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This is a compilation of all my blog posts relating to the
Libyan uprising of 2011, together
with a some articles I wrote for the Guardian, in chronological order.
Brian Whitaker
Trouble in Libya
Blog post, 16 Jan 2011
Just two days after the overthrow of President Ben Ali in Tunisia, videos are circulating of disturbances in neighbouring Libya. Needless to say, this is causing a good deal of excitement on Twitter.
Colonel Gaddafi has been in power for almost 42 years, compared with a mere 23 for Ben Ali. In his
second-to-last speech as president, Ben Ali referred to Gaddafi as "my dear brother" and thanked him for support. In a speech reported by the official Libyan news agency on Saturday, Gaddafi
reciprocated:
"I am very pained by what is happening in Tunisia ... Tunisia now lives in fear ... What is this for? To change Zine al-Abidine? Hasn't he told you he would step down after three years? Be patient for three years ..."
Almanara, a Libyan opposition website which appears to have Islamist leanings, has posted
three videos of protesters in the city of
al-Bayda. There are also a few
more on YouTube
and al-Jazeera has a
report in Arabic.
The facts are still rather unclear, but Almanara says the demonstrators clashed with security forces, threw stones at a government building and set fire to one of its offices. The protesters were demanding
"decent housing and dignified life", according to the website. Provision of housing appears to be the main issue and there are reports of people taking over apartments and squatting in them.
Will it develop into anything bigger? A month ago,
I would have said the likelihood of that was zero. Post-Tunisia,
though, it's difficult to be quite so sure..
We can expect to see many more incidents like this over the coming
months in various Arab countries. Inspired by the Tunisian uprising, people are going to be more assertive about their grievances and start probing, to see how far they can push the authorities. In the light of Tunisia we can also expect a tendency, each time disturbances happen, to suggest
(or hope) that they are the start of some new Arab revolution. The reality, though, is that almost all of them will quickly fizzle out or get
crushed. But one day who knows when? another of them will grow
wings and bring down a regime.
Contrary to what many people imagine, protests and even large-scale riots are not uncommon in the Arab countries. They occur mostly in marginalised regions or among marginalised sections of the population and, normally, they pose no great threat to the regime.
Last month one day before the trouble started in Tunisia there was a
Sunni-versus-Shia riot in the Saudi city of Medina. Eight hundred people are said to have taken part; windows were smashed and dozens of cars damaged or destroyed. Outside the kingdom, hardly anyone noticed.
Earlier this month, Maan in Jordan witnessed several days of
disturbances which were attributed
to a labour dispute and/or inter-tribal violence.
In Yemen, meanwhile, the regime faces almost permanent armed rebellion from one quarter or another though it somehow survives.
The tricky part is judging the significance of such protests when they occur. One test is whether they are outside the norm for the country concerned: ten dead in a tribal battle with the Yemeni army would be no big deal, but the same thing in Oman, next door, would be hugely significant.
Applying the "Tunisia test", the following are also useful
pointers for distinguishing minor from major protests:
1. Disturbances sustained for more than a few days.
2. Disturbances steadily growing in strength and spreading to other areas, especially those areas not traditionally regarded as
marginalised.
3. Focus of protests shifting strongly from the original grievances to a more generalised critique of the regime.
4. Regime starting to show signs of inability to reassert control.
Libya and
the vanishing videos
Blog post, 17 Jan 2011
Yesterday, I noted that a Libyan opposition website,
Almanara, had posted videos showing disturbances in
Libya during the last few days. After that, something odd happened: the website disappeared. Trying to access
Almanara this morning, I simply got an error
message.
Conceivably this could be just a technical glitch, but I suspect not. A
YouTube video of the protests, which I linked to at the same time, has also disappeared and there are claims on Twitter that access to social networking websites inside Libya is being blocked.
Another Libyan website, Libya Almostakbal, reports
that it has been attacked twice since Friday.
Several copies of the videos, which I didn't link to yesterday, are still available on the internet. I won't provide links to them all, but here is
one of them just to see what happens to it.
The protests themselves have not been reported in the official Libyan media, apart from a statement from the Revolutionary Committee condemning them.
Meanwhile, the cause of the trouble is becoming clearer. It's about delays in providing subsidised housing, and since Thursday activists in several towns have taken over hundreds of empty properties.
For example, the Egyptian website, AhramOnline, reports that on Saturday night "hundreds of people broke into vacant houses and took over about 800 vacant units in Bani Walid city (180
kilometres south east from the capital, Tripoli)".
A further problem is that at least some of the empty apartments taken over by the
activists have already been allocated to people who had signed contracts and paid
money but now find others occupying the homes they were expecting.
There are also hints of corruption in the allocation of housing. Referring to the situation in Bani Walid, a statement from the National Front for Salvation of Libya (an opposition movement) quoted by AhramOnline said: "Bani Walid has no basic services; thousands of people are without houses and the local authority is corrupted, it only delivers services with bribes. Nothing will make Bani Walid calm but freedom, justice and transparency."
So far, the Gaddafi regime for all its eccentricity has handled the protests more smartly than the Ben Ali regime did in Tunisia. Large numbers of police have been standing by, watching, but they are said to have instructions not to open fire. The Libyan regime has also made conciliatory noises towards the protesters. The Revolutionary Committee's statement said: "We have formed a committee to investigate every complaint, all the problems will be solved soon through the legitimate authorities."
Contrast that with the Tunisian regime which, a week after the initial trouble in Sidi
Bouzid, was still largely
in denial and trying to justify the authorities' action in stopping Mohamed Bouazizi from selling his fruit.
So, Gaddafi may succeed in quietening things down with promises, committee meetings and the sacking of a few officials. It's unlikely, though, that the more systemic problems will be addressed in any meaningful way with the result that the protests, if they die down now, are bound to return at some point in the future.
Gaddafi versus
Kleenex
Blog post, 18 Jan 2011
Almanara, the Libyan opposition website whose
disappearance
I reported yesterday, is now back on line and saying that it was attacked by Gaddafi's security people.
Al-Jazeera has
a story about it (in Arabic).
Besides declaring his support for the ousted Tunisian president, Gaddafi has also been ranting against the internet and
WikiLeaks, which he apparently blames for Ben Ali's downfall. I am indebted to Global Voices for
this translation of a passage from the Leader's weekend speech. In case you're wondering, "Kleenex" is the name he has given to
WikiLeaks:
Even you, my Tunisian brothers. You may be reading this Kleenex and empty talk on the Internet.
This Internet, which any demented person, any drunk can get drunk and write in, do you believe it? The Internet is like a vacuum cleaner, it can suck anything. Any useless person; any liar; any drunkard; anyone under the influence; anyone high on drugs; can talk on the Internet, and you read what he writes and you believe it. This is talk which is for free. Shall we become the victims of "Facebook" and "Kleenex" and "YouTube"! Shall we become victims to tools they created so that they can laugh at our moods?
Muammar Gaddafi: method in his 'madness'
Comment
is free, 23 February 2011
"People of Libya!" the broadcast
began, "In response to your own will, fulfilling your most heartfelt wishes, answering your incessant demands for change and regeneration ... your armed forces have undertaken the overthrow of the reactionary and corrupt regime, the stench of which has sickened and horrified us all. At a single blow your gallant army has toppled these idols and has destroyed their images ... From this day forward, Libya is a free, self-governing republic."
