Informed Comment

China and some others have been pushing for a strong United Nations role in Libya, presumably in an attempt to forestall a continuation of the NATO mission in that country or the placing of European troops on the ground. Not just China, but everyone should be concerned that the NATO air intervention, which is likely now winding down, not turn into infantry on the ground.

The new Libyan government has consistently rejected the idea of NATO troops, showing great wisdom. Yesterday the Voice of Free Libya in Benghazi “said that ‘the rebels are capable of preserving the security of his country and don’t need any foreign, Arab or Islamic forces to help preserving security in Libya.’” [h/t Open Source Center]. I hope they are right about that, and note with encouragement that the broadcast put all kinds of foreign troops in the same category of undesirable, including those of Arab and Muslim nations, not just the Europeans. (That is not the way a Muslim fundamentalist would talk, and underlines how unimportant Muslim radicalism is in the Libyan revolution).

Moreover, the Transitional National Council, has come out against deploying even blue helmets in Libya. It is in any case a matter of confusion to me as to what the UN troop role would be, aside from offering training to police and military personnel (something that can in any case be done by bringing them to Europe).

UN troops mostly fulfill a symbolic mission, of quieting a border area where two enemies are eyeballing one another, but who do not want hostilities and would be embarrassed to harm UN troops. Thus, UNIFIL is keeping the Lebanese and the Israelis apart in south Lebanon. It was suggested that UN troops could usefully interpose themselves between the Arab Iraqi army and the Kurdish peshmerga in Kirkuk and elsewhere in northern Iraq.

The conflict in Libya does have such neat borders, and in any case it is likely that the new government will assert its monopoly over the use of force throughout the country before too long.

Moreover, UN forces are not war-fighters, and peace-keeping is mainly done with the concurrence of the local forces. That is, in most ways “peacekeeping troops” as a phrase is a misnomer, since they don’t usually enforce peace by arms. If the latter is what people are envisioning in Libya, they are unlikely to get it via the UN.

As for helping Libya come back together socially and economically, the UN can play a role there and its mission in Cambodia might be a model. The countries are similar in population size, though Cambodia had suffered far more intensely (a sixth of the population genocided) and for decades rather than months.

Obviously, the new government needs to induct the best fighters into the Libyan army and promote the ablest right into the officer corps, putting them and their men in a line of command and giving them a state salary to reinforce their loyalty. If more than such practical integration of the armed forces is needed, that will become apparent to the Libyans quickly enough.

So I support China’s initiative in regard to reconstruction activities. It is not clear that Libya will need any outside troops or police. One doesn’t remember outsiders supplying such personnel in the US in 1783 or France in 1789.

But it is likely that the real help Libya needs is aid and the return to it of its own money. The UNSC has just authorized Britain to transfer $1.5 bn. to the new Libyan state from Qaddafi assets earlier frozen. Russia is for reasons known best to itself holding up similar transfers from France and Germany.

Things are tough in Libya now, as they always are in post-revolutionary situations, and factions need to be integrated into national politics. But Libya has the potential at least to be a wealthy state, and under such circumstances national integration can sometimes be easier– assuming the government is, unlike Qaddafi’s, willing to share the largesse around. The TNC in moving toward parliamentary elections is already promising such sharing and political pluralism.

Another thing the UN could potentially help with is national reconciliation. Former pro-Qaddafi forces need to be rehabilitated, and there needs to be an amnesty for those who did not commit war crimes. Some in Libya are asking for a general amnesty, but most Libyan opinion-leaders are rejecting such a blanket decree, insisting there be punishment for those with blood on their hands. They don’t seem to mind an amnesty for non-violent former regime supporters (which after all would be a large number of Libyans, including some now on the Transitional Governmental Council). This position seems reasonable enough.

The USG Open Source Center gives a flavor of these debates by translating yesterday’s radio broadcast on the Voice of Free Libya from Benghazi:

” Voice of Free Libya
Tuesday, August 30, 2011 …
Document Type: OSC Summary…

The rebel radios Voice of Free Libya (VOFL) broadcasting from Misratah and Libya FM carried their usual programs on 30 August, and talked about hopes that Id-al-Fitr [the Feast of Breaking the Fast at the end of Ramadan], which will start in Libya on 31 August, “will witness the arrest of Al-Qadhafi”.

