We've known this for a while but I think this is the first time I have seen this in English...

Source: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/wor ... 38652.html

Gadafy's wife the link to a special relationship

Safiya Gadafy seems to have been key to the kinship between Libya and the former Yugoslavia, writes DANIEL MCLAUGHLIN

AS REBELS and Nato bombs bore down on him, fugitive Libyan leader Muammar Gadafy issued an appeal to the world through an unlikely channel last week.

Former Croatian president Stipe Mesic announced that he could “confirm first hand that Gadafy was ready to completely withdraw from public life and politics and that he promised firmly that there would not be any obstacles to the introduction of a multiparty system or reforms, on condition that Nato attacks stopped”.

Mesic, who stepped down last year after leading Croatia for a decade, conveyed the “personal verbal message” to the US, Russian and Chinese ambassadors in Zagreb, but it did not halt Nato air strikes or save Gadafy’s wife and three of his children from having to flee Libya.

Gadafy’s mysterious wife appears to be the strongest of his many links to former Yugoslavia, and they may have helped Mesic forge what he called “good connections in Libya and good contacts with Libyan president Gadafy and especially with [his] prime minister, who studied in our country”. The premier, Al Baghdadi Ali al-Mahmoudi, escaped to Tunisia this month.

Though officially Libyan-born and called Safiya, Croatian and Hungarian media say Gadafy’s wife is actually Sofija Farkas, a Bosnian Croat from Mostar, where she met her future husband when he was studying at a Yugoslav military base in the years before he seized control of Libya in a 1969 coup.

She became his second wife shortly after he took power and bore him seven children, the oldest of which is the notorious Saif al-Islam, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.

Farkas is a common Hungarian name, meaning “wolf”, and Safiya’s grandfather was reportedly Ivan Farkas, a minor official of Hungarian origin who was posted to Mostar when Bosnia was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire.

Gadafy’s Libya fostered close relations with the Yugoslavia of Josip Broz Tito. He became an enthusiastic member of the Non-Aligned Movement that Tito championed and a hungry consumer of the weapons his regime produced. Yugoslav engineers are thought to have had a hand in building secret bunkers for Gadafy, as they did for Tito and Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

Tripoli was a staunch supporter of nationalist Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic during the 1990s Yugoslav wars, and Gadafy sent him oil in breach of a UN embargo. In return, Belgrade shipped arms to Libya and helped upgrade its infrastructure and military hardware.

Before its collapse, Yugoslavia made billions of dollars every year from the international arms trade, particularly from weapons sales to countries that were shunned by western powers such as Libya, Iraq and Burma.

While Serbia, Bosnia and Croatia are still occasionally accused of failing to halt black-market arms sales to so-called pariah states, they have also sought to profit from their links with Gadafy by expanding their legal commercial interests. Senior politicians from former Yugoslav states have regularly joined business delegations to Tripoli in recent years.

While condemning his crackdown on opponents and broadly supporting military action against Gadafy, Balkan business leaders now fear they could lose Libyan contracts worth hundreds of millions of euro that were personally approved by Gadafy or his inner circle.

Source: http://www.isaintel.com/2011/08/29/gadd ... ot-likely/

Gaddafi Could Seek Refuge in Croatia or Serbia? Not Likely

by Anes Alic

Unless captured by the rebels and tried or even killed before the trial, among the handful of countries in which Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi could seek political asylum are two former Yugoslav republics, namely Croatia and Serbia – at least according to Libyan rebel representatives.

Over the weekend, Libyan National Transition Council (NTC) member Fatima Mahmoud said that Gaddafi could seek asylum in Chad, Algeria, Burkina Faso, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Croatia or Serbia.

This suggestion by the Libyan rebels is rather uninformed. Firstly, all the countries of the former Yugoslavia have recognized the NTC as the legitimate representative of the Libyan people. Secondly, neither Gaddafi nor his associates could seek refuge in Serbia or Croatia as the process of granting them asylum would mean directly opposing both the US and the EU, which neither country is willing to do; neither could afford this politically or economically.

