Job Half Done in Libya

Back in March I wrote about the rebellion in Libya and the need for The West to take action. It’s time to do it again. This will not, however, simply be a repetition of what I said back then because, since March, western democracies, in particular European ones have been heavily involved in Libya, supporting the rebellion and helping to overthrow Gaddafi. In short, doing exactly what I, and many others, called for.

I regret that I’ve not mentioned the war at all in this blog since March, but there hasn’t been a lot worthy of comment: The West has actually done a pretty good job of using the right amount of military presence and generally leaving most of the fighting to the rebels. NATO has been very careful to keep its involvement to ‘protecting civilians’ and taking out important strategic sites through air strikes, rather than helping the rebels on the ground. Likewise other European nations have helped the rebels indirectly, but have not put troop on the ground.

The reason I’m comment on this conflict now is that the rebels took Tripoli, the capital of Libya, last week, a significant step towards winning the civil war. Gaddafi has been ousted from power and the war is largely over. While Gaddafi still has some support and the ability to strike back against the rebels, he can only really delay defeat. Only his capture remains as a significant milestone in the path to victory.

So it is time for The West to step in. Not in order to help capture Gaddafi, although that would not go amiss, but to help stabilise the country in the face of the regime change, to aid in the rebuilding of the country’s infrastructure and to ensure that a free and fair election follows the defeat of Gaddafi’s forces.

War inevitably disrupts the infrastructure of a country, from disruption to the power supply to the destruction of roads and other means of transport. Rebuilding those link is really important to rebuilding Libya; there are already deep divisions between east and west (the rebellion started in the west and most of the pro-Gaddafi forces were based in the east) and if communications and transport between east and west are disrupted, that division will continue to grow. In order to establish political unity in a country already split by civil war, good infrastructure needs to be established.

More importantly, Libya faces a humanitarian crisis. In Tripoli alone, hospitals are under massive strain from the war-wounded, especially with many doctors having fled at the start of the war. With essentials like water and power disrupted, and people unwilling to leave the house to buy food, given that there is still some fighting in the city, there is a risk that the casualties of war will continue to rise, especially in the civilian population.

NATO’s reluctance to put solider on the ground and get heavily involved was admirable in the early stages of the conflict. It ensured that the war was a revolutionary one led by the Libyan people. That should continue and the hunt for Gaddafi should be led by the rebels, however, if NATO wants to continue to claim that it is protecting the citizens of Libya, then they don’t really have a choice; they have to step in and help the relieve effort.

This, of course, does not necessarily mean troops of the ground, but working with the UN and various international aid agencies to help facilitate giving aid to the Libyan people where they need it most. If fighting does intensify in Tripoli, it may become necessary to put troops on the ground in order to protect civilians, given the high concentration of them in Tripoli.

The West has generally done well to learn from the mistakes of Afghanistan and Iraq, in that they have not had a large presence on the ground in Libya and has generally kept out of the way. However they must continue to learn from past mistakes and work hard now that the war is almost over to ensure that Libya does not devolve into warring factions and destitution. The provision of aid to Iraq and Afghanistan was poor, mostly because troops have never really been in complete control. In Libya they need to ensure that aid gets to where it is needed and that it does not get too disrupted. This may even involve taking military action against pro-Gaddafi forces to force them out of heavily popularised areas, or at least to protect already liberated areas from further attacks. With any luck the rebel forces will be sufficient to do this, but NATO should not balk at putting some peacekeepers into Tripoli to maintain some level of order until the country can get itself back in its feet.

The war may well be all but won, but the peace that follows it might well be much harder to win than the war. The rebels have never been a particularly unified group, with Islamist and Berber factions, as well as a number of competing tribes, long time opponents of his regime and recent defectors. Opposition to Gaddafi is all that has held them together thus far and there are fears that his fall will cause the rebel movement to fall apart. The worst case scenario would be for Libya to fall into another civil war between competing factions, all vying for power. To prevent this requires strong leadership on the rebel’s part; someone who can hold them together long enough to establish a new political system based around democracy and elections.

