Vladimir Shubin
Institute for African Studies,
Russian Academy of Sciences
Africa and the war in Libya
The threshold of the 21st century witnessed the formation of a new continental body, the African Union (AU). A proposal to create it was put forward by the Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi at the summit of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in Algiers in 1999. The AU differs from its predecessor in a number of aspects; the most important are two of them: more attention to democracy and protection of human rights and a higher degree of co-operation, in particular in the military field.
A real test of these innovations came ten years later, with the tragic events in Libya that began in February 2011 and we have to say that the AU failed it, although it was not entirely the fault of that body.
This is not a place to discuss in detail the causes of unrest in Libya. Let us remain, however, that these developments followed the “revolutions” in Tunis and Egypt and coincided with anti-government protests in Yemen, Bahrain and some other Arab countries.
By that time “Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya”, as Libya was officially named, was a welfare state: life expectancy was in the seventies, the country's literacy rate rose to 90%, free education, free healthcare, and financial assistance for housing were introduced as well as financial support was provided for university scholarships and employment programs. The country remained debt-free and its Human Development Index was the highest in Africa.
However all these achievements were not enough to appease a part of the population who were no longer ready to tolerate over four decades of Muammar Qaddafi’s dictatorship, even if it was portrayed as a “direct democracy”. Anti-government protests began on February 15, after the changes in Tunisia and Egypt, and the regime used force to suppress them. The accusations in violation of human rights followed.
The African Union had a mechanism to verify and correct the situation, up to the intervention “in a Member State pursuant to a decision of the Assembly in respect of grave circumstances, namely: war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity” (African Union, The Constitutive Act, 2000). It did act, but too slowly and too late.
It was only on March 10 when the AU Peace and Security Council Security Council of the African Union established an ad hoc High Level Committee on Libya, composed of Presidents of Congo, Mali, Mauritania, Uganda and South Africa. (African Union. Peace and Security Council, 2011). Its delegation was to go to Libya to assess the situation and to carry out a role of a mediator.
Meanwhile other forces were much more in a hurry. On February 26 the UN Security Council adopted resolution 1970. All its members, including three African countries, Gabon, Nigeria and South Africa voted for it, imposing arms embargo, freezing of funds and other financial assets, belonging to Libyan officials, banning their trips abroad and even referring “the situation in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya since 15 February 2011 to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court”. (United Nations. Security Council, 2011(1)) The resolution was adopted without any investigation, against the background of all kinds of accusations, spread by “international mass-media”, from alleged use of Libyan Air Force against peaceful demonstrators up to supplying Libyan government soldiers with Viagra to rape opposition supporters.[1]
Here is it relevant to point out that the ICC’s role in Africa is at the best controversial. A prominent African scholar Mahmood Mamdani wrote: “Clearly, if an ICC had existed then, we would not have had an anti-apartheid transition in mid-1990s. It was South Africa's good fortune that its transition was in the main internally driven”. The same, in his opinion was true of the settlement ending Mozambique's civil war. (Mamdani, M., 2010: 234)
Like the Peace and Security Council the Africa’s judiciary system was too slow. The African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights ordered Libya to end any actions that would cause the loss of life or violation of anyone's "physical integrity" in violation of international human rights law and required to report back to the court in 15 days on the steps it has taken to carry out the ruling, but that was done only on March 25. (Bowcott and Wolfe-Robinson,2011).
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“The war against Libya is based on fraudulence. Fabrication. Lies”, wrote Rahnuma Ahmed on the website of the Centre for Global Research headed by Canadian Professor Michel Chossudovsky. (Ahmed, 2011)
One of first “warriors” of the “war of lies” was British Foreign Secretary William Hague, who virtually claimed that Qaddafi had left Tripoli for Caracas: “About whether Col. Gaddafi, is in Venezuela, I have no information that says he is although I have seen some information that suggests he is on his way there,” he said, while his officials “stressed that Mr Hague was referring ‘not to media reports but information from other channels’. ‘This is credible information,’ said a diplomat”. (Waterfield, 2011)
Hague was not alone. When the truth about the Libyan tragedy and the persons responsible for it began to be known, it became clear that one of them was a South African citizen Navanethem (Navi) Pillayi, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. The bitter irony is that her words about “widespread and systematic attacks against the civilian population” which “may amount to crimes against humanity” and her reference to a Libyan defector’s claim that “Qaddafi had started the genocide against the Libyan people” (Prashad, 2012) were used by those who wanted the UN’s “cover-up” of their aggressive actions that led to gross violation of human rights, including the very right to live. Her accusations were not confirmed by the International Commission of Inquiry on Libya established by the United Nations’ Human Rights Council (Ibid.), but, again, it was too late.
In Rahnuma Ahmed’s opinion the UN Security Council “passed two resolutions against Libya on the basis of ‘unproven claims’. Colonel Muammar Gaddafi was killing his own people in Benghazi and other parts of the country. He’d ordered Libyan forces to kill 6,000 people. He’d hired African mercenaries to massacre civilians. Jet attacks were being conducted to quell the `uprising.’ These claims were widely disseminated.” (Ahmed, 2011)
“Gaddafi had ordered air strikes against his people to quell discontent”, went on the claim. “It was reported as well by al Jazeera and the BBC on February 22 – the Libyan government had inflicted air strikes on Benghazi, Libya’s largest city,and on the capital Tripoli”. However, she reminded that the Russian military satellite images showed that “nothing of the sort was going on on the ground and “the attacks some media were reporting have never occurred” (Russian military, 2011)
The same is true about claims of civilian massacres that would inevitably take place if loyalist forces recapture Benghazi. In fact in the cities captured by Qaddafi’s forces, there was “no significant indication of civilian massacres”. The town of Ajdabiya, one of Libya's larger cities, was captured by loyalists a few days before the foreign intervention began and was held by them for over a week, and none of the “slaughter and mass graves” have occurred (Stone, 2011.).
