Gaddafi, the tyrant with blood still on his hands - 23.03.2004

23.03.2004 Robin Harris THE PRIME MINISTER is still keen to find the "earliest convenient" date to go to Tripoli and shake the Libyan dictator's bloodstained hand. Mr Blair should think again about his visit. As a ship carrying Libya's remaining nuclear weapons- related equipment was last night en route to America, it looked as if Colonel Gaddafi's offer to abandon his weapons programmes had provided the British Government with a rare diplomatic success. The allies believe that Libya can assist in the war against al-Qaeda, because Gaddafi now feels threatened by Islamists; and they hope that the Libyan example of surrendering WMD could prove catching. But current enthusiasm to reward Libya, by welcoming it back into international respectability and offering economic assistance, makes no strategic sense. Libya sued for peace because it had no alternative. The fate of Iraq demonstrated to Gaddafi the danger of his continuing pariah status. He could not continue with a weapons programme while evidence of them could precipitate an American attack. Libya deserves no favours. It is, indeed, necessary to do business with oppressive regimes, when clear national interest requires it — as was the case with the Soviet Union and China. It is also why we supported a secular Iraq, under Saddam, against a theocratic Iran, under the mullahs, in the 1980s — which is in itself a cautionary tale. Libya, anyway, has no such significance. Despite its oil wealth, it is an economic basket case. Gaddafi's incompetence has ruined the country and made a joke of his grandiose aspirations. Perhaps if his regime fell, it would be different. But with the West securing Gaddafi's position, Libya will remain one more sad footnote to the problem of Africa. Yet in the stakes of political wickedness Gaddafi's record can claim a certain prominence. His regime has systematically promoted terror inside and outside the country and the country still has no real political parties, no proper judicial institutions, and prisons that contain hundreds of political prisoners. Above all, Gaddafi's record of terror in Britain should give Mr Blair pause. True, the outrage of Lockerbie has, after a fashion, been resolved: a criminal conviction has supplemented blood money and a hazy apology has been grudgingly given. But in the case of the shooting of WPC Yvonne Fletcher outside the Libyan People's Bureau in 1984, justice remains undone. The observations of Gaddafi's own Prime Minister — quickly minimised by Downing Street — prove that the Libyans still have no shame for this outrage. British detectives have visited Libya in pursuit of those responsible, but to no avail. In any case, their proper destination should not be the back streets of Tripoli but rather the tent of Gaddafi himself. Gaddafi set up the Libyan People's Bureau in London and elsewhere to pursue violent revolutionary struggle. His thus transformed his country's embassies into bases for aggression, not diplomacy. In shooting at demonstrators and killing a British policewoman, the gunmen carried out a political remit which they had received from their leader. For that reason, some of us argued at the time that the Libyan suspects enjoyed no diplomatic immunity and should have been seized. Yet at least the name of Yvonne Fletcher is remembered — not so the victims of Gaddafi's support for terrorism in Northern Ireland. Libyan arms and explosives were used in a series of bloody attacks by the Provisional IRA in the 1980s — Eniskillen (11 dead), Ballygawley (eight dead), and many more. Former President Numeiri of Sudan, who had reason to know, once described Gaddafi as "a man with a split personality — both of them evil". Tony Blair should accept that assessment. _____________________ Robin Harris was special adviser to the Home Secretary in 1984. He is consultant director of the Politeia think-tank.