It was 1 September 1969, and the young army captain seated at the microphone to announce the coup was Muammar Gaddafi then only 27 and a fervent admirer of the Nasserist revolution in neighbouring Egypt. Yesterday, he was again broadcasting to the nation and this time the tables were turned. It is no longer the "decadent regime" of
King Idris under attack, but that of Gaddafi himself.
In the four decades since he came to power, Gaddafi's behaviour has shocked and amused the world in roughly equal measures from his bizarre
sense of fashion to his appearance on Monday leaning out of something resembling a popemobile and holding a white umbrella. As a Jordanian psychiatrist once told me while we watched Gaddafi's televised performance at an Arab summit: "I meet people like him every day in my hospital."
But mad as they may seem, his actions usually have some kind of logic, even if it's a logic that others, not attuned to the Gaddafi way of thinking, fail to recognise. When he drove through Africa throwing money out of his car window, he was making a serious point: foreign aid is often misused or ends up in the wrong hands, so why not just let ordinary people pick it up off the street?
It was the same on Monday with the popemobile episode. In answer to claims that he had fled the country, he posed for the cameras outside a building that every Libyan would recognise his former home in Tripoli (the one the Americans bombed in 1986, killing his daughter).
He was back at the bombed-out house on Tuesday, suitably dressed in khaki and declaring himself "a fighter". It was an angry, defiant speech and mercifully short by Gaddafi's standards, lasting only an hour or so. It was also, in a strangely malevolent way, an honest speech. Gaddafi let rip, talking of "honour" and expressing all the feelings that Ben Ali and Mubarak would probably like to have expressed in their last presidential broadcasts, if only they hadn't been wearing a suit and tie and trying to look dignified.
Gaddafi, of course, doesn't see himself in the Mubarak/Ben Ali mould. He doesn't see the uprising as a mass rebellion against his leadership but as a flare-up of
old tribal rivalries a reactionary movement bent on destroying the revolutionary spirit of the world's first and only people's jamahiriya.
These rivalries are a constant undercurrent of Gaddafi's rule but have usually been played out in the mosques and football stadiums rather than on the streets. Just over 10 years ago, for example, shortly after Gaddafi's football-mad son, Saadi, became captain of the Tripoli team, the city of Benghazi long regarded as a centre of opposition to the regime suffered a series of
humiliating defeats on the pitch.
In one match, in the summer of 2000, Benghazi was leading 1-0 at half-time, but in the second half the referee dutifully awarded two penalties to Tripoli along with an offside goal. The Benghazi players walked off in protest but Saadi's guards ordered them back and the match ended with a 3-1 victory to Tripoli.
Shortly afterwards, Benghazi played al-Baydah (the home town of Saadi's mother). Following another suspect penalty, Benghazi fans invaded the pitch and the game was abandoned. Arriving back in Benghazi, the fans set fire to the local headquarters of the Libyan Football Federation (chaired, of course, by Saadi) and the authorities retaliated by dissolving the Benghazi club and demolishing its premises.
Given the history, it's not surprising if Gaddafi sees the current insubordination as more of the same (though on a much more serious scale) and, moving on from bogus penalties, is determined to suppress it with whatever force may be necessary to preserve the "historic march" of his revolution.
One of the key points in Tuesday's
speech, emphasised by its symbolic setting, was that his regime had withstood bombing "by 170 aircraft under the leadership of nuclear countries like America, Britain and Nato" implying that where they failed local rebels cannot succeed.
He also explained why unlike Ben Ali and Mubarak he cannot resign. Technically, this is correct since Libya has no president. Gaddafi constantly asserts that he is just an ordinary Libyan citizen (though of course very little happens without his approval). His title, "Brother Leader and Guide of the Revolution", is not a public office but a description of his historical role. Thus, it can never be taken away from him or bestowed on anyone else.
But Gaddafi does have one very important thing in common with Ben Ali and Mubarak. By continuing to bask in the glories of 1969, he has lost touch with his people. Most Libyans alive today have no recollection of King Idris or the revolution that overthrew him. For them, it's part of Libya's past. But not part of its future.
Libya and its
tribes
Blog post, 2 March 2011
The tribal dimension in the Libyan uprising has not received much attention so far probably because hardly anyone outside the country knows much about it. It
certainly is a factor, but how big a factor is still unclear.
Several recent articles cast a bit more light on the tribal situation and its relationship to Libyan
politics, though experts differ in their assessments::
Libya's toxic tribal divisions are greater than Qaddafi
Mustafa Fetouri, The National, 2 March
Even a Weakened Qaddafi May Be Hard to Dislodge
Steven Erlanger, New York Times, 1 March
Libya crisis: what role do tribal loyalties play?
Mohamed Hussein, BBC, 21 February
Tribal ties key to Gaddafi rule
Souhail Karam, Reuters, 22 February
The Reuters item says there are more than 20 tribes and it lists the main ones according to their geographical location:
Tripolitania region: Warfalla, Awlad Busayf,
Al-Zintan, Al-Rijban
Cyrenaica: al-Awagir, al-Abaydat, Drasa, al-Barasa,
al-Fawakhir, al-Zuwayya, al-Majabra
Syrte-Giblah: al-Gaddadfa, al-Magarha, al-Magharba,
al-Riyyah, al-Haraba, al-Zuwaid, al-Guwaid
Fezzan: al-Hutman, al-Hassawna, Tibbu, Tuareg
Al-Kufra: al-Zuwayya, Tibbu
The New York Times says the 1969 revolution which put Gaddafi in power came largely from three tribes: the large Warfalla, the Gaddadfa (Gaddafi's own relatively small tribe) and the Magarha (to which
Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, belongs).
Although tribal affinities have weakened during the last four decades, "many Libyans continue to identify themselves as belonging to a tribe," the BBC says.
Gaddafi had originally promised to eliminate tribalism and, for the first 10 years or so, tribal identification was officially frowned
upon. The BBC article continues.
However, as his popularity diminished and as he began to fall out with his colleagues in the Free Unionist Officers corps ... he relied increasingly on tribalism and tribal rivalry in order to consolidate his grip on power. This has been most pronounced in the armed forces where each of the main tribes is represented.
Fostering rivalries among the various tribes in the army through selective patronage has not only strengthened his control over the military, but has also worked to draw attention away from Col Gaddafi and his regime.
Though that may have helped Gaddafi in the past,
it helps to explain why the army currently seems to be divided in its loyalties. But the BBC report
cautions against overplaying the importance of tribalism more
generally. It adds:
The influence of tribal chiefs also should not be overestimated. In the final analysis, people take notice of what tribal chiefs say only if it suits
them.
The Warfalla were implicated in a coup attempt in 1993 and some (but not all) of them now seem to have turned against Gaddafi again. There also seems to be a rift between Gaddafi and the
Magarha.
Tribes, though, are not monolithic and they can be very fickle (as seen in Yemen). Their allegiances are not necessarily permanent and can change suddenly, depending on where they perceive their interests to lie at any given moment.
