Westerwelle's campaigning hurts Germany's reputation in democratic Arab countries

Foreign Affairs Minister Guido Westerwelle is hurting Germany's standing in the world with his fickle Libya policies, according to the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP). "The man who, just three weeks ago in Cairo's Tahrir Square, fashioned himself a hero of the democracy movement sweeping Arab and North African countries should not try to deal a death blow to the same movement just to improve his party's prospects in upcoming elections," criticized the head of the STP's Africa section, Ulrich Delius, on Friday in Göttingen. "There is no question of sending German soldiers to Libya. But the German government cannot stand idly by while the dictator Qaddafi tramples international law underfoot and fires on his own people."

"The sanctions against the Libyan regime which Germany has fought so hard for in the past three weeks are important, but have not brought Qaddafi around," said Delius. "A new direction is clearly needed in Germany's Libya policy."

When he visited with the Egyptians celebrating in Tahrir Square on February 24, 2011, Westerwelle drew a comparison to the peaceful revolution in Germany in 1989. Back then, the Germans counted on international solidarity to ensure that the democracy movement would not be violently crushed. "By exactly the same token, the Libya resolution at the UN Security Council signals solidarity with Arabian democracy. It came very late and might turn out to be too little to stop a brutal crackdown against the Libyan revolution. But without this signal, all of the dictators in the Arab world would have felt reassured in their efforts at crushing the democracy movements in their own countries."

"Westerwelle must make a choice: either he can campaign for his party or he can be Foreign Minister. To keep a low profile in foreign policy because of difficult regional elections coming up causes lasting damage to Berlin's efforts at winning a greater role for Germany in international politics. The most he can expect to win with his current foreign policy strategy is praise from Qaddafi, China and Russia," said Delius.