11:55 GMT 19th May 2011
This is a tacit acknowledgement, coming for the first itme from the highest authorities of the nations that are leading bombing campaign, that removing Gaddafi from power is their final objective. 'There is pathway topeace that promises new hope for the people of Libya - future without Gaddafi that preserves Libya's integrity and sovereignty, and restores her economy and the prosperity and securit of her people.' said US President Barack Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy. They vowed that the bombardment would continue for 'as long as Gaddafi is in power', but they ruled out, for now at least, sending in ground troops to assist the ill-equipped, struggling rebel forces.
Following a two-day summit in the German capital, Berlin, Nato secretary-general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, called on members states to provide more aircraft for bombing raid on Libya. But offers of extra help were not forthcoming, revealing deep divisions within Nato over the response to the Libyan crisis. Only six of the 28 namtions that make up the alliance are participating in the campaign and key members, including Germany and Turkey, have openly expressed their opposition to the military intervention.
The lack of commitment is understood to be a reflection of general uneasiness about the open-ended military intervenion that was hastily decided in March. Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov described it as going 'beyond the mandate of the UN Security Council.'
Inspired by the people revolutions in Tunisia and Eqypt that toppled long-time autocrats, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubaraka, Libyans rose up agains their leader in mid-February, demanding that he immediately resign. When it become clear the Gaddafi had no intention of stepping down, protesters took up arms, vowing to dislodge Gaddafi by force. They made rapid gains, capturing cities and towns along the country's eastern coast, including Libya's second largest city, Benghazi. Many conculded that Gaddafi's 42 year regime was coming to a decisive end.
Government forces subsequently began to push back the regels, retaking cities and town including the important oil refinery city of Brega. Following claims that Gaddafi was unleashing lethal force against his own people, raising the spectre for possible massacres, international efforts for intervention intensified, culminating in the UN's controversial March 17 resolution imposing a no-fly zone over Libya, as well as authorising 'all necessary measures' short of ground invasion, to protect the civilian population.
The Libyan government declared a unilateral cease fire. But, amid claims that it was continuing to shell rebel-held areas, the so-called 'coalition of the willing' commenced their military action. The French took the lead in launching air raids while the US and Britain followed with a barrage of Tomahawk cruise missiles on government targets across the country, many of them in the capital, Tripoli.
During the initial phase of the campaign, the US took command of the operations and carried out the bulk of the air raids. But already bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, it handed over the command of the mission to Nato on March 31. Despite the bacJ.ung of the west's superior war machine, the conflict has ground to a bloody stalemate. Nato air strikes have been primarily aimed at pro-Gaddafi forces advancing towards rebel held areas and government targets in the capital. The Libyan government has said the bombing raids on Tripoli have resulted in heavy civilian casualties as many residential areas have been hit by missiles.
So far, the bombings have not had a decisive impact on the conflict to tip the balance in favour of the rebels. The idea of supplying weapons to the rebels has been floated, but objections have been raised by those who say that such a move would be unlawful. 'The UN resolution speaks a bou t protecting civilians, not arming them,' said the Belgian foreign minister Steven Vanackere, whose country is among the Nato members opposed to arming Libya'S anti-government forces.
The Transitional National Council (TNC), the political arm of the armed rebels fighting to overthrow Gaddafi, has requested about $1.5bn for weapons and humanitarian aid - offering oil in return. An Italian official has suggested channelling Gaddafi's frozen assets to the rebels, but the idea has not caught on for the obvious legality issues it raises. Meeting in Doha, Qatar, in April, the International Contact Group on Libya, made up of countries supporting the military intervention, predictably recognised the TNC, based in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi, as the legitimate representative of the Libyan people.
Misrata, the lone rebel bastion in the west of the country, has seen the most bitter figh ting as pro-Gaddafi forces laid siege to the city in a desperate bid to take it back from the rebels.
After his out-gunned forces suffered heavy losses, the top commander of rebel forces, Abdel Fatah Yunis, Gaddafi's former interior minister who had been an ally since the original 1969 revolution that brought the regime to power, lashed out, 'If Nato wanted to break the blockade of the city, they would have done it several days ago,' he said. 'Every day, civilians - elderly people and children - are dying in Misrata. Nato has done nothing. They have just bombed here and there.'
