Ghaddafi's death. A critic of the former Libyan leader breaks his silence

By Aroun Rashid Deen NY, USA

How history has come to pass, again,ghoulishly! This time, its victim: the self-proclaimed king of Sub-Saharan Africa, the flamboyant narcissist, Muammar Ghaddafi. History – in its chilling form – is not going to end with him because man, in his stubbornness to want to hold on to absolute power at all times at all costs, gets blinded, dumbed and deafened by Power-Absolute.

The video clip of a bloodied and dying Muammar Ghaddafi being bludgeoned is disturbing enough to rattle the very foundation of human conscience. The scene of his captors – Libyan revolutionary fighters – gloating as he faces death, horribly, brings to mind the scene in Homer’s The Iliad, where Achilles kills Hector and drags his body behind his chariot around Troy. It also reminds us of the delight taken by a mob of drunken and drug-induced Liberian rebels, led by a war-lord Prince Johnson, as they were slaying then-Liberian President Samuel Doe while cameras were rolling. The dying Samuel Doe lay naked, crying for mercy as he was stabbed to death and mocked.

What is troubling in this instance about Ghaddafi, as it was with Saddam Hussein, Samuel Doe and, to a lesser degree, Laurent Gbagbo of Cote D’Ivoire and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, is that we are witnessing the deadly blow of Power-Absolute being inflicted on its abuser. It always comes at a time when all that is left of man is the bare state of weakness, emptiness and irrelevance; features that also define us as mortal, but which we almost always brush aside or ignore once we command some level of political authority.As the distinguished French philosopher, Christian-thinker and essayist Simone Weil puts it in The Iliad: in the process of killing someone else we actually are killing ourselves. And as we witness the brutality on Ghaddafi that may have led to his death, we also actually witness ourselves, helplessly doomed, being killed.

I despise Ghaddafi – even in death – because of his role in the wars that brought about the brutal deaths of millions of Sierra Leoneans and Liberians and the devastation that those wars have brought to both countries. And what’s more, he was never held accountable for his actions.By the same token, I find no pleasure in witnessing his brutal death. Those who broadcast it on television or print it on their newspapers, however,should not be criticized as insensitive to its gruesome nature. They are just performing a responsibility they hold to the public.The alleged execution of the Libyan dictator has drawn worldwide concern and criticism not so much because he died but because of the brutal circumstances in the moments leading to his death – and witnessed by millions worldwide. Seeing, they say, is believing. However, seeing in this circumstance goes beyond believing. The savagery of what we witnessed is troubling.

With Ghaddafi abandoned, stripped of everything but his mere mortal self, what we see in that last moment is not a ‘powerful’ ruler but a representative of all of us – human beings – with our own blood spilling. This might account for the reason why some of us, despite our curiosity, turn away the moment we see it. But such brutal killings are

being carried out every day in the secret dungeons that also define the misguided absolute power of the Moammar Ghaddafis, the Hosni Mubaraks, the Samuel Does and the Saddam Husseins. Many have perished in the most gruesome ways at the hands of all these terrible men. Dictators often perceive their citizens as sub-human. In the early days of the protest-turned-revolt in Libya, Ghaddafi referred to the protestors as rats and cockroaches who would be tracked down, house to house, and crushed. The irony, of course, is that in the end is it Ghaddafi himself who, in an attempt to escape the rebels, was reduced to crawling in a drainage pipe, the home of rats and cockroaches.

Obsessed by the hunger for absolute power, dictators continuously mistake their authority for power. While they are only temporarily entrusted with the custody of authority, power is in the hands of the people, always. Authority is the legitimate consent that the governed entrust to the governor to rein as a leader, regardless of how that leader comes into the position. The people are the power. And when leaders try to wrest that power from the people at all costs, they end up hurting the very people who are the true custodians of absolute power. There is a limit to how much a leader can impose his will on the people, because only the governed have the ability to impose their will on the leader – as we have seen with all of the fallen men mentioned above.When a once great leader disgracefully succumbs, alas, people tend to wonder, with a troubled feeling of disbelief, why that is. History, as always, is merely at work.

