Nato’s intervention might have saved the Libyan rebels from immediate defeat but has not yet resolved the conflict in its favour. Regardless of whether the de facto partitioning of our neighbour country will crystallise itself, at best we have been left with a stalemate so far
Having already expressed myself in favour of the true will of the Libyan people on One TV only days after the conflict first started, it is not my intention to either attempt to shore up the Gaddafi regime or else to push for regime change at all costs with immediate effect.
My sole objective is to hopefully see the military conflict refrain from prolonging itself.
In spite of certain gung ho militaristic statements that have characterised both the local and the international media in the past months and weeks, there have been certain statements that can in no way be construed as being pro-Gaddafi elements that have hinted at the need for a new and rethought out approach to the whole Libyan debacle.
We have had an excellent study by the International Crisis Group, which concluded that the character of the Libyan crisis today arises from the complex but so far evidently indecisive impact of the UN authorised military intervention, now formally led by Nato, in what had already become a civil war.
Their concern was that although the declared rationale of this intervention was to protect civilians, civilians are figuring in large numbers as victims of the war, both as casualties and refugees, while the leading Western governments supporting Nato’s campaign make no secret of the fact that their goal is regime change.
They concluded that a stalemate had long developed itself because according to them the de facto partitioning of the country saw divisions between the predominantly opposition held East and the predominantly regime controlled Western part of Libya harden into distinct political, social and economic spheres. As a result of which, it has become virtually impossible for the pro-democracy current of urban public opinion in most of Western Libya to express itself and weigh in the political balance.
Their biggest headache is that besides fuelling a large scale refugee crisis, they are raising the risk of infiltration by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, whose networks of activists are present already in Algeria, Mali and Niger. They conclude that all this, together with mounting bitterness on both sides, will constitute a heavy legacy for any post Gaddafi government.
Rather than shoring up Gaddafi, the Group made the point that in their opinion the longer Libya’s military conflict persists, the more it risks undermining the anti-Gaddafi camp’s avowed objectives. Yet to date, the latter’s leadership and their Nato supporters appear to be uninterested in resolving the conflict through negotiation. Actually adding that “to insist, as they have done on Gaddafi’s immediate departure as a precondition for any political initiative is to prolong the military conflict and deepen the crisis.”
They must have been the first to claim that a political breakthrough is by far the best way out of the costly situation created by the military impasse. Adding that this will require a ceasefire, the deployment of a peacekeeping force to monitor and guarantee this under a UN mandate and the immediate opening of serious negotiations between regime and opposition representatives to secure agreement on a peaceful transition to a new, more legitimate political order. To their mind, no breakthrough can happen without the leadership of the revolt and Nato rethinking its current stance.
At no stage did they hint that he should stay on. What they did is make a clear distinction between Gaddafi going – ceasing to have any political role or power, as a key element of the desired political end result – and his going immediately, as the precondition of everything else.
Amr Moussa, who is a front runner to become President of a democratic Egypt, last week not only voiced concern about Nato’s bombing campaign in Libya but actually called for a ceasefire and talks on a political settlement. His main publicly expressed fear was that you can’t have a decisive ending with the way things are going. One cannot meanwhile help not recalling that earlier on, Arab support, in the form of an endorsement from the Arab League itself, was essential to the Anglo-French led bombing campaign launched in March following a UN security council resolution mandating the use of force to protect Libyan civilians.
In its blog commentary, The Century Foundation commented on the remorseless logic of war. Apart from claiming that instead of insistently demanding that Gaddafi must go now, in their opinion, Obama should now be demanding an immediate and verifiable ceasefire in the civil war – the core demand he voted for in the UN Security Council resolution 1973 three months ago.
They found that there is irony too, in Obama’s adroit abandonment of the long-standing Bush era pre-conditions for negotiations with the Taliban to end the war in Afghanistan, even as he sets Gaddafi’s ouster as the precondition for a ceasefire in Libya.
On his part German Defence Minister Thomas de Maizière made some fine points about the whole issue of the responsibility to protect a country’s civilian population if its government violates human rights – which is something firmly anchored in international law. He asked: Does that mean we are allowed to intervene or does that mean we’re actually required to?
Rather than insinuating that Germany’s Nato allies are only intervening in Libya because of oil, he prudently stated that he was pointing out that there have to be criteria for each and every decision about humanitarian intervention. He speaks of providing aid for a political fresh start as well as economic and social reconstruction but at the same time argues that having international peacekeepers is a hypothetical matter that will only become necessary if Libya collapses and conflicting parties must be separated. When asked if he opposed getting involved militarily even after Gaddafi might be overthrown, he stated categorically that that is not ‘their’ position. He actually hopes that things do not come to that kind of military mission, adding that hopefully Libya will remain united and develop in a democratic direction.
The Director of Research at the Saban Centre at Brookings Daniel Byman only last week commented in The Financial Times that one must beware the perils of a Libya after Gaddafi has gone. In doing so, in no way did he try to shore up the Gaddafi regime.
His concern is that while military operations to topple Colonel Gaddafi have sped up, the political and diplomatic preparation for his fall plods along.
His thinking went something like this: He might be replaced by another dictator or junta, or Libya could slide further into civil war – none of which is a prize worthy of the struggle of ordinary Libyans and their Nato backers. As the world surely learnt in Iraq and Afghanistan, a gap between military operations and political planning is a recipe for disaster.
I might disagree with some of the various conclusions drawn, but I cannot but agree with the following statement that Byman made – that it may be too much to expect Libya to become a democracy overnight. But it would be sad, if, a decade on, Libya were simply a gentler dictatorship or worse, a failed state.
Meanwhile one cannot either refrain from taking note of the latest Italian position who said that they would support an immediate suspension of hostilities in Libya to allow aid into vulnerable areas including Tripoli and also hoped that a pause in the fighting would be indicated as a feasible solution by the international organisation.
I hold nothing against Nato even though the dramatic errors against civilians left a somewhat jaded palate, but as Nato admitted to bombing errors in recent days, one cannot dismiss lightly the Italian claim that the alliance’s credibility could also be at risk. As well as the statement by the Rome-based International Affairs Institute that the alliance is coming unstuck.
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Leo Brincat is the Shadow Minister for the Environment, Sustainable Development & Climate Change