It took a civil war to end Britain's cosy relationship with Gaddafi
David Blackburn 6:32pm
After the Libyan blood money scandal at the LSE, inquiries were bound to be made about
other universities. Robert Halfon, the Conservative MP for Harlow, has exposed how
Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU)
agreed to contracts with Gaddafi’s Libya worth at least £1,272,000.00. (He has since been threatened with a defamation suit for pointing this out, but that’s for another time.)
He raised the issue in parliament and the Prime Minister replied:
‘I think that there are lessons to be learned. As I have said, I think that it was right (of the previous government) to respond to what Libya did in terms of weapons of mass destruction, but I do not think that the way in which that response was handled was right. Too much credulity was shown, particularly over issues such as that of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the man who was convicted of the biggest mass murder in British history. Universities will also want to ask themselves, as they are doing, some pretty searching questions about what they did.’
Indeed. Ever since Britain’s rapprochement with Gaddafi in 2004, it has been pens and pills for cash and oil. Few questions were asked of the Gaddafi regime because Whitehall and Downing Street were confident in its commitment to reform. At the government’s invitation, many British businesses, including universities, were involved.
Despite David Cameron’s protestations, the policy survived last year’s change of government. On the 27 May 2010, the UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) arm of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and the Business Department issued a report, Doing Business With Libya, presumably as part of the coalition’s commerce-driven foreign policy. Owing to Libya’s current strife, the initiative has been closed, but residual traces of it remain. UKTI planned to hold a ‘UK Libya Educational Cooperation Seminar and Exhibition’ at Al Fateh University in Tripoli on the 8 - 9 March 2011. The accompanying UKTI briefing note illustrates how private health and education providers were urged to contact FCO officials to ease negotiation with the Libyan government. In introductory passages that are now blackly hilarious, UKTI depicts Libya as a sort of nascent Singapore:
‘Libya is embarking on a major development programme to expand, upgrade and modernise its education and training sector…There are longstanding educational links between the UK and Libya and the British approach to education is widely respected and perceived to be of a high standard. The UK/Libya relationship is strengthened by Libya's thirst for English, now the second language of Libya.’
And what about the Libyan British Business Council (LBBC), which is closely associated with the FCO, the Business Department, DfID the British Council, members of the House of Lords and the Libyan Embassy in London? LBBC ‘devises and implements a programme of regular trade events’, offering its members ‘unique networking opportunities with Libya’s business and political elite.’ This year, LBBC was supposed to be taking a delegation to Tripoli between 11 and 13 April to discuss ‘investment opportunities in Libyan financial institutions’.
These organisations have been cruelly exposed by events. As one would expect, all of these seminars, jollies and networking parties have been cancelled and their future is very uncertain. The proverbial penny may have finally dropped, but the general naivety is still striking. Until Gaddafi turned on his own people, it was business as usual for Britain.
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Rhoda Klapp
March 28th, 2011 7:05pm Report this commentNever mind the hindsight, what dodgy business deals are we doing right now, and with whom? And which are just business, and which just plain wrong? Or is it in fact the case that in the absence of a state of war it is OK to do business in any country in the community of nations?
I find it a lot easier to ask those questions than answer them. I know for sure that if offered an opportunity in Libya I might have taken it. Possibly not for the secret police, but for any seemingly benevolent government agency. I did a piece of work in Tunisia without qualm, how was I to know it was some sort of evil regime, or was it?
Perry
March 28th, 2011 7:17pm Report this commentSTINKS!
And only the otto of BliarRose disguised it, - and a whole lot more.
Can the H2B expunge this pervasive ordure?
Can the H2B resist the pervasive reek of His Hero?
One need not hold one's breath.
TomTom
March 28th, 2011 7:20pm Report this commentThatcher wanted Universities more commercial and you cannot do better than Oxford with its Arms Dealer Business School and its DPhil in My Daddy Wrote The Constitution Rafsanjani, and whatever other I Have The Money Buy Me A Degree actions of Oxford University For Hire
yank
March 28th, 2011 7:27pm Report this commentA nice synopsis, Mr. Blackburn. And well done, bucking the Spectator's usual stance of Cameroonian fawning. The Cameroons are as dirty as any here.
And no different a situation over here in the US, I might add.
And why not? Is it truly dirty, in realpolitik terms? Remember, Khadaffi's nuclear program is currently resting down in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
Khadaffi has assisted in the slaughter of islamofascists in Iraq, perhaps sparing the lives of US and Brit servicemen, which we should all welcome, no matter our positions on all that.
