Col. Muammar Gaddafi’s regime looks like it’s on the brink. Gaddafi fled the capital as his security forces retreated to a few buildings, senior officials defected, and protesters celebrated control of the second-largest city, Benghazi. Security forces still loyal to the Libyan leader were holed up in the state television headquarters and the presidential palace as other buildings burned unchecked.
more, plus a bunch of links, here.
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Strong reactions and high-profile resignations follow reports of massive use of force against civilian protesters.
Last Modified: 22 Feb 2011 23:42 GMT
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International condemnation is growing in response to reports that Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is using tanks, helicopters and fighter jets to quell the most serious challenge to his 42-year rule. Nearly 300 people are reported to have been killed in violence in the capital, Tripoli, and across the country as demonstrations entered their second week . Joining a lengthening list of high-level desertions, Abdul-Fatah Younis, the interior minister and an army general, announced his renunciation of his post and support for the "February 17 revolution". In a video aired by Al Jazeera on Tuesday, he was seen sitting on a his desk and reading a statement that urged the Libyan army to "join the people and respond to their legitimate demands". Just hours earlier, Gaddafi vowed to fight on and die a "martyr" in a 75-minute-long speech broadcast on the north African nation's state TV. "I am not a president to step down ... This is my country. Muammar is not a president to leave his post," he said. "I have not yet ordered the use of force, not yet ordered one bullet to be fired ... when I do, everything will burn." He called on supporters to take to the streets to attack protesters. "Leave your homes and attack them in their lairs ... Starting tomorrow the cordons will be lifted, go out and fight them."
Just minutes after his speech, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Cairo reported that Amr Moussa, the Arab League chief, had decided to discontinue the participation of the Libya delegation in the meetings of the council and all its institutions. With concern mounting over the crisis in Libya, the Security Council in New York held an emergency meeting late on Tuesday and issued a press statement strongly condeming the violence against civilians. "The members of the Security Council expressed grave concern at the situation in Libya. They condemned the violence and use of force against civilians, deplored the repression against peaceful demonstrators, and expressed deep regret at the deaths of hundreds of civilians." Al Jazeera's Scott Heidler, reporting from the UN in New York, said that the international community is demanding something stronger from the Security Council. "They would like to see a resolution that calls for action but that is going to take a lot longer to process. The Security Council wanted to issue this press statement first and then see if they could do more to prevent bloodshed in Libya." Navi Pillay, the UN human rights chief, has called for the "immediate cessation of grave human rights violations committed by Libyan authorities". Citing reports of the use of machine guns, snipers and combat jets against civilian protesters, she also called for an independent, international investigation into the killings that have wracked the country for days. "The callousness with which Libyan authorities and their hired guns are reportedly shooting live rounds of ammunition at peaceful protesters is unconscionable," she said. Mona Rishmawi, a legal adviser to the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights, told Al Jazeera they were extremely concerned by allegations of the use of "hired guns" against civillian protesters in Libya. She said intergovernmental bodies must show a united front and send a clear message that what is going on in Libya must stop right now. Latin American alliesThe bloody upheaval in Libya is creating an uncomfortable challenge for Gaddafi's leftist Latin American allies, with some keeping their distance and others rushing to his defence. Peru suspended diplomatic ties with Libya on Tuesday, becoming the first nation to take such a measure, however; Fidel Castro, the former Cuban president, said that the unrest may be a pretext for a NATO invasion of Libya. Daniel Ortega, the Nicaraguan president, also offered support for Gaddafi, saying he had telephoned to express solidarity. Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, on the other hand, has stayed mute. Bolivia came closest to criticising the government in Tripoli, issuing a statement expressing concern over "the regrettable loss of many lives" and urging both sides to find a peaceful solution. 'Civilians bombed' Ali al-Essawi, who resigned as Libyan ambassador to India, told Al Jazeera on Tuesday that fighter jets had been used by the government to bomb civilians. He said live fire was being used against protesters, and that foreigners had been hired to fight on behalf of the government. He called the violence "a massacre", and urged the UN to block Libyan airspace in order to "protect the people". Earlier, Ibrahim Dabbashi, Libya's deputy ambassador to the United Nations, accused Gaddafi of launching a"genocide against the Libyan people".