The fall of Muammar Ghaddafi must serve as a warning to all leaders, be they autocratic, totalitarian or so-called democratic. History cannot be more clear: When leaders resort to devilish acts to cling to their authority, they end up making of their subjects the very devils who would eventually deliver them to their graves. Leaders of all nations great and small: You have been warned!

Aroun Rashid Deen is a freelance journalist. He lives in New York, USA

ard228@nyu.edu

Gambia Fails in Freezing So-called Ghadafi’s Assets (#Libya)

(Daily News) - Gambia government’s decision to close down so-called assets of embattled Libyan leader, Ghadafi has failed. Business is instead bustling at Jerma Hotel, Laico Hotel and Dream Park, The Daily News confirmed from official sources.
Gambia government had on Friday, Aril 22, pronounced the freezing of all assets owned by Ghadafi in the country. Laico Hotel, formerly known as Atlantic Hotel, Jerma Hotel, and Dream Park are said to be part of Ghadafi’s assets and therefore freezed with effect from April 22. Over a week on, business is as usual at these places.
The Daily News has confirmed that none of the said investments are owned by Ghadafi. All the three investments are owned by private Libyan citizens.
Gambia’s Tourism Minister has also confirmed that the said investments are neither freezed nor closed down yet.
“I don’t think we can close them down like that,” an unnamed senior government official told The Daily News. “What we can do is to appoint an administrator to oversee the operation of the businesses.”
Eugen Dielthelm is the general manager of Laico Hotel. He stared in astonishment when informed by a The Daily News reporter, who went to him for interview about the development. But he said he wasn’t aware. This was the sixth day after the pronouncement. “It’s a surprise,” he spoke softly, “When was that announcement made?”
“Can I see the press release?” he enquired further, this time looking worried. He logged onto the State house website: www.statehouse.gm to be assured. He then telephoned a person, he said, was the tourism minister, Fatou Mass Jobe.
“Fatou,” he said on the telephone, “I am with a journalist and he told me that my hotel is to be closed-down by the Gambia government.”
After a brief conversation, he looked positive. “My hotel is not closing down,” he said. “If Gambia government is having issues with the Ghadafi’s government that is not my problem and that should not affect my hotel.”
He added: “I am the general manager and I am still the general manager, nothing has changed here as far as I am concerned.”
Mr Muhammed, proprietor of Jerma Hotel, was however aware of the development. But he declined to comment any further after saying the issue has been cleared up with the ministry.
“I can tell you that this [Jerma] hotel is a private investment,” a man who prefered to be anonymous has said. “Yes, the owner is a Libyan, but the ownership has nothing to do with the Libyan government or Ghadifi.”

Author: Lamin Jahateh

Gambia News:Gambia and Libya, what Yahya Jammeh is hiding! Must read.

By Essa Bokarr Sy

The axis of three countries revolving around conflict of interet: Senegal, Gambia and Libya, what  Yahya Jammeh is hiding!

We have just heard about a Yahya Jammeh  transporting Senegalese in to Dakar from Libya but there is never a gesture by Yahya without any strings or price attached!  Never will that happen in  life. In that case I will dismantle  everything he tries to push. Why block this aspect from the sub-critical regime in Banjul? Because it feeds on the  diet of snakes! The approach that was taken by Yahya and his disciples on this case, covers another portion that serves as a trap! He may not succeed as long as I’m here watching his hypocritical  actions in earnest.
To better understand the thinking of President Jammeh  we will address this issue by asking the following questions. … Therefore provide answers with references through professional judgments. Our sources are worthy some of them are  coming from Libya, America and England.

First: Who is Musa Kusa for the regime for  Yahya Jammeh?

