France and Italy share strong ties with Libya's Gadhafi

 

Italy and France are nervously eyeing developments in Libya

France and Italy have condemned Libya's violent repression of anti-regime protests, but both European nations have a lot at stake when it comes to the oil-rich country. DW takes a look at relations between the nations.

 

As the Libyan regime comes under pressure, so too do the country's northern partners. Both the French and Italian governments share lucrative economic ties with Libya.

The two European Union members have come out against Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's use of force to crush protests, with French President Nicolas Sarkozy calling for an "immediate halt" to the violence.

Yet questions remain in both countries as to how unrest - and a potential toppling of Gadhafi's regime - could affect national interests.

'Reparations' for immigrant control

Rome's relations with Tripoli are primarily influenced by Italy's dependence Libya to stem illegal immigration from Africa. The two countries' coast guards cooperate in detaining undocumented migrants in the Mediterranean and sending them back to their countries of origin.

Berlusconi signed a friendship treaty with Gadhafi in 2008

Libya's role in keeping out unwanted migrants is worth as much as $5 billion (3.7 billion euros) to Italy, which the latter pledged to invest in Libya's infrastructure over the next 25 years as "reparations" for its bloody 1911-43 colonial rule.

The funds had been earmarked to construct, among other things, a coastline highway in the North African country.

The Italo-Libyan anti-immigration practices agreed to by Gadhafi and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in their 2008 friendship treaty, violate the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. Yet so far only rights groups have raised protest.

Italian President Giorgio Napolitano has defended Gadhafi's questionable human rights record, saying he had heard Gadhafi "speak with great moderation and a sense of duty when it comes to the most difficult problems facing the African continent."

Italo-Libyan economic ties

Libya's friendship has also brought security to Italy's energy supply, and Italian energy group ENI has a large presence in the oil-rich nation.

Likewise, Gadhafi played a role in the Italian economy since the 1970s. Today, Libya has investments in Italian aircraft manufacturer Finmeccanica and Italy's second-largest bank, Unicredit.

Deceased Italian industrialist Giovanni Agnelli once defended selling shares of automaker Fiat to Gadhafi, claiming that having oil-rich nations invest in the West would deter them from raising oil prices to the West's detriment.

Italy is paying reparations in return for Libya keeping out illegal immigrants

A tent in Paris

In December 2007, a massive bedouin-style tent in central Paris became the symbol of France's conciliatory attitudes toward Libya.

Gadhafi ordered the tent be pitched in front of the Hotel Marigny, where important foreign guests to France are housed. He used it to receive guests during his stay, which he extended from three days to six.

French Secretary of State for Human Rights Rama Yade was outraged by Gadhafi's visit, saying France was "not a doormat for a leader - terrorist or no terrorist - on which to wipe his feet of the blood of his crimes."

Yet, by the time Gadhafi returned home, France had landed 10 billion euros in deals, including an atomic energy plant for Libya, a desalination plant, and 21 Airbus planes.

French Prime Minister Francois Fillon defended France's interest, making reference to five Bulgarian nurses released from Libyan custody a half a year earlier, after receiving death sentences on charges they spreading HIV to children.

"France is receiving Col. Gadhafi, because Col. Gadhafi liberated the Bulgarian nurses. And because Col. Gadhafi is campaigning for the reintegration of his country into the international community," he said, warning, "All those who want to lecture us should carefully weigh their words."

France's business deals with Libya are worth billions

The nurses were released under French pressure a day after Sarkozy and Gadhafi met in Tripoli to forge plans for the Franco-Libyan deals that were later signed in Paris.

France began cultivating its relationship with Libya in 2003, under Sarkozy's predecessor, Jacques Chirac. Chirac flew to Libya shortly after the United Nations lifted sanctions against the country.

During that visit with Gadhafi, Chirac demanded 170 million euros in reparations from Libya for the 1989 bombing of a French DC-10 jet, in which 170 were killed, including 53 French citizens.

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Oil prices spike in response to Libyan unrest

 

Gadhafi's son said civil war would "burn" Libya's oil wealth

Libya produces a sizeable chunk of the world's oil, and is Europe's third largest supplier. Oil prices jumped on Tuesday in response to the violence, and pressure is mounting on OPEC to free up more supplies.

 

The key oil benchmark prices in Europe and the US jumped to two-and-a-half-year highs on Tuesday, as the markets respond shakily to the escalating violence in Libya.

