Westerwelle should take back the veto against the no-fly zone!

Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle should declare on Tuesday whether Libya's ruler Muammar al-Qaddafi is using communications equipment and arms from Germany in the bloody repression of the young democracy movement in his land. This demand was made by the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) on Tuesday. The human rights organization also sharply criticized Germany's veto of the proposed enforcement of a no-fly zone over Libya.

"While almost all of the Arab world approves of the no-fly zone, the German government is basically representing the interests of the Libyan terror regime," criticized STP founder Tilman Zülch on Tuesday in Göttingen. "It is time for Germany to support the democratic opposition in Libya, and in doing so make reparations for the mistakes of the past." Leading German politicians have courted and promoted the Qaddafi regime for many years, even though the dictator was involved in crushing the resistance movements, as well as in genocide-like crimes, in the Sudan, Chad and Uganda, and has also threatened Western societies with terrorist attacks.

According to the arms export report from the German government and the EU, in 2009 alone Germany supplied more than 53 million euros, as well as helicopters, off-road vehicles and communications technology, to Libya. The technology included interfering transmitters that can cut the opposition movement's Internet communications.

"We must not have a repeat of Bosnia in Libya," warned the human rights activist, with a reminder that through their passive policy, Germany was extensively involved in permitting the war and genocide against Bosnian Muslims. The German government at that time did not even move to prevent its ally Croatia from taking part in the destruction and division of Bosnia that made millions people into refugees.