The problem is that such a leader cannot appear to be a puppet of The West. He needs to be a Libyan leader, not a leader appointed by the UN. The West cannot be seen to be interfering, but can ill-afford to let Libya slide into a much more disastrous civil war. Some form of light touch diplomacy and careful supervision is needed to help establish a democracy in Libya without forcing the Libyan’s hand; this needs to come primarily from them.

There is one thing that The West can do that will help immeasurably; make funds available to the rebels in order to rebuild the country. Getting aid to where it needs to be, rebuilding the infrastructure and getting Libya back to some semblance of normality will require a lot of money that Libya simply does not have at the moment. The Libyan economy needs to get back on its feet and for that a large injection of money will be needed.  Obviously, with the state of the world economy as it is at the moment, such aid might prove hard to come by, but remember that Libya does has assets that were frozen in the early stages of the war. Getting access to those funds would go a long way to helped Libya get back on its feet.

As I said at the start if this post, it’s time for The West to take action in Libya. The first half of the job has been handled very well, but the second half may well be a much more daunting task. The West needs to ensure that the people of Libya get the aid they need now and also that the rebels set up the necessary infrastructure to facilitate an election. The Libyan state needs to be rebuilt from the ground upwards. This requires aid from The West, both in terms of money and also in terms of charity and aid work, but also needs to be led by the Libyans themselves. It will be a difficult balancing act and if handled badly, Libya could end up in a state of civil ear much like Afghanistan and Iraq are now, with a number of different factions fighting for power. The confidence of The West as international peacekeepers and world leaders in democracy cannot afford such a failure, and nor can Libya, which stands to set a bench mark for the rest of Africa to become much more stable democratic. I hope that in a few months time I will be able to write a blog post praising the aid effort and looking forward to a bright future for Africa.

Time to do something in Libya

Over the last few weeks, Libya has descended into a state of civil war. Supporters of Colonel Gaddafi are clashing with rebels in a number of different cities around the country. Roughly, the rebels hold the east of the country, whereas Gaddafi and his followers control the west. The revolt was sparked by similar revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia (between which Libya is sandwiched). Similar uprising have also occurred elsewhere in the Arab world following the coup in Tunisia in January. However, while the Egyptian and Tunisian situations resolved themselves relatively peacefully, the situation in Libya as escalated into a very serious and real conflict.

This escalation was due, largely, to the abject refusal of Colonel Gaddafi to step down, despite huge pressure from protestors. Indeed, a few weeks ago, Gaddafi called on his own supporters to fight back against the rebels, essentially sparking the current civil war. The rebellion began in the country’s second city, Benghazi, and has spread across much of the east of the country. Gaddafi’s forces still hold Tripoli, the capital. At the moment, the main conflict is over the oil-centres of Begra and Jazour.

While in Egypt and Tunisia, the army stepped in to protect protesters and help complete the revolution without too much bloodshed, the Libyan army is too weak and disjointed to provide coherent support to either side. Some army officers have defected to the rebels and are helping to train and arm them. It seems likely that much of the army will refuse to carry out Gaddafi’s orders if they involve turning on Libyan citizens, indeed some of the already have, however Gaddafi will be able to rely on a powerful paramilitary force, personally loyal to him and his family. Generally Gaddafi’s forces are better armed, but the rebellion is growing in strength.

The current situation, then, is frightening. We have the prospect of thousands dying in a lengthy and drawn out civil war. Gaddafi has already shown that he has no qualms over killing his own people and no intention of stepping down either. Even when the fighting does stop and the dust clears over Tripoli, the country, whoever is in charge, will be faced with a massive economic and political fallout that will cripple it for a generation.

And yet, The West has done nothing. There has been a lot of talk, condemning Gaddafi’s actions and voicing concern for those stuck in the middle of the conflict, but no real action. The situation in Libya is really very simple. Gaddafi is a despot, a tyrant, he has a history of human rights abuses (Lockerby bombings anyone?) and has led his country without election since the 1960s. His regime consistently abuses freedom of speech and keeps political control firmly in the hands of those in Tripoli. With its secret police and ‘people’s committees’, Libya resembles something like an ex-soviet state. Libyans have looked at the rebellions of the Egyptians and Tunisians, and decided that they deserve better than tyranny and oppression. They have risen up in the name of freedom and democracy.

