AP today, 25 September 2009:

GENEVA -  Switzerland and Libya reached a new low point in their relations 
Friday as the Swiss government announced that two of its citizens are being 
held at an undisclosed location in the Arab country.
The information came two days after Swiss President Hans-Rudolf Merz met 
with Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi in New York in an unsuccessful effort to 
defuse tensions between the two countries, which were badly damaged by last 
year's arrest in Switzerland of the Libyan leader's son Hannibal.
The treatment of the two Swiss citizens in Libya has subjected Merz to calls 
for him to resign.
For more than a year, Switzerland has known that two of its businessmen have 
been prevented from leaving Libya. But they are now being held "for their 
own security" because there is a "threat that Switzerland might free them 
militarily," the Swiss Foreign Ministry quoted a Libyan letter as saying.
The plight of the businessmen has enraged Switzerland, which has publicly 
apologized for the arrest of Hannibal Gadhafi and subjected itself to 
possible compensation claims. The dispute also comes at a time when Mommar 
Gadhafi has angered many in the West by giving a hero's return to convicted 
Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, and by thumbing his nose at the 
international community by declaring at the U.N. in New York that the 
Security Council is a terror organization.
The Swiss Foreign Ministry said Friday that it was informed two days ago - 
the same day Merz met with Gadhafi in New York - that Libya had taken 
businessmen Max Goeldi and Rachid Hamdani into custody. The pair has been 
prevented from returning home since July 2008 in apparent retaliation for 
the arrest of Hannibal Gadhafi and his wife for allegedly beating up two 
servants in a luxury hotel in Geneva.
"On Sept. 18, both Swiss were called by Libyan authorities for a medical 
examination and afterward were detained," said ministry spokesman Adrian 
Sollberger.
"They are in a safe place, we don't know where," Foreign Minister Micheline 
Calmy-Rey told national broadcaster SF. "We're trying to get them out 
through diplomatic means."
The ongoing saga has become an embarrassment for the government and 
especially Merz, who signed a deal with Libya last month aimed at 
normalizing relations and promised to return the two employees of 
engineering company ABB Ltd. by Sept. 1 or "bear the consequences."
The accord commissions an independent panel to examine the July 15, 2008, 
arrest of Hannibal Gadhafi and possibly recommend compensation. It does not 
explicitly demand that the Libyans free the two Swiss, and Merz has faced 
growing calls to resign in the media and across the political spectrum for 
letting himself be outmaneuvered by Tripoli.
Merz, in New York for the U.N. General Assembly, said Thursday he has no 
intention of resigning. He met Wednesday evening with Gadhafi for about 40 
minutes.
Hannibal Gadhafi was held by Geneva authorities for two days after his 
arrest before being allowed to return home. The complaint was eventually 
dropped after the two servants received compensation from an undisclosed 
source, but Tripoli cut off supplies of crude oil to a Libyan-owned refinery 
in Switzerland and barred Swiss ships from its ports.
The oil-rich North African nation supplies more than half of Switzerland's 
crude imports, which totaled some 2.5 million tons in 2007, according to the 
latest available Swiss government figures.
Libya also recalled some of its diplomats from Switzerland, suspended visas 
for Swiss citizens, withdrew funds from Swiss banks, and reduced flights to 
the Alpine country in retaliation.
Libyan officials have demanded wide-ranging concessions from Switzerland in 
return for the release of Goeldi and Hamdani. During his visit to Tripoli, 
Merz apologized for the arrest, saying it was the only way to secure the 
release of the two Swiss. The apology enraged many in Switzerland, though it 
was welcomed by Swiss companies eager to do business in Libya.

"Larry Hammick"  wrote ...

> GENEVA -  Switzerland and Libya reached a new low point in their relations 
> Friday as the Swiss government announced that two of its citizens are 
> being held at an undisclosed location in the Arab country.

One man's "hostage" is another's "legitimately held detainee".

Whether there's any legitimacy to Libya's action or not, it's very difficult 
to hold the moral highground when those who claim to have 'moral leadership' 
excuse or engage in the same, and worse, practices; kidnapping nationals 
from others' sovereign territory, exercising extraordinary renditions, 
placing detainees in secret prisons and refusing to admit any knowledge of 
any of that.

Libya can, it seems to me, say it is 'doing no more than following America's 
example of how things should be done, and not doing things as badly as 
America does'.

When one chooses to say what one country does is acceptable, one loses the 
moral right to say that when another does the same it is not acceptable. To 
do so is simply hypocrisy.

This is the price the world has to pay for tolerating what is wrong and not 
standing up against it; "all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is 
that good men do nothing". We made our bed and now we have to sleep in it. 
Plenty of people warned of the consequences taking the path chosen would 
have.