(CNSNews.com) – Ahead of his first visit ever to the United Nations, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has signaled how he expects to be treated in the international community by calling for the dismemberment of Switzerland.
 
The tiny alpine country is the latest to be burned in its dealings with Libya, after a humiliating apology to Gaddafi over a diplomatic incident involving one of his sons failed to end a 13 month-old bilateral dispute.
 
Two weeks after Swiss President Hans-Rudolf Merz went to Tripoli to apologize for the arrest of Motassim Bilal (aka “Hannibal”) Gaddafi and his wife last summer, the Libyan ruler has still not kept his pledge to allow two Swiss businessmen held hostage since the incident to return home.
 
With Merz under fire at home for his handling of the episode, Gaddafi has added to his discomfort by planning to use his visit to the U.N. to promote the view that Switzerland be abolished, with its territory parceled out to neighboring France, Germany and Italy.
 
Although the proposal will get no traction – a U.N. spokesman said it would not be on the agenda for the General Assembly session – it adds to a pattern of unconventional behavior by the former pariah even as he seeks to enhance his global stature.
 
Gaddafi raised the idea of dismembering Switzerland during the Group of Eight summit last July in Italy, where he called the country “a world mafia, and not a state.”
 
Switzerland dates its confederacy back to 1291. Its 7.6 million citizens are divided into German-, French- and Italian-speaking communities, and Gaddafi said the country should be split three ways.
 
News of Gaddafi’s plan to raise the issue at the U.N. was broken by Swiss lawmaker Christa Markwalder, who told Swiss television on Wednesday the Libyan leader planned to present the proposal at the General Assembly. Gaddafi is scheduled to address the session after President Obama on Sept. 23, in his capacity as chairman of the African Union.
 
A Libyan diplomat, Ali Triki, will serve as president of the General Assembly for the Sept. 2009-Sept. 2010 session, and Markwalder voiced concern that Gaddafi would use the year-long opportunity to harm Switzerland’s reputation.
 
U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq told the Swiss news agency Thursday that a committee responsible for the General Assembly agenda had rejected a Libyan proposal for the Switzerland issue to be discussed, on the grounds that it contradicted the principles of the U.N. Charter.
 
The charter states, “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state …”
 
(Citing the charter, critics of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have urged the U.N. to deny him a voice at the U.N. because of his calls for Israel’s demise, but he has addressed the General Assembly opening session for the past four years.)
 
Retaliation
 
The row between Libya and Switzerland comes soon after the British and Scottish governments were embarrassed by what they called a broken promise by Tripoli not to give a “hero’s welcome” to the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, after he was freed and sent home on August 20.
 
The uproar over the homecoming of the reportedly terminally ill Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi largely overshadowed Merz’ visit and apology that same day.

Hannibal Gaddafi and his then heavily pregnant wife Aline were arrested in July 2008 on allegations that they assaulted two domestic servants in a luxury hotel in Geneva. They were charged, released on bail and left the country.
 
The daily Tribune de Geneve reported at the time that the servants claimed to have been beaten repeatedly with a belt and a hanger, and that one had received hospital treatment for injuries.
 
Hannibal had made headlines before for violent behavior in Europe, and was convicted by a French court in 2005 for assaulting his pregnant then-girlfriend. After his Porsche was pulled over for speeding after leaving a Paris nightclub in 2004, bodyguards quickly arrived and scuffled with policemen. In 2001, he was accused of attacking three Italian policemen in Rome.
 
Despite his son’s record, Muammar Gaddafi demanded an official apology from Switzerland, detained two Swiss citizens, recalled some Libyan diplomats, reduced flights between the two countries, banned Swiss-flagged ships from Libyan ports, and suspended oil shipments.
 
Libya, Libya is Switzerland’s second-biggest trading partner in Africa, later withdrew more than $5 billion in assets from Swiss banks.
 
Most serious of the retaliatory steps was the reduction of energy supplies. Switzerland was getting 49 percent of its crude oil imports from Libya.
 
A year ago the Geneva prosecutor dropped the case against the Gaddafi couple after the domestic servants reached an undisclosed settlement and withdrew their complaint. (Another member of the Gaddafi family described the arrests as an act of anti-Arab racism, although the two alleged assault victims were a Moroccan man and a Tunisian woman.)
 
Swiss attempts to negotiate an end to the dispute in its early days, then again last January and last May were unsuccessful.
 
Arrest ‘unjustified’
 
When Merz visited last month, Gaddafi did not meet with him. Instead Merz apologized to Libya’s prime minister and received a written assurance that the businessmen would be allowed to go home before September 1.
 
They also agreed to appoint arbitrators for an international tribunal to examine the conduct of the Swiss police and the circumstances surrounding Hannibal’s arrest, which Merz described as “unjustified.”
 
Swiss media accused him of capitulation, but matters only got worse when Libya failed to allow the businessmen to leave as promised, saying that they would first have to face charges of visa violations.
 
The government sent an aircraft to Tripoli on August 27 to collect the two, but it returned empty-handed that night.
 
The government in a statement the following morning said that it was meeting its obligations in the bilateral agreement, in a bid to facilitate “a rapid return of the two Swiss.”
 
On Wednesday, two days after the deadline had passed, Merz read out a statement calling on Libya to honor its pledges to release the businessmen, saying they faced an “unbearable” situation.
 
Meanwhile, a left-wing party has become the first to call for his resignation.
 
In the Swiss system, the president is not head of state; that function is held collectively by a seven-person executive Federal Council. Each council member holds the rotating presidency for one year.