Gaddafi plays with the nerves and the national pride of the Swiss

BERNE - Muammar Gaddafi has strained the nerves and the national pride of the Swiss, whom two compatriots are still being held in Tripoli despite an apology from the Swiss President Hans-Rudolf Merz to the brief arrest of a son of the Libyan leader in July 2008 in Geneva.

• The Swiss president was under fire Wednesday from critics, some did not hesitate to ask for his resignation.
  
  "Hans-Rudolf Merz is losing face," said the daily La Tribune de Geneve, while for the newspaper Le Temps President of the Confederation "is now politically dead.
  
  With the stagnation of the Libyan case, the situation seems to have become untenable for Mr. Merz, who provides one-year rotating presidency of the Swiss Confederation.
  
      The Swiss President had said he received assurances that the two Swiss businessmen, held for over a year in Tripoli, could return to their country "before the end of August. But two days after the due date, the Swiss are still not back ...
  
      Libya, where leader Muammar Gaddafi celebrated, on Tuesday with pomp, 40 years in power, now requires the payment of more than half a million Euros in bail to allow two Swiss to return, according to a source familiar with the matter, on the Swiss side.
  
      The Confederation has yet made several gestures to appease the Libyan leader, angered by the arrest of his son Hannibal in Geneva in July 2008 in a palace in Geneva with his pregnant wife. The couple, accused of abuse on two of his servants, had been released on bail.
  
      After more than a year of severance of relations with Tripoli as a result of this case, Mr. Merz had visited Libya in August 20 for the apologies of Switzerland, a decision that provoked the ire of some politicians.
  
      Mr. Merz has also signed an agreement providing for the establishment of an independent tribunal to adjudicate on the legality of the arrest of Gaddafi’s son but the president of the Liberal Democratic Party (PLR, centre right) Fulvio Pelli now required "to suspend the implementation of the agreement until Libya fulfils its commitments."
  
      More radical, the President of the Swiss Socialist Youth, Cédric Wermuth, demands the resignation of Mr. Merz. "Merz has to go - but only after solving the problem" of the two nationals, he said.
  
      An opinion not necessarily shared. For Kathy Riklin, member of the Christian Democratic Party (PDC, centre right), the action of the President of the Confederation was transformed into a "debacle", but "he must finish his year in office with dignity, and then resign.
  
      But a suspension of the agreement would be the worst solution, warns Marcelo Kohen, Professor of International Law at the Graduate Institute of International Studies and Development in Geneva.
  
      "The Swiss should avoid escalation. The request for suspension of the treaty would be very serious for Switzerland," he said. For Mr. Kohen, litigation with Tripoli in response to a simple logic: honour the wounded family of Gaddafi. "Libya wants to make Switzerland pay exactly what Hannibal suffered in Geneva.
  
      The Swiss political procrastination hurt the interests and image of Switzerland abroad. Political parties should adopt a low profile and allow diplomacy to act," said the Professor of International Law, who excludes a further visit by Mr Merz to Libya.
  
      
  Ennaharonline/ M. O.