The quote of the week must be Gaddafi’s “If the world is crazy we will be crazy too”, after the UN finally passed the no fly zone resolution, which many of us were worried would never happen and are still anxious that it is too late anyway.
Of course it is the rest of the world that is crazy. Gaddafi’s quote should dispel any of the few remaining doubts about the man’s paranoia. This is the man who said he would shoot down commercial airlines, that he was going to show” no mercy and no pity” towards the people of Benghazi and make “everyone’s life hell”, on Thursday.
We also got reports that day that Libya threatened, “military intervention would lead to military and civilian air and sea traffic in the Mediterranean being targeted.
“The Mediterranean basin will be exposed to grave danger, not just in the short term but also in the long term,” Libya warned.
That was intended and succeeded to scare our government. Yet, the PM told us that Malta was never threatened by Libya in any way other than, during the talks on the freedom of the Dutch helicopter crew, when a Libyan official suggested a swap with the two Libyan fighter jets currently in Malta.
So the government with the full agreement of the Opposition has decided that we are to be spectators to the humanitarian crisis in Libya. That means we shall welcome those fleeing, but not help those on the ground.
The Prime Minister told us on Friday that government has decided that Malta will not be used as a base for the enforcement of a no-fly zone over Libya.
Its priority was the security of the country and its people and its decisions were based on this consideration, he said.
I hazard a guess that most Maltese have welcomed this decision. I am not one of them. Bullying tactics do not scare me and I have no business interests in Libya, which does not mean to say that I am not as concerned as everybody else of us getting embroiled in violence. But I think that the right moral thing to do is to be directly involved in any action taken by the UN.
“Malta is duty bound to respect the UNSC resolution and our constitutional provisions on neutrality do not prevent us from doing so... we could be asked to offer our facilities to support military assets that are used in the implementation of the UN resolution in view of our ideal geographic situation. If this becomes necessary, we should say yes,” MEP Simon Busuttil told The Times on Friday.
Dr Gonzi said that the position of the Maltese government was that Malta would continue to observe its humanitarian role. But standing by and watching while Gaddafi, his sons and their henchman continue slaughtering their opponents is not a humanitarian role to my mind.
Our PM believes, “We will not be used as a base when there is no reason or purpose for this”. Is the brutality that we are not only seeing but is further threatened to get worse not reason and purpose enough?
The PM seems confident, because “the Libyan Prime Minister had personally phoned me to tell me that a ceasefire had been declared”, that Libya will keep its word. Nobody else is. But the PM was hoping that the enforcement of a no flight zone would not be necessary once there was a ceasefire.
What surprised me, and made me wonder if anyone present at the press conference had asked the PM the question, was: Why, if Malta had not been asked to serve as a base did the PM deem it necessary to call a press conference to say that if it were to be asked the reply would be that Malta could not be used to enforce the no-fly zone?
My guess is that the PM had given that undertaking to the Libyan prime minister and had to make it official to ensure Gaddafi did not attack us. He might also have been given the information the Libyan oil minister gave, in his veiled threat to those not backing Gaddafi, and carrot offering to those not against him, at his press conference yesterday.
No one is saying that it was easy for the Maltese government to take the stand that it has. The last thing we need is someone, who is not only extremely volatile but has admitted he will act crazily, to vent his anger on an undefended speck in the Med.
But are we undefended? American warships are cruising the Med and despite his ‘crazy’ bravado I somehow think that even Gaddafi would not go that far. Besides, even the PM conceded that should there be an “unpleasant surprise from Libya”, Malta was confident of help from the EU, should it be needed.
The reports on CNN, the BBC and Sky News yesterday at noon were that it looked like Benghazi was under attack from Gaddafi’s forces and we saw a jet being shot out of the sky. Reports said that people fleeing were asking, “Where is the world?” Some were in Paris deciding on how they were to implement the UN resolution.
Meanwhile, conflicting messages from the Gaddafi camp continued unabated. Hours after the UN Security Council resolution the Libyan Foreign Minister Mussa Kussa said “As full members of the UN we accept that we are obliged to accept the UN resolution”, and said Libya declared an immediate ceasefire and the “stoppage of all military operations to protect civilians” in accordance with the UN resolution, this while Reuters reported that Misrata was still under attack.
Then yesterday Gaddafi decided that he did not accept the UN resolution after all and his spokesman told a press conference, “The Security Council has no right to interfere. Who gave you the right to interfere in our internal affairs? You will regret it.” Yet another threat.
That last warning did not seem to worry the UN members meeting in Paris and Sarkozy said that the air force is already in Libya to stop attacks on its people and that aircraft are ready to intervene against tanks being deployed against the Libyan population. He said all those at the meeting including the US, Germany and the Arab League agreed on the action to be taken.
However, it is still not clear on whether the action coming so late is going to have the desired effect.
The world is still reeling from the humanitarian disaster all around us. Nine days after the 9.0 magnitude earthquake and horrific tsunami, Japan and the rest of us are on tenterhooks waiting and hoping that the nuclear crisis is resolved.
The current crisis is being seen as on a par with the 1979 crisis at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island, deemed the worst nuclear accident in the US, where the accident was a partial core meltdown in one of the units.
According to the latest figures, 7,000 people are dead and about 11, 000 are missing. Millions of survivors have been left without water, electricity, fuel or enough food and hundreds of thousands more are homeless.
Meanwhile, we are all waiting to see what Gaddafi will be up to next. Then we have continuing protests in Bahrain, where UN human rights chief, Navi Pillay, has condemned the “shocking” use of force by security forces and in Yemen where a state of emergency has been declared and protestors are also being killed and injured.
The governments there, like Saif in Libya, are saying it is untrue that protestors are being killed and injured by security forces. Although it must be said that the rulers in Bahrain, Yemen and Saudi Arabia are not getting the same stick from the West.
Troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates moved into Bahrain on Monday to “protect the safety of citizens,” the Bahraini government said. The troops arrived under the banner of the Gulf Cooperation Council, an association of six Gulf Arab states.
Further on, in another part of the world, we have read reports about the shelling of an Abidjan market by Ivory Coast security forces which killed at least 25 people and like in the Middle East, allies of disputed President Laurent Gbagbo have denied UN claims they fired the shells.
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