Khadaffi puts the beatdown on islamofascists in his own country. I doubt many of us have much problem with that either.
Now given all of the above... why suddenly this massive effort to take down this one guy, with full knowledge that the tribal structure he fronts will remain in place?
What is gained, besides slaughter and death? Have the fools calculating all this "humanitarian war" business tabbed up the vats of blood, knowing precisely whose and how much blood will fill those vats, and when? And it all tabs up to "go" ?
Are their scales this precise?
Or are they merely scrambling for oil... this little drop of oil?
Such are the questions that must be demanded of the liberal interventionists.
What I don't like about this, is that the Obamabots have suddenly decided that liberal interventionism is suddenly in vogue again, and the Euros are all just jumping on board for the cash pile (they believe... but don't count your chickens before they peck your eyes out).
You can't spin on a dime, and suddenly abandon years worth of foreign policy initiative, on both sides of the Atlantic, and just start blazing away. This is madness.
This whole thing stinks.
TrevorsDen
March 28th, 2011 7:27pm Report this commentLord Malloch Brown said the same thing on QT a few weeks back.
We should take note - after all he should know about these things he was involved in the UN Oil For Food for non-scandal (and who says I don't do irony).
David Lindsay
March 28th, 2011 8:16pm Report this commentMost people probably thought that the whole point of the intervention in Libya was to aid the rebels. David Cameron clearly did. No doubt, so did Colonel Gaddafi. When he wins, as it looks more and more likely that he will, then he will not forget this.
Robert Halfon, agent of a foreign and essentially enemy power which recently stole the identities and forged the passports of several of our citizens, would do well to keep his own counsel on New Labour's links to Gaddafi, leaving that matter to those of us in any fit state to comment about the fact that the Brother Leader not only coined the phrase "the Third Way", but has always remained a key player both in its theoretical development and in its practical application.
Halfon is of course a supporter, both of a Party Leader and Prime Minister produced by and for that development and application, and of a state even more central to them.
Even without AV, every seat next time will be a new seat, and there will be fewer of them to fill than at present. Halfon and the rest of the hundred Likud MPs who have defrauded their electors by pretending to be Tories can expect to be among the casualties, as can the like-minded remnant across the way.
And as can that hugely overlapping category, the silly little Sloane boys and their silly little Sloane girlfriends whom Blair and Cameron have given seats as graduation presents.
On the Conservative side, it will vary by locality exactly who wields the knife. On the Labour side, the only variation will be as to which union does so in order to insist on one of its own serious, grown-up figures instead.
TomTom
March 28th, 2011 8:40pm Report this commentYank, isn't it Samantha Power that gets Obama to start a Third Muslim War concurrently ?
porkbelly
March 28th, 2011 9:22pm Report this commentThis could have been a really illuminating piece were it not for British libel laws, no doubt. You may depend on ranks closing before any real dirt gets out about who accepted what from whom in return for...
Fatbloke on tour
March 28th, 2011 9:23pm Report this commentDB
Any thoughts on some commenst on the more and more naked regime change agenda being put forward by the slimey threesome?
What right have we to make a song and dance about the internal politics of another country?
Why are we not so vocal about the situation in the Gulf with all their executive monarchies and lack of democracy.
If we are pushing for better democratic standards in Libya surely we should be pushing for better democratic standards throughout the region?
I fear the slimey threesome are getting ahead of themselves, the more they push in one direction for one country the more they leave themselves more exposed everywhere else.
More and more this is looking like Suez Mk2 with three countries conspiring to effect change in the North Africa through the use of force.
As I have mentioned earlier I think that with a large part of the oil infrastructure in rebel hands things will calm down a bit.
The US wants to leave with clean hands.
The Frogs and us don't have the money to re-position rubble.
Now the rebels can pay to feed their own refugee camps.
John Montague
March 28th, 2011 11:01pm Report this commentFatbloke
I'm sure you've familiar with Voltaire's crack about the best being the enemy of the good.
We can't always live up to the standards of behaviour we'd like to, we can't always push for the best, everywhere; that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to do good when the opportunity presents itself, especially when it suits us in other ways – namely securing some important oil and gas supplies and investments.
I wouldn't want any government to send our aircrews to risk their lives if it was not to protect and promote the interests of the people of this country, but I don't think any of our politicians would actually do that, although they might well deceive themselves about what those interests were, for personal advantage or out of vanity.