If is far more realistic for Gaddafi and his family to seek safe haven in Africa. Why, then, is the mainstream media so enthralled with the idea of Gaddafi seeking refuge in the Balkans? It makes for a good story for readers who do not require rationality and sobriety in analysis.

The idea is based on the fact that both Croatia and Serbia attempted to maintain good relations with Gaddafi at the beginning of the unrest, largely because of multimillion-dollar business deals. This was at a time when everyone with business interests in Libya was hedging their bets (particularly Italy). Since then, of course, most everyone is courting the rebels, as it becomes clearer that Gaddafi may soon be out of the picture.

There was also the pressure NATO applied to Serbia in early March to suspend military and economic cooperation with Libya.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Yugoslavia enjoyed very friendly relations with Libya, inking cooperation deals ranging from civil engineering to defense contracts. There is also the fact that Gaddafi’s second wife, Safija Farkas, is Bosnian Croat from the city of Mostar. (They met while Gaddafi was taking part in a military academy student exchange program in Mostar in the 1960s.)

In complete secrecy, Yugoslavian companies were hired to build the complex of underground bunkers where Gaddafi likely took shelter in the early stages of the uprising. It is believed that recently found secret underground network in Tripoli was build and equipped in the late 1980s by two Bosnian and Serbian companies.

Prior to the uprising, Serbia had hundreds of millions of euros worth military equipment orders from Gaddafi’s regime.
Earlier this year, Serbian companies concluded lucrative deals to build a military hospital in Libya, as well as to continue training Libyan air force pilots and to overhaul and maintain some 120 warplanes sold by the former Yugoslavia in the 1970s and 1980s. Gaddafi’s regime was also a staunch supporter of Serbia in its fight against Kosovo’s recognition.

As for Bosnia and Herzegovina, with the exception of a couple of food and construction companies in Libya, Bosnian officials failed to establish notable political relations with Gaddafi, who had sided with Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic during the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia.

Croatia, for its part, had nine companies in Libya when the conflict erupted.

Further fueling rebel theory was the news last week of the arrest of five Serbian citizens at the international airport in Tripoli, suspected of having served as Gaddafi’s mercenaries. The five claim to be construction workers for a Serbian-Libyan joint venture and had arrived in Libya only in mid-August.

Private mercenaries from Serbia is not a novel idea: Mercenaries from the former Yugoslavia have been present in almost all conflicts in the Middle East and Africa, noted for their fighting skills and thought to be expert assassins.

Also, Time magazine recently quoted a Croatian artillery specialist who left Gaddafi’s army in early August. The unnamed veteran of the wars of the former Yugoslavia told the magazine that he had been hired by the Gaddafi regime to help fight the rebels and, later, NATO.

Private mercenaries are tied to individual opportunism in this case, not state policy. And certainly, Serbia and Croatia are not interested in Gaddafi, only in Libya’s money, and that is now in the hands of the rebels and those who have been named the top five winners of the conflict: the US, Britain, France, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

There's also this which is quite interesting. Surely if it's true she must have family still living in Mostar or nearby?

http://www.economist.com/blogs/easterna ... onnections

I was wrong about the first time reading about Sofija Farkas in English.

Rory I remember that article from the Economist and another one from a while ago that spoke about Sofija being from Mostar. As for relatives it isn't outside the realm of possibility that she has family down there. I have never run into anyone with the surname Farkas in Mostar.

What I do find strange is that as far as I am aware that this made news after the uprising in Libya happened. I don't recall ever hearing anything previously that Ghaddafi was married to a Croat. Maybe I did and it went in one ear and out the other.... Does anyone else remember hearing that Sofija Farkas was married to Ghaddafi before the uprising in Libya began?

This attack has been a Franco-British action and a disgrace, but entirely expected. The Italians would have suffered the most had they not seen the writing on the wall and deftly helped turn this into a NATO action, thus guaranteeing them a seat at the dividing of the spoils.

This thread (at the english language forum I own and run) has a lot of good insight into what's actually happened and why it happened.

