The Libyan Ambassador is rejecting calls for his resignation and insists he will continue to serve as “a caretaker ambassador” until the Libyan crisis is over.
Saadun Suayeh has also asked to be perceived as being above the warring parties in the Libyan conflict. He called for the embassy to be “depoliticised” in the circumstances but admitted he did have a moral obligation to take a stand “at some point”.
Unlike other Libyan ambassadors, who switched allegiance to the Benghazi-based Transitional National Council, Dr Suayeh has so far stuck to his post and still flies the green Libyan flag on the embassy, which opponents of the regime equate with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.
Nationalist MEP Simon Busuttil said last month he could not understand what was keeping Dr Suayeh from denouncing the Gaddafi regime once and for all and switching allegiance to the TNC. “Several of his colleagues in other EU countries have already done so. What is he waiting for?” he wrote in The Times.
However, Dr Suayeh insisted he did not represent the regime but the Libyan people and the state “as a sovereign entity under international law”.
“The notion that an ambassador represents the regime rather than the state or the people is both erroneous and harmful. Regimes are transient but states are permanent,” he said when asked whether he would resign from his post as a representative of the Gaddafi regime.
His assessment comes as more countries are recognising the TNC as the legitimate government of Libya with the US having done so very recently. Malta has so far recognised the TNC as the sole legitimate interlocutor, stopping short of ditching the Gaddafi regime altogether, a move that could put the Libyan Ambassador in an awkward position.
Foreign Affairs Minister Tonio Borg received a very warm welcome in Benghazi over the weekend during a brief visit during which he held talks with TNC representatives.
In what was a clear warm-up exercise between Malta and the Benghazi-based council, Dr Borg offered humanitarian aid and scholarships and floated the idea that Malta could release some of the Libyan government’s frozen assets to help the TNC pay back loans.
Asked whether he would serve as a representative of the TNC, the Libyan Ambassador said that under the current political circumstances it was better that he be perceived as “a supra-political figure serving, as conscientiously as possible, the vital interests of his people and the host country”.
Dr Suayeh said he had not met with representatives of the TNC and insisted that in times of protracted conflict an embassy should be “depoliticised” to better serve the needs of the people.
“Such an attitude, however, does not absolve an embassy of its moral obligations or the necessity to take a stand at some point,” Dr Suayeh said.
In February, when the Libya crisis exploded, Dr Suayeh had rejected calls for his resignation made by Libyans who protested against the Gaddafi regime outside the embassy.
He had said he represented the interests of all the Libyan people, including those who were protesting against the regime but insisted at the time that Col Gaddafi should not go because his presence was a guarantee for the country’s unity.