Colonel Gaddafi Comes to Rome

Yesterday Libyan dictator Colonel Gaddafi arrived in Rome to begin a three day state visit.

Having swept in with an entourage which is 300-strong and includes 40 female bodyguards, Gaddafi hopes to squeeze more concessions from Italy by playing on Italian guilt over the colonial era (Italy occupied Libya in 1911) - and an Italian desire to be first in line for lucrative oil and gas contracts.

Gaddafi, who claims to be an emancipator of women and someone who wishes to 'save European women', will see his visit culminate in a meeting with 700 influential Italian women from the fields of politics, culture and the media. He did a similar thing when he visited Paris in 2007.

Gaddafi's first provocative act was thus:

Colonel Gaddafi has arrived in Rome at the start of an historic visit to Libya's former colonial masters with an archive photograph provocatively pinned to his chest showing the arrest of an anti-Italy guerrilla fighter dubbed "The Lion of the Desert".

The photograph shows the arrest in 1931 by colonial Italian troops of the Libyan guerrilla leader Omar al Mukhtar.

Officials from both Libya and Italy insist that despite the anti-colonial gesture, the colonel's three day trip - his first since gaining power in a coup 40 years ago - is a "visit of reconciliation". Wearing full colonel's uniform with gold epaulettes, numerous medals, sunglasses and straggly long black hair beneath a military cap, the Libyan leader said "a page of the past has been turned, thanks to the courage of Italy", as he embraced Silvio Berlusconi, the Prime Minister.

Mr Berlusconi, who paved the way for the visit by travelling to Libya last year to apologise for the colonial period and offer three billion pounds in compensation, echoed the remark, saying a "painful page has been turned".

That wily old dog Berlusconi just wants the contracts and the boost to the economy they will bring.

Bear in mind though that Gaddafi is not an amusing figure - he is a blood-soaked tyrant, the ruler of a violent regime, and was once the sponsor of much of the world's terrorism.

This terrorism was carried out in the name of Palestine, Arab nationalism and Islamism - whatever suited Gaddafi's purposes at the time, in other words. Forces operating from Libya with his backing (tacit or otherwise) were responsible for the Lockerbie atrocity, the shooting of WPC Yvonne Fletcher, and many more outrageous acts throughout the world.

He has also declared that Islam will conquer Europe through the wombs of Muslim women, and has used the countless illegal immigrants who leave for Europe from Libya as a means of putting pressure on Berlusconi and the Italians.

So, with this in mind, what did Italian students say they were going to protest about during Gaddafi's visit?

The trip has its pitfalls, including Mr Gaddafi’s visit to Rome University, where students plan to protest against “the Libyan dictator” for “co-operating with the Italian Government over the repatriation of immigrants”.

Oh, yes - the Berlusconi regime's repatriation of illegal boat people upon sight. Cooperating with this is the only thing that wonderful Mr Gaddafi has ever done wrong, the only thing which excludes him from polite company.

But, this brave and sensible act by Berlusconi not only reduces the aces in the hand of those such as Gaddafi, it does much more.

It halts or severely hinders the invasion and demographic conquest of Italy, Malta and Europe; it saves countless amounts of money spent in detention, processing and countless appeals by the migrants; it saves countless Italians and potentially other Europeans from violent crime and the general social deterioration which comes with mass immigration from the Third World.

That preventing all of the above good is all that concerns these students says an awful lot about our future, none of it good.