Like Salih in Yemen, Gaddafi has become adept over the years at navigating a course through the tribal minefield, though in both cases
their scope for continuing to do so is now looking more and more constrained.
Writing in The National, Fetouri says:
This tribal landscape must be understood along with Libya's recent history: the country has not had political parties for more than four decades. Civil society does not exist, nor does the idea of loyalty to the "state". There is not a constitution, no nationally-accepted rule of law and no practical mechanisms to guide the country in the event of a power vacuum at the top ...
This structure makes it hard to see how a power vacuum could be filled and by whom. While the eastern part of Libya is beyond government control it still lacks effective leadership, let alone a clear political vision for a united Libya. The only strong message and symbol coming from eastern Libya is the flag of the country from the 1950s ...
Fetouri (an academic and political analyst based in Tripoli) cautions against "any ill-considered and hastily assembled plans from western powers". If the international community wishes to help, he says, it should consider the country's internal dynamics and its fragile tribal structure and seek to "mediate divisions rather than resort to slogans about human
rights". He adds:
I am not in anyway suggesting that the protesters do not have legitimate and well-founded grievances; nor am I arguing that Libya before February 17 was best for Libyans. I must say, however, that the Libya with all its ills, which I have harshly and
publicly condemned in print for the last couple of years, may not be replaced by any viable Libyan state. After all that has happened after February 17, I do not see one emerging.
Educating Saif
Gaddafi
Blog post, 3 March 2011
During my first and only visit to Libya, in 2004, I came across a book entitled "Libya and the XXI Century". Since copies were on offer free of charge and the author was Gaddafi's playboy son,
Saif
al-Islam, I decided to take one.
Inside the front cover it says:
"Taken from a University Thesis Presented to the Faculty of California State University, Hayward IMADEC CSUH In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Executive Master in Business Administration by Saif-Aleslam M
Alqadhafi, March 2000."
I was reminded of this by the controversy in Britain over Saif's
relationship with the London School of Economics (where he was awarded a PhD in 2008 and subsequently
promised a donation of £1.5 million to support its academic work). I wondered if the California State University had been blessed with a similar donation in 2000 as a result of his Executive MBA studies there.
But apparently not, because there's no evidence that Saif studied in California at all. The clue is in the initials "IMADEC" (short for "International Management Development Consulting").
IMADEC is a private law and business school with a controversial history. It is based in Vienna, Austria, where Saif lived in a luxury villa and his pet tiger resided in the city's zoo.
IMADEC was not legally recognised as a university by the Austrian authorities at the time Saif studied there, though it did have a partnership arrangement with California State
University (Hayward) which explains the inscription at the front of
Saif's thesis. The relationship with CSUH ended in 2002 amid questions about the academic credentials of IMADEC's longtime director.
In 2006, IMADEC lost its Austrian university status, though it was allowed to continue offering "university level courses". An Austrian court also invalidated a number of honorary degrees that it had awarded
including a doctorate in business administration to Arnold
Schwarzenegger.
Last year, a creditor began bankruptcy proceedings against IMADEC (an unfortunate thing to happen to a business school) but this was apparently resolved through a restructuring plan.
IMADEC's website states that admission to its
Executive MBA course is based on "academic and managerial accomplishments and potential". It says: "Successful applicants will generally possess seven or more years of work experience with four or more years in executive or managerial level positions."
Saif did not have that sort of experience, having completed his Libyan B Eng degree in architecture only in 1994. So presumably he qualified on
the grounds of having "potential" (along with money).
As for his 276-page thesis, it's about the Libyan economy and large parts of it are gibberish.
A section on page 34, headed "Bureaucracy, bribery, favouritism and administrative corruption" begins:
Bureaucracy and its accompanying phenomena such as bribery, favouritism and administrative corruption arise when it is impossible to issue and implement and follow-up decisions for reasons related to difficulty in issuing or implementing them or risk or importance thereof, but relate to the numerous channels through which such decisions should pass and the conditions to be fulfilled for eventual implementation of such decisions, which are mostly unnecessary or exaggerated conditions as a result of the prevailing administrative nature and unclear responsibilities and powers of the employees in the administrative machinery or conflict thereof.
At least nobody can accuse him of plagiarising that.
Saif Gaddafi and the democracy project audio
Comment
is free, 18 March 2011
As British and French war planes prepare to launch air strikes on Libya, another western military visit to the country comes to mind. In January 2004, a US navy plane made the first recorded visit by an American military aircraft since President Reagan ordered the bombing of Tripoli and Benghazi in 1986. This time, though, the plane was carrying six members of Congress
on a goodwill mission and, along with several other British journalists, I was there to witness the event.
The visit signalled a thaw in Libya's international relations. Just a month earlier, the Gaddafi regime had agreed to
abandon its quest for weapons of mass destruction, the long-running dispute over compensation for the Lockerbie bombing was almost settled and there was talk of lifting sanctions and removing Libya from the list of countries supporting terrorism.
A day or two later, along with Richard Beeston from the Times, I was granted a 15-minute interview with Gaddafi's son, Saif al-Islam, who was then studying for his
controversial PhD at the London School of Economics but also acting as a sort of unofficial ambassador for Libya.
This week, vaguely recalling some of the things he had said, I decided to hunt for my recording
[audio
here] of the interview and listen to it again. It starts with some general conversation about Libya's improving relations and its decision to renounce WMD but, in the light of current events, it gets more interesting at about 7 min 57 sec, when Saif starts to talk enthusiastically about his "personal secret project" to democratise Libya:
"When you talk with us about democracy or human rights ... ourselves, you know, we speak about this in Libya. There is no need for Americans to come here and promote democracy and human rights because this is to be our agenda. Because it's for our benefit as Libyans, and this is our duty to promote democracy and make it deep in our society and also to enhance standards of the human rights in Libya, and so on and so on. You know,
my foundation is very active in this field.
Question: Someone was saying to us today that the Libyan role for reform will probably be the Chinese, taken in broad context: reform the economy, improve people's lifestyles, liberalise trading relations and then with it comes the other benefits, the other democratic benefits.
Many people here and out, they like the Chinese experiment and they say that it may work in Libya also, but I don't think it's a good idea to copy the Chinese model because it could work in China but not in Libya. In China they have a good market mechanism but don't have an excellent democratic system ...
I want to realise the idea of the Green Book, which is direct democracy. I think it's a fantastic idea. Direct democracy plus e-democracy ... people who can use email and internet to vote and to send their decisions. It's a very practical thing. This is our dream, but not to be like the Chinese, you know.
Question: So the advent of the internet can actually help to implement the Leader's original ideas?
This is my personal secret project. Direct plus electronic democracy in Libya. And it should be one of our surprises soon. Because Libya is the land of surprises. [laughs]
Question: Is there a country that you can think of that offers you some sort of model of successful transformation ... Is there a country that you look at and think that's the way we should take?
I think the best model we can look at is the Swiss model. Swiss democracy, because they have a semi-direct democracy but to achieve a full surprise you have to make it not similar but a real direct democracy and something unique and revolutionary. This is the hard task for us to achieve, then to go beyond Swiss democracy.
