Not too long ago, everyone was falling all over themselves trying to project Libya as the place to go for foreign investment; it was being portrayed as an ideal country for new businesses where the economy was booming and the potential for growth was impressive.

Looking back, our memories are fuzzy and it not easy to say at which exact point Gaddafi changed from being the ‘enemy’ responsible for Lockerbie, to the man everyone seemed ready to kiss and make up with.

So perhaps it is not that surprising to learn from The Guardian that a PR firm called The Monitor Group, a 1,500-strong firm of consultants with 29 worldwide offices, had run a PR campaign on behalf of the Libyan leader between 2006 and 2008. The campaign, believed to be worth about $3 million, focused on paying for top academic figures to travel to Tripoli for personal conversations with Gaddafi.

According to this report carried on the online version on Friday, “individual academics were paid for their time and expenses with money directly from the Libyan government. It is not known how much money was given to each academic, but the $3m budget submitted to the Libyan regime by Monitor included $450,000 for a “visitor programme” that would cover honoraria for visitors “… travel cost of visits to Libya including special arrangements, debrief costs and follow-up costs”.

The goal of the campaign was to improve the public image of the Libyan dictator.

New revelations emerge every day about the extent to which the Gaddafi regime had managed to woo the West with that most basic of ploys: money. From international singers like Beyoncé who were paid to perform at parties, to the now infamous donation to the London School of Economics which has led to the resignation of the director Howard Davies. Incidentally, if any politician or head of a large government corporation ever needs a lesson on how to resign with dignity on the basis of what is and is not ethical, I suggest they read his resignation letter.

The web of money (and the obligations and conditions which come with it) had infiltrated so many countries, that it is now easy to understand how Gaddafi has stayed smugly in power for so long. Who was going to topple him? Surely no one who has investments in Libya or who has been benefiting from Gaddafi’s cash would want to rock the boat because the arrangement was moving along just fine. Look at all the thousands of people from all over the world who were working there – obviously, this economic migration didn’t happen overnight. It has only come to our attention now because they have had to be shipped out one nationality at a time, making the implications even more stark: as had happened in the 1970s and 1980s, once again there was money to be made in Libya. And let’s be honest here, people who are desperately unemployed in their own country can’t really be blamed for flocking to wherever they can find work

Malta is no exception in all this. A number of companies with joint Libyan shareholdings have been set up over the years, and around 300 Maltese people were working in Libya. According to the Chamber of Commerce, some 35 companies have come forward who have interests and investments in Libya and there are probably many more with indirect business connections such as those who provide PR services and law firms which help businessmen to wade through the bureaucracy of dealing with an Arab country.

So yes, there were many who have been making a nice little living out of Libya, perhaps without even registering the fact that they were earning money from a country led by a man who oppressed his own people, and as we are rapidly learning, is not averse to killing those who turn against him. This is not a judgment call because, as I wrote last week, few can really say that they have a clear conscience on this one.

Just like The Monitor Group (based, cynically enough, in the United States), which was trying to change Gaddafi’s image, it is more than likely that there were other PR firms working just as hard in the Maltese media to try and make Libya palatable for investors. In fact, it is interesting when you read through the articles about Libyan investment over the last few years, that Gaddafi himself was barely mentioned.

From what is being written now, it is clear that there was a lot of wishful thinking that this was a ‘new Libya’, and that Saif Gaddafi had taken over from his father to steer the country towards a more open, democratic process. Or maybe people just told themselves that to allay their own misgivings as they cashed in their cheques.

Black humour

At the moment comedians are having a field day poking fun at Gaddafi’s speeches, his eccentric outfits and his bizarre behaviour. It is a humour, however, tinged with chilling undertones. As British comedian Charlie Brooker said during his show 10 o’clock Live

“Look at his funny clothes... his funny − bloodstained − clothes...”

American Jon Stewart on his Daily Show rightly queried “what the bleep was Libya doing on the Human Rights Council in the first place?” and suggested that Gaddafi is always wearing sunglasses “because he’s high”.

The truth is that it is all very well to laugh at him now, as everyone in the West is hastily backtracking and disassociating themselves from the man, but I don’t remember any stand up comedians laughing at him before the uprising began. Comics usually take their cue from the way the wind is blowing and perhaps they sense Gaddafi’s downfall is imminent so it is ‘safe’ to mock him now. Remember how everyone started making jokes about Imelda Marco’s shoe fetish – but only when she and her husband had fled the country?

Let us hope they are right, because if Gaddafi somehow manages to retain his hold on the country, I doubt that the jokes will seem as funny.

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