LIBYA: Making Italians pay $5 billion for their colonial past
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Is Italy really trying to clear its conscience for its colonial past? Last weekend, the Italian government made a generous offer to Libya to redeem itself for decades of military occupation.
According to the terms of a ‘friendship and cooperation’ deal sealed Saturday between the European country and the oil-rich North African nation, Italy will invest $200 million a year during the next 25 years in infrastructure projects in Libya. The deal also calls for student grants and pensions for Libyan soldiers who served alongside Italians during World War II.
Other European nations with colonial pasts, including France, Britain and the Netherlands, carry out developmental projects in African and Asian countries they once colonized.
But Italy made a point of framing its assistance to Libya as an apology for colonizing the country in the 1930s before it won its independence in 1951.
As he signed the accord, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi told reporters during a visit Saturday to the second-largest Libyan city, Benghazi:
This agreement should put an end to 40 years of discord. It is a concrete and moral acknowledgment of the damage inflicted on Libya by Italy during the colonial era.
But some wonder whether economic self-interest, and not morality, is a major underlying reason for the agreement.
In an interview with a local Libyan newspaper published Saturday, Berlusconi said the accord, which took years to become concrete, would turn a new leaf between the two countries:
The friendship and cooperation agreement that we will sign on Saturday opens all avenues for the consolidation of our economic and social partnership and will increase cooperation between the two countries.
The Italians also need Libyan cooperation to help them curtail illegal immigration from Africa to Europe. Thousands of impoverished African nationals make the perilous boat trip across the Mediterranean to the Italian coast, often after stopping off in Libya.
In June 2007, Berlusconi met with Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi to ask Libya to assist Italian maritime patrols in attempting to curb the flow of illegal immigrants to Italy.
In any case, the new deal marks another success for Kadafi, who has managed to guide his country out of international isolation after agreeing in 2003 to abandon efforts to build weapons of mass destruction.
Berlusconi’s visit coincided with the commemoration of the 1969 coup that brought Kadafi to power. In a pompous ceremony, Kadafi promised Monday to see that oil revenues go directly to the pockets of people:
You have to be ready, each Libyan will get directly his share of the oil money.... The implementation will start at the beginning of next year.... Corruption is linked to bureaucracy everywhere in the world. The solution to ending corruption is to end this administration which manages money spending, and put the money directly in people’s hands.
For decades, Kadafi was considered the enfant terrible of the Arab world and the West. He was often accused of fostering terrorism.
But the tides have turned for the Libyan leader, who has been controlling political and economic life in his country with an iron fist for almost 40 years.
Indeed, even strained U.S.-Libyan relations appear on the upswing. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is expected to make a historic visit to Libya this week after Kadafi agreed to compensate American victims of alleged Libyan attacks in the 1980s.
— Raed Rafei in Beirut