And yet, The West has done nothing. While the USA and Western Europe claim to be champions of democracy, supporters of freedom of speech, they do little but talk, while Libyans fight and die for those very ideals. We sit by and tut disapprovingly of the actions of Gaddafi, yet do nothing to stop the atrocities committed in his name. The West has tremendous economic, political and military clout, but it repeatedly refuses to use it to support the ideals for which it stands and upon which it is built.

I’m not saying we should send in the troops. Iraq and Afghanistan proves that rarely ends well. However there is a lot more that could be done. Economic sanctions; denying Gaddafi access to the resources he needs to conduct his war, support to the rebels; providing resources to help them overthrow Gaddafi, arrests warrant on Gaddafi and his sons for human rights violations. There is plenty of real substance that can actually be done to help the cause of democracy.

The international community is still recoiling from the public backlash to the last major international intervention: Iraq. The problem is that, the reason for the backlash was not that Iraq was handled badly (although it was), or that the wrong action was taken (although that was also the case), but that intervening in Iraq was quite clearly unwarranted, unnecessary, self-serving and immoral. The backlash came, not from the actions, but the intentions behind the actions. There was no good reason why the invasion of Iraq went ahead. Had there been a good reason – as there was in Afghanistan – the reaction would have been disappointment that the situation was not handled better – again, as was the case with Afghanistan – rather than outrage at the needless loss of life on both sides.

The Iraqi backlash has led to crippling indecision and conservatism on the part of the international community. As is so often the case, the pendulum has gone too far – from charging in, guns blazing, to awkward feet shuffling and embarrassed looks to someone else to do something. The appropriate response is somewhere in-between these extremes. Currently the international community is floundering and wallowing in self-doubt, while Libyans fight for their freedom, wondering what Gaddafi has to do to cause the international community to take notice. This inaction is as bad as the wrong type of action.

There is also a slightly more sinister factor a play here. Libya is a rather important international exporter of oil. The invasion of Iraq disrupted oil production from The Gulf for years, similar action in Libya could very well cause a similar disruption. With the world economy teetering uncertainly, and with oil prices relatively high, any disruption to the world oil economy could be disastrous. But try telling that to the Libyans.

The situation in Libya is a golden opportunity for world leaders to demonstrate to their people that they are not unprincipled, self-serving cowards who will not lift a finger unless it directly benefits them. It is a chance to demonstrate that principles such as liberty, self-determination and freedom of speech are not simply buzz-words; they are ideals that deserve protecting, that require nurturing, and that should be placed in a pedestal for all to aspire to.

Institutions such as the UN and the International Court of Human Rights were established in the aftermath of the Second World War to prevent such a calamitous world catastrophe from happening again, and to begin building towards a world where nations are not divided, but united, where ideals do not clash, but coexist, where people everywhere can expect the same rights and the same opportunities.

Over 60 years on from the establishment of these institutions, the world still faces an incredibly tough challenge in realising these ideals. The effects of communism are still being felt in the Far East and in eastern Europe and extreme Islamism seem to be the next threat looming rather close on the horizon. There is still a long way to go, but if we are ever to start moving towards a solution in any meaningful way, a statement needs to be made.

The current rebellions signal the beginning of the end of the string of dictators that arose out of the dismantlement of The Empires, most notably the British Empire. Africa, in particular, was ravaged by this fallout. The dust is still clearing over large parts of Central Africa, but it would seem that the dictators who emerged from that dust are starting to lose their power. Democracy is beginning to take root and the people of these nations are beginning to demand the freedom they have lacked for so long.

It is time the international community began to recognise these demands and stand by the people. It’s been desirable, but not needed up until now, but with the flames of Civil War eating away at Libya, it is most certainly needed. Libya is a test of international nerve, and so far, we’re failing. It’s time that actions took over from words and something concrete was done to stop Gaddafi and support the Libyan people in their fight for freedom.