Question: Has this transformation been difficult for your father? What he is being asked to do now is very different from the revolution that he brought to this country in the 70s and his stand in the 80s.
No. No, because it's how you can say it the logical solution, because in fact there isn't need for any WMD in Libya. Why? We are not in conflict with Israel any more, because all Arab states want peace with them, and we aren't at the borders with Israel and we are more engaged in Africa more than in the Middle East. This is number one. No fighting with Israel.
The Americans and the Nato, now we are cooperating together with the Americans to fight terrorism. Now they are friendly with us. They don't provoke us. They don't come here and provoke us within our territorial water. They don't threaten the stability of our country why should we be hostile to them? And as President Bush said, hostility never lasts for ever."
Finally (at 13 min 40 sec), Saif pays tribute to Tony Blair for his efforts to broker the deal with the Americans:
"Tony Blair played a very important role as a guarantor. He guaranteed the whole process. Because he was the spearhead of that process. I have to tell you that the Leader trusts Tony Blair and said he can trust you. And if you said 'The turkey will fly' I believe you. Those are facts."
Looking back at Saif's words in 2004, it's difficult to imagine that this is the same person who was
pictured recently waving a gun in Tripoli and urging the regime's supporters to fight until "the last bullet". What to make of it? I don't know, but I would be interested to hear what readers think.
The difference with Libya
Comment
is free, 23 March 2011
Why not bomb Bahrain? Why not declare a no-fly zone over Yemen? Such questions are aired increasingly on the internet implying that in the light of all the popular uprisings in the Middle East and the authorities' attempts to suppress them, military intervention in Libya is a case of double standards.
It's true, of course, that Bahrain and Yemen are regarded as western allies while Muammar Gaddafi has been an international pariah for most of his 43 years in power and few will be sorry to see him go. But that is not the only reason for treating Libya differently.
In principle, the question of who governs each country is a matter for its own citizens to sort out, and as far as possible they should be left to do so. This is especially important in the Arab countries that have a long history of political manipulation from outside: Arabs alternate between complaining about western intervention and demanding that the west steps in to solve their problems for them.
The result has been a long-standing dependency culture which thankfully Tunisians and Egyptians began to shake off when they overthrew their presidents. They accomplished their revolutions without significant foreign help and, in the long run, they will be all the better for that.
The problem, though, is that dictators don't give up power readily and in the process of getting rid of them people are liable to be killed. It happened in Tunisia and Egypt, and it's happening in Bahrain, Yemen and to a much greater degree in Libya.
So, while it's important to let people determine their own future, there's a conflicting pressure to get involved when lives and human rights are at stake.
In an effort to clarify the position, the UN's 2005 world summit established an international norm known as "responsiblity to protect"
(set out here in paragraphs 138 and 139):
"Each individual State has the responsibility to protect its populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. This responsibility entails the prevention of such crimes, including their incitement, through appropriate and necessary means."
It goes on to say that the international community, through the UN, has a responsibility "to use appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means ... to help protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity". It also permits military action through the UN "should peaceful means be inadequate and national authorities manifestly fail to protect their population".
The concept of R2P (as it's sometimes known) began to emerge after the international community's failure to prevent the 1994
genocide in
Rwanda. Canada was one of the countries pressing for it and the African Union also played an important part. In addition,
it is supported by various human rights organisations and NGOs.
"Responsibility to protect" was specifically cited in the two recent security council resolutions
(1970 and
1973) relating to Libya. Under the rules of R2P, military intervention is a last resort and the way that is interpreted will always be coloured to some extent by the political interests of security council members. Even so, there is a reasonable argument that the scale and nature of the Libyan regime's action justified intervention in a way that the actions of other Arab regimes (so far) have not.
There is a further argument that Libya was a test case: if R2P was ignored on this occasion the whole principle of protecting civilian populations would have been seriously weakened, if not rendered totally worthless.
This is not to suggest that intervening in Libya was necessarily a good idea militarily or politically. As
Jonathan Freedland
says, the trouble with it is not "the abstract principle but the concrete practice". There will always be debates about the implementation and questions about whether the number of deaths would have been higher or lower if Libyans had been left to their own devices. Either way, though, it deserves to be recognised as an intervention based on principle and not as the "petro-imperialist" plot that Gaddafi claims it to be.
If anyone is to be accused of double standards, it should be the Arab League, which initially supported the no-fly zone, wavered when the bombing started, and now seems to have swung back in support of it.
At the same time, though, the league is supporting another kind of "responsibility to protect" the protection of repressive regimes in the Gulf. Yesterday, while rejecting "any foreign interference", it
endorsed the sending of
Saudi troops to prop up Bahrain's beleaguered king.
Gaddafi's exit
strategy?
Blog post, 27 March 2011
Colonel Gaddafi's son, Saif al-Islam, is touting a "transition" plan for Libya,
according to the Saudi-owned newspaper, Asharq
Alawsat.
Saif's plan "would see him take over control of Libya from his father during a transitional period during which Libya would transform from a revolutionary state to a democratic state that enjoys public and economic freedoms" the paper says.
The transitional period would last between two and three years, in return for a comprehensive ceasefire and negotiations with the opposition. Saif is also said to be pushing for assurances that "Colonel Gaddafi and his family will be granted immunity from prosecution, and will not be legally punished in any manner".
The report adds that Saif "has been in contact with officials in the US, British, and Italian governments, in an attempt to submit the above-mentioned plan".
Libyan opposition figures quoted by the paper dismissed Saif's plan as "just a new political manoeuvre" and "an attempt to gain time and fool public opinion".
But, assuming that this plan has the Leader's approval and is not an independent initiative by Saif himself, it does suggest the regime realises it cannot reassert control and will have to make concessions if it is to survive at all.
Libya: is negotiation the answer?
Comment
is free, 28 March 2011
As the fighting continues, Nabila Ramdani and Brian Whitaker debate Nato's next move
Nabila Ramdani: Missiles do not bring peace
My friend Aisha, a mother of five from a small village south of Tripoli, was in floods of tears as she told me how she had seen a rebel holding up a pair of blood-stained shorts following the destruction of three tanks and their accompanying infantry.
She feared that one of her sons, a 17-year-old Libyan army conscript called Khaled, may have been among those killed by missiles before victims' bodies were cut to pieces by a mob and their clothes displayed as macabre trophies.
"They went to behead and mutilate they have no mercy," said Aisha, highlighting the extreme hatred that is perhaps unique to civil wars.
Whatever your views on the mission being carried out by UN-led forces, this sinister mix of hi-tech air strikes and base savagery should play no part in it.
It is for this principal reason that Turkish plans for a ceasefire cannot come soon enough.
Prime minster Recep Tayyip Erdogan's suggestion that what started out as a wholly humanitarian effort is deteriorating into a "second Iraq" or "another Afghanistan" is entirely correct.
Cruise and Tomahawk missiles do not bring peace to a country any more than AK-47-wielding paramilitaries expressing vague affiliations to overseas governments. Atrocities have certainly been committed by Gaddafi's army as it fights to put down the rebellion, but the killing on both sides is unremitting.
