Don’t let Libya burn

Malta should speak out loud for a United Nations’ peace keeping intervention.

Michael Briguglio 26 February 2011, 12:00am

2 min read

The current situation in the Arab world is truly inspirational. Those struggling for social change are making history, showing us that the future is unwritten. As a Green activist and sociologist, I cannot but express my strong admiration for those active against oppressive tyrants in the countries concerned. My hope is that these countries will be transformed into secular democracies.

In its annual general meeting held on Saturday, Alternattiva Demokratika members approved a resolution on the situation in Libya, and we shall also be presenting a similar resolution in the upcoming European Green Party congress in Budapest in a few weeks’ time.

We Greens noted that Libya is being run by a heartless dictator who is treating human lives with the utmost disrespect. Many European countries, including Malta and other members of the European Union acted in a hypocritical manner and were ultimately accomplice in the arming of the Libyan forces and legitimisation of the Gaddafi regime which is now committing genocide on their people; consequently, thousands of people are expected to flee the country, so as to seek refuge from the brutality.

We also noted that a good number of EU member states, contrary to the will of the European Parliament and the European Commission, have upheld their egoistic attitude and refused to accept the proposal of responsibility sharing of refugees from Libya and other countries with similar situations.

We resolved that we support secular democratic opposition forces in Libya, and that the Maltese Government, together with other like-minded governments should insist with the EU, if it truly believes in the principle of solidarity, for an immediate implementable plan, whereby the 27 EU member states give hospitality and share equally and in a just way amongst themselves those people fleeing from the coast of Africa towards the European Union in order to seek refugee status.

Finally, we also resolved that the Maltese Government should the United Nations to send a peace-keeping mission to Libya, with humanitarian intentions. With murderous dictator Gaddafi threatening to bring about bloodshed, we cannot sit on the fence and risk having another Rwanda or Kosovo. Unfortunately, other political parties in Malta do not share the same opinion.

Indeed, as the Gaddafi regime keeps its murderous frenzy going, the PNPL duopoly and their satellites remain on talk-strike, and the few statements they made confirm how pathetic they are. How significant, when they are usually everywhere, suffocating Maltese society! How hypocritical from the wannabe guardians of morality and the wannabe progressives!

On the other hand I express my admiration for progressive NGOs like Moviment Graffitti and Zminijietna for speaking out clearly on the Libya issue. Government Ministries, AirMalta and Virtu’ Ferries should also be praised for their efforts to help people evacuate from Libya.Let’s not let Libya burn! Malta should speak out loud for a United Nations’ peace keeping intervention.

Michael Briguglio is a sociologist and senior lecturer at the University of Malta

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All those making a fuss about Malta's neutrality have to realise that by not cooperating in actions - of whatever nature - against Gaddafi, Malta would not be neutral. It would be siding with Gaddafi. . Sometimes it's not only immoral, it's impossible to stay on the sidelines. This is a case in point where there are only two options: for or against the dictator.

duncan abela •

Malta should be proud of its role in offering humanitarian aid to those foreign workers who were evacuated from Libya. We are doing a very ogod job and our Foreign Ministry deserve all our praise and that of foreign governments for their effort. However under no circumstance should we get involved or become a staging post if the Western Powers were to decide under whatever pretext to engage in any military action on Libyan soil. Besides being a gross infringement of our state of neutrality as enshrined in our constitution it would be an act disdained and never be forgotten or forgiven by our Libyan neighbours. The Libyans are a proud race who after seeing half the nation massacred by a former colonialist power, the last thing they would tolerate are foreing troops or meddling in their internal affairs by Western powers. This would be seen as resurrecting colonial memories and perceived as an invasion to steal their oil resources. Whilst Ghaddafi will probably eventually go peace and progress can only be achieved through internal mediation and agreements between the various tribal leaders and the leaders of the various internal institutions. Otherwise it will just be anarchy and a state of instability.Perhaps there is also a role for the son of the former king to play a unifying role.

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Muchael how much longer are you going to keep spinning your wheels on foreign affairs which you know nothing about. To be precise if you want to be taken seriously as a legitimate political party in Malta why don't you focus on Malta's internal problems rather than repeatedly promoting interference in the interior affairs of other countries. Rest assired that if Ghaddafi insists on cleansing Libya of his political enemies, then the UN would have no choice but to intervene militarily like it did in the past in other countries. So wake up to the real world and focus instead on the repercussions that could hit Malta if the EU went to war in Libya on the directives of the UN, because Malta is part of the EU.

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"We resolved that we support secular democratic opposition forces in Libya, and that the Maltese Government, together with other like-minded governments should insist with the EU, if it truly believes in the principle of solidarity, for an immediate implementable plan, whereby the 27 EU member states give hospitality and share equally and in a just way amongst themselves those people fleeing from the coast of Africa towards the European Union in order to seek refugee status." Why not just let them in? If it were possible for all of the six million Libyans to flee their country, at the same time, they would count to about 1.2% of the EU population. One-point-two percent! Imagine that! A statistically insignificant number! This is a human tragedy, tragically turned into a game of Maltese political football. Sad!

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How can you have a peace-keeping force when there is no peace to keep? It has been said many times but bears repeating: the UN will not intervene in an ongoing conflict and, strange as it may seem, will only send soldiers when the fighting has stopped. . At any rate, I am not sure it would be a good idea to have direct military intervention at this point (except perhaps to provide air cover). As I wrote on Daphne Caruana Galizia’s blog, “this is something that Libyans need to do for themselves. They are paying a very high price but it will be written in history books that the Libyan people themselves fought for and achieved their freedom. This is not WW2 and they cannot be liberated by foreign armies.”