Colonel Muammar al-Qaddafi has offered his help to Antrodoco, an Italian village in financial distress. Libya’s head of state visited the village for the first time when it had just been hit by the earthquake of 2009.
Antrodoco’s mayor told Qaddafi about the difficulties in the small town, related to the high unemployment rate and the decreased tourism resulting from the earthquake. By doing so, hoping to get Libya’s contested leader to invest in the town.
He seems to have succeeded: a few days ago Qaddafi promised to turn Antrodoco into a tourist destination by funding a luxury hotel, a bottling plant for local mountain spring water, and a new sports and soccer-training centre.
Although I can’t accuse him of spending money on an Italian village while a lot of Libya’s civilians are below the poverty line, because that would be a lie (it is only 7.4 %) and the country’s debt is much less than Belgium’s, I do still feel like he should be helping his fellow African countries, who need more funding for more necessary things than a luxury hotel.
that’s right… but at the same time your argument could be used to say that all the countries that invest in developement aid should first of all assure good conditions of their own citizens, loosing therefore teh solidarity principle that guides the development aid (or the economic interest that guides it).
I think you are right Hanna. But, mind you, such picturesque bulky figures like Qaddafi like to think they are powerful and needed. They like showing off.
@Hussam, you have a point. Take Brazil’s example. We are taking off in many areas, but, at the same time, collecting problems. Even so, we have offered help to minor countries in Copenhagen and we are leading successfully the Minustah mission in Haiti. I heap praise on this, but I think it should be invested here first.
I completely agree with you. A luxury hotel should not be the priority.
As if aid would be needed to rebuild hotels… from what I have seen of the world money usually go into building hotls, before they go into more important things.
I think this illustrates the friendship between Qadaffi and Berlusconi. Both these guys trouble me.
To Hussam and Luan: I totally understand your thinking that countries who are offering aid to others but are themselves having problems should first solve those own problems. But I don’t know… then it’s like: let’s keep the money to ourselves.
In Belgium (and many other European donor countries), there’s a huge country debt and at the end of every year, there’s a deficit in the budget of millions of euros, but Belgium has raised its amount of aid money nevertheless.
Is it then appropriate to say: hey, why not use that money to fill up our deficit first?
I don’t think so.
Anyway, to come back to the blog: Libya has quite allright conditions for its citizens and is thus able to aid other countries, but my point is that it shouldn’t be (wealthy enough) Italy.
Hi Hanna, well… also the US have a high budget deficit every year… however, the US are the most important donor in the world.
You know what, Hanna, you convinced me. To remain a big player in the international scenario, Belgium, and Brazil as well, have to keep offering aid to others.
Thanks for broaden my horizon upon this topic.