There's some pretty grim things going on in Libya. Gadafi's regime isn't just repressive like, say, Soviet Russia under Brezhnev was repressive. It's a terror regime. It kidnaps families to compel obedience. People just disappear in the middle of the night. Many of Gadafi's soldiers are being marched forward under threat of being killed.
Regime change was always the agenda. Clinton stated it, Hague said it, so has Sarko. To ask what right we have to make a song and dance about the internal politics of another country is to ignore that representatives of the population of that country called us in to protect them against professional soldiers killing civilians.
Please don't pretend that Gadafi had any legitimacy left. When a government shells just about every city along its coast at long range, with howitzers, to break the citizens' will to resist, it has given up all claims to represent them in any way, it has become an enemy of the people. Or are you saying that howitzer shells landing at random on people's homes can be construed as an attempt to win back hearts and minds?
The Benghazi council may not have been elected, but it has the support of Libyans across both tribe and class, right across the country, even in Tripoli itself. There will be splits and quarrels later, no doubt, but for now the great majority of the Libyan people are united in one goal; remove the tyrant.
Baron
March 28th, 2011 11:24pm Report this commentsomeone should be brave enough, smuggle the generous colonel into Britain where he could ask for political asylum, he would have strong human rights case, will fit well here, the country can do with his alleged stash of £80bn.
James
March 29th, 2011 12:07am Report this commentAn informative open letter by Professor John Keane asks David Held to explain further his links with Libya and to reconsider his reactions to a
dissimulator. Professor Keane raises an important question: Hasn't the LSE
Libya affair done damage to the scholarly credibility of research programs
in the area of democracy? Read the piece here http://johnkeane.net/52/news/libya-intellectuals-and-democracy-an-open-letter-to-professor-david-held
Grey
March 29th, 2011 12:16am Report this commentDoubtless it was shabby - but don't imagine that LSE or anyone else is going to return the money to a new Libya or be expected to return the money.
Nothing like the British to have it both ways, puff themselves up with moral outrage.....but keep the money, always keep the money.
Dimoto
March 29th, 2011 12:35am Report this commentCameron and Sarko have been at pains to insist: no invasion, the new government, how and whom the Libyans are to be governed by, is entirely a matter for the Libyans.
Then Hillary weighs in: the new government must be fully representative of women (that will go down well), and Admiral Gortney: the opposition to Ghaddafi are "not robust".
All it needs now, is for some genius in the White House to insist that everybody who served in the Ghaddafi regime must be purged.
Fergus Pickering
March 29th, 2011 8:03am Report this commentAny article that encourages the Fatbloke and the yank and David effing Lindsay to post at interminable length ought to have been spiked. What have we DONE to deserve these long-winded prats?
Verityred
March 29th, 2011 9:28am Report this commentIndeed Fergus, there are certain trigger subjects that flush out Fatty (Labour propaganda poodle) Yank (troll of some sort) and Lindsay (pants on head, pencils up each nostril crazy) from their smelly dens. This one has hit the rubbish jackpot, so all three appear in a puff of methane.
Chris lancashire
March 29th, 2011 9:32am Report this commentIt's OK Fergus, one glance at the author, the length of the post and the usually impenetrable first lines and the sane pass on to something more interesting.
PayDirt
March 29th, 2011 10:13am Report this commentJohn Montague: "especially when it suits us in other ways – namely securing some important oil and gas supplies and investments". But is the UK securing any oil and gas? Perhaps France is I don't know what deals Sarko is doing, I doubt it. Granted if the rebels eventually get to control some oil reserves they may feel obliged to their European supporters, but that will be very temporary. The oil and gas
will get put on the global market and China will pay top dollar (and probably throw in a nice lot of armaments for good measure).
Fatbloke on tour
March 29th, 2011 10:28am Report this commentMonty @ 11.01
Just because it suits our agenda doesn't make it right.
Whatever progress is being made on the ground is being generated at a cost of the UN's credibility and Nato's authority.
The NFZ route is now tarnished and the "protect the population" mantra has turned into a bad joke. When will these concepts be discussed in the UN without everyone searching for the hidden agenda?
We are currently trying to force the issue, pushing the rebels to a level of
ability that is currently beyond them.
MG over the past 6 weeks has been seen as something of a busted flush, all growl and little grunt. His forces have been effective out in the open but have struggled in towns.
However the "Burtons Commandos" are not any sort of an answer. We do not know who they are or what they will do next apart from the fact
that will be incapable of standing up to any organised threat. They are not a government in waiting just a human shield for external players with an agenda.