VOFL said that “Id-al-Fitr is good opportunity for reconciliation and tolerance among Libyans”, but stressed that “any general pardon for those who fought beside Al-Qadhafi’s brigades should not include those who have blood on their hands”.

Libya FM’s “From the Capital” phone-in program received several emails and phone calls from people expressing the hope that “Id-al-Fitr will witness the arrest of Al-Qadhafi, his sons and aides”.

BOTh stations carried religious and patriotic songs most of the day, as well as prayers asking God to “grant the rebels final victory over the enemy”.

Reconciliation

During VOFL’s religious program called “Haza Dinuna” (This is Our Religion), Shaykh Ahmad al-Saf talked about forgiveness and reconciliation among Libyans as a must to “allow the country to overcome the current period”.

“However, no one is entitled to issue a general pardon for all those who fought beside Al-Qadhafi, as those who have blood on their hands must be brought to justice,” he said, adding that “those who killed people and violated their honour can’t be pardoned,”.

“Even Mustafa Abd-al-Jalil, the head of National Transitional Council (NTC), should not, and does not have the right to, grant those people a general pardon”, he said.

Security

Libya FM devoted some segments to discussing the “issue of security in Libya”, saying that “the rebels have decided not to surrender their weapons until security and safety are restored in Libya”.

“It’s the rebels’ responsibility and duty to help restore security and safety everywhere in Libya”.

On the latest developments on the ground, the radio reported that “Mustafa Abd-al-Jalil gave people in non-liberated areas an ultimatum to surrender before 3 September or face military force”.

It also highlighted Abd-al-Jalil’s “calls on Libyan doctors in foreign countries to return to Libya to help filling the shortage in doctors in Libyan hospitals”.

The radio reported “violent clashes in Sabha between rebels and pro-Qadhafi forces”, adding that “three rebels were killed and another 10 were injured”.

VOFL said that “the rebels are capable of preserving the security of his country and don’t need any foreign, Arab or Islamic forces to help preserving security in Libya”.

“No regrets”

VOFL broadcast its regular program “Awqat Asibah” (Hard Times), during which it interviewed Ahmad Miftah Shtiwi, a 25-year-old man “who joined the revolution on day one”.

Shtiwi said he “joined the peaceful demonstrations at the very start of the revolution, but when the Libyan regime’s killing of civilians started, I decided to join the revolution and fight for freedom”.

Asked if he has any regrets, he said: “No regrets. We defended our homeland and our people, and we knew the price of freedom is always high”.

The radio devoted different phone-in shows to discussing Id-al-Fitr’s significance and rituals. It also carried prayers and religious songs throughout the day.

“Unforgivable crime”

Libya FM’s “From the Capital” expressed hope that “Id al-Fitr would bring news on the arrest of Al-Qadhafi and his sons”.

The programme quoted “an eyewitness” as saying that “Al-Qadhafi and his sons are planning to escape to Algeria”, noting that “helping those criminals to flee the country is an unforgivable crime”.

Libya FM devoted large segments to songs, celebrating Id-al-Fitr, and it carried religious and patriotic songs most of the day.

(Description of Source: Benghazi Voice of Free Libya in Arabic — Opposition-run radio, began broadcasting on 21 February 2011. )”

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An Italian news service, Ansa, reported Monday that Muammar Qaddafi, his eldest son Saif, and another son, Saadi (a military commander during the failed attempt to put down the uprising) are hiding in Bani Walid southeast of Tripoli.

Saif, the de facto ruler of Libya in recent years, had been reported taken prisoner (a report confirmed by the International Criminal Court) but appears to have escaped, possibly through a tunnel in the house where he was being kept under house arrest. Saadi has been involved in alleged war crimes, leading tank units against civilian urban populations that rose up against the regime.

Saadi has allegedly been attempting to make a separate deal with NATO, offering to negotiate a settlement without his father or brothers.

Another son, Khamis, has again been reported dead by rebel sources. There have been frequent earlier reports of his demise, all greatly exaggerated. He headed the dreaded 32nd Brigade and has or had a great deal of innocent blood on his hands.

