Europe scrambles to untangle its deep ties to Kadafi

Reporting from London —  The two elderly men were surrounded by scads of beautiful young women, but theirs was the real courtship, a pas de deux between a ruthless North African dictator and a fawning European leader.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi ardently pursued the approval of Libyan strongman Moammar Kadafi in a relationship that has been a pillar of Italian foreign policy. Flattering him has been key to Italy’s continued access to Libya’s oil and gas supplies — worth billions of dollars — and to keeping Libyan refugees away from Italian shores.

The 2009 visit was Kadafi’s first to Italy, so Berlusconi pulled out all the stops, allowing him to pitch a tent in the middle of a park in Rome and arranging a party for him attended by hundreds of Italian women. After Kadafi left, Italy’s place as Libya’s No. 1 trading partner seemed secure.

But two years later, Kadafi’s brutal crackdown on anti-government protesters has put Berlusconi in an awkward position and embarrassed Italy and other European nations that have eagerly embraced Libya’s despotic leader with an eye to trade possibilities and his country’s abundant natural resources.

Many of these nations stand accused of naivete at best and greedy opportunism at worst in their willingness to accept that the onetime pariah had changed. Despite little evidence that Kadafi was easing his grip on power or allowing political reform, several European nations busily strengthened their ties with Libya and pursued lucrative commercial interests in recent years, even as they continued to profess lofty ideals of promoting democracy and human rights.

Their criticism of Kadafi now, when an anti-government uprising has resulted in hundreds of deaths and generated threats from the strongman that protesters should be executed, rings hollow to some.

“The speed with which Europe turned its back on him after he ordered his troops to shoot at his people says nothing good about us,” the Portuguese newspaper Publico wrote this week. “It only confirms our reverence for money and our scant regard for the freedom of others.”

The European Union and the United States lifted most of their trade sanctions against the government in Tripoli in 2004. The easing followed Kadafi’s announcement that he was giving up his nuclear ambitions and that Libya would pay compensation to the families of those who died in the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jetliner over Lockerbie, Scotland. The terrorist act, blamed on Libya, killed 270 people.

As European capitals welcomed Kadafi in from the cold, their companies rushed to his country in search of black gold.

Spain and France boast oil interests in Libya, as do Norway and Austria. British-based corporations alone have inked deals worth more than $1 trillion in oil and gas exploration. Libya has also opened its door to British retailers such as Marks & Spencer, which sell their wares to the Libyan middle class.

The most fervent suitor of the Kadafi regime has been Italy, a colonial power in Libya during much of the first half of the 20th century.

Italian governments of the last 50 years have all pursued close ties with Tripoli, even after Kadafi’s 1969 coup. Eni, the Italian energy giant, is the No. 1 foreign oil producer in Libya and has maintained an uninterrupted presence there throughout Kadafi’s 41 years in power. The company has promised to invest as much as $25 billion in the country.

The relationship goes both ways: There are major Libyan stakes in Fiat, the Italian bank UniCredit and the soccer team Juventus.

Berlusconi has been by far Kadafi’s biggest cheerleader in Europe. He has met with the Libyan strongman probably more times than he has with any other non-European foreign leader — even kissing Kadafi’s hand at one meeting — and defended Kadafi from criticism.

In 2008, one of Kadafi’s sons, Hannibal, was arrested in Switzerland on suspicion of beating up domestic servants. Kadafi retaliated by having two Swiss businessmen in Libya thrown into jail over alleged visa violations.

In protest, Swiss officials slapped entry restrictions on senior members of Kadafi’s government, sparking a feud in which Berlusconi repeatedly attacked Switzerland, which backed down early last year.

Berlusconi’s unwavering support has borne fruit for his compatriots. “Only the Italians land any contracts” in Libya, a senior French official complained last year to American diplomats in Paris, according to a cable released by the WikiLeaks website.

Now, however, Berlusconi is the one under fire, criticized for his initially tepid response to Kadafi’s violent suppression of protesters. After first saying he didn’t wish to “disturb” Kadafi by calling him, Berlusconi has now urged the Libyan leader to find a peaceful resolution to the crisis and condemned the bloodshed as “unacceptable.”

Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini warned Wednesday of a “biblical exodus” of potentially hundreds of thousands of refugees from Libya to his country.

Italy’s heavy reliance on energy from Libya is beginning to ring alarm bells as well, with reports that the flow from at least one of its gas pipelines has been suspended.

Britain’s commercial inroads into Libya were made possible by then-Prime Minister Tony Blair’s decision to do business with Kadafi in a series of meetings between the two dating back to 2004.

But the rapprochement between London and Tripoli has been a controversial one, never more so than two years ago, when Scottish authorities released from prison the only man to be convicted in the Lockerbie bombing.

Scottish officials said the decision to hand Abdel Basset Ali Megrahi back to Libya was based on humanitarian grounds, because he was ill and only a few months from death. But Megrahi remains alive, and critics accuse the British government of pressing for his release in exchange for favorable treatment of British businesses in Libya.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said Wednesday that it was right to have encouraged Kadafi to give up his pursuit of nuclear weapons but that Blair went too far in rewarding him for it.

“It should never have included the idea of releasing al-Megrahi, the man convicted of the biggest mass murder in British history. That should have been completely off the table,” Cameron said in Qatar on a swing through the Middle East.

Critics are now noting to what extent Europe has armed Libya since lifting a weapons trade embargo several years ago.

An EU report last month said that licenses for $473 million in arms were authorized for export to Libya in 2009, including anti-riot gear, telecommunications jamming equipment and small arms.

henry.chu@latimes.com