled from Libya.

For years, Libya claimed that it was not possible to control its enormous stretch of coastline without financial assistance. This prompted calls by the likes of Nationalist MEP candidate Dr Frank Portelli for a tougher stance with regards to Libya. To this, Home Affairs Minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici replied: “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”.

In September 2010, Gaddafi threatened to “turn Europe black” if his €5 billion a year demand was not acceded to by the EU. Foreign Minister Tonio Borg described this request as nothing new and described the declaration as “totally justified.”

Gaddafi only closed the tap on immigration after signing a friendship treaty with Berlusconi’s Italy, which sanctioned a pushback policy, through which migrants intercepted at sea were rerouted to Libya, prompting concern by human rights bodies.

In a September 2010 radio interview, in order to justify 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.”

“I personally visited the Tripoli detention centre twice as part of European Parliament missions. On both occasions, we spoke at length to different detainees without the presence of the Libyan security personnel. Having seen the conditions in some other countries, including Malta, I am in no position to condemn Libya,” Busuttil wrote in July 2010.

This policy was bipartisan. 

Shortly after his visit to Libya in August 2010, when asked by a MaltaToday journalist 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.

Busuttil – who has lately taken a leading role in bashing the Labour Party for its close historical ties to Gaddafi – was himself quite timid in his dealings with the regime before the uprising.

Busuttil avoided criticising Libya in his interventions on the spat between Libya and Switzerland, after the latter blocked 188 Schengen visas, including Muammar Gaddafi’s.

The Swiss resorted to this action after the arrest of one of their citizens in Libya, as retaliation against the arrest of Hannibal Gaddafi in Geneva, on charges of mistreating two domestic employees. Gaddafi had also threatened a jihad against the Swiss.

Busuttil told the European parliament that “the EU has nothing to do with this, and there is no reason why EU citizens should suffer as a result.”

He referred to the threat to the livelihood of EU workers in Libya, who were unable to travel to that country to get to their job.

Gonzi was also the last western leader to meet Gaddafi in Libya when a day of rage against his rule had already been declared.

The Gonzi administration only ‘broke up’ with the regime on 28 February of this year, when the Prime Minister declared that the end of Gaddafi was ‘inevitable’. Subsequent events proved him right.

Labour’s silence

While distancing itself from pro-regime comments by old Labour exponents such as Reno Calleja and Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, Labour refrained from condemning the Gaddafi regime in the six-month period between the popular uprisings against Colonel Gaddafi and the rebels’ triumphal entry in Tripoli.

A year before the uprising Muscat, accompanied by his spokesperson for Foreign Affairs George Vella, Labour MP Karmenu Vella and party international secretary Alex Sciberras Trigona had a 90-minute meeting with Colonel Gaddafi in August 2010.

Labour’s reaction to events in Libya was characterised by caution and a tacit support for the government’s policy to provide humanitarian aid.

On 20 March, Muscat simply urged for prudence, adding that Malta should serve as a Mediterranean hub, keeping its security as the utmost priority.

On 30 March, Muscat renewed Labour’s promise that Malta will never be a military base again.

“We will not be a war base but a centre of peace. We will be there to offer help, without taking sides but assisting those who are fighting to help them gain peace”.

In April, a Labour Party spokesperson tabled a motion in parliament urging the government to help Maltese investors in Libya, without placing new burdens on Maltese taxpayers.

Asked by MaltaToday why Labour had not condemned the Gaddafi regime, PL deputy leader Toni Abela replied that in dealing with such a situation “there aren’t two ways, there is also the third way,” adding that the country had “managed to perform positively” by offering “humanitarian aid to those who need it.”

Just days before the rebels entered Tripoli, bringing to an end Gaddafi’s 42-year reign Labour’s Home Affair’s shadow Minister Michael Falzon cited the landings of military aircraft in Malta “practically everyday” as an example of the general insecurity of the country.

Yet despite these reservations, Labour never expressed disagreement with NATO intervention in Libya.

While Labour’s tacit approval of government policy on Libya could be seen as an example of consensus on foreign policy issues, Labour’s reluctance to follow Gonzi’s lead in calling for Gaddafi’s departure exposed a fundamental weakness in its foreign policy.

Whether this was dictated by misguided pragmatism based on the premise that Gaddafi could win the civil war, or simply on fear of irking old Labour elements, remains to be seen.