Meanwhile, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, urged Libya's neighbours not to turn back those fleeing the violence, as hundreds of refugees streamed into Egypt on tractors and lorries, describing a wave of killing and banditry unleashed by the revolt. Libyan guards have withdrawn from their side of the border and Egypt's new military rulers - who took power following the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak - said the main crossing would be kept open round the clock to allow the sick and wounded to enter. Libya's state broadcaster quoted Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the son of Muammar Gaddafi and widely seen as his political heir, as saying that armed forces had "bombarded arms depots situated far from populated areas". He denied that air raids had taken place in Tripoli and Benghazi. The government says that it is battling "dens of terrorists". State television on Tuesday dismissed allegations that security forces were killing protesters as "lies and rumours". Benghazi, Libya's second city, which had been the focal point of violence in recent days, has now been taken over by anti-government protesters, after military units renounced their posts and joined the demonstrators. According to the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights, protesters are also in control of Sirte, Tobruk in the east, as well as Misurata, Khoms, Tarhounah, Zenten, Zawiya and Zouara. Washington and Europe have demanded an end to the violence and Guido Westerwelle, Germany's foreign minister, said: "A ruling family, threatening its people with civil war, has reached the end of the line." |
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Gadhafi's influence on Africa
Published Monday, Feb. 21, 2011 11:51PM EST
Last updated Tuesday, Feb. 22, 2011 5:59PM EST
CLICK ON MAP TO ENLARGE GRAPHIC
Libya’s leader bought political influence across the continent, paying for peacekeeping missions, infrastructure and humanitarian aid
CRISIS IN LIBYA
Gadhafi’s dying dream for African unity
GEOFFREY YORK
JOHANNESBURG— From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
Published Monday, Feb. 21, 2011 11:51PM EST
Last updated Tuesday, Feb. 22, 2011 5:59PM EST
When he pronounced himself the “king of kings” on the African continent, Moammar Gadhafi was widely seen as a buffoon and a megalomaniac.
But behind the absurd titles, behind the crown and sceptre that were awarded to him by his hand-picked collection of African tribal monarchs, Col. Gadhafi had a profound impact on Africa. And for better or worse, he will leave a vacuum behind him on the African landscape if he is toppled from power in Libya.
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Col. Gadhafi was the last major global leader who promoted the dream of pan-African unity. He had his own self-interested reasons for this quixotic campaign, of course, since his own ambition was to become the powerful ruler of a new United States of Africa. But his disappearance from the political stage would remove the last remaining enthusiast for a European-style political union in Africa.
“Without Gadhafi, the pan-African movement is dead,” said Laura Seay, a political scientist at Morehouse College in Atlanta who specializes in African politics.
“He was the only prominent voice driving that movement. He was keeping those ideas alive. There’s nobody else with the financial resources available.”
Under his grandiose ambitions, the United States of Africa would have its own common army, its own passport, and its own currency (to be named, he said solemnly, “the Afro”).
There was little chance that this scheme could succeed in a badly divided continent, and there was little practical support for his ideas at the African Union, even when he served as the AU chairman from 2009 to 2010. But by tirelessly marketing this idea, he kept alive the dream that Africa could overcome its differences and find some form of unity. After him, the dreams will be smaller.
Col. Gadhafi, one of the wealthiest leaders on the continent, did not hesitate to use Libya’s vast oil money to buy political influence across Africa. This money, in turn, helps to pay for peacekeeping missions, humanitarian aid, infrastructure projects, political organizations, and support for fragile states.
In his drive to transform the African Union into a single government under his personal dominance, he became one of the AU’s biggest benefactors. Libya provided 15 per cent of the AU’s membership dues. It also paid for the dues of many smaller and poorer countries. If his 42 years of authoritarian rule are ending, the AU will struggle to keep its financing intact.
“It would change the African Union’s dynamics completely,” Prof. Seay said. “The AU would become less effective. He’s been such a key player in the AU. What will it mean for peacekeeping in Somalia and Darfur? Those peacekeeping missions are already hanging by a thread – they’re already so under-equipped and under-staffed.”
The AU peacekeeping force in Somalia, with its 8,000 troops battling against the Islamic radicals who threaten to seize control of the war-torn country, could be weakened if the AU loses the money that Col. Gadhafi provided. A similar peacekeeping mission in Darfur, whose 20,000 troops are supported by the AU and the United Nations, could be similarly jeopardized if the AU loses its Libyan money.
Beyond the peacekeeping missions, a host of smaller African countries have become dependent on Col. Gadhafi as a source of aid money, infrastructure projects and military support. Fragile states such as Chad and the Central African Republic have needed Libya’s support when they were threatened with coups. Poorer countries such as Liberia, Mali and Niger have relied on Libya for financial support and investment. Libya has won praise for providing humanitarian aid to the Darfuri refugees in Chad, and for helping to forge a ceasefire between Chad and Sudan.
Most of his donations and loans, certainly, were intended to advance his personal ambitions. Earlier in his career, Col. Gadhafi had campaigned for pan-Arab unity, seeing himself as a “man of history.” But when Libya was isolated on the global stage as a result of the sanctions imposed on it for its support of international terrorism in the 1980s and 1990s, he became furious that the Arab nations seemed indifferent to him. He turned, instead, to Africa, where his support seemed greater.
“After moving on from his dream of pan-Arab leadership, Gadhafi funnelled billions of dollars into cultivating relationships in sub-Saharan Africa that would facilitate his leadership of the African Union,” the U.S. embassy in Tripoli reported in 2009 in a confidential cable obtained by WikiLeaks.
Col. Gadhafi opted to use “dinar diplomacy” – a reference to the Libyan currency – to create a “new and larger sphere of influence,” the embassy said in the cable.
