Enforcing imperial legacy
Not many will shed tears if Col. Muammar el-Gaddafi is captured by Western-backed rebel forces, which are closing in on him. Gaddafi ruled Libya for 42 years, tyrannising its people and using its oil wealth to finance various misadventures, including a terrorist attack on an airliner, and attempts to acquire mass-destruction weapons.
Yet, Gaddafi's departure cannot remotely justify the manner in which powerful Western states, led by Britain and France, plotted to dislodge him by flying as many as 22,000 warplane sorties (8,000 of them armed), and killing scores of civilians. They also tried to assassinate him.
The mindset underlying their campaign reeks of colonial arrogance, and bodes ill for fairness and balance in international relations, and ultimately for global security.
Gaddafi seized power on an anti-colonial platform. (Italy colonised Libya before World War-II, and Britain occupied it in the 1940s and 1950s). Yet, ironically, the same Western powers later propped him up.
Gaddafi deserved to be deposed, not once, but ten times over, by his own people, not by external forces. The Anglo-French attacks were carried out in the name of enforcing UN Security Council Resolution 1973, which authorised "all necessary measures" to protect civilians, especially in Benghazi, short of landing troops.
However, the Resolution violates the UN Charter's Article 2 (7): "Nothing in the present Charter shall authorise the UN to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state."
True, this cannot be a cover for genocide, war crimes or crimes against humanity. But the Gaddafi regime, although despotic, didn't quite indulge in this or threaten civilians on a mass scale -- any more than Western interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq, or Israel's conduct in occupied Palestine, where it uses warplanes against civilians.
Even before the Nato countries launched air raids on Libya in March, they had been arming Libyan rebels, covertly training them overseas, and smuggling them back to fight Gaddafi.
The Western powers' single-minded zeal on Libya stands in sharp contrast to their deplorable coddling of Israel, undeniably one of the world's most lawless states.
The West's evocation of human rights and democracy to depose Gaddafi sits ill at ease with its close collaboration with his regime. Damaging evidence of recent collaboration has emerged in documents found at the abandoned office of Libya's former spymaster.
These contain new details of the CIA's close relationship with the Libyan intelligence agency. The US, as part of its policy of "extraordinary renditions," sent terrorism suspects at least eight times for questioning in Libya despite its regime's reputation for torture.
The New York Times reports that Libyan intelligence cooperation was "much more extensive than generally known" with both the CIA and the British MI-6.
The CIA kidnapped and transported to Libya suspects from various countries, using luxury jets. Among them was Abdel Hakim Belhaj, the present commander of anti-Gaddafi forces in Tripoli, and former leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, who says he's a grateful ally of the US and Nato.
The West has been keen to intervene in Libya for three reasons. First and foremost, oil; second, the former imperial powers' craving for controlling the unfolding of the Arab Spring; and third, their long-term plans to retain their influence in all situations and regions where popular agitations for democratisation might break out, which they can selectively support or oppose depending on their narrow interests.
Libya has Africa's largest, and the globe's ninth-biggest, oil reserves. It's among the world's top dozen oil producers. Its "sweet" crude is of high quality. Western oil companies have a vulture-like interest in the oil and are fighting over the spoils through the National Transitional Council, their puppet.
British oil interests are working through the UK's international development ministry. The French have reportedly extracted an assurance that they would get 35% of Libya's oil in return for military help. Western oil is desperate to find new hydrocarbon sources. Libya also has rich freshwater reserves, on which Western aqua companies have an eye.
The Western powers backed the Arab Spring for opportunist reasons. They are now turning their attention to Syria, where there's an agitation against President Bashar Assad's secular Ba'athist government. Syria's location next to Iraq and Israel, and its links with Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah in Lebanon, make it critical to US plans to undermine Iran.
To destabilise the Bashar regime, the West is setting the Sunni majority against it. This is likely to create new ferment in the "Shia arc" around Saudi Arabia, comprising Iraq (with a 65% Shia majority), Bahrain (80-90% Shia), Kuwait (35% Shia) and Yemen (where Shia imams ruled for centuries). Saudi Arabia too has at least a 15% Shia minority. Shia unrest could have unpredictable regional consequences
The European powers' attempts to prop up different opposition movements selectively will weaken the latter's legitimacy, while destabilising North Africa.
Britain and France have learnt few lessons from the mess in Iraq and Afghanistan -- about the non-viability of slogans like eliminating mass-destruction weapons and al-Qaeda, or ushering in democracy.
They fail to grasp that regime change can only be legitimately accomplished by the people of a country. Their imperial agenda, promoted under the banner of protecting people from tyrants, is unlikely to fly.
The European powers built their empires in the name of a "civilising mission." Today, they're rebuilding them ostensibly to protect human rights and democracy. But people who long for democratisation are unlikely to be taken in by this.
There was until recently very little resistance to the US, France and Britain (P-3) in the Security Council. They got Resolution 1973 through because other members, including Russia, China and even India, abstained.
On Syria, however, India, Brazil and South Africa fought to prevent a harsh P-3 resolution. They won Russian and Chinese backing against authorising military intervention. But fighting the P-3 won't be easy unless there's strategic thinking and resolute action.
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