Brent Crude from the North Sea briefly hit $108.57 (79.44 euros) in morning trade, before dropping during the course of the day. Meanwhile, West Texas Intermediate's prices for future deliveries in April soared by almost seven dollars to $94.49 at one point in Tuesday trading. Most prices for imported oil on the European and US markets are based on these so-called benchmark indicators.

"It's like one of those Australian bushfires - once it takes hold, it's very difficult to put out," Michael Hewson, an analyst for CMC Markets said. "Until the situation in the Middle East settles down, you are going to have very wild price swings."

Libya is a major African oil producer and a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), exporting most of its oil to European countries like Italy, Germany, Spain and France.

German company Wintershall has reduced production in Libya and evacuated some staff

"I think [OPEC] should get involved soon, because we need some signals for the market," energy analyst for the German Institute for Economic Research, Claudia Kemfert, told Deutsche Welle. "Right now, if Libya was to stop oil production, we would lose 2 percent of the global oil supply."

Kemfert said that, while this figure may not be particularly high, OPEC would be well advised to increase production capacities in other member states, so as to calm the market's concerns over further unrest in the region hitting oil supplies elsewhere.

OPEC: we're watching, and we're ready

OPEC representative and United Arab Emirates energy minister Mohammad bin Dhaen al-Hamli said on Tuesday that the market was reacting to the violence in the Middle East, not to fundamentals, saying there was no need to free up extra oil supplies at present, despite the unrest in Libya.

The countries in OPEC "are watching the situation and [are] ready to act when necessary," Hamli said, adding that he was concerned about the Libyan situation in particular "because it is a member of OPEC and a major oil producer." The UAE minister made no reference to the moment when OPEC might deem it necessary to intervene.

OPEC says oil prices should stabilize without increasing supplies

The US Deputy Secretary of Energy, Daniel Poneman, who was attending the same producer-consumer meeting in Saudia Arabia as Hamli on Tuesday, also called for action from OPEC.

"All oil producers need to respond," Poneman said. "Expect all of them to respond." And he added that rising crude prices could jeopardize economic recovery.

OPEC's spare capacity of up to 6 million barrels of oil easily covers Libya's daily production of roughly 1.6 million barrels, and most analysts are attributing the surge in market prices to concerns that the unrest might spread to bigger oil-producers in the region like Algeria, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.

German oil supply safe, but trade with Libya in jeopardy

Oil accounts for almost 99 percent of Libyan exports to Germany; the wheat, olives, tomatoes, salt and chalk that the country also sells are of little interest to the German market. Libya is one of the top five oil importers, but its contribution is dwarfed by the German market's two main sources, Russia and the North Sea.

"There is no direct danger to the German oil supply because of the political unrest in the Middle East and North Africa," a spokeswoman for the Association of the German Petroleum Industry said on Tuesday.

Oil and natural gas supplies to Italy, Libya's largest customer, have been hit hard

Nevertheless, oil companies working in Libya are concerned about their short-term future there. European oil and gas firms like Shell, ENI, and German group Wintershall (an offshoot of the BASF chemical giant) started evacuating staff and scaling down production as a precautionary measure.

German imports to Libya, though of lesser value than the oil brought in, have been increasing in recent years, thanks to several major state contracts. Machine tools, often connected to the oil industry, accounted for much of the surge in trade between 2008 and 2009, when import figures doubled.

Gadhafi's tight control over Libyan affairs helps explain such statistical anomalies, according to Friedrich Wagner, the Africa representative for the German Engineering Federation (VDMA).

"Obviously, our trade with Libya is heavily dependent on state contracts. The Libyan economy is a government-run economy, and it's dependent on investment decisions made by the government," Wagner said.

If the current unrest in Libya persists, such trade could soon come to a halt, at least temporarily. German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle on Tuesday raised the specter of sanctions against Moammar Gadhafi's regime if it continued to violently suppress opposition protests, saying financial penalties would be "unavoidable" unless the government in Tripoli changed its ways.

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World powers send mixed messages on military action against Gadhafi

World powers send mixed messages on military action against Gadhafi

 

Rebels have faced renewed attacks from Gadhafi loyalists

Amid fresh raids on rebel strongholds, Britain and France are ready to push for a no-fly zone if attacks by Gadhafi's troops against his own people continue. But Germany opposes any foreign military intervention.

 

The French and British foreign ministers told Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi on Thursday they would press for the imposition of a no-fly zone if attacks against his country's citizens continued. 

Rebels, who control large swathes of the country, have called for foreign air strikes against what they said were foreign mercenaries fighting for Gadhafi.

The Anglo-French warning came after talks in Paris between French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe and his British counterpart, William Hague. Britain and France want Gadhafi to stand down and were working on "bold and ambitious" proposals to put to a European Union leaders' meeting on Libya next week, the two ministers told reporters.

British Prime Minister David Cameron has said his country is considering plans for a military no-fly zone. France's Juppe said such an option could and should be considered but only if it was endorsed by a UN Security Council decision.

Westerwelle said military intervention in Libya would be 'counterproductive'"France, for its part, does not think that in the current circumstances military intervention, NATO forces, would be welcomed in the south of the Mediterranean and could be counterproductive," Juppe said.

"That said, given the threats from Colonel Gadhafi, we have to be in a position to react and that is why we agreed to plans for a no-fly zone over Libya," he added.

Berlin rejects foreign military intervention

Meanwhile, Germany is against any foreign military intervention in Libya, Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said on Thursday.

"We do not participate, and we do not share a discussion of military intervention, because we think this would be very counterproductive," Westerwelle said at a meeting of central European foreign ministers in Slovakia.

"We want to see the (Gadhafi) family isolated," he added, without further explanation.

Westerwelle said the situation was not ripe to decide on imposing a no-fly zone over Libya.   "We are at the moment not in the situation to decide this .... we have many thousands of foreign citizens and we want to fly them out, this is the first point," he told reporters. He added it was crucial that any such decision is discussed in the United Nations.

Rebels patrol the area around Brega in tanks

Obama weighs options

In the United States, President Barack Obama publicly called on Gadhafi to stand down. He said he had asked his military and diplomatic advisers to examine "a full range of options" including a no-fly zone.

"We will continue to send a clear message: The violence must stop. Moammar Gadhafi has lost the legitimacy to lead and he must leave," Obama said.

Obama offered US aircraft to help move Egyptians stranded at the Libyan border with Tunisia and to aid refugees fleeing Libya. French and British aircraft have already been taking part in an international airlift and more airplanes and ships are due from other EU nations.

ICC investigates Gadhafi

In The Hague, the International Criminal Court (ICC) said on Thursday it will investigate Gadhafi, his sons and members of their inner circle for crimes committed by their security forces.

Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said no one had the authority to massacre civilians after a bloody crackdown on demonstrators against Gadhafi's rule in which possibly thousands have died.

He said the court had identified several people at the top of the command chain who could be investigated. "They are Moammar Gadhafi, his inner circle, including some of his sons, who had this de facto authority. There are also some people with formal authority who should pay attention to crimes committed by their people."

The ICC is to investigate Gadhafi for crimes against humanityThe United Nations Security Council imposed sanctions on Gadhafi and his family last Saturday, and referred Libya's crackdown on demonstrators to the court.

Gadhafi has vowed to stay in Libya and fight to the death since protests against his 41-year rule began in mid February, inspired by the popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt that ousted longstanding authoritarian rulers.

On the ground, in Libya's east, witnesses said a warplane for a second day bombed the oil terminal town Brega, 800 km (500 miles) east of Tripoli.

But events appeared to turn against Gadhafi, as rebels spearheading the unprecedented popular revolt pushed their frontline against government loyalists west of Brega, where they had repulsed an attack a day earlier.

The opposition fighters said troops loyal to Gadhafi had been driven back to Ras Lanuf, home to another major oil terminal and 600 km (375 miles) east of Tripoli.

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Analysts remain skeptical about plans for a no-fly zone

 

Analysts say imposing a no-fly zone would entail a huge military operation

As world powers consider imposing a no-fly zone over Libya, analysts say the measure, though part of NATO's range of capabilities, is controversial and fraught with risk.

 

Ibrahim Dabbashi, Libya's deputy United Nations ambassador, was one of the first to denounce leader Moammar Gadhafi and call for a no-fly zone over Libya. In an emotional speech, he spoke of the beginning of a genocide in his country which could only be halted through military intervention by the international community. But just how realistic is that option?

Carlo Massala, political analyst at the German army or Bundeswehr university in Munich pointed to a 2005 UN General Assembly meeting that committed itself to protect civilian lives. 

"The international community has a responsibility to protect people in every place where a massacre is being committed against a civilian population with genocide-like tendencies," Massala said, citing the 2005 resolution.

NATO members divided

But experts remain divided over whether the atrocities being committed in Libya amount to genocide. Besides, some say, the international community has so far been extremely hesitant in acting on its commitment to protect lives.

Will a no-fly zone be able to effectively halt the fighting in Libya?

"Compared to what happened in Darfur a few years ago, Libya is still – though it sounds cynical – relatively harmless," Massala said. "And still, we didn't intervene in Darfur. Nations usually only intervene when they want to protect their own interests and not because of a higher obligation under international law to intervene."

The imposition of a no-fly zone or any far-reaching military intervention would require a clear mandate from the UN Security Council. Last week, the world body agreed on sanctions against Libya. But it remains doubtful whether it will show the same unity when it comes to a military intervention in Libya, even in the form of a no-fly zone.

China or Russia are likely to use their veto power to shoot down such a move. And then the West would be forced to act without a UN mandate.

‘A complex affair'

But doubts are also emerging among members of NATO, which alone has the military means, about imposing a no-fly zone over Libya.

Turkey remains firmly opposed to such a move whereas France and Germany are still hesitant. Henning Riecke, security policy expert at the German Council on Foreign Relations is equally skeptical:

"A no-fly zone is such a complex affair that it's unlikely to be set up soon," Riecke said. "NATO would be capable of imposing such a no-fly zone. But the question is how long should it stay, how large an operation it will entail and what exactly the UN mandate will include."

A no-fly zone is certainly part of a revamped NATO's range of military capabilities. With its "NATO Response Force", the security body now has a mobile force which can be deployed even outside Europe within a week, with up to 14,000 troops.

But any Libya operation carries special geopolitical risks. The desert nation is about five times the size of Germany. To monitor its vast territory from the air would require between 100 and 150 flights a day. Even NATO would be not be capable of sustaining that over a long period of time.

Analysts also doubt whether the imposition of a no-fly zone would be effective in ending the bloodshed in Libya.

"I think that no-fly zones would have no direct effect on the battles between Gadhafi's troops and rebel forces," Riecke said. "That means you would set the ball rolling on a very complex operation with very limited consequences for the actual fighting in the country."

Mixed record on no-fly zones

The international community does have some experience with no-fly zones. In 1991, it imposed one over northern Iraq to protect the Kurdish population from Saddam Hussein's air force. And in the mid-1990s, a no-fly zone was imposed due to a UN mandate in Bosnia-Herzegovina. But even in that case, it didn't suffice to prevent the massacre of more than eight thousand civilians in Srebrenica.

A humanitarian crisis is unfolding on Libya's borders

Analysts believe that in the present case in Libya, ground troops would be eventually required to effectively stop the murderous campaign by Gadhafi's militias against the country's opposition.

Many believe that the most likely military intervention will be in the form of a humanitarian relief operation for the hundreds of thousands of refugees who have fled to Libya's borders. For example, using cargo planes to transport tents, food and medicines to the refugee camps.

The fear now is that Libya's neighbors, Algeria and Egypt, will be prompted to send their own troops into the country to cope with the swelling tide of refugees.

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Bahrain protesters refuse dialogue unless government resigns

 

Protesters want the government to resign

In Bahrain, protests are going into the third week. Demonstrators want political and economic reforms, urging the king to improve living conditions for the minority Shiites who feel disadvantaged.

 

Thousands of people took to the streets again in Bahrain's capital Manama Tuesday to protest against the rule of King Hamad bin Issa el Khalifa. "We are brothers, Sunnis and Shiites," they chanted, making it the third week of protests in the kingdom with roughly one million inhabitants.

King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa's rule represses the Shiite majority, say the protesters

The majority of demonstrators are Shiites who feel repressed by the Sunni king and Sunni ruling elite. They claim they are shut out of good jobs, decent healthcare and housing.

Civil disobedience

Protesters on Pearl Square in central Manama also called for the start of a civil disobedience campaign to increase pressure on the ruling elite to implement swift democratic reforms in the Gulf Arab state. The protests also started to spread into other parts of the city.

"The purpose of civil disobedience is to put huge pressure on the regime," said one protester, addressing the crowd on Pearl Square, "and forcing it to follow through with the demands of the protesters."

Since the start of the protests, there has been no formal dialogue between the government and the Muslim Shiite opposition. 

The king has pardoned political prisoners, reshuffled the cabinet, increased housing allowances and appointed the crown prince to lead a national dialogue with the opposition.

No dialogue

But the opposition has rejected the king's offer for dialogue, with protesters on Tuesday waving banners that read "No dialogue - the people want the fall of the regime."

Several hundred people have been wounded since protests began over two weeks ago

Seven people have been killed and hundreds wounded since protests began in Bahrain more than two weeks ago. Members of the Shiite Wefaq bloc quit parliament on Thursday over protester deaths at nearby Pearl Square, where demonstrators have since camped out to increase the pressure on the rulers.

But parliament has little power and the cabinet is appointed by the king. Most ministers are from the royal family. "There's one family ruling the country, in sports, politics and economics, everything is controlled by the royal family," said Ali Ibrahim, a protester. "The government needs to be elected," he said.

Tens of thousands of pro-government supporters have also taken to the streets in recent days, saying that reforms launched by Bahrain's king 10 years ago have resulted in a situation of freedom and democracy which is unique in the Gulf Arab region.

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UN Security Council unanimously passes sanctions against Gadhafi

Much of eastern Libya is no longer controlled by Gadhafi

The UN Security Council has adopted measures against Moammar Gadhafi's regime in Libya over its attempts to crush a popular uprising. The sanctions were passed in New York by a unanimous vote.

The United Nations Security Council passed a resolution against Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi late Saturday in a bid to halt his bloody crackdown on opposition protesters.

The resolution, unanimously adopted by all 15 nations on the Council, calls for an arms embargo, assets freeze and a travel ban on Gadhafi, four of his sons and a daughter. It also demands Gadhafi be referred to the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity.

"Today the Council has sent out a clear and strong message," Germany's ambassador to the UN, Peter Wittig, said in his address to the Council after the vote. "The international community will not tolerate the gross and systematic violation of human rights by the Libyan regime."

Wittig added that the "unanimous referral of the situation in Libya to the International Criminal Court demonstrates our resolve not to allow impunity."

Wittig told the Council Gadhafi had to be brought to justice

"This is a clear warning to those who perpetrate systematic attacks against the civilian population that they will be held accountable," he said. 

A thousand dead

The UN estimates more than 1,000 people have died in the 10-day-old revolt.

But Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday warned that sanctions would do more harm to Libya’s people than to Colonel Gadhafi. 

"We call on the international community to act with conscience, justice, laws and universal humane values — not out of oil concerns," Erdogan said. 

Germany, Britain want tough sanctions

In a telephone conversation earlier Saturday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister David Cameron agreed on the need for urgent United Nations sanctions, the German government's deputy spokesman, Christoph Steegmans, said in a statement.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle told Sunday newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung that "a ruling family that wages such brutal war against its own people is finished."

"The dictator cannot stay," Westerwelle said.

On Friday, US President Barack Obama signed an executive order freezing the assets of Gaddafi, members of his family and senior officials. The president said he was also seizing Libyan state property in the US, to prevent it being misappropriated by Tripoli.

Caretaker government

As the UN moved to sanction Gadhafi's regime, a forming caretaker government in the liberated, second city of Benghazi received growing support from Libya's diplomats.

Libya's former Justice Minister Mustafa Abdel Jalil said he was assembling a new government to lead the country for three months to prepare for elections.

Libya's deputy UN ambassador said his delegation supported the caretaker government "in principle."

"We are seeking more information about it, but yes, I think we support it," he said.

Protesters want Gadhafi to step down

Foreigners being evacuated

Meanwhile, in the wake of continued violence, thousands of foreign nationals continue to be evacuated from Libya by air, sea and land.

On Saturday, two British military transport aircraft picked up about 150 foreign nationals in the desert south of Benghazi, and flew them to the Mediterranean island of Malta.

Much of Libya, especially the east, is now controlled by anti-Gadhafi forces but the Libyan leader remains in control of the capital Tripoli.

Thousands of people, mostly economic migrants, have fled north Africa, headed for Europe in search of a better life.

In response to the exodus of migrants, Chancellor Angela Merkel said Saturday that it was in Germany's interest to invest in development projects to help establish stability and democracy there and thus prevent migration.

"We want to live in a world in which there are more and more democratic and stable structures, and people do not feel the need to leave their own countries and apply for asylum here, for example," Merkel said in her weekly video podcast.

Emotional speech

In an emotional address on Friday, the Libyan ambassador to the UN, Mohammed Shalgham urged the UN Security Council to act against the "atrocities," comparing Gadhafi to Khmer Rouge despot Pol Pot, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.

"I tell my brother Gadhafi - leave the Libyans alone," he said. "Please, the United Nations, save Libya. Let there be no bloodshed, no killing of innocents. We want a decisive, rapid and courageous resolution from you," Shalgham, a former childhood friend of Gadhafi, said.

Foreign nationals are being evacuated from Libya

Gadhafi's strongest European ally, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, said in Rome on Saturday that he no longer appeared to be in control of Libya.

"It seems that effectively Gadhafi no longer controls the situation in Libya... If we can all come to an agreement, we can end this bloodbath and support the Libyan people," Berlusconi said.

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