This book is not simply entitled to Gaddafi but to “The shadow of Gaddafi”, that is, it tells the past but also reveals a lot of the present and the legacy of the Colonel who risks remaining unknown to the general public. A part of this legacy is there for all to see: Gaddafi deposed and killed left a disintegrated Libya and disputed between two governments, one hundred and forty tribes and a handful of foreign powers that aim to dominate it. But there are other lesser-known legacies: for example, the “Gaddafi” have not disappeared as is believed, the Colonel’s tribe continues to have a weight, and his sons Saadi, Hannibal and Saif al-Islam are moving in the shadows to return in power; they enjoy powerful connections at home and abroad, and their hopes are not chimerical, according to the book’s author, Leonardo Bellodi. Another story that is rarely talked about concerns the hunt, still in progress, for the personal treasure of Gaddafi senior and the substantial capital in the hands of the Lybian Investment Authority created by the Colonel and of which Bellodi himself was senior advisor for years; LIA’s money was frozen by the international community, to prevent its looting, but the freeze is not necessarily effective, and in any case the Libyans are offended by the impossibility of returning to possession of those assets, as if they were a people of minus habens; on the other hand there is an objective impossibility to return the treasure: to return it to who, if no government really controls the country?
Bellodi starts from afar, reconstructs the whole history of Libya, or rather of that territory that only recently (a century or so) has become “Libya”. Of course, his account is broadly based on antiquity, more tightened from the Arab conquest onwards, and very detailed on the rise of Gaddafi, on his long undisputed dominion and on his catastrophic fall.
Question: are we Westerners also wrong? Have we contributed to creating the conditions of the current Libyan chaos of which Italy, across the street, pays the highest price? Already a quarter of a century ago a CIA report recommended not overthrowing the Gaddafi regime because the “after” would have been worse. Nonetheless, President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton tried to export democracy to Libya with a military intervention; yet the failure of Bush in Iraq was already clear to them (on Obama and Clinton there is the aggravating circumstance of hindsight). It is objected that in reality the promoters of the attack on what remained of the Gaddafi regime were the French, but it is the Americans who supplied three quarters of the planes and bombs; on these grounds, the sentence would be without appeal. On the other hand, if you go back to those days, it was not a cold Western attack against a Gaddafi firmly in power; the Colonel had already lost half of his country, the situation was blocked and Libya on the international scene appeared as an open wound; to imagine that some air raid could tip the scales on the side of the rebels and that then the situation would turn for the better was a weak hope, but not entirely unfounded. Perhaps the judgment on what happened should be blurred. International politics and history are not courts that issue sentences.
What to do now? Question that also concerns Italy. Bellodi, a profound connoisseur of Libya, who continued to attend even in times of greater chaos, gives these indications: Italy must plead the cause of the Libyan people in all international fora, for example by joining the request to thaw the funds of the LIA ; revitalize, on an updated basis, the Gaddafi-Berlusconi cooperation agreement of 2008; to coordinate diplomatically with all the states that intervene in Libya, even those that pursue policies contrary to our interests, because “we cannot afford to have enemies,” says Bellodi; who, however, adds: “Enjoying greater credibility also means being feared (…) The continuous and bloody confrontations between Italian fishing boats and the Libyan coastguard that sometimes end with shootings and seizures of vehicles and crews (…) and the non-recognition or payment of credits that Italian companies have in Libya are inadmissible episodes between countries that respect each other ». The Italian policy of always turning the other cheek could be counterproductive.
Leonardo Bellodi, The shadow of Gaddafi. Money terror oil, Rizzoli, 345 pages, 18 euros