Algeria announced, “The wife of Muammar Gaddafi, Safiya, his daughter Aisha, and sons Hannibal and Mohammed, accompanied by their children, entered Algeria at 8:45am (1745 AEST) [on Monday] through the Algeria-Libyan border,” and said that the Qaddafi family members had been given a free pass to go to a third country.

The new Libyan government is upset at the Algerian announcement, and wants the Qaddafis returned. The BBC says one rebel source called the Algerian stance “an act of aggression.” Many Libyans are distressed at Algeria’s hostility to their revolution and rumored help for Qaddafi.

Muhammad Qaddafi probably has no blood on his hands, and simply profited from his family position to become wealthy and dominant in the telecom sector. Hannibal has behaved like a psychopath in the past; I do not know if he had an operational role in the former regime’s war crimes.

United Nations-authorized allies announced Monday that the war is not over. Fierce fighting was waged in Sabha in the south, and the new Libyan government said that if the city of Sirte in the north does not surrender soon it will face an invasion. Sirte is Qaddafi’s birthplace and a site to which Qaddafi loyalists have retreated, and from which they have attacked innocent Libyans as well as the forces of the new transitional government.

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CNN’s intrepid Nic Robertson gets the scoop. He discovered that Abdel Basit Ali Megrahi, the convicted Lockerbie bomber, is in a coma in a villa in Tripoli. Megrahi suffers from prostate cancer. Megrahi was freed by UK authorities on health grounds, but there had been reports that he may have been in remission, producing some regret in the UK about his release.

As the search for deposed dictator Muammar Qaddafi continues, Reuters reports that a convoy of 6 armored Mercedes cars had entered Algeria from southern Libya. Algeria denied the reports. Misrata radio (see below) speculated that the cars may have contained the wives and other female relatives of Qaddafi.

Qaddafi loyalist troops in the outskirts of Sirte have taken farmers and their families hostage and are shelling Transitional National Council (TNC) forces’ positions from the farms. Free Libya fighters coming from the west are stalled and decline to return fire, fearful of hitting the civilians. Still, forces from the east have been advancing toward Sirte and have taken the town of Bin Jawad. The new Libyan government says it is attempting to negotiate with holdouts in Sirte, from which attacks have been launched on civilians and on the duly constituted authorities, but that if the city elders don’t surrender it will eventually be invaded.

Aljazeera English reports:

With the fall this weekend of Qaddafi’s last outposts in the west near the Tunisian border, including Zuara / Zuwara, most of the country is now in TNC hands. Sirte and the southern outpost of Sabha are the main holdouts. Both are cities of about 120,000, but each is strategic. Sirte sits astride the route from the capital to the country’s second city, Benghazi. And Sabha is on a major smuggling route from southern Libya to the north. The Free Libya forces now control the road to Sabha from the capital, but are putting off taking that city till they take Sirte.

As evidence mounts of systematic war crimes by Qaddafi forces in their waning days, it turns out that Qaddafi’s son Khamis, a major general, allegedly visited the compound where the 55 prisoners were held shortly before they were machine-gunned down and their bodies set afire. Note the contrast in the Guardian article to how captured Qaddafi loyalists held at the school in Tajoura are being treated by the TNC.

Uri Avnery is eloquent about the Orientalism of the so-called leftists who play down the central role of the Libyan people in overthrowing Qaddafi. In Tobruk, al-Bayda, Dirna, Benghazi, etc. in the East, the people peacefully caused his government to fall in over a third of the country, as much of his military deserted to the rebel side, and they kept it that way. The only thing NATO did in the east was to prevent Qaddafi from bombing his own civilian cities, and to stop Khamis Qaddafi from leading tank brigades into Benghazi to conduct massacres there. In the west, the people threw off Qaddafi in key cities like Zintan and Yefren, and, again, NATO raids just stopped the tanks and artillery from crushing them. Zawiya threw off Qaddafi twice, being actually crushed in between the two popular uprisings. Tripoli was not taken by the rebel fighters for the most part, but rather urban workers in districts like Tajoura and Suq al-Juama rose up against the regime, letting the rebels just walk in mostly unopposed, save for a few loyalist districts that constituted only about 15% of the city.