Musa Kasa is the former Director of Intelligence  Services of the regime of Al Muamar Qadaffi. He is now the minister of Foreign Affairs of Libya. This guy has very close links with the Jammeh regime through the contacts  which were established Baba Jobe. Baba is currently jailed in  Mile Two because Jammeh does not want him to reveal the secrets between Banjul and Tripoli. As soon as Jammeh took power assistance from the Western world was cut off. So it is Baba Jobe, who pledged his allegiance to the despot therefore connected some dots between Jammeh and Qadaffi through his close confidant  Musa Kasa.  Baba Jobe grew up in Libya therefore was a good friend of Kasa for obvious reasons.  To start with, Jammeh  received

$300,000.00 in cash which was handed to Captain Jallow and Baba Jobe at Musa Kusa’s residence in Libya(1995). Jammeh who was afraid of the regime of Dakar suddenly took the opportunity thus  was eager to be armed  by Libya. First he had received catalogs from Kasa so that he  could determine what he wanted as weapons. That is how he began  receiving heavy arms from Tripoli. It was well before Tehran’s side of the story came in along these same lines.  During the first meeting  Kasa expressed deep concerns regarding the future of the Jammeh regime. Libya was just not comfortable vis-à-vis the regime’s survival because in their minds Jammeh looked more like the Sierra Leonean rebels than a serious head of state. Haven’t they proven right? Of course yes! Lest we forget about the drugs and other scandalous issues which have been surrounding Jammeh’s image for the past 17 years!

 Who is Mukhataar Ghanass for Jammeh?

Mukhtaar was the director of MATABA training center, being a place where  the mercenaries who were fighting in Liberia and other countries like Cote D’Ivoire now were trained. This gentleman is the person who had established links between Jammeh and Charles Taylor in Liberia during the war. Then President Jammeh and Captain Jallow used international satelite  cellular sets when communicating to other parties outside of The Gambia especially when him(Jammeh) wanted to escape being heard(eaves dropping and the like). Jallow can reconfirm this. There was a direct line between Jammeh and Charles Taylor. Taylor was at the time in the bush as he did not prefer  being located or traced localized by wiretapping that was underway. That is  exactly why Taylor was a guest of honor of President Jammeh in 1995. I was personally attached to the delegation of Charles Taylor by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a protocol. During this visit Taylor offered Jammeh to use his own aircraft to effect a short visit to Guinea Bissau. Well, these comings and goings of Yaya Jammeh were simply meant  to fortify his regime against Dakar during the era of President Diouf. On the other side he got closer to General Ansumana Manneh and Sadio adding these two and their loyalists to  mercenaries from Liberia. Much of these mercenaries were from Gambia. Charles Taylor’s Ambassador to Tripoli was a Gambian.

The latter made a lot of things easier for President Jammeh within the circle of Qadaffi ‘s regime in Libya. President Jammeh therefore  was doing everything he could imagine  to  fortify himself against the Senegalese army. That is, in case the latter wanted to  destabilize his regime. President Jammeh will never defend the contrary or say he did not  benefit from  Libyan aid  thus help him  deal with a possible attack on his regime from Dakar. In the same vein he organized himself to nourish the rebellion in Casamance.

Yahya Jammeh with the help of Libya also created a movement referred to as ‘July 22nd movement’, this movement is the Achilles heel of the NIA. (National Intelligence Agency).

And some agents of this organization OPERATE at the  Dakar International airport while at the same time the others are found within the circle of the MFDC.

President Jammeh has lied about the issue of the “LOKERBIE-PANAM AIRLINE ”
In a  very bitter speech  against the regime of  Qadaffi  President Yahya Jammeh lied,saying  that it was him who convinced Qadaffi to reimburse the victims of Pan Am Airlines. The President of Gambia  is a liar at higher level! He never organized a meeting on this fact nor did he begin to solve this problem. The case was settled by  Musa Kusa himself during a trip in  England in collaboration with officials or elements of security services from one  western country (I will not divulge the names for security reasons that are against Yahya in person). Yahya Jammeh on his part said that  Libya’s Ambassador to the UN should have been insulting what he calls the “whites” His Excellency  Dhorda was in New York (between 1997-1999) as the  emissary of Libya while the Gambia was a non-permanent member at security council. Today it is the same person who returns around telling us lies about this. I have been at the united nations for that matter I am more informed than Jammeh on this dossier so I will not let people likeYahya Jammeh,  mislead Gambian and Senegalese on a subject so important and delicate like this one!
Before ending this message I will ask the Senegalese GOVERNMENT  the following questions.
Yahya Jammeh insulted  Qadaffi two weeks ago, when Dakar did not do the same thing. However in all that he sneaked into Libya then  loaded a plane with Senegalese and Gambians without any incident? While Qadaffi is still angry with him? How can he do that without enjoying the special relations which exists  between him and his former friend Musa Kusa? We must dig into this thing! We are there in the event that you want to know more about the above points referenced here above! Never ever avoid verifying anything being done or said by Yahya Jammeh because he fabricates stories and he can be manipulative for very dangerous reasons!
Even if the whole world was to support him on anything I would still re-verify before jumping into his bandwagon. Dakar will one day see why I never support Yahya’s actions.

