Tripoli’s trafficker in terror

Press, 26 December 1984, Page 14

Tripoli’s trafficker in terror

CHRISTOPHER HANSON,

of Reuter, in London.

Western nations have been drawn into repeated conflicts with the Libyan leader, Muammar Gadaffi, but there is no consensus on how to deal with what some have terms a “rogue government” in Tripoli. The realistic options are very limited, Western diplomats say: economic sanctions are unlikely to work, military attack would be hard to justify in the absence of a dire provacation, and milder responses have so far been ignored by the volatile Libyan who sees himself as natural leader of the Arab world. France has accused Gadaffi, of breaking his word by keeping troops in Chad after agreeing to a Franco-Libyan withdrawal. Libyan involvement in Chad’s civil war has caused serious African concern.

Egypt say Gadaffi sent a team of assassins who bungled a bid to kill an exiled politician in Cairo, and has charged that Libya sowed mines in the red Sea last summer.

Britain broke ties with Libya in April after accusing Libyans inside the London People’s Bureau (embassy) of shooting a policewoman to death. Washington says Libya is an international troublemaker and funds terrorism around the world.

To many Libyans and a few other Arab and Muslim nations, however, Gadaffi is a revolutionary hero revered for his apparent devotion to religious and populist ideals and for using Libya’s oil wealth to help the poor. Gadaffi told a United States television interviewer this month that he was greatly misunderstood in the West and had always opposed terrorism. He desribed President Reagan and the Israeli Prime Minister, Shimon Peres, as “terrorists and war criminals.”

Each flare-up involving Libya has prompted calls for Western Governments to “do something” about Gadaffi, but a Europe-based United States diplomat who studies Libya closely told Reuter: “We don’t know the answers and the United States has not been successful in getting him to stop anything.” United States officials say they have failed to interest Western allies in joint diplomatic or econimic sanctions.

Western diplomats say that Tripoli was caught off balance when Britain broke ties and has felt some pressure as a result of

United States economic sanctions imposed after President Reagan took office.

Washington has not banned all trade with Libya, which is an important trading partner for Western Europe. United States officials say that the United States and its European allies do SUS 4 billion (JNZB.24 billion) worth of business annually with Libya. In addition to the high economic stakes, there are many European workers in Libya — including an estimated 15,000 Italians and 8000 Britions — who could be put at risk if sanctions were imposed, the diplomats say. Some psychologists and Middle Eastern and West European officials have argued for years that the best way of dealing with Gadaffi is to ignore him and his militant Islamic idealogy. They said Washington paid far too much attention to the flamboyant leader, exaggerating his military power and making him harder to deal with. Some United States officials now agree. Gadaffi-watchers in the Western diplomatic corps fear it is too late for a policy of studied indifference. “Now he’s accustomed to getting attention and reacts worse when he doesn’t,” said one. He said that when Gaddafi had been out of the news for some time, one could expect a Libyan bombshell that would gget his name back in the headlines.

The diplomats say that Gadaffi’s mercurial personality is a serious obstacle to engaging him in dialogue and winning him over, as France has tried, to its embarrassment, and as King Hassan of Morocco tried in a largely symbolic union with Libya a few months ago. Many Western diplomats expect the unity bid to fall apart, as periodic rapproachments between Libya and other neighbours have. Dialogue may once have worked, the United States diplomat said, but now Gadaffi is a “lost cause” who, according to Western intelligence sources, swings between lucidity and incoherence, serenity and anger. The conservative United States Heritage Foundation is among groups which have suggested military intervention against Libya. West European military action is extremely unlikely, Western diplomats say. A military option has been dis-

cussed in United States Government circles, and a United States rapid deployment force might be a position to carry out an attack, but American intervention is also unlikely, the United States diplomat said.

It might become more probable if Libyan forces drove deep into Chad and threatened Sudan and Niger, diplomats said; but Heino Kopietz, a Middle East analyst with the International Institute for

Strategic Studies in London, said Libya was not a great military power, and more of an irritant in the area.

A bid to kill Gadaffi would be a big mistake, diplomats said, and David Wilkinson, a University of Aberdeen expert on Libya and terrorism, amplified this point: “killing Gadaffi would create a halo effect (in) a new generation who see him as a martyr/’ Problems for the West would

increase significantly if Gadaffi who is seeking nuclear technology, were to get atomic weapons. Many Libya-watchers say this is a distant threat. Even if he never acquires nuclear bombs, the United States T ovnonf- cnid Rarfaffi — who

Even if he never acquires nuclear bombs, the United States Libya expert said, Gadaffi — who at 42 could be in power for decades — will probably be causing trouble for Western nations for a long time to come.