From death row to freedom, the plight of a Palestinian doctor and five Bulgarian nurses in Libyan jails highlights the cultural chasm between the countries north and south of the Mediterranean, writes Gamal Nkrumah The entire scandal was nothing but a costly distraction. Officially, the Libyans are disgruntled with the outcome, the French look like opportunists, the Bulgarians stand to lose lucrative economic deals with Libya in the future, the Europeans are miffed at the French for stealing the show, and the only heroes -- the Qataris, for coughing up most of the compensation -- were pushed to the sidelines. The families of the children diagnosed as HIV/AIDs positive are furious that "the murderous Bulgarian nurses were set free, and worse pardoned upon their arrival in Bulgaria and treated as national heroes." There is a disquieting feeling that the whole affair was a sordid sideshow. French President Nicolas Sarkozy emerged as the villain of the show. He may be posing as the man behind the release of the five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian medical practitioner, but the Libyans are not giving him much credit for that. The Europeans are corybantic with his impunity. In the saga's final act, Cécilia Sarkozy, the wife of the French president, stepped in. The ex-model flew to Libya amid much publicity. The international media insinuated that the French first lady upstaged Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the EU's external relations commissioner, who had painstakingly worked on the release of the Bulgarian nurses for the past six months. Bulgaria, along with Romania, joined the EU in January 2007 as a fully-fledged member. Ferrero- Waldner and the French first lady appeared smiling triumphantly on the television screens as the French presidential plane landed in the Bulgarian capital Sofia. Amid much pomp and ceremony the nurses were greeted by exhilarated crowds including their families and friends. Their ordeal was a badge of national humiliation. They were vindicated by their release and they were feted as national martyrs who claimed that in their Libyan jails they were tortured and in some cases sexually assaulted. Traditionally many Bulgarian paramedics have found gainful employment in the Libyan healthcare system. Libya has long sustained a policy of recruiting Bulgarian and other Eastern European medical staff because of the shortage of qualified nurses, and paramedics in Libyan hospitals. The Bulgarian nurses claimed, and an independent report conducted at the behest of the EU, concluded that poor hygiene and the re-use of unsterilised needles were to blame for the infection of the children. Indeed, the accused Bulgarian nurses warned of deplorable conditions in the Libyan healthcare system. However, another report by an independent international medical team upon the request of Libya concluded that the infection could not have been transmitted in the same format and strength by incidental infection. The report argued a deliberate and systematic infection. The nurses were first arrested in 1999 and sentenced to death, the families of the diseased children wanting the nurses to pay for their negligence, the official Libyan line being that the Bulgarian nurses deliberately infected the children. The accused were portrayed by the Libyan media as sinister characters from a horror film and turned into convenient scapegoats. The newly elected president overlooked all these possibilities -- he saw in the plight of the Bulgarian nurses and the infected Libyan children a chance to cement the budding Franco-Libyan ties. Not to be outdone by his wife, Sarkozy flew to Libya and promptly signed a French-Libyan agreement to cooperate on nuclear energy. France now champions Libya's nuclear ambitions. The energy-rich North African nation is determined to go nuclear. Libya, as well, wants to cultivate closer economic relations with Western nations. Trade between Libya and EU countries has increased tremendously in the past couple of years, and prospects for increased economic ties between Europe and Libya look bright. With America's blessing, Libya's nuclear about-turn officially re-introduced the country into the international community -- from a state sponsoring terrorism Libya has metamorphosed into a darling of the West. Yet, the crisis of the Bulgarian nurses continued to encumber Libya's efforts to normalise its relations with Western nations. Last December, after two trials the six medical staff were again sentenced to death. The Libyan public was unsympathetic to the nurses' predicament, but political factors won out. The death penalty might still be upheld in the United States, but it is outlawed in Europe. The deal was that the nurses would serve their sentences in Bulgaria and the families of the infected children would get $460 million in compensation, most of it generously provided by the oil-rich Gulf Arab state of Qatar. The Libyan Prime Minister Al-Boghdadi Ali Al-Mahmoudi publicly acknowledged and praised the key role Qatar played in securing the release of the Bulgarian nurses and Palestinian doctor. Neither the EU nor the individual European countries concerned contributed significantly to the compensation fund. The Libyan prime minister also stressed that "Libya did not pay a single dirham". And, Bulgaria, Slovakia and the Czech Republic paid "symbolic sums". Al-Mahmoudi unleashed a tirade of scathing criticism of the Bulgarian government for pardoning the Bulgarian nurses. Libya's Foreign Minister Abdul-Rahman Shalgam warned that Libya would pursue Bulgaria in international courts. "And we shall call upon France to do so." Libya also officially called upon the Arab League to review its relations with Bulgaria. He said that the small southeastern European nation should be treated as a pariah state. The moral of this most distressing of tragedies, as far as the families of the infected Libyan children are concerned, is that Libyan lives are of little or no value to Europeans. "Westerners believe that a good Arab or Muslim is a dead one," a Libyan diplomat summed up what he felt were racist European attitudes. "Had these unfortunate children been European, there would have been a public outcry in Europe."