With more than half a million people living in the greater Misrata district, the besieged city is Libya's third largest, after Tripoli and Benghazi. Situated on the Mediterranean coast about 210km east of Tripoli, it is the seat of many national industries including the Libyan Ports Company, Libyan Iron and Steel Company and the Libyan Publishing, Distribution and Advertising Company.
The business hub has been shelled by artillery and tanks and the water supply has been cut off. After almost two months of constant siege, supplies are reportedly running short and it is believed that hundreds of thousands of Misrata's residents are in need of humanitarian assistance. But aid agencies have not been able to enter the city due to security concerns.
According to Human Rights Watch (HRW) , pro-Gaddafi forces have fired cluster bombs - controversial deadly weapons banned internationally but used routinely in Iraq - into Misrata. 'It's appalling that Libya is using this weapon especially in a residential area,' said HRW's Steve Goose. '[Cluster bombs] pose a huge risk to civilians, both during attacks because of their indiscriminate nature and afterward because of the still-dangerous unexploded duds scattered about.'
HRW based its assessment on eye witness accounts because its own researchers could not inspect the impact sites due to security concerns. As a result, it was unable to verify whether any civilians had been wounded or killed by the a.lleged cluster munitions. A spokesperson for the Libyan government, 1vloussa Ibrahim, denied government forces were using them, saying, 'I challenge [HRW] to prove it'.
Since the start of the military intervention in Libya, diplomatic efforts have been limited and so far failed to produce any meaningful results. The AU and the Arab League, both of which initially supported the no-fly zone, have since expressed serious reservations about the bombing campaign. The AU is in favour of the UN resolution in so far as it is used for the protection of civilians, but it is vehemently opposed to the 'possible abuse' of the resolution to advance other objectives, namely regime change.
In what could have been a true breakthrough in the conflict, an AU highlevel committee led by South African President Jacob Zuma, travelled to Tripoli to propose a 'roadmap' for ending the crisis. This included an immediate cessation of hostilities, effective monitoring of the cease fire and the delivery of humanitarian aid. Gaddafi accepted the proposal, but the rebels rejected it out of hand, saying that Gaddafi's immediate resignation was a precondition for any political settlement.
Rebel leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil, a former minister of justice under Gaddafi, told a news conference after talks with the AU delegation in Benghazi, 'The AU initiative does not include the departure of Gaddafi and his sons from the Libyan political [scene]. Any future proposal that does not include this, we cannot accept.'
Ibrahim, on behalf of the government, stated that Gaddafi's position was nonnegotiable, saying that the long-time leader served as a 'safety valve' for the unity of the country's people. 'We think he is very important to lead any transition to a democratic and transparent model,' Ibrahim added.
South Africa has strong ties with Libya which go back to the time of the long struggle against apartheid and Zuma was Anti-Gaddafi protesters gather in Benghazi after Friday prayers on April 15 keen to broker a deal. The embattled Libyan leader has repeatedly invited the rebels to lay down their weapons to benefit from a general amnesty - saying that he was ready to introduce poEtical reforms, including elections. But like the AU, he has been rebuffed.
With the rebels rejecting any compromise solution short of Gaddafi's departure and yet incapable of defeating him militarily, it is increasingly looking as though this will prove to be a drawn-out conflict - which could lead to de facto partition of the sprawling desert state into a government controlled west and rebel held east.
By late :March, the Libyan Human Rights League put the death toll since the start of the conflict, including both civilians and armed fighters, at 6,000 people. For the same period, the TNC put the figure at 8,000, while the World Health Organisation placed its estimate at 2,000 people. There were more than a million foreigners living and working in Libya and these migrant workers have made up the bulk of the refugees fleeing the country (see story pxx).
Throughout the conflict, Gaddafi has been in firm control of the capital and apparently still enjoys strong support in much of western Libya, including his hometown of Sine. Gaddafi has promised a 'long war', declaring that the Libyan 'people are behind me and ready for all-out war.' He said he was going to open weapons depots and arm tl1e population 'to defend the independence, unity and honour of Libya.'
Meeting in China in April, the Brics group of five emerging nations, comprising South Africa, Brazil, China, India and Russia, expressed their objection to the use of force in Libya. The head of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, has also been quoted as saying, 'What has happened in Libya differs from the goal of imposing a no-fly zone.'