On the other side statements by Gaddafi that he would go “house to house” to cleanse the nation of “cockroaches” and “rats” were used as a proof of the incitement to commit crimes against humanity. These words were repeated by mass-media all over the world, but his next phrase got missing: “people who had no arms had no reason to fear". Moreover Qaddafi simultaneously ordered his troops “not to pursue any protesters who drop their guns and flee when government forces reach the city”. (Ibid.)
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The next “milestone’ in the Libyan tragedy was the adoption by the UN Security Council on March 17 of the notorious resolution 1973. While Brazil, Russia, India and China, as well as Germany abstained, the rest ten voted for it, including three African countries: Gabon, Nigeria and South Africa. (United Nations Security Council (2011 (2)) This was a radical departure from the position taken by the AU just a week ago, when its Peace and Security Council reaffirmed “its rejection of any foreign military intervention [in Libya] whatever its form” (African Union. Peace and Security Council, 2011). The position taken by South Africa was especially deplorable. A newcomer to BRICS voted for the resolution, while four “old” BRICS members abstained (although I would have preferred them rejecting it).
Moreover, their representatives expressed at least uncertainty about its draft. For example, Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin complained that the resolution “departed from the Arab League’s proposal and allowed for wide-ranging military intervention”. (EASTWEEK. 2011) “Work on the resolution was not in keeping with Security Council practice, with many questions having remained unanswered including ‘how and by whom the measures would be enforced and what the limits of the engagement would be’” (United Nations. Security Council, 2011 (2)).
The Chinese representative Li Baodong also complained that his delegation had asked specific questions that failed to be answered, however it had not blocked the passage of the resolution, because it attached great importance to the requests of the Arab League and the African Union (Ibid).
The resolution authorised “Member States that have notified the Secretary-General, acting nationally or through regional organizations or arrangements, and acting in cooperation with the Secretary-General, to take all necessary measures… to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, including Benghazi” and authorized them “to take all necessary measures to enforce compliance with the ban on flights”. (Ibid.)
As distinct from the “abstainers” African diplomats represented in the Security Council did not expressed any reservations even if eight months later the same South African Ambassador Baso Sangqu, assuming the rotating presidency of the U.N. Security Council, called for the U.N. to probe alleged human rights abuses in Libya by all sides involved in the conflict, “including and especially NATO”, and said the International Criminal Court should conduct investigations in any cases of gross violations. (Goodenough, P. 2012) Nevertheless it should be noted that the position taken by South Africa, Nigeria and Gabon was not supported universally in Africa. In particular, Yoweri Museveni, President of Uganda wrote in his article: “The African members of the Security Council voted for this Resolution of the Security Council. This was contrary to what the Africa Peace and Security Council had decided in Addis Ababa recently. This is something that only the extra-ordinary summit can resolve”. (Museveni, 2011).
The real aim of the resolution – “the regime change” – became clear at once. Mark Lyall Grant, British Ambassador after the vote at the meeting not only spoke about the end to violence and protection of civilians but claimed that “the Libyan regime had lost legitimacy” and that the resolution should “allow the people of Libya to determine their own future, free from tyranny of the Qaddafi regime”. (UK Mission to the UN, 2011).
The very first steps of a so called “coalition”[2], soon to be replaced by NATO directly as a warring side, went far beyond establishing a “no-fly zone” and on March 20 Amr Moussa, who a week earlier as the Arab League Secretary-General called for its establishment, complained: “What is happening in Libya differs from the aim of imposing a no-fly zone, and what we want is the protection of civilians and not the bombardment of more civilians” (Evans, D ,2011).
The role of a “gang leader” was played by Nicolas Sarkozy, then French President. Two days after the resolution had been adopted, on March 19, a “Summit for the support to the Libyan people” was convened by him in Paris. Leaders of Western countries were there, but of the Arab countries only four were represented: three monarchies and Iraq, as well as Amr Moussa. The lies continued: initially mass-media, including the official EU’s TV (TV Newsroom, 2011), reported the participation of the AU as well, but its delegation was not present. Later Jean Ping, Chairperson of the AU Commission, in an interview with the BBC Hardtack programme said that the AU had not been consulted before the Paris meeting (Sudan Tribune, 2011). The AU refused to join the “Contact Group”, formed in Paris and ignored the second “Summit” held in London on March 29 as well, though the reason given by its officials was simply “organisational”. (Matinyi, 2011)
Even before this summit ended, French Air Force attacked targets in Libya, a column of tanks and vehicles, which of course had nothing to do with securing a “no-fly zone”.[3]
The hypocrisy of Sarkozy and his colleagues was unbelievable. Less than four months earlier the same persons who ordered or facilitated the bombing of Libyan territory took part in the 3rd Africa-EU summit in Tripoli, and in its declaration expressed their “gratitude to the Leader of the Revolution and people of the Great Socialist Peoples’ Libyan Arab Jamahiriya for the care, hospitality and attention extended to the participants of this Summit|”. (Tripoli Declaration, 2010)
The same Sarkozy welcomed the Libyan leader in Paris in 2007 and the “investigative website Mediapart” recently published what it called “compelling new evidence” that the Libyan regime decided to help finance Sarkozy's successful presidential election campaign in 2007 (Chrisafis, 2012), while Berlusconi went as far as kissing Gaddafi’s hand at the Arab League summit conference in Sirte, the town to be destroyed by NATO attacks a year later. (Yutube, 2011)