Rather than hitting forces directly threatening civilian populations as they pledged to western air forces, and particularly the French, are clearly shooting up grounded aircraft and isolated troops. Many are, like Khaled, young men from decent families whose hatred of the west will only be intensified by the killing.
Gaddafi's soldiers are not an ideologically motivated elite in the mould of Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard, they are largely made up of young Libyans carrying out orders.
Erdogan, like many in the Arab world, is horrified by the west once more leading an onslaught against an Muslim state without providing time to consider its long-term implications.
It is for this reason that he wants to involve Nato, the Arab League and the African Union in a settlement that will allow the democratic rights and liberties of the Libyan people to flourish, rather than their fighting abilities. Now that the feared siege of Benghazi is no longer a possibility, and the no-fly zone is established, a period of intense negotiation is long overdue.
In the short term, this may mean that Gaddafi has to play a part in this transition to open government, but this would be far preferable to the state of war.
Erdogan's challenge to unilateral British, French and American military intervention may create divisions within Nato but an end to the killing cannot come a moment too soon.
Brian Whitaker: Negotiation would play into Gaddafi's hands
Amid repeated claims that Libya could turn into another Iraq or Afghanistan, there are growing calls for a negotiated solution. Such talk at the moment serves no purpose, apart from throwing a lifeline to the Gaddafi family and helping them maintain their grip on the country, or at least some of it.
Calls for negotiation are predicated on the idea that the situation in Libya will reach a political/military impasse. It might do, but it hasn't yet so there is no need to start behaving as if it had.
A more likely scenario, though, is that the Gaddafi regime will implode suddenly and fairly soon in a matter of weeks rather than months or years. We should at least wait to see if that is what happens. Hardly anyone in Libya seriously believes in the leader's eccentric Green Book ideology, and most of those who currently support him can be expected to abandon him once they perceive that he is on the way out.
So the effect of negotiations at this stage would be to help the Gaddafis salvage something. That certainly seems to be the aim of the leader's son, Saif al-Islam, who has reportedly been
trying to interest the US, Britain and Italy in a "transition plan". Not surprisingly, Saif's plan envisages Saif taking over from his father for a period of two to three years, while Libya is transformed from a revolutionary jamahiriyya into a liberal democracy. In the meantime, all the Gaddafis despite their crimes over the years would be granted immunity from prosecution.
Regardless of what happens to Saif's reported plan, these are the sort of demands that would inevitably arise on Gaddafi's side if negotiations got under way and there is no reason why anyone should agree to them or even consider them seriously.
Whether or not we agree with the decision by the UN security council to intervene militarily to protect civilians, Libyans along with the people of Yemen, Bahrain, Syria and elsewhere must be allowed as much scope as possible to determine their own future, with a minimum of foreign interference.
The curious part is that these calls for negotiations seem to be coming mainly from people who declare themselves opposed to intervention at least the kind of intervention initiated by the security council.
What they don't seem to realise is that negotiations at this stage, organised by outsiders, would be a far more blatant interference in Libya's internal politics than anything the UN has approved.
The liberal-left are at odds on Libya
Comment
is free, 5 May 2011
Military intervention in Libya, like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is dividing public opinion. Many critics see all three as part of the same neo-imperialist project to install puppet governments and assert western domination over oil supplies.
That certainly seems to be the view of Tariq Ali and many who post in the Guardian's comment threads. A constant refrain is that the conflict in Libya is "all about oil".
But the dividing lines over Libya are not exactly what they were with Iraq. Significant voices that opposed the invasion of Iraq are more equivocal about intervention in Libya or even support it.
Professor Juan Cole, one of the most prominent American critics of the Iraq war and who still calls it illegal takes an entirely different line on Libya. At the end of March,
he wrote on his blog:
"The Libya intervention is legal and was necessary to prevent further massacres and to forestall a threat to democratisation in Tunisia and Egypt, and if it succeeds in getting rid of Qaddafi's murderous regime and allowing Libyans to have a normal life, it will be worth the sacrifices in life and treasure. If NATO needs me, I'm there."
In 2002, Hussein Ibish, of the American task force on Palestine,
described war in Iraq as unnecessary, dangerous and completely unjustified. Last week, in contrast, he was
robustly defending "Obama's limited engagement in Libya".
In Britain, another opponent of the Iraq war Chris Doyle, director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding (CAABU) says he is "broadly supportive" of military efforts to protect civilians in Libya, though he is "somewhat concerned" about
mission creep and the lack of a clear strategy.
Yvonne Ridley the British journalist who was kidnapped by the Taliban, later converted to Islam and became a critic of the "war on terror"
now argues that the west must give the Libyan rebels "all the help and support they need to accomplish the removal of Gaddafi", adding: "The people of Libya would have been brutally crushed without mercy if the west had not responded to their cries for help."
These are a few of the more striking examples. But why, exactly, is Libya different?
There were certainly some who made a case for "liberal interventionism" in Iraq and Afghanistan, but it was muddied by numerous other factors and for that reason never became very convincing. With Iraq, there was a long build-up as
American neoconservatives and the
Israel lobby beat their war drums, plus some very transparent attempts to
cook up evidence that Saddam Hussein posed an immediate threat to international security the
"dodgy
dossier", and so on.
Intervention in Iraq was also widely opposed by the Arab public (as well as some of their leaders) and there were serious legal questions as to whether the UN security council had
actually authorised
war.
In Libya, the humanitarian aspect was more clear-cut and less complicated by other factors. The Gaddafi regime had made explict threats against its population and there were reasonable grounds for believing a bloodbath would ensue.
Also, between the outbreak of the conflicts in Iraq and Libya, the UN had adopted the principle of
"responsibility to
protect" (supported by various humanitarian
organisations) and, in effect, Libya was the major first test of its effectiveness.
Another difference in the case of Libya is that the balance of Arab opinion favoured intervention and the security council clearly authorised it (by "all necessary means"), even if there are disagreements as to whether that includes targeting the Gaddafi regime.
Unlike the runup to the war in Iraq, the Libyan crisis blew up suddenly which weakens the idea that intervention was part of some preconceived western strategy (despite many claims to the contrary). Unlike George Bush, Barack Obama was initially reluctant to get involved.
Chris Doyle of CAABU acknowledges that oil may have been a background factor, but doesn't see it as the main one. "If Libya has no oil there would be very little interest, but I'm not convinced it's about an oil grab," he said.
A more impressionistic point is that erstwhile critics of the Iraq war who take a different view over Libya also seem to be people who take a particular interest in the region which may be relevant.
There was some discussion of this in the Guardian's
live blog thread on Wednesday, where one suggestion was that in the absence of much preliminary debate, many non-specialists are hastily fitting Libya into preconceived templates, including the position that "everything that the west does must be wrong". There also seem to be a few who still regard Muammar Gaddafi as a vaguely romantic flashback to the 1960s.
A more important consideration is to what extent a revolution accomplished with Nato bombers flying overhead can ever be considered authentic. The uprising in Libya began authentically enough, but there is no doubt that seeing the Libyan people overthrow Gaddafi by themselves would have been infinitely preferable to what has happened.
At the same time, though, we should be very wary of adopting familiar templates. The magnitude of the transformation process originally unleashed in Tunisia has still not properly sunk in and we should be prepared to start rethinking the Middle East from scratch.
The assumption that people who have begun overthrowing their dictators will passively allow western puppet regimes to be foisted upon them as replacements is one template that should be junked right away. The new Arab governments, whether they like it or not, and whether the west likes it or not, will have to be far more responsive to their people's demands than they have ever been in the past.
Gaddafi,
Assad or Salih: who will go first?
Blog post, 13 May 2011
Following the comparatively swift exits of Ben Ali in Tunisia and Mubarak in Egypt, we now have three Arab leaders who face serious challenges to their power but are proving more much difficult to dislodge: Gaddafi in Libya, Salih in Yemen and Assad in Syria. Which of them, I wonder will be the next to go and when?
The Syrian uprising is the most recent it began in the middle of March and my gut feeling is that it will not succeed quickly. The Assad regime could easily survive into next year, if not for longer, though it is unlikely ever to recover from the blow to its authority.
"The regime will dig in its heels and fight to the end," Joshua Landis
writes on his
blog. But he continues:
"The Syrian opposition has successfully established a culture of resistance that is widespread in Syria and will not be eliminated. Even if demonstrations can be shut down for the time being, the opposition will not be defeated. Syrias youth, long apolitical and apathetic, is now
politicised, mobilised, and passionate. All the same, the opposition remains divided and leaderless, which presents great dangers for a
post-Assad Syria."
In Yemen, where protests directed specifically against the president
began during the second half of January, Salih has been playing his usual wily game. he has already agreed to go, but he keeps finding reasons why he should stay a bit longer. Protected by his Republican Guard, he seems to have decided that street protests alone even if millions take part in them are not going to dislodge him.
This has led to many predictions that the result will be armed conflict. But there is also a possibility that the economy will bring him down.
The Chinese news agency, Xinhua, has a grim report today which quotes the Yemeni oil minister as saying economic collapse is "imminent".
The report says Yemen's oil production "has been halved in recent weeks after producers pulled out their staff and halted output, which led to the closure of the country's sole refinery in Aden".
The minister, Amir Salim al-Aydarus, blamed this mainly on "sabotage", though he also acknowledged the role played by "political deadlock".
"The sabotage and destruction by outlaws on oil and gas pipelines as well as electricity lines exacerbated the economic situation," Aydarus is reported as saying. "If the problem persists, the government will be unable to meet the minimum needs of the citizens. The situation will pose a catastrophe beyond imagination."
In Libya, where the rebellion began in mid-February, there has been much talk of a prolonged stalemate though I'm sceptical about that. Judging by recent reports, the rebels are gradually consolidating their position while the Gaddafi regime is being slowly worn down by the Nato bombing and other factors. When the time comes, it could collapse quite suddenly.
The course of events in Libya is now largely in the hands of outside forces, unlike Syria and, to a lesser extent, Yemen (where the GCC countries are involved diplomatically), and my reading of the situation is that western powers are in no great hurry to see Gaddafi go. After more than 40 years in power, another few months is neither here nor there, so it's better to keep him pinned down in Tripoli until the rebels have properly got their act together and are capable of running the show.
One way or another, all three regimes in Libya, Yemen and Syria are on the slide. In any of these countries, unforeseen events such as assassination or a coup could hasten their demise but as things stand at the moment it looks like a toss-up as to whether Salih or Gaddafi will be the first to go.
Libya:
Legality of troops on the ground
Blog post, 2 June 2011
The revelation that "retired" soldiers are operating in Libya with the blessing of Nato countries, under the guise of working for private security companies, has sparked new debate about the use of ground forces there.
This raises two separate issues one legal, the other political. Politically, ground forces are unacceptable but the military
have been seeking some assistance from the ground and private companies are one way of providing it.
There is also a popular belief that Security Council
resolution
1973, which provides legal cover for the Nato operation, excludes the use of ground forces too. From a cursory reading, you might easily get that impression. But what it actually rules out is "a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory".
Exactly what this means hinges on the legal definition of an "occupation force" and the Hague Conventions of 1907 are pretty clear about that.
Article 42 says: "Territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army."
So, legally speaking, the resolution would probably allow Nato to send in an entire army
if it wished, so long as it did not assume authority over any Libyan territory.
Libya,
Bahrain and a mystery journalist
Blog post, 3 Auguist 2011
Back in April, an article carrying the by-line Liliane Khalil appeared on various websites. It described the activities of a group of Libyan rebels who were
purportedly tweeting from the conflict zone under the collective name "OperationLibyia" [sic] and related a touching story that one of them a young father had been injured and then died for lack of medical attention.
Besides appearing on blogs, the story was also published by the Palestinian Ma'an News Agency and quoted at length in The Lede for the New York Times.
Shortly afterwards, questions were raised about OperationLibyia and it appeared that Khalil's story might be untrue.
Also in April, another article appeared under Liliane Khalil's name this time in the Bahrain Independent (a pro-government publication). It was a lengthy attack on the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights and its alleged connections with Iran. The article reads like a straightforward piece of propaganda for the Bahraini regime.
Liliane Khalil also volunteered her services (unpaid) for the Cairo-based news website, Bikya
Masr, where she was given the title of contributing editor. Apparently she never met anyone from Bikya Masr face-to-face and, despite promising interviews with various important people, she seems to have done little more than compile news reports from published sources.
All this might suggest that Liliane Khalil is simply a hapless young freelance
inexperienced and somewhat gullible trying to make her way in journalism. Even so, she seems to have impressed the Bahrain Independent which in July announced that it was making her its North American bureau chief, based in Atlanta. Describing her as a "veteran investigative journalist", it said: "She comes with over a decade of experience in reporting on the Middle East and North Africa and was previously based in Cairo."
On Tuesday, though, further questions were raised. Marc Owen Jones, a Durham University PhD student whose research includes "how the regime in Bahrain is using social media as a tool of surveillance and social control", published a
very detailed dossier asking (among other things) whether Liliane Khalil really exists. Considering that she is supposed to have been reporting for more than 10 years, there is very little information about her on the internet (even less now, because some of it has been deleted recently), and examples of her published work are very scarce.
This is where the story starts to have echoes of the "Gay Girl in
Damascus" hoax, because the picture Liliane Khalil uses for her Twitter profile bears a striking resemblance to that of
a person on LinkedIn. The LinkedIn person is Gisele
Cohen, described as an "HIV/AIDS case manager and patient advocate at Union Healthcare of Atlanta". Rather oddly, Gisele Cohen has no "connections" with others on
LinkedIn. (There are other similarities between Liliane Khalil and Gisele Cohen which have been documented in Marc Owen Jones's
blog.)
After several days' silence on Twitter, Liliane Khalil resurfaced on Tuesday, describing the allegations against her as "nonsense". She is apparently in hospital recovering from a back operation, which may explain her reluctance to answer questions. Her final post on Tuesday was:
"I'm through. And, please, no other journos ask me for an interview. This is not that serious. This is not a news story. At all."
Is France right to arm Libyan rebels?
Comment
is free, 30 June 2011
France has now confirmed that it supplied weapons to tribal fighters in Libya earlier this month.
