Protestant missionaries and humanitarianism in the DRC: the politics of aid in Cold War Africa

Abstract

Libya was involved in the attack. But why had Gadaffi --who praised the ‘heroic operation’ at Fiumicino, assisted militants in attacking his Italian friends? Could it have had something to do with the sharply escalating tensions between Libya and Italy’s US ally? Regardless of the answer, even before the US bombing of Tripoli in April 1986, the Italian-Libyan lodo was in tatters. As the author shows, some Italian officials were eager to try to minimise the damage, but it is misleading to suggest that nothing had really changed since 1974 (p. 120). On 14 April 1986, Rome agreed to a European Community embargo on arms sales to Libya. Later the same month, it expelled 10 Libyan diplomats and officials, including the local representative of the Libyan Arab Foreign Investment Company (LAFICO). A LAFICO employee was arrested as part of an investigation into Libyan financing of terrorism. It had been through LAFICO that Libya had purchased a 10% stake in the Fiat automobile company in 1976. If anybody could tell how the wind had shifted by early 1986, it was the Agnelli family, owners of a controlling share of Fiat. With Italian government encouragement, they bought back the shares held by LAFICO, a transaction completed in September 1986. To conclude, Lomellini has done impressive spade work in Italian, French, British, US, and German sources. Students of Cold War history will find the story rather peripheral to the main axes of East-West conflict. But she makes an important contribution to our understanding of Italian foreign relations, in particular the ways in which Italy attempted to cope with the external shocks of the 1970s and 1980s, and to pursue a semi-independent approach to its southern neighbour.