inside the glass house

Qaddafi: Mr. Bad Guy no more
NEW YORK -- How do you reward a one-time "rogue nation" after it decides to abandon plans to develop weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and join the Western political mainstream? Smother the country with conventional weapons?

Paradoxically, that's exactly what the European Union and the United States are planning to do as a gesture of goodwill to Libya's unpredictable leader Muammar Qaddafi who has come clean on his nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

The Western world has long castigated Qaddafi for running a repressive regime characterised by every known human rights violation in the Anglo-Saxon rule book.

Last year it even blasted the Human Rights Commission in Geneva for offering the chairmanship to Libya described as "a country with a dreadful record on human rights."

The State Department still has Libya on its list of countries designated as "terrorist states" -- in the company of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, North Korea and Cuba.

The European Union has long had a policy of denying weapons to countries accused of human rights abuses – even though the US has continued to make exceptions by selling arms to authoritarian regimes it considers "close allies".

Since Libya's "repressive regime" still remains the same by Western standards, how does one account for a sudden change of heart by EU on arms sales to Qaddafi?

The answer is predictable: the oil blessed Libya which has been starved of conventional weapons because of military sanctions is ripe for picking.

And Western nations are willing to abandon their so-called human rights principles to jump in and grab a share of the potential multi-million dollar arms market in Libya.

Led by Britain and Italy, the EU is considering a proposal to lift the decades-old military sanctions on Libya to reciprocate Qaddafi's much-publicised gesture.

So Libya, which is giving up its nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, will soon be compensated with other forms of lethal equipment, including fighter planes, fast patrol boats, missiles and battle tanks.

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi are the first two Western leaders to meet with Qaddafi in Tripoli. Both countries are also negotiating arms deals with Libya. British Prime Minister Tony Blair's proposed trip to Libya is also linked to possible arms sales and military aid to Libyans.

"We are looking forward to an end to the EU arms embargo as soon as that can be agreed within the EU," British foreign secretary Jack Straw told reporters last month.

Frida Berrigan, senior research associate at the World Policy Institute's Arms Trade Resource Centre, is appalled by the hypocrisy. "Can nations metamorphosize from pariah states to valued partners overnight?" she asked. "When looking at US weapons export policy, the answer is yes."

Libya should be compensated for laying aside its WMD programmes, but arms sales and military aid are not fitting rewards, she adds.

As and when countries join the US-led war on terrorism, the Bush administration has rewarded some of the former rogue nations and repressive regimes -- including Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Azerbaijan -- with weapons and military aid.

The move on the part of the UK and the US to lift economic sanctions against Libya is likely to be similar.

The US imposed its economic and military embargo in 1981 penalising Libya for fomenting international terrorism. The UN imposed its sanctions in 1992 following the December 1988 mid-air explosion of a PanAm jet over Lockerbie, Scotland, which claimed the lives of 270 passengers. The Libyans were accused of complicity in that bombing.

The Bush administration has already eased sanctions on US oil companies investing in Libyan oil projects, and has said it plans to lift both economic and military sanctions.

The UN Security Council lifted its sanctions in September last year following Libya's decision to pay some $2.7 billion in compensation to families of the victims of the Pan Am bombing.

With a population of about 5.7 million, Libya spends over $1.5 billion annually on its military budget. Late last year, the Libyan government began negotiations with Italy for the purchase of communications systems, fast patrol boats and night vision technology.

As'ad AbuKhalil, professor of politics at California State University, says "the new opening towards Libya underscores the hollowness of US and UK rhetoric on democracy in the Middle East." In fact, he said, it serves to reveal the true motives of US foreign policy in the Middle East.

"What the United States demands is not democracy or respect for human rights but submission to US will and dictates," AbuKhalil said.

The Libyan media, he said, have already changed their tune. "The plight of the Palestinians are no more urgent for Qaddafi, who is busy preparing for the visit by Tony Blair, and later by President George Bush himself."

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