Page 415 - Arabia the Gulf and the West

412 Arabia, the Gulf and the West

reason, calling the gathering ‘a rotten sell-out’ and ‘a bad musical comedy’ It
was perhaps prudent of him to stay away, for he had tended to play ihe
chocolate soldier during the war, breathing great gusts of fire and uttering
blood-curdling threats but doing very little to actually aid the battle. Smarting

from snubs received from both Sadat and Faisal, he had responded by impos­
ing only a 5 per cent reduction in Libya’s oil production and by turning a blind
eye to the shipment of Libyan oil both to the Netherlands and to American
refineries in the Caribbean. (He may also have decided that discretion was the

better part of valour, out of a fear of possible Western retaliation against Libya,
the nearest Arab oil state to Europe and the most defenceless.) Instead of going
to the conference at Algiers he flew to Paris in the last week of November to
attend a colloquium on the Middle East sponsored by Le Monde, The Times, La
Stampa and Die Welt. Before he arrived he hinted that he would like his stay to
be considered a state visit. Although this was refused, the French prime
minister, Pierre Messmer, met him at Orly airport with a guard of honour, the

ceremony being enlivened by the playing by the military band of the old, royal,
Libyan national anthem. When Qaddafi departed a couple of days later he was
seen off by Jobert, the French foreign minister. Before he left the Libyan
leader tossed a characteristic apple of discord in the direction of the conference

at Algiers. ‘Any Arab country calling on Russian forces does not merit free­
dom,’ he told a group of newspaper reporters. ‘Better to have Israeli colonial­
ism than Soviet troops in the area.’
The Algiers conference ended on 28 November. Among its decisions, most
of which were concerned with the aftermath of the war, it confirmed the
continuance of the full oil embargo against South Africa, Portugal and

Rhodesia, so as to consolidate black African support. Japan, which had by this
time made sufficiently humiliating amends for her sins of omission regarding
Israel, and the Philippines, whose oil supplies had been reduced because her oil
refineries were American-owned, were both exempted from the proposed
additional 5 per cent cut in production due to take effect in Decefnber.

Western Europe, which had already been exempted from the proposed cut,
was put on notice that if it was to continue to receive adequate supplies of oil, it
would have to ‘take a clear and impartial position towards our just cause . What
was meant by ‘impartial’ was made clear by the secretary-general of the Ara
League, Mahmud Riad of Egypt: ‘Europe must therefore find every possi e

means to move away from its present position towards a recognition 0

rights.’ . . oarf»ed
Two days later, at a conclave of OAPEC ministers in Kuwait, it was g
that the additional 5 per cent cut in production should be deferred to Janua^

African and Muslim countries would not be subjected to the new res
but would continue to receive their full quota of oil - so long as ter
possibility of re-exportation to countries on the black-list. The Id
embargo against the United States would be conditional upon the co