Monday, Dec. 03, 1984
The Doublecross and the Hit Hoax
By Jamie Murphy
Gaddafi humiliates the French, but is stung by Egypt
Over the past four months he had signed a treaty of friendship with Morocco and sought to improve relations with West Germany and France. But Libya's mercurial strongman, Muammar Gaddafi, has disappointed Western leaders who may have hoped that he had turned his hand from duplicity to diplomacy. Last week repercussions of his latest antics resounded around the world:
> In Chad, at least 1,000 Libyan troops remained in the African country, despite Gaddafi's agreement with French President Francois Mitterrand, made in September, to remove them. As a result, French troops are on stand-by in neighboring Central African Republic and in Gabon.
> In Egypt, President Hosni Mubarak announced one of the year's most bizarre plots: he had succeeded in embarrassing Gaddafi by ensnarling the Libyan dictator in one of his own adventures. The previous day, the Tripoli government radio had gleefully announced that a Libyan "suicide squad" had assassinated former Libyan Prime Minister Abdel Hamid Bakkush in Cairo. In fact, the assassins' plot had been uncovered by Egyptian authorities before the hitmen reached their intended victim. Bakkush was roughed up by the Egyptians, smeared with human blood and photographed to look as if he had been murdered. The pictures were sent to Gaddafi, who immediately took credit for the apparent crime. According to Mubarak, the four gunmen--two of whom were English--revealed details of a Libyan hit list. On it were such leaders as Mitterrand, West Germany's Helmut Kohl, Saudi Arabia's King Fahd, Britain's Margaret Thatcher and India's late Indira Gandhi.
> In Washington, French Foreign Minister Claude Cheysson struggled to relieve his country's embarrassment over the Chad affair. Said he: "Gaddafi is a fact. He is the leader of Libya, an independent country. To ignore him would be a political mistake." France has resumed negotiations with Libya over the troop withdrawal, an action opposed by Washington on the ground that there is no point in bargaining with one of the chief instigators of international terrorism. But Cheysson insisted: "What would the U.S. have us do? Enter into war with Libya? The only reasonable policy is the one we have said." In a soothing gesture, Secretary of " State George Shultz went for predinner drinks at the French embassy. He skipped | the meal.
> In Paris, Mitterrand's government was trying to cope with the outraged domestic reaction to the Chad fiasco. Said former Prime Minister Maurice Couve de Murville: "France has suffered one of its most serious humiliations in a long time." Writing in Liberation, a leftist newspaper, the respected commentator Serge July observed: "The worst in this kind of affair is that everyone expects Mitterrand to be duped, and in the end he is duped. You can't believe your eyes. One asks oneself if there is not something suicidal in Mitterrand's behavior." The barrage of criticism did little to improve Mitterrand's sagging popularity ratings, which had already dropped to 26%, the lowest for any French President since the Fifth Republic was founded in 1958.*
In spite of the diplomatic debacle, Mitterrand appeared unruffled at a meeting at the Elysee Palace with West German Chancellor Kohl to discuss Kohl's trip to the U.S. and the entry of Spain and Portugal into the European Community. Asked about the presence of his name on Gaddafi's assassination list, Mitterrand said with an impatient smile, "If some thing happens, we will let you know." Said Kohl: "We will wait to see the developments [of the Egyptian inquiry], and we remain calm." One French official, referring to the arrest of the Libyan assassination team, down-played the Egyptian sting. Said he: "Don't you think that Mubarak is using the affair for his own ends? He has a special ax of his own to grind with Libya."
Mubarak was clearly elated over his triumph. In August the Egyptian President accused Gaddafi of mining the Red Sea and in October of plotting to blow up the Aswan Dam. In neither case, however, did he have solid evidence. But this time, said a Western diplomat in Cairo, "the Egyptians hooked him. He swallowed everything before they hauled him in." British officials are skeptical of the whole affair, and government sources in London have suggested that Egypt has gone slightly overboard in its version of what occurred.
Western analysts were puzzled as to exactly what Gaddafi had hoped to achieve by the assassination of Bakkush or the doublecrossing of France over the Chad pullout. Referring to Chad, Dominique Moisi of the Institut Franc,ais des Relations Internationales, a Paris-based think tank, suggested, "It could be some thing as simple as Third World pride. He wanted to negotiate on his conditions. He had told the French that he wanted two months to evacuate [instead of the 45 days stipulated in the Franco-Libyan agreement that became effective on Sept. 25]. It looks like he's going to take his two months."
Gaddafi's motives are probably impossible to divine. Recently a team of editors from a major European periodical were granted a rare exclusive interview with the Libyan. The editors were ushered inside Gaddafi's baroque home at a military base outside Tripoli. The dictator was dressed in an all-white uniform and surrounded by a squad of armed bodyguards. But as the interview progressed, the journalists began to realize that their subject was not making sense. No sense at all. In fact, say the editors, the two-hour session was incoherent. Says one of the magazine's editors: "Personally, I think he's just gone ga-ga."
-- By Jamie Murphy. Reported by John Borrell /Cairo and Johanna McGeary/ Washington
* Adding insult to Mitterrand's already injured political fortunes, the mayors of Strasbourg and Colmar last week boycotted his formal visit to Alsace in order to protest the transfer of a planned nuclear-research facility from the area to Grenoble.
With reporting by John Borrell, Johanna McGeary