At first sight, this conflicts with the arms embargo imposed by UN security council resolution 1970 back in February. But resolution 1973, which established the no-fly zone over Libya three weeks later, seems to override that. It authorises "all necessary measures" to protect civilians "notwithstanding" the arms embargo.
Can anyone seriously claim to protect civilians by providing them with weapons? Or is that a contradiction in terms? The British government seems to think so, and at present is said to be providing the Libyan rebels only with "non-lethal" equipment.
The US, meanwhile, argues that resolution 1973 does allow countries to provide the rebels with weapons and Qatar is believed to have been doing so on a significant scale.
The French military say that their weapons drop occurred in "exceptional circumstances" and was intended to provide civilians with a means to defend themselves when they came under threat. A military spokesman quoted by the BBC said:
"We began by dropping humanitarian aid: food, water and medical supplies ... During the operation, the situation for the civilians on the ground worsened. We dropped arms and means of self-defence, mainly ammunition."
I'd be interested to know what readers think of this and I shall be in the comment thread for the next few hours to join anyone who would like to discuss it, and to answer your questions.
Could Gaddafi stay in Libya?
Comment
is free, 4 July 2011
Colonel Gaddafi can stay in Libya if he gives up power, the head of the opposition movement said on Sunday in a move that could ease the way towards a political solution of the conflict that has now been raging for more than four months.
Mustafa Abdel Jalil, chair of the Transitional National Council, told Reuters: "If he desires to stay in Libya, we will determine the place and it will be under international supervision. And there will be international supervision of all his movements."
The Libyan leader has so far insisted that whatever happens he will not leave the country. One of the objections to allowing him to stay is the fear that he could continue to manipulate Libyan politics after his official departure from power, but strict supervision of his movements and contacts could overcome that. Jalil suggested, for example, that Gaddafi could spend his retirement under guard in a military barracks.
Some Libyans certainly welcome that idea. One quoted in the New York Times described it as "the perfect move to save Libyan blood", though another said Gaddafi should either leave the country or go to jail.
Providing dictators with a face-saving exit may be a pragmatic solution but it does raise some tricky issues.
The Tunisian president, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, was allowed to flee the country. He took refuge in Saudi Arabia but is now wanted for trial in Tunisia. In Egypt, President Hosni Mubarak was allowed to "retire" to the Sinai resort of Sharm el-Sheikh but also faces prosecution along with other members of his family. Meanwhile, Yemen's president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, has been insisting on immunity from prosecution as one of several pre-conditions for stepping down.
However, the situation in Libya is complicated by the arrest warrants for Gaddafi and his son issued last month by the International Criminal Court. Letting him stay in Libya under "international supervision" is probably impractical, since it would amount to protecting him from arrest in defiance of the ICC.
The transitional council's offer was apparently made privately a month ago, before the ICC issued its warrants, and there is some speculation as to why Jalil has raised it in public now.
His remarks coincided with a visit from the Turkish foreign minister which resulted in Turkey throwing its weight more firmly behind the Libyan opposition recognising the transitional council as the country's legitimate representative and promising a further $200m in aid.
Talk of internal exile for Gaddafi may also be connected with attempts by the African Union to set up negotiations between the regime and the opposition. An apparent concession by the regime is that discussions could be held without the colonel's direct involvement.
Another possibility suggested by Ranj Alaaldin, an analyst and contributor to Comment is free, is that the opposition could be giving him "one last chance" before launching an offensive on his Tripoli stronghold.
Some media reports have suggested that opposition forces are preparing to attack the capital but are concerned about the risk of bloodshed if they do so.
Libya: no
longer an 'Arab state'
Blog post, 20 August 2011
This week the Libyan National Transitional Council issued its
"Draft Constitutional
Charter" a sort of provisional constitution for the country in the immediate aftermath of the fall of
Gaddafi.
The Project on Middle East Democracy lists some of its specific provisions
here, but a more revealing exercise is to compare and contrast the NTC's document with the
Libyan constitution issued in
1969, shortly after Gaddafi's revolution.
Article 1 of the 1969 constitution says:
"Libya is an Arab, democratic, and free republic in which sovereignty is vested in the people. The Libyan people are part of the Arab nation. Their goal is total Arab unity. The Libyan territory is a part of Africa. The name of the country is the Libyan Arab Republic."
Article 1 of the NTC's draft begins:
"Libya is an independent democratic state wherein the people are the source of authorities ..."
There is no assertion anywhere in the document that Libya is an
"Arab state", and this omission cannot be anything but deliberate. The nationalism and pan-Arabism of the Gaddafi era have gone.
This is also a recognition of the country's diversity in particular its marginalised Amazigh (Berber) communities. Unlike Morocco
however (which has
now recognised Amazigh as an official
language), Arabic will remain the only official language in Libya "while preserving the linguistic and cultural rights of all components of the Libyan society".
A much-debated question is to what extent the NTC has an Islamist character. Article 1 of the NTC document says "Islam is the religion of the state" though it should be noted that Gaddafi's 1969 constitution says the same (as do the constitutions of most Arab states).
Personally, I don't think states should have a religion but, since this is such an established idea within the constitutional frameworks of the Muslim world, its inclusion is not surprising.
Somewhat more troubling is the statement that Islamic jurisprudence
(sharia) will be "the principal source of legislation". The exact role of sharia in legislation and how to express it in the constitution has long been a bone of contention in Arab countries. The form of words adopted by the NTC ("the principal source of legislation") is a moderately strong one, borrowed from Egypt, though not as strong as it might be.
For comparison, sharia is "the source of all legislation" in Yemen. In Oman it is "the basis of legislation" while in Bahrain, Kuwait, Syria and Qatar it is
"a main source of legislation" (note the indefinite article).
The Iraqi constitution, approved by a referendum in 2005, specifies Islam as "a fundamental source of legislation" and says that "no law that contradicts the established provisions of Islam may be established." It also, rather confusingly, says that no law must contradict "the principles of democracy" or "the rights and basic freedoms stipulated in this constitution".
The Sudanese constitution (issued before the south seceded) establishes no official religion as such. It merely says that "Islam is the religion of the majority of the population".
Article 65, however, specifies "the Islamic Sharia" as the source of law, along with "national consent through voting, the constitution and custom", though it also goes on to say that "no law shall be enacted contrary to these sources".
The NTC document adds that non-Muslims in Libya will be allowed to practise their religion and, as in Egypt and several other Arab countries, it talks of different personal status laws for different religions. This might sound fair in theory, but
experience in Egypt and elsewhere has shown that attempting to operate different personal status laws for members of different religions is a minefield.
Other parts of the NTC document talk about democracy, a multi-party system, equal rights, freedom of expression, independence of the judiciary, etc. Women will have the right to participate "entirely and actively in political, economic and social spheres".
Taken as a whole (and with the reservations noted above), the document has quite a lot to commend it but so too did Gaddafi's 1969 constitution. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating.
Posted by Brian Whitaker, 20 August 2011.
Comment.
After Gaddafi, let's hope for the best in Libya
Comment
is free, 22 August 2011
As recently as last Friday, Kathleen McFarland, a security analyst at Fox News, was lecturing President Obama on America's "missteps" in Libya.