Saying it was all NATO and the Libyans are owed no credit is, as Avneri says, the typical move of the old Orientalist historiography. (I’ve spent my life writing about things like Egypt’s Urabi revolution of 1882 and other popular movements that imperial historians had tended to dismiss as military coups from the top. I’ve found the archival documents to at least make my case, and it is distressing that people who imagine themselves on the left today sound so much like Lord Cromer used to.)

The Open Source Center reports on the broadcasts from the Misratah voice of Free Libya radio Station on Sunday. I know this summary is a little dense, but do read through the excerpts I present below. It is the best way to get a sense of “who the rebels are”– this is what they are telling each other on their own radio station. Note the aspiration for a rule of law and democratic governance. People who keep going on about al-Qaeda in Libya are not paying attention to who the political leadership of the new Libya really is and what they say they want when they are speaking in Arabic among themselves. Note also the increasing hostility toward Bashar al-Asad’s Baath Party in Syria, a de facto Qaddafi ally that is still broadcasting the deposed dictator’s rants.

‘Libyan Radio Says Rebels Controlled Strategic Village in Tripoli
Voice of Free Libya
Sunday, August 28, 2011 …
Document Type: OSC Summary…

Misratah Voice of Free Libya (VOFL) in Arabic up to 1800 GMT on 28 August reported that the rebels seized control of a Tripoli village that the pro-Qadhafi forces used as a base to attack the capital’s airport. It said the airport was secured by the rebels…

VOFL quoted rebel sources as saying that the rebels seized control of the “strategic” Qasr Bin-Ghashir village in Tripoli (3km to the east of Tripoli Airport), which the Qadhafi troops used as a base to attack the airport. “The rebels now are securing the airport from all directions,” it said.

The sources said the rebels entered the village without fighting after the Qadhafi troops left it overnight. The rebels also seized a farm owned by Al-Qadhafi’s son Khamis in the village.

“Fair trial” for Qadhafi

VOFL quoted the chairman of the TNC’s executive bureau, Mahmud Jibril, as saying that Al-Qadhafi would face “a fair trial” if he is captured. “The trial will examine the causes that led Al-Qadhafi to use all that violence and killing against his people since the beginning of the revolution on 17 February,” it quoted him as saying.

In statements to London-based pan-Arab newspaper Al-Sharq al-Awsat, Jibril voiced hope that Al-Qadhafi would be arrested alive. He said he wants to ask Al-Qadhafi why the latter “tortured” the Libyans over 42 years.

“Bringing Al-Qadhafi to trial will show the world the real attitude of the new system in Libya,” Jibril said. He also said that the rebels were deployed inside and around Tripoli in order to chase Al-Qadhafi. “They may find him and may not, but the first option for the rebels is to arrest him alive and not to kill him. And if he (Al-Qadhafi) or one of his children is arrested, there will be tight guard and if he is sentenced to death, he should be executed,” Jibril said. Sirte ‘needs more time’…

VOFL radio carried reports by various agencies about the potential whereabouts of Al-Qadhafi. It quoted a Middle East News Agency report as saying that Al-Qadhafi might have fled into Algeria.

It said an TNC spokesperson told the BBC that he did not believe that Al-Qadhafi was still in his hometown Surt. “Probably, Al-Qadhafi’s wife, daughter, and other allies fled to Algeria in a convoy of armored vehicles,” the spokesperson said.

Libya FM Radio in Arabic said Algeria had denied knowledge of the crossing of the convoy into its territories.

It quoted BBC Arabic TV as saying that a Qadhafi spokesperson told a news agency that Al-Qadhafi was ready to transfer power. It said the negotiations over that issue would be chaired by Al-Qadhafi’s son Al-Sa’idi. Syria’s support

VOFL quoted a report published on 28 August by the UK newspaper Daily Star as saying that Al-Qadhafi was getting a hand from Syria as he tried to escape the clutches of NATO.

It said a Whitehall security source told the Daily Star that “the despot was getting help from the hated regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Asad, who loaned his own spies to Al-Qadhafi”.

The source said the Syrian regime helped Al-Qadhafi plan his broadcasts and even arranged for them to be aired by Syrian TV stations.

“But the net was still tightening on Al-Qadhafi as the UK Royal Air Force helped to turn his once-feared security apparatus into rubble,” the report said.

