Why Don’t More Countries Recognize
The Libyan Rebels?
A rebel fighter reacts to incoming shells fired by soldiers loyal to Moammar Qaddafi. The rebels started out strong, but appear to be losing territory day-by-day.
March 16, 2011
By Charles Recknagel
Western leaders have been unsparing in their recent criticism of Muammar Qaddafi.
British Prime Minister David Cameron's comments about the Libyan leader at this week's Group of Eight (G8) meeting in Paris were fairly typical. "Every day, Qaddafi is brutalizing his own people," Cameron said. "There should be no let up in the pressure we put on this regime."
French President Nicolas Sarkozy (left) has taken the lead in recognizing Libya's rebels.No one yet has followed.
But despite the tough talk, only one Western country, France, so far has officially recognized the rebel leadership fighting against Qaddafi.
All the others have stopped short of taking that step, which could allow the rebels access to Libyan funds overseas, oil revenues, and arms deliveries.
Who Are The Rebels?
Throughout the Libyan crisis, much of the reason seemed to be how little the West actually knew about the rebel leadership. As recently as March 7, White House spokesman Jay Carney said it would be premature to "send a bunch of weapons to a post office box in eastern Libya."
Today, the identity of the rebels is better known. A rebel delegation met with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the sidelines of the G8 meeting and the Obama administration has appointed a diplomatic liaison to Libya's rebel groups. Similarly, the EU's foreign-affairs chief, Catherine Ashton, has announced she is sending a mission to rebel-held Benghazi.
But there still seems to be little to suggest that formal recognition of the rebels is in the offing or ever will be. And again the reason may be that too many questions undermine the West's confidence in them.
Shahshank Joshi, an associate fellow and regional expert at London's Royal United Services Institute, says the West knows some key figures in the upper echelons of the leadership. But, he says, "what we don't know are the fractures lying within the rebel movement. How are they divided? How do they interact with tribal divisions? And, particularly, do they disagree on military aims and a possible settlement?"
Former Justice Minister Mustafa Abdel-Jalil has emerged as the best-known leader of the anti-Qaddafi movement.
The best-known figure in the transitional council is its chairman, former Justice Minister Mustafa Abdel-Jalil. The London-based Arabic newspaper "Asharq al-Awsat" recently described him as famous in Libya for his past readiness to defend dissidents who challenged Qaddafi's regime.
Jalil resigned as justice minister on February 21, five days after the outbreak of Libya's revolution, saying he opposed the excessive use of force against the demonstrators. He then went on to form a transitional government based in the city of Benghazi comprising 30 civilian and military members to run the affairs in all liberated areas.
Where Are The Well-Known Liberals?
That defection seems enough to have secured Jalil and his Transitional Council a popular base in Benghazi, the rebels' remaining bastion of power. But for Western capitals, what the Libyan revolution seems to critically lack is a leader with internationally established liberal credentials.
"In Egypt," Joshi says, "we had figures like Mohamed ElBaradei, who for a considerable length of time had been campaigning against the government, who was a perceived liberal figure." And, he says, "it is those figures we lack in Libya."
Now, as Qaddafi's forces roll back the early rebel gains and approach the gates of Benghazi, some analysts believe it is too late to expect Western governments to reverse course and recognize the rebel leadership.
Jean-Pierre Darnis, the deputy head of the security and defense department at Rome's Institute of International Affairs, says that as recently as last week the West could have helped the insurgents militarily when they were on the winning side. "Now," he says, "they are losing, and if you help people who are losing it's useless. You go nowhere."
Pressure, Not Recognition
Most countries seem to be convinced that pressuring Qaddafi is a better strategy than backing the rebels. The pressure includes direct measures like sanctions and implied threats such as talk of no-fly zones.
As British Foreign Secretary William Hague said this week: "We want to increase the pressure on Qaddafi, tighten sanctions. There is common ground here in the G8, and while not every nation sees eye-to-eye on issues such as the no-fly zone, there is a common appetite to increase the pressure on Qaddafi."
That strategy might appear to risk running aground on Qaddafi's own strident defiance of any foreign pressure. But many analysts believe the real target for the pressure is not Qaddafi himself but his sons and other key figures around him.
Those people cannot be expected to defect from Qaddafi's inner circle as many of the rebel leaders did. But because they have economic interests tied to the West, the hope is they may yet exert a moderating influence as the crisis evolves.
One example, Joshi says, could be Qaddafi's son Saif, who has had one foot in the West for many years. "Saif and his senior commanders may wish to salvage something from the situation and that may be part of the reason why Western states are keeping a channel open to the Libyan government rather than severing those entirely," Joshi says.
Will that pressure be enough to save the rebel movement that day-by-day is losing ground to Qaddafi's forces?
The question is difficult to answer because it depends largely on how long a fight the rebels can put up in Benghazi. The only certainty is that applying outside pressure usually works best with time, and time now is in short supply.
RFE/RL Afghan Service correspondent Sultan Sarwar contributed to this report
At this stage, without cash for guns or transport, Mr. Maiga’s group of about 200 young men is more of a fan club than a militia. But like other pro-Qaddafi groups that have sprung up here since the rebellion in Libya began, what it lacks in logistics it makes up in loyalty.
“We’re all ready to die for him,” Mr. Maiga said. “He’s done so much for us, after all.”
Just look at Mr. Maiga’s life: he prays at a mosque in Bamako, Mali’s capital, that Col. Muammar el-Qaddafibuilt; he watches television on the Malian national network that Colonel Qaddafi set up in the 1980s; and he admires with a feeling nothing short of awe La Cité Administrative Muammar el-Qaddafi, the gleaming new $100 million government complex that Colonel Qaddafi is helping pay for and that bears his name — even though it is for Mali’s government, not Libya’s.