It described how the Libyan dictator had ordered his personal designers to incorporate African maps and images into his vast collection of clothing, including a large green Africa-shaped brooch, a camouflage-style tunic with Africa-shaped patterns, and a jersey emblazoned with portraits of famous African leaders.
Most Libyans still saw themselves as Arabs, but Col. Gadhafi worked ceaselessly to portray his country as African, the cable said. “A domestic propaganda campaign designed to represent Libya as an African state was also undertaken: billboards and larger-than-life murals depict Gadhafi emerging, messiah-like, from a glowing green Libya into an embracing African continent.”
Despite the long-standing conflicts between Washington and Tripoli, the U.S. diplomats actually saw Col. Gadhafi as a constructive and useful player on some African issues. “When approached with appropriate deference, Libya can be an effective actor – leveraging support and connections on the continent to secure our foreign-policy interests, as it has done (to an extent) in Chad, Sudan and Somalia,” the embassy cable said.
If the Libyan strongman now disappears ignominiously from the stage, one of the biggest winners will be China. Until now, Libya was one of the few countries that could challenge Beijing’s mounting influence in Africa. Libya was one of the few powers with enough money and ambition to offer an alternative to China as a source of investment and financing for African nations.
If the long-ruling dictator is finally toppled, Libya’s ambitions are likely to become much smaller and more modest. In the aftermath, China could emerge as an even stronger power on the African continent.
>via: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/africa-mideast/gadhafis-dying-dream...
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 CNN's Ben Wedeman is reporting from eastern Libya, part of which no longer appeared to be in Moammar Gadhafi's control.
Editor's note: CNN's Ben Wedeman reports from eastern Libya after crossing into that country from Egypt. He is the first Western television correspondent to enter and report from Libya during the current crisis. "Your passports please," said the young man in civilian clothing toting an AK-47 at the Libyan border. "For what?" responded our driver, Saleh, a burly, bearded man who had picked us up just moments before. "There is no government. What is the point?" He pulled away with a dismissive laugh. On the Libyan side, there were no officials, no passport control, no customs. I've seen this before. In Afghanistan after the route of the Taliban, in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Government authority suddenly evaporates. It's exhilarating on one level; its whiff of chaos disconcerting on another. The scene on the Libyan side of the border was jarring. Men - and teenage boys - with clubs, pistols and machine guns were trying to establish a modicum of order. Hundreds of Egyptian workers were trying to get out, their meager possessions - bags, blankets, odds and ends - piled high on top of minibuses. Egyptian border officials told us that 15,000 people had crossed from Libya on Monday alone. "Welcome to free Libya," said one of the armed young men now controlling the border. "Free Libya" was surprisingly normal, once we got out of the border area. We stopped for petrol - there were no lines - and saw some stores were open. The electricity was working. The cell phone system is still functioning, though you can't call abroad. The internet, however, has been down for days. On the other hand, we did see regular groups of more armed young men in civilian clothing, stopping cars, checking IDs, asking questions. All were surprised, but happy, to see the first television news crew to cross into Libya since the uprising began February 15. They were polite, if a tad giddy. Having thrown off the yoke of Moammar Gadhafi's 42-year rule (longer than most Libyans have been alive), it's understandable. As we made our way westward from the border, driver Saleh gave me a running commentary on all the sins of the Gadhafi family and its cronies: "You see all the potholes in this lousy road? This should be a four-lane highway. Gadhafi spent hardly a dinar on this part of the country." "You see that rest house? Gadhafi's son built it, and overcharged the government." "You see that house? It was stolen from its owner and given to one of Gadhafi's sons." "You see those flashes? That's an ammunition dump an army officer loyal to Gadhafi set on fire before fleeing to Tripoli." Saleh was also full of useful advice, I think. "If you get stopped by forces loyal to Gadhafi, tell them you're a German doctor. Don't say you're a journalist. And say your colleagues are doctors, too." When we finally reached our destination - which I can't disclose - we drove up to a nondescript villa and were greeted by a dozen men who could barely contain their excitement. After endless handshakes, embraces and greetings, a man in his 50s wearing a dark overcoat and red sweater pushed through the crowd. "You must show the world what has happened here. We will show you everything, everything!" I'll call him Ahmed, and he described himself as one of the leaders of "the resistance." He had studied briefly in the United States, but his academic career was cut short when he was imprisoned for three years for leading student protests against Gadhafi in the 1970s. He accompanied us to our accommodations, asking us about American football, baseball, the American university where he studied. I was able to get a few questions in sideways. He told me the army in the east had joined the He and many others in eastern Libya are well aware their struggle against Gadhafi's regime is going to be tough, and bloodier still. They may be buoyed by their success so far, but they're under no illusion that Gadhafi isn't willing to use everything in his arsenal - aircraft, mercenaries, whatever it takes - to stay in power. At the border, a man asked me, "Did you see he used helicopters and war planes against protesters in Tripoli today? This is genocide." |