The radio said the New York-based Human Rights Watch had accused Al-Qadhafi brigades of killing 17 prisoners and dozens of civilians as the rebels advanced on Tripoli…

Opposition radio Libya FM said the TNC head, Mustafa Abd-al-Jalil, rejected the idea of dispatching foreign peacekeeping forces to Libya. However, he said he would consider an idea of dispatching police forces from Arab and Muslim countries.

Programs

BOTh VOFL and Libya FM radio stations continued to broadcast their regular religious and social programs during Ramadan.

In a program called “Talk about the revolution and future towards the establishment of the aspired democratic State”, VOFL radio discussed how to establish “a real State of law.’ It discussed the issue from a legal point of view.

Today’s episode of “Murabitun” (We are steadfast) program on VOFL interviewed workers in a power station in Misratah that was attacked several times by Al-Qadhafi troops. The workers talked about the damages that afflicted the power station due to the bombardment, and how they experienced hard times of work during the uprising.

Today’s version of VOFL’s program “Our Houses during Ramadan” interviewed some housewives, who talked about the difference between this Ramadan and last year’s Ramadan.

At intervals, VOFL broadcast Islamic prayers and anti-Qadhafi poetry, while Libya FM radio broadcast national songs.

(Description of Source: Misratah Voice of Free Libya in Arabic — Opposition-run radio, began broadcasting on 21 February 2011. )

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The systematic war crimes of the Qaddafi regime continue to be uncovered, with the discovery Saturday in Tripoli of the charred remains of nearly 60 bodies in a warehouse. The victims had been prisoners of the regime, among some 150 who have disappeared, nearly a hundred of them probably hastily buried. But these 58 bodies were hastily burned instead, probably because the regime was collapsing and it feared it wouldn’t have time to have the remains interred.

These gruesome remains are only one of a number of massacres committed by Qaddafi forces as the capital was falling, with other caches of bodies found in several other spots around the capital.

Earlier, a mass grave with the bodies of 150 former prisoners had been discovered in Tawargha.

Large numbers of bodies were also found in a hospital in Tripoli, but it is unclear who is responsible (it could be that they were badly wounded in the fighting and died when the medical staff fled for fear of their lives).

Some African mercenaries may have been the victims of reprisal killings by the rebels, but details are sketchy. The Transitional National Council has repeatedly instructed revolutionaries to avoid reprisal killings.

The new government is consolidating its control of Tripoli, with firefights subsiding and the rebels able to drive trucks through Abu Salim and in the vicinity of the airport, where earlier loyalists had put up a fight.

The Transitional government troops have now taken Zuara and the border post on the Tunisian border, and so control all the territory between Tunisia and the capital of Tripoli. Nic Robertson reported this advance early Sunday morning from the Tunisian border.

Andrew Gilligan, who saw Baghdad fall, patiently explains why Libya is unlikely to turn into another Iraq. He points out that things are as orderly as could be expected in Tripoli, and there has been no mass looting. Although services are facing some interruptions, they are not cut off altogether as happened in Baghdad. Traffic police are reemerging on the streets (and the TNC is committed to keeping the regular police force that does not have blood on its hands). Gilligan does not say, but I will, that Libya lacks the sectarian dimension of Iraq, as well. Had a Sunni regime come to power in Baghdad after Saddam that treated Sunnis decently, the Sunni insurgency might well never have gotten off the ground. It was Shiite rule that produced polarization. In Libya most people are Sunnis, so this consideration is largely absent.

Moreover, whereas the Bush administration forbade its military to do “Phase IV” planning and sideline Tom Warrick at the State Department, who had done a project on what would be needed in post-Saddam Iraq, the Libyan transitional government has done a lot of solid planning for the aftermath.

Middle East expert Glenn Robinson reviews the remarkable successes of the UN/ NATO / Arab League intervention in Libya to forestall a major massacre and the crushing of the reform movement (which as Robinson rightly points out, would have put Qaddafi in a position to undermine the democratic experiment in Tunisa– and I would argue in Egypt as well). Robinson concurs with Gilligan that all the NATO intervention did was level the playing field, and that popular uprisings and the rebels’ own military actions account for the revolution.

The fuel situation in Libya could be somewhat stabilized this coming week, as engineers get the Zawiya refinery back online.

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