Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi has succeeded in roiling political waters in Rome with apparently contradictory statements linked to an anti-Italian riot last month.
In the first reported instalment of the statement to the Libyan People's Assembly Thursday, Gaddafi said an attack on the Italian consulate in Benghazi had little to do with anti-Islamic cartoons printed in Denmark.
Gaddafi claimed the protests were, on the other hand, in support of Libyan demands for reparations for the colonial period.
This immediately spurred the Northern League to demand an apology from political allies and foes who forced League minister Roberto Calderoli out for wearing a T-shirt bearing the Danish cartoons.
The League claimed Gaddafi's statement proved their view that Calderoli's action had not stoked anti-Italian sentiment in Libya, producing the attack in which 14 Libyans died in police fire.
However, in the full transcript of Gheddafi's speech, made available by Libyan state news on Friday, the president described Calderoli as "a Fascist minister who used racist, colonialist, retrograde and crusader-like language."
As a result, the League quickly switched from broadsides against Calderoli's allegedly unustified detractors in Italy and levelled its guns squarely at Gaddafi. "He's looking at himself in the mirror, talking about
Fascist and retrograde," a leading League MP told Italian TV.
Calderoli himself stopped demanding apologies from erstwhile allies and said Gheddafi should say sorry. "It's an honour to be insulted by someone like him," the former Reforms Minister said. Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini - one of the first last month to say Calderoli had to go - said people were making too much fuss about a speech designed for domestic consumption.
Downplaying the Libyan firebrand's warning that Italy can expect more attacks if reparations are not forthcoming, Fini noted that Italian-Libyan talks have been proceeding on and off for years on the question of mutual compensation - for the colonial period on the one hand and, on the other, the suffering of Italians ejected by Gaddafi a year after his 1969 coup.
Fini said Rome's position had been restated by the cabinet on February 23: to resolve all questions regarding
the colonial period, "with highly significant measures", in exchange for an end to discrimination of Italian refugees who lost livelihoods and property.
The exiles have only once allowed back to visit the places they grew up in, during a recent high point in
fluctuating relations between the two countries. Fini also said that economic and contractual disputes
needed to be worked out in a satisfactory way. Resolving disputes, Fini observed, "must be a reciprocal
effort and the words spoken by Colonel Gaddafi in no way go in this direction".
Gaddafi's reiterated claim for reparations upset MP Alessandra Mussolini, grand-daughter of Il Duce, who said Italy "brought trains, roads and proper administration" to a people who "were still riding around on camels."
