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Libya remains a long way from respectability

Published July 26, 2007 at midnight

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Libya has slowly been clawing its way back from pariah status to something like respectability and acceptance in the international community.

It took a major step in that direction this week by ending the disgraceful eight-year imprisonment under a death sentence of six foreign health-care workers on the bogus charge of infecting 426 Libyan children with HIV.

The deal to release five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor was brokered by Britain and Germany and clinched in an impressive display of personal diplomacy by Cecilia Sarkozy, the wife of France's new president.

But their release shouldn't have required diplomacy, personal or otherwise. The government of strongman Moammar Gadhafi never explained why the six would deliberately infect children in their care and independent scientists blamed the infections on the unsanitary conditions and practices of Libyan hospitals.

And the deal itself amounted to a ransom in the neighborhood of $400 million from the European Union, ostensibly for the children's care. The face-saver for Gadhafi was that the six would serve their life sentences in Bulgaria, but the Bulgarian government pardoned them upon arrival.

The belated release of the six is welcome, but the arduous efforts needed to win their freedom show that Libya is still a long way from earning international trust.