Gaddafi on the trot(s)

 

 

It’s difficult for dictators to keep away from news for long. They just can’t bear the pressure of prolonged periods in oblivion and hibernation. Something has to be done to disturb the prevailing calm and peace. This is exactly what Gaddafi’s courts have done by awarding death sentence to one Palestinian and five Bulgarian nurses accused of deliberately infecting over 400 Libyan children with HIV.

The eight-year-old case against the medics commonly referred as ‘Benghazi Six’ is not just a case of a dictator acting high-handedly against his own subjects. It is a case involving medical practitioners from the European Union. The legal battle also names America’s CIA and Israel’s intelligence outfit Mossad, for engineering a covert biological warfare against Libya.

It all began in 1998 in Benghazi, (a largely anti-Gaddafi province), where children suddenly began to fail the HIV tests conducted on them by doctors from various countries. The authorities immediately arrested all foreign doctors in the hospital. The entire staff barring the famous six was released after initial investigations. In 2004, the six were sentenced to death. However, the intervention by the US and EU helped resolve the matter by promising medical aid to the affected children. In return, Gaddafi allowed the re-trial of the accused. Libya is now demanding $10 million per infected child for the release of Bulgarians.

For the last few years, Gaddafi had been behaving nicely. So much so that the US had even opened an embassy in Tripoli, but now Condeleza Rice feels ‘disappointed with the outcome’. If all was indeed going well, then what suddenly triggered off Gaddafi’s belligerent posture? May be he needs attention. Or is it that he is in dire need of cash, and is using ‘Benghazi Six’ as bargaining chip?