Source:Hellogambia.com

No-fly zone strikes terror in African leaders’ hearts

By CHARLES ONYANGO-OBBO 

Though Africa’s response to the UN-backed attacks on Libya is muddled, those like Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni who are crying loudest, have good reason to.

Even within the East African Community, where in the past three years the governments have been fairly united in their views on international issues, there are sharp divisions in their approach on Libya.

African presidents’ response to the Libya crisis breaks down into three positions that have recently emerged:

The first position generally accepts the UN resolution that voted to use all necessary means to enforce a no-fly zone over Libya, but is critical of the way the bombings are being conducted.

They believe the Western countries that are enforcing the no-fly zone are going beyond the intention of the resolution, and are instead seeking “regime change.”

This qualified criticism of the ongoing military action is best evidenced in a long article written by President Yoweri Museveni and published in Ugandan newspapers last week.

While acknowledging that Libya’s embattled leader Muammar Gaddafi had made many mistakes, including brutally repressing his people, he sharply criticised the attacks.

He called UN resolution 1973, which authorised military action to protect civilians, “rushed,” and accused the West of “double standards.”

In his view, the Libyan crisis should be resolved through dialogue between Gaddafi and the rebels.

Adopting a Museveni-like posture, South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma also criticised the air strikes, suggesting they were part of a “regime-change doctrine.” South Africa voted in favour of UN resolution 1973, and still supports the objectives of the resolution.

Kenya too moved towards a measured criticism of the air strikes, with Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka saying in parliament on Wednesday that he would have preferred negotiations with the embattled strongman rather than the aerial bombardments by the French, British and United States forces.

Because he said it was his view, it was not immediately clear whether that was the government’s position too.

Libya was one of the countries the VP visited in the first round of the shuttle diplomacy that secured the backing of the African Union for Kenya’s bid to defer the cases against the Ocampo Six at the International Criminal Court.

Gaddafi supported the Kenyan case. However, Kenya was one of the countries that voted on March 1 to suspend Libya from the UN Human Rights Council due to its government’s violent attacks on protesters.

All 192 member nations of the United Nations General Assembly have voted to suspend Libya from the Human Rights Council.

It was one of the most solidly unanimous votes in the UN, prompting US permanent representative to the United Nations Susan Rice to describe the vote as “unprecedented” and “a harsh rebuke.”

Second: The voices supporting the strike against Libya are led by another East African leader, Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame.

In a brief interview with a reporter in London early last week, Kagame backed the bombing raids on Libya, arguing the situation in the North African country had degenerated “beyond” what the African Union could handle.

Kagame, who had just delivered a keynote speech at the Times CEO Summit Africa, said, “Rwanda’s position is the African Union’s position. The African Union’s position was that there was a need to understand what was going on in Libya and based on that, then action taken be supported… But what was happening on the ground was beyond what Africa’s position [envisioned].”

Third: On the opposite side of Kagame, are Zimbabwe and Algeria. In his typically pungent fashion, Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe on Monday described the Western countries acting against Libya as “bloody vampires” and called the UN resolution a “mistake.”

“There is no reneging on the resolution any more; it’s there, it’s a mistake we made... we should have never given the West [the green light to act on Libya] knowing they’re bloody vampires of the past; all this room to go for our people in Africa and try to displace a regime,” President Mugabe said.

Significantly, he spoke after a meeting with Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qoshan. China abstained on the UN vote.

In less dramatic tones, Algeria on Tuesday called for an immediate end to Western military intervention in Libya.

Algeria’s state news agency on Tuesday quoted Algerian Foreign Minister Mourad Medelci as saying, “We judge this intervention to be disproportionate in relation to the objectives set out by the United Nations Security Council resolution.”

Likewise, Namibia’s President Hifikepunye Pohamba said the strikes amounted to interference in the internal affairs of Africa.

Nigeria’s Foreign Minister Odein Ajumogobia likewise accused the international community of “double standards,” by imposing a no-fly zone to protect civilians in Libya while doing little to end abuses in crisis-torn Ivory Coast.

“The contradictions between principle and national interest... have enabled the international community to impose a no-fly zone over Libya ostensibly to protect innocent civilians from slaughter, but to watch seemingly helplessly (in Ivory Coast) as... men, women and children are slaughtered in equal, even if less egregious violence,” he said.

It would seem that, like the Arab League, most African countries initially supported the UN resolution against Gaddafi for tactical reasons — it would not do to be seen to be defending someone who is accused of carrying out mass murder of protesters.

Also, their calculation could have been that the resolution of itself would be enough to frighten Gaddafi into stepping back from his attacks on civilians. It didn’t.

Now that the attacks are on, they have introduced a new wrinkle.

Most African leaders seem frightened by the precedent they set.Their fears will not be helped by comments by William Hague, Britain’s Foreign Secretary who, speaking at the same Times Summit as Kagame, compared Mugabe and the embattled and discredited Ivory Coast “president” Laurent Gbagbo to Gaddafi and hinted Britain might play a role in changing the political situations in their countries too.

For all the noise, there is quite a bit of dry-eyed scheming by African leaders who are busy setting out their regional political stalls.

For Museveni, there is the concern that the Libya campaign will distract attention from something much closer home in East Africa — Somalia, where he has troops serving in the peacekeeping force Amisom.

For the Nigerians, it is the failure of the UN Security Council to impose a no-fly zone in a West African troublespot, Ivory Coast. Furthermore, unlike Uganda or Rwanda, which have the luxury of being far away from Libya, Nigeria is separated from Libya to the north by Niger, and to the northwest by Chad.

Apart from Ivory Coast, there is an even bigger headache for Nigeria.

Various reports have it that Gaddafi hired nearly 10,000 Malian Tuaregs in his army as part of a sort of Foreign Legion, which his critics say is a mercenary outfit.

Observers say West Africa is quaking in its boots at the prospect of thousands of heavily armed and well-trained Tuaregs returning to Mali — next door to Ivory Coast.

On Wednesday, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, probably aware of the risks and wanting to seize the initiative, gave the strongest hint yet that he was willing to consider more forceful action to deal with Gbagbo.

A day later, James Gbeho, head of the West African regional body Ecowas (Economic Community of West African States), said the region’s leaders had agreed that they “will apply to the UN for a mandate to militarily intervene [in Ivory Coast] as a last resort.”

This confirms the possibility that when Nigeria’s Foreign Minister Ajumogobia criticised the Libya attacks, he was mainly seeking to put the UN Security Council in a guilt-lock that would ensure they back tougher action on Ivory Coast.

Museveni too, whose government, together with Burundi, are the only AU states providing peacekeeping troops to Somalia, will hope he can force the UN Security Council’s hand in the Horn of Africa.

That is why Museveni appeared to waffle in his criticism, attacking Gaddafi while faulting the US-led attacks on Libya — because he did not want to come across as a Muammar apologist.

And, unlike Mugabe, he argued that the UN resolution was rushed, not wrong.

It is just as well. The US, sometimes acting alone, and Nato, provide critical support for Amisom.If they cut back, the mission could collapse. It is easier and cheaper for them to buy Museveni’s silence, so in the coming months the UN might come through with a more generous resolution on the AU peacekeeping mission in Somalia.

For Africa, the UN resolution against Libya brought with it other complications even if there had been no military attack.

Countries are already under pressure to seize Libyan regime assets.

Five days before the UN resