JDV’s connection to Gaddafi

In the light of the United Nations Security Council’s strong action Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Al-Gaddafi, former House Speaker Jose de Venecia’s letter to the beleaguered strongman seems an exercise in futility and just a boast of his international connections.

The 15-nation UN Security U.N. Security Council Saturday unanimously imposed travel bans and froze the assets of Gaddafi, members of his family and inner circle as he continued to crack down on escalating protests against his 42-year authoritarian rule.

More than a thousand have already been killed and more blood is expected to spill on the streets of Tripoli, where Gaddafi is expected to hold firm as long as he could. He won’t do a Hosni Mubarak. He had warned, “At the suitable time, we will open the arms depot so all Libyans and tribes become armed, so that Libya becomes red with fire.”

But his supporters are abandoning him. Libya’s deputy U.N. ambassador, Ibrahim Dabbashi has defected saying the Gaddafi government has lost credibility. His constant travel companion, a “voluptuous blonde nurse” Galyna Kolotnytska, is reported to be heading home to Ukraine.

JDV’s letter was written Friday before the UN sanction, coursed through Acting Secretary of Foreign Affairs Albert del Rosario. Vintage JDV, it praised Gaddafi’s achievements in “modernizing” and abandoning its nuclear power program. Then he suggested for the Libyan strong man to form an “Interim, Transition Government of National Salvation” might still offer the Tripoli leadership, its urban opposition, Libyan civil society, and Libya’s tribal groupings a political framework for sitting down and reasoning together.”

He also suggested that.” Under the aegis of the United Nations, perhaps your Government should urgently invite a special United Nations Mediation Team to mediate the crisis in Libya before it metes out more suffering and bloodshed among the Libyan people and prevent the dreaded final confrontation between citizens protesters, private militia and the Armed Forces.”

Is JDV being presumptuous in writing Gaddafi? Maybe not. Actually, JDV’s “friendship” with Gaddafi dates back to the Marcos years when his Landoil Corporation was doing a lot of business (this is another controversial project, especially the one in Iraq, which would require a separate column) in the Middle East and Africa.

It should be recalled that the Marcos has sought the help of Gaddafi in brokering the agreement with Nur Misuari’s Moro National Liberation. That’s why there’s the “Tripoli Agreement” promising for an autonomous region that would include 13 provinces “subject to constitutional processes.”

Marcos utilized wife Imelda in seeking the help of Gaddaffi. She was received in his luxurious desert tent.

JDV with FVR also had also visited Gaddafi in his dessert tent. In late 1991, FVR disappeared during the pre-election campaign period. All sorts of rumor circulated about that trip. One was that he had to rush London to comfort someone very close who was feeling despondent.

When FVR was already president, he revealed to the late Nelly Sindayen of Time Magazine, that he had a secret meeting with Gaddafi arranged by JDV, who was with him during the trip. The official explanation was that he sought the help of Gaddafi with the MNLF.
There were so many loopholes in that story because FVR was still a candidate at that time. What was his authority to deal with Gaddafi?

One rumor that was never confirmed but refused to die was that the trip had something to do with funds that was used during FVR’s campaign. We will never know the truth about that mysterious trip except that they met with Gaddafi and they had photos to prove that.

JDV’s letter may have been overtaken by events. But there was no loss in his effort to appeal to Gaddafi’s “statesmanship” which he had been privileged to witness. Besides, anything that would help save Filipino workers trapped in Libya is never futile.