I just wanted to add that you would think that Ghadaffi's wife being a link to Yuga would be common knowledge. Even on the wikipedia page for her it lists her of Hungarian origin (and yes I know wikipedia is not always accurate) nor is there any discussion to the contrary that she might not be born in Libya.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safia_Farkash

Max: I think the Italian action is not surprising. Italy's economy is tanking and they need to secure some resources (which I predict will be the theme of the 21st century - resources as national security). I'm also sure that Italians also wanted to pay Ghadaffi back for kicking the ethnic Italians out after he seized power.

Actually the ties between Italy and Libya were very, very good until Sarkozy and Cameron decided to fuck it all up. Recall that Berlusconi negotiated an agreement with Gaddafi to stop the flow of migrants from Africa into Europe by way of Lampedusa. This was tied into Italian energy deals in Libya, with the Libyans providing almost a quarter of Italy's energy needs for the past few years.

So Sarkozy and Cameron decided to steal the wealth for themselves and the Italians were in danger of being shut out. They tried to stop it but once the Americans got onside, they saw the writing on the wall and had to join in to ensure that their interests were protected in the post-regime divide of the spoils.

So what this means is that there is now a strong Islamist presence in Libya where there wasn't one previously, a weak regime, and more migrants for Europe from Africa thanks to the actions of Sarkozy and Cameron.

In case no one saw this... There goes the neighborhood!

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/worl ... 908717.cms

Gaddafi's wife in talks to buy Croatian resort

ZAGREB: The wife of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is negotiating to buy a tourist resort in Croatia, a media report said.

Croatian daily Makarska Chronicle said Gaddafi's wife Safia - of Bosnian-Croatian origin - was planning to buy a resort in Igrani town, which before the division of the former Yugoslavia belonged to a Serbian utility company.

Safia was born Sofia Farkas in Yugoslavia in the city of Mostar. The city in present day is in Bosnia-Herzegovina. She is Gaddafi's second and present wife.

The newspaper said the negotiations started when rebel operations to depose Gaddafi intensified in Libya and were in an "advanced phase". Safia and her three children fled to Algeria after rebels took over Tripoli.

Rebel troops have said they have located Gaddafi, believed to be still hiding in Libya, and that it was just a matter of time before he was arrested or killed.

Gaddafi had attended the Yugoslav Air Force Academy. He also had close ties with late Yugoslav ruler Josip Broz Tito.

More from the Economist:

Meanwhile, as some Croatian journalists were obsessing about Ivo and Boris a small Croatian paper, the Makarska Kronika, appears to have a world-beating scoop, if true of course. In February I wrote about the close connections between the former Yugoslavia and Colonel Qaddafi. The press then wrote that his wife Safiya was originally Sofija Farkas, a Croat with Hungarian roots from Mostar in Hercegovina. According to the paper, Mrs Qaddafi has recently been trying to buy land and property in Igrane on the Croatian Adriatic coast not far from Mostar.

Mrs Qaddafi and some of the family are now in Algeria. This summer the Balkan press has been full of stories of various celebs in various stages of inebriation or undress, from Prince Harry to Beyoncé, who have been holidaying in Croatia. Whether Mrs Qaddafi fits the profile the Croats want, I am not sure, but, if she is really a Bosnian Croat she has every right to a Croatian passport and hence visa free travel throughout Europe.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/eastern-approaches

Rory: thanks for the info.

It is not a crime to be a member of the Gaddhafi family (unless you have actually done something criminal), and I think Croatia would have to think not long and hard about not only the profile of Mrs. Gaddhafi but the diplomatic ramifications of possibly allowing her, and possibly other family members in.

That also brings us to the elephant in the room regarding Mrs. Gaddhafi receiving Croatian citizenship. If she is truly of Croatian origin then yes she could obtain Croatian citizenship and a passport. BUT keep in mind Croatian citizenship and passports could also be conferred on all of her biological children and grandchildren through descent unless. Now they could all get citizenship by residency as well.

She and her children could also go to Bosnia as well and not just to Croatia.

gnr agreed I also think that Mrs. Gaddhafi's kids would also qualify for BiH citizenship based on descent too.

But I assume since the article is saying that they are looking at Croatia then they have ruled out moving to Bosnia as an option. If that is the case then my guess that the reason they would be looking at Croatia is that they have people like ex-president of Croatia Stjepan Mesic and probably others who were friendly to the regime there.