The German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle, whose country abstained from the vote at the UN authorising the intervention, has said that there can be no military solution to the Libyan conflict. Speaking on the sidelines of the International Contact Group on Libya's Doha meeting, Westerwelle said, 'We will not see a military solution in Libya ... We need dialogue. And dialogue must primarily be organised and sustained by the affected parties in the country.'
In a letter published in a number of African newspapers, Uganda's President Yoweri jVluseveni, criticised the bombardment. 'Gaddafi, whatever his faults, is a true nationalist,' he wrote. 'I prefer nationalists to puppets of foreign interests.'
At the ge of 27, Gaddafi led a popular movement that overthrew a western-backed monarch, King Idris I, in 1969. He proceeded to close US and British military bases on Libyan soil and partially nationalised foreign oil interests. Rejecting both communism and capitalism, he adopted an alternative political system, known as the jamabiriyya, Arabic for the state of the masses, set out in his famous Green Book. Under thejamobirt)ya, a nonparty- based system, power is held by various people's committees while Gaddafi remains the supreme leader.
During the 1970s and 1980s, Libya supported various militant groups and liberation movements in Africa and the Arab World, including the African National Congress and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, then regarded as terrorist outfits. In 1986, Libya was blamed for an attack in a Berlin nightclub that killed two US soldiers. The Reagan administration used it as pretext to carry out military strikes against Libya, killing scores of people, including Gaddafi's two-year-old daughter. The 1988 Pan Am bombing over Lockerbie and Gaddafi's subsequent refusal to handover the suspects for trial pushed the country into further isolation.
After years of negotiations and mediation by high-level personalities, including Nelson Mandela, Libya finally surrendered the suspects. The move marked the beginning of the country's reintegration. Perhaps shaken by Saddam's fate, Gaddafi took a bold step in 2003, announcing that he was abandoning any ambition of acquiring nuclear arms. This opened the road to a gradual restoration of diplomatic relations between Libya and western nations. Leaders of Britain, France, Italy and Germany subsequently visited Tripoli.
Libya has the largest proven oil and natural gas reserves in Africa, followed by Nigeria and Algeria. Lured by the prospect of securing a slice of the country's lucrative energy sector, European oil companies have flocked to Tripoli in recent years. In the US, with whom relations were the thorniest, oil companies led the way by lobbying Congress to normalise relations with Tripoli. Washington subsequently removed Libya from its list of state sponsors of terrorism in 2004.
But the real breakthrough came later when Libya agreed to pay compensation, in the region of $2bn, to the victims' families of the Lockerbie bombing. The process of normalising relations was completed in January 2009 when the two countries exchanged ambassadors for the first time in nearly four decades.
Testimony to the fact that he was then fully "back in the fold", Gaddafi's was welcomed to 2009 G8 Summit in Italy and, later that year, he addressed the UN at the annual meeting of the General Assembly in New York.
A great political survivor, Gaddafi is currently the longestserving head of state in Africa. In a lavish party likened to an Olympics opening ceremony, the Libyan leader celebrated the 40th anniversary of the bloodless coup that brought him to power in September 2009.
Some observers referred to the celebrations as Libya's 'coming out party'. After long years of ridicule and revilement by the west, Libya's maverick leader was enjoying improved relations with western capitals - as well as a strong and growing influence in Africa. The process of rehabilitating Libya's image on the world stage and the country's reintegration into the international community seemed to have come full circle.
The country's mineral wealth has allowed Libyans to enjoy the highest per capita income and purchasing power in the North Africa region. Libya has not only the most prosperous but also the best educated population in the Maghreb, with 87 per cent literacy rate and a large pool of university graduates. The country is a middle-income nation and ranks high in the UN human development index. It also has a modern, well maintained infrastructure relative to the region.
But pro-democracy revolts in the Arab World have led to a huge reversal of forrunes for him when the focus turned on his own 42 years in power. Gaddafi, ever the maverick, caused dismay, when he condemned those trying to overthrow his 'friends', Ben Ali and Mubarak.
Former Libyan foreign minister, Moussa Koussa, who defected and fled to Britain after the airs trikes commenced, has urged the factions to stop the bloodshed and avoid making Libya 'a new Somalia'.
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