Mali, a desperately poor country near Libya, is a case in point of the allegiance Colonel Qaddafi has bought in many parts of the continent. He has tapped Libya’s vast oil reserves to liberally sprinkle billions of dollars around sub-Saharan Africa, playing all sides and investing in almost anything — governments, rebel groups, luxury hotels, Islamic organizations, rubber factories, rice paddies, diamond mines, supermarkets and the countless OiLibya gas stations.
From Liberia to South Africa to the island of Madagascar,Libya’s holdings are like a giant venture capital fund, geared to make friends and win influence in the poorest region in the world. This may help explain how Colonel Qaddafi has been able to summon sub-Saharan African soldiers to fight for him in his time of need — Libyans have spoken of “African mercenaries” killing protesters and helping him rout rebel fighters — and why so many African leaders have been so slow to criticize him, even as his forces slaughter his own people.
“So many of these presidents at one time or another have gotten something directly from him,” said Manny Ansar, a prominent Malian intellectual who organizes one of West Africa’s most celebrated cultural happenings, Mali’s Festival in the Desert. “So what are they going to say now?” While the Arab League was quick to suspend Libya last month and has even asked the United Nations Security Council to impose a no-flight zone to stop Colonel Qaddafi’s attacks on his people, the African Union has taken a more cautious stance, deciding only on Friday to send negotiators who will meet with both sides.
Seen as eccentric and unpredictable, Colonel Qaddafi never got far as a leader in the Arab world. But in sub-Saharan Africa, many have been inspired by his vision of a “United States of Africa” and appreciate his anti-Western tirades. The Libyan government, which is, in essence, Colonel Qaddafi, also pays 15 percent of the African Union dues. He even succeeded in getting some traditional African leaders to call him “King of Kings,” and in Mali, from the streets to the president’s office, there seems to be near unanimous respect.
“Some people see the colonel as the devil, but he’s not,” said Seydou Sissouma, spokesman for Mali’s president. “He’s a great African.”
Mr. Sissouma bristled at the idea that Libya was buying friends. “That’s not the case,” he said. “Libya has accepted to share its resources with others. Other African oil producers, like Nigeria, don’t do this.”
But Colonel Qaddafi’s involvement in sub-Saharan Africa, said J. Peter Pham, editor of the Journal of the Middle East and Africa, has been “nothing short of catastrophic.”
His meddling in Sudan’s Darfur region and arming of Arab militias there helped lead to the rise of the notorious janjaweed, armed groups that have terrorized civilians for years. His support of the former strongman Charles Taylor in Liberia added to the bloodshed and mayhem in that country. His backing of various rebel factions across the Sahara has destabilized Mali, Chad, Niger, Mauritania, Burkina Faso and others, allowing Al Qaedato grab a foothold in the vast, unpatrolled deserts.
In the 1970s and 1980s, he recruited thousands of Africans into his Islamic Legion, an experimental Muslim army that failed on the battlefield in places like Chad and then sent so many young men drifting back to their home countries embittered — and heavily armed.
The various African wars that Colonel Qaddafi helped stir up “took hundreds of thousands of lives and displaced millions, and their ripple effects continue to this day,” Mr. Pham said.
Mr. Sissouma’s response to such criticism: “Nobody’s an angel.”
Many members of the nomadic Touaregs, who roam across the deserts of Mali, Niger, Algeria and Libya, see Colonel Qaddafi as their champion. For the past 40 years, the Touaregs have rebelled, on and off, against the governments of Mali and Niger, provoking brutal anti-Touareg campaigns. Touaregs in Mali spoke of government soldiers poisoning wells and pulling Touareg men off buses and making them eat their national identification cards at gunpoint and then arresting or shooting them for not having any identification.
When thousands of Touaregs fled into Libya in the 1970s and 1980s, Colonel Qaddafi welcomed them with open arms. He gave them food and shelter. He called them brothers. He also started training them as soldiers. Touareg elders here say that many of the so-called African mercenaries Colonel Qaddafi is now relying on to suppress the revolts are actually Touaregs who have been serving in the Libyan Army for years, not new arrivals.
Still, Touareg elders in Mali and Niger have also said that in the past few weeks hundreds of former rebels have crossed the porous borders into Libya to fight for Colonel Qaddafi. Most are said to travel in pickup trucks, unarmed, appearing as migrant laborers, only to be armed once they get to Libya.
In another wrinkle, some Touaregs are widely believed to be cooperating with Qaeda agents in the Sahara, which would completely undermine Colonel Qaddafi’s repeated utterances that his forces are defending the nation against a Qaeda onslaught.
One person close to the Libyan government estimated that 3,000 to 4,000 mercenaries from Mali, Niger and the Darfur region in Sudan have been hired by the Libyan government for at least $1,000 a day each. But several people here, including Mr. Ansar, the cultural festival organizer who is also a well-connected Touareg, had their doubts.
“It’d be very difficult in just two or three weeks to organize a system to pay and recruit mercenaries,” he said.
Beyond that, he said: “Even if Qaddafi didn’t ask them, they’d go. He’s their chief, their leader, everything to them. If he’s out, they lose their protector.”
Mr. Maiga — by day a small lender, by evening a rabble-rouser who sits on a cracked concrete stoop with a gaggle of young men who say they are eager for war — said he was envious of the Touaregs fighting for Colonel Qaddafi.
“We wish we could be like them,” he said. “We’re just waiting on the means.”
His group has distributed pro-Qaddafi fliers across Bamako’s drab, sun-blasted neighborhoods. Indeed, all across this city, young men have formed into pro-Qaddafi organizations, and many said they, too, were eager to join the fight and were just waiting on “the means.”
Mr. Maiga looked intently at the journalist interviewing him, and a light bulb of an idea lit up his face.