"Libya and Syria are the textbook examples of why it's important to pick your battles, and then make sure you win the one you pick,"
she
wrote. "President Obama picked the wrong fight by going to war against Libya, and so far is not succeeding."
Just three days later, the Gaddafi regime is almost gone and it's looking as if Obama picked the right battle after all. The real test, though, is further down the line. One year from now, will Libyans be living under a government that is significantly better than the one that tyrannised them for almost 42 years? Will they be able to speak their minds freely and engage in the country's politics without fearing the consequences?
The next few months in Libya are not going to be easy only a fool would imagine that but nor are the grimmest predictions likely to be fulfilled. Libya is unlikely to turn into another Iraq, let alone
another
Afghanistan.
The first encouraging sign is that the National Transitional Council a diverse alliance forged out of necessity has begun making the right noises. Its
interim
constitution, published last week, acknowledges the need for give and take. It recognises the rights of the
Berber minority and, while accepting a role for Islamic law, also sets some limits to it.
As far as retribution is concerned, initial indications are that it intends to go by the book. Gaddafi's most prominent son, Saif al-Islam, has reportedly been
captured alive so that he can be put on trial.
Like Iraq (and many other Arab countries, for that matter), Libya has its social faultlines. Tribal, ethnic and religious rivalries that were swept under the carpet by the Gaddafi regime will now emerge into the open. Allowing them to do so is the only way to address them in the long term, though in the short term they could easily become an obstacle to democratic processes.
On the plus side, however, many Libyans insist that the social divisions are nowhere near as deep as in Iraq (we shall soon know if they are right) but, perhaps more importantly, in Libya they are less likely to become a proxy battleground for foreign powers.
There is also no reason to suppose that Libya will turn into a failed state. Under Gaddafi, it ranked 111 out of 171 in the
Failed States Index closer to Finland and Norway (the least failed states) than to Somalia or Afghanistan.
Regardless of the eccentricities of its leader, and despite the corruption and the secret police, Gaddafi's Libya also had most of the apparatus for government that would be found in a "normal" country. The need here is to heed the lessons of Iraq and not dismantle it at a stroke and then start again from scratch but to take control of it and reform where necessary.
Libya also has a couple of advantages over its revolutionary forerunners, Tunisia and Egypt, which could prove important in the immediate aftermath.
The first is that it has a substantial economic cushion: large oil revenues, a small population (6.5m) and $70bn in its sovereign wealth fund. Unlike Tunisia and Egypt, its tourism potential Mediterranean beaches and spectacular historical sites is virtually untapped, so there is room for some relatively easy growth, especially if exiled Libyans start returning in large numbers.
The contrast here with Tunisia and Egypt is striking. With more limited financial resources, neither of those countries has been able to seriously tackle the economic problems that were a major factor in the uprisings that led to the overthrow of their presidents.
Libya's other advantage, noted by Tom Gara in a blog post for the Financial Times, is the defeat of Gaddafi's security forces.
"The backing of Nato air strikes means the physical infrastructure of the regime, from intelligence offices to security headquarters and military equipment, has been severely downgraded to the point of collapse," he wrote. "The country will be the only [one] in the Arab world where an opposition movement greets the new day with an old regime that is physically broken."
Exactly what this means for Libya is still unclear, but we have only to look at Tunisia and Egypt to see its potential importance. In Egypt, where the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces took charge after Mubarak's fall, and to some extent in Tunisia too, the survival of unreconstructed security forces is proving a barrier to political change.
The difference in Libya is that the destruction of Gaddafi's army does at least open up the possibility of politicians, rather than the military, gaining the upper hand.
At the moment, of course, there's little we can be certain about. But let's hope for the best, stop predicting the worst, and prepare for something in between.
Gaddafi's fall unlikely to alarm Arab leaders
Comment
is free, 22 August 2011
Just a few days before completing his 42nd year in power, Muammar Gaddafi appears to have become the third Arab dictator to fall in the past eight months.
Tunisian president Zine el Abidine Ben Ali was the first to go, hounded out of the country in January after 23 years in power. In February it was the turn of Hosni Mubarak, when a popular uprising by the Egyptian masses ended his 29-year rule.
In the wake of that, hopes of political change swept across the region as protests broke out in Yemen, Bahrain and Syria, plus others on a smaller scale in Morocco, Jordan, Algeria and Oman.
But then came a hiatus, prompting speculation that the Arab spring was running out of steam. The opposition in Bahrain was brutally crushed, the Yemeni youth movement was sidelined by tribal warlords and military chiefs jockeying for position, while protests in Syria brought deadly reprisals and failed to make much of a dent on the Ba'athist regime.
The question now is whether the events in Tripoli will change the picture once again. While they may prove inspirational to opposition activists across the region, the Libyans' own achievements in battling against Gaddafi are also overshadowed by their dependence on Nato support.
As for Arab leaders, it is unlikely they will lose much sleep. In Syria, President Bashar al-Assad may reasonably conclude he is safe so long as Nato does not intervene and the Libyan experience has little relevance to Yemen where President Ali Abdullah Saleh, still recovering in Saudi Arabia after being injured in a bomb attack on his own palace last June, flatly refuses to resign.
Arab rulers in the Gulf are also unlikely to draw lessons from Gaddafi's fall, viewing him as an ill-behaved and troublesome eccentric who insulted almost all of them at some point, and whose comeuppance is no less than he deserved.
In terms of Arab geopolitics, Libya unlike Iraq or Egypt, for example is one of the less important states, and perhaps even more inconsequential in the future without Gaddafi's unpredictable antics to place it in the spotlight.
It is in north Africa, rather than the wider Middle East, that the effects of the Libyan revolution will mostly be felt. Together, Egypt, Libya and Tunisia form a contiguous bloc of post-revolutionary states, which ought to prompt some soul-searching further west, in Algeria and Morocco. Algeria's government faced riots earlier this year and fended them off by spending money, a palliative that cannot work indefinitely.
In Morocco too, where King Mohammed recently introduced a mildly reformist constitution in response to demonstrations, events in Libya can be expected to maintain or increase the pressure for more comprehensive change.
Longer term, Libya's impact could be enormous or negligible. The crucial test will be which of the three former dictatorships finds the best model for moving forward. Each will be watching the others closely and there could be some productive rivalries.
Egypt and Tunisia have both had difficulty shaking off remnants of the old regime and, in Egypt, it is still the army, not politicians, that calls the shots. Egypt and Tunisia also face raised economic expectations from the masses that they are unable to fulfil in the near future.
In Libya, meanwhile, there are serious concerns that the anti-Gaddafi alliance may break up or degenerate into in-fighting now that the old regime has gone. But if that can be avoided, Libya may have brighter prospects than either of its neighbours. It has plenty of oil, a small population (6.5 million) and a sovereign wealth fund estimated at $70bn (£42bn).
That creates an opportunity for Libya to lead the way in establishing North Africa's first modern and prosperous democracy. Managed well, it could become the regional model that Iraq failed to become after Saddam Hussein's overthrow in 2003. Managed badly, it will raise more doubts about the prospects for genuine change in the region.
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