LIBYAN leader Muammar Gadaffi has strongly criticised Nicolas Sarkozy’s proposed Mediterranean union project, and rejected it as a ‘Crusaders’ containment of the Islamic land, a European neo-colonialism’.
In a 55-minute speech delivered last Wednesday in Tripoli, Gadaffi began by saying he welcomed cooperation with Europe, Africa and the Mediterranean region, because he wanted peace, stability and sound relations between Arabs and Europe.
Gadaffi admitted that when his ‘dear friend Sarkozy’ announced the Mediterranean union project, he was the first to endorse the idea.
The plan put forward by the French president originally to include five southern Mediterranean states (Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya), and five southern European states (Malta, France, Italy, Spain and Portugal).
‘I consulted the 5+5 states to urge them to accept this project,’ said Gadaffi. ‘Strangely, they were hesitant and unenthusiastic.
‘They told me that it was too early to accept this ambiguous project and they asked me to be patient.’
Gadaffi said that he discussed the issue with the French president, advising him to include Greece and Egypt if the the project was to be extended.
‘I told him we need to exclude the states which have complicated problems so that the project would not fail: these are the Middle East states, the Asian states. . .
‘Others have problems and would not benefit this union. They will bring with them their problems and then this region will become a scene of conflict and a waste of time.
‘The Palestinian problem has not been solved and there is a conflict over land. Some call it Palestine and others call it Israel.
‘They have not even agreed to settle the issue of land. Some say this is our land and others say that it is ours. These are people who are now speaking to each other through missiles, bullets and massacres.
‘This is the ongoing dialogue between the Palestinians and the Israelis. Therefore, these are not qualified to be associated with us on cooperation, peace and stability and they are not qualified to join this project .
‘They must be excluded until the issue of the Middle East is solved.’
Gadaffi said he discussed other problems in the region with the French president, including Lebanon which ‘may become the scene of a civil war.
‘Hopefully, there will be no war. Europe and the West view Hezbollah and Hamas as problems. There is also a conflict between the Turks and the Kurds.
‘I asked him to exclude the Asian part because of its daunting problems. The region can explode at any time.’
He said he had urged the French president to limit his project to southern European and Northern African 6+6 states ‘to form a link for cooperation and friendship between the European Union and the African Union’.
Gadaffi said Germany had opposed President Sarkozy’s initial Mediterranean project by refusing to ‘allow the division of Europe’.
He quoted a German official as saying that they would not allow southern Europe to join a Mediterranean union while it was part of the EU.
‘In return, we will not accept North Africa to join a Mediterranean union while it is part of the African Union. This is clear! This is logical!
‘I cannot join a body which divides Africa into Sub-Saharan Africa, White Africa, Black Africa, Arab and non-Arab Africa. This is a racist partition and we do not wish go back to it again.
‘This project revives this idea and this is a racist division.’
Gadaffi read out a number of African Union resolutions which ban African states from joining any other union outside Africa.
He said Libya adheres to and respects the African Union resolutions.
‘The states which join the Mediterranean union will be questioned by the African Union over their actions,’ he said.
‘Germany had opposed the division of the EU and in return we oppose the division of the African Union.
‘The European states have forced my friend Sarkozy to abandon his initial project and to adopt a new project called a union for the Mediterranean.
‘What is the meaning of the union for the Mediterranean? Perhaps it means that Europe will unite in order to own the Mediterranean! It is not a Mediterranean union.’
Al-Gadaffi then referred to his speech in Lisbon’s Europe-Africa summit in which he spoke about ‘colonial maps’. He said the word union was inappropriate.
‘There is no unity among Arabs! How can there be unity with Scotland, Scandinavian countries, the Baltic countries and the Israelis? Is this reasonable?
‘Leaders of the Arab Maghreb Union have not met for 10 years.’
He said Arabs and Africans did not share culture, religion or politics with Europe, adding: ‘We believe in Jesus as a prophet, but Europe does not believe in Mohammad as a prophet.
‘They ridiculed him in Scandinavian countries with lampooning cartoons. We don’t ridicule Jesus, may God’s peace be upon him!
‘As long as they do these things against Mohammad, it seems that we will be enemies as far as religion is concerned. How can we unite while there is a deep-rooted religious enmity between us?’
Al-Gadaffi argued that the Mediterranean union project had ‘divided Arabs into three groups: a group in Asia (the Arabic Peninsula and Iraq), a group in Africa and a Mediterranean group which is part of this (proposed) union.
‘This means that the Arab League has been torn apart, while Europeans, rightly, told Sarkozy that they would never accept the division of Europe.’
He said he believed that the project would increase the risk of illegal immigration, terrorism and would ‘provide radical Islamists with a pretext to escalate jihadi operations’.
‘They will see it as a Crusaders’ containment of the Islamic land, a European neo-colonialism, and they would accuse their rulers of treason because they hand their countries on a golden plate to this union.’
He said the idea of a Mediterranean union itself was humiliating because it was planned and imposed by the European side.
‘Then they have asked us to sign it. This is humiliation!’
He also said that there was no balance between the two sides because ‘there are 34 united European states in return for eight dispersed southern Mediterranean states, from Syria to Mauritania’.
Meanwhile, on the same day as his speech, Gadaffi also met with Aleksey Miller, the chairman of Russia’s Gazprom which wants to buy all of Libya’s hydrocarbon exports.
According to reports from several Russian news agencies, Miller also held ‘substantive talks’ with Libya’s head of the National Oil Corporation, Shukri Muhammad Ghanim, with whom ‘issues of coordinating marketing policies were discussed’.
Apparently, the Libyan side ‘made a positive assessment of Gazprom’s offer concerning the purchase, in the future, of all output of gas, oil and liquified natural gas designated for export from Libya by paying competitive prices’.
One report suggested they ‘exchanged views on ways to develop mutually beneficial partnership between Gazprom and Libya’.