The bombing has only upped the death rate.
Continuing it will only pro-long the fighting and make it harder to sort out some sort of short term deal that will stabilise the situation and allow the medium to sort itself out.
A cavalry charge will only open up a vacuum.
Be careful what you wish for.
John Montague
March 29th, 2011 12:00pm Report this comment@fatbloke
The bombing has only upped the killing? Are you saying that the Libyans would have been better off living on their knees? In fact, even if the insurgency had crumbled, the repression would have been fierce, barbaric, taking whole families. Gadafi has done it before.
At the moment, the killing comes mostly from his shelling of cities, snipers and terror attacks rather than real military confrontation. The desertion rate from Gadafi's forces is huge, which is why the Benghazi mix of rag-tag volunteers and some professional units that have defected as a coherent group can push forward despite having mostly inadequate equipment.
Did you know that the RAF is patching into enemy radios and telling tank-crews to scuttle before their vehicle is hit? That way they can spread the news that sitting in armoured vehicles is pretty unsafe.
Neither the insurgency nor the alliance is seeking to kill the enemy in large numbers. The goal is to convince them that the regime is finished. Jamming communication, bombing fuel and munitions dumps, taking out command centres is a more effective strategy in this theatre.
John Montague
March 29th, 2011 1:49pm Report this comment@paydirt
The Chinese are more involved in the construction projects, although they may hope to get paid in oil. I admit that they and the Russians probably did not veto 1973 because they didn't want to run the risk of completely alienating the eventual victors who will control the national purse, but the alliance nations will be in a good position in the immediate future. Libya is going to be opening up for further exploration fast.
BP has already bought the licence to develop a huge gas field in Libya. Gadafi has threatened to nationalise investments should the oil price drop too far. He has armed the Janjaweed in Sudan. His aspirations are a factor destabilizing important investments and investment opportunities in quite a wide region. African oil, which does not have to transit through Russia, has a strategic value as well.
TomTom
March 29th, 2011 1:58pm Report this comment"aking out command centres is a more effective strategy in this theatre."
Without the US shield no doubt the Russians would be doing just this to Enfield and Birmingham and Liverpool....let's hope the US taxpayer continues to protect us
PayDirt
March 29th, 2011 2:47pm Report this commentChina is moving quickly: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_05/b4165044386657.htm
They started big time in Sudan a few years ago and are growing, not just construction.
John Montague
March 29th, 2011 3:01pm Report this comment@ TomTom
A Polish farmer rescues a magic frog from the jaws of a fox.
'I grant you three wishes, human' exclaims the grateful amphibian.
The Pole considers a while, then says 'I wish the Chinese would invade Poland, stay a while and then go home.'
'Granted' says the frog. 'Now, for your second wish'?
A glint appears in the farmer's eye. 'I wish the Chinese would invade Poland, stay a while and then go home.'
'All right, granted', says the slightly puzzled frog. 'And for your third wish'?
'I wish the Chinese would invade Poland, stay a while and then go home.' comes the instant reply.
'Granted' says the magic frog, 'but please tell me, why did you wish for the same thing three times'?
'Aha!' cackles the Pole, 'that way, they'll have to cross Russia six times'!
The Russians? Over Enfield? The Russian air force would suffer very heavily against British and allied European air defences. The British, French and German air forces combined are hardly insignificant either. Do you really think Russian aircraft carriers could survive the hail of Exocets and SCALP's that would greet them? Russian tanks rolling into Germany, now that's a different proposition.
More to the point, what would be in it for the Ruskies? Who would they sell their gas to? If you think the Russians are happy to see the emerging dominance of China, you're forgetting the historic fear of the Mongol hordes that still haunts the Russian psyche.
Kennybhoy
March 29th, 2011 4:18pm Report this commentFergus Pickering,Verityred and Chris lancashire.
Just a word of thanks for the the three consecutive posts above.
Well said and many thanks for doing so.
Respect.
Kenny
yank
March 29th, 2011 10:03pm Report this commentTomTom
March 28th, 2011 8:40pm
Yank, isn't it Samantha Power that gets Obama to start a Third Muslim War concurrently ?
.
TomTom,
The liberal interventionists are everywhere here... we breed them like rabbits. McCain and the bombs for breakfast crowd over here woulda been bombing Khadaffi months ago. They'd bomb a ham sandwich. You can't just blame one gal... she's just another useful idiot.
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