Maurizio Molinari: How Muammar al-Qaddafi Hoodwinked Italy for Decades
[Maurizio Molinari is the U.S. correspondent of La Stampa.]
In each of my three conversations with Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi throughout the 1990s, one theme prevailed: the Libyan leader's contempt for my country. Listening to his verbose condemnation of Italian colonialism was the price I paid to ask my own questions -- no matter the supposed topic of the interview. In one encounter, in the middle of the night under a tent in the Sirte desert, he bemoaned Libya's exploitation at Italian hands; at noon near the sand dunes just outside Tripoli, he blamed his country's troubles on Rome. Now, with his regime on edge, he is again blaming outsiders for Libya's ills. The protests, he said in a Feb. 22 address, were sparked by malevolent foreigners who were giving the demonstrators drugs. He accused the Italians -- along with the Americans -- of having delivered shoulder-launched rocket-propelled grenades to the rebel forces....
At the beginning of his rule in 1969, Qaddafi's beef with Italy may have been justified. Like Britain and France elsewhere in Africa, Italy had occupied the country, sometimes brutally, beginning in 1911. After World War I, 30,000 Italian settlers were given farmland, taken away from local cultivators. When Benito Mussolini came to power in Italy, he ordered his forces to crush the fledgling Libyan resistance using any and all means. Untold numbers were killed, forced to migrate, or shoved into concentration camps. It wasn't until after World War II that Libya became independent again.
Libya was reborn in 1951 as a monarchy under King Idris, who was overthrown by the coup d'état that brought Qaddafi to power. A disciple of the anti-colonialism preached by Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser, Qaddafi found in Italy the perfect enemy. In 1970, less than a year after coming to power, he expelled every Italian living in the country -- more than 20,000 people -- and seized all their assets.
Qaddafi's hatred for Italy escalated into distaste for the entire West. He became a seemingly indiscriminate supporter of anti-Western militancy and terrorism. He funded and trained the Red Army Faction, the Red Brigades, and the Irish Republican Army. He also carried out his own attacks against targets such as Berlin's La Belle nightclub in 1986 and the Pan Am Flight 103 jumbo jet that exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, killing 270 people.
Yet throughout this period, Italy-Libya relations remained solid....
Read entire article at Foreign Policy
In each of my three conversations with Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi throughout the 1990s, one theme prevailed: the Libyan leader's contempt for my country. Listening to his verbose condemnation of Italian colonialism was the price I paid to ask my own questions -- no matter the supposed topic of the interview. In one encounter, in the middle of the night under a tent in the Sirte desert, he bemoaned Libya's exploitation at Italian hands; at noon near the sand dunes just outside Tripoli, he blamed his country's troubles on Rome. Now, with his regime on edge, he is again blaming outsiders for Libya's ills. The protests, he said in a Feb. 22 address, were sparked by malevolent foreigners who were giving the demonstrators drugs. He accused the Italians -- along with the Americans -- of having delivered shoulder-launched rocket-propelled grenades to the rebel forces....
At the beginning of his rule in 1969, Qaddafi's beef with Italy may have been justified. Like Britain and France elsewhere in Africa, Italy had occupied the country, sometimes brutally, beginning in 1911. After World War I, 30,000 Italian settlers were given farmland, taken away from local cultivators. When Benito Mussolini came to power in Italy, he ordered his forces to crush the fledgling Libyan resistance using any and all means. Untold numbers were killed, forced to migrate, or shoved into concentration camps. It wasn't until after World War II that Libya became independent again.
Libya was reborn in 1951 as a monarchy under King Idris, who was overthrown by the coup d'état that brought Qaddafi to power. A disciple of the anti-colonialism preached by Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser, Qaddafi found in Italy the perfect enemy. In 1970, less than a year after coming to power, he expelled every Italian living in the country -- more than 20,000 people -- and seized all their assets.
Qaddafi's hatred for Italy escalated into distaste for the entire West. He became a seemingly indiscriminate supporter of anti-Western militancy and terrorism. He funded and trained the Red Army Faction, the Red Brigades, and the Irish Republican Army. He also carried out his own attacks against targets such as Berlin's La Belle nightclub in 1986 and the Pan Am Flight 103 jumbo jet that exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, killing 270 people.
Yet throughout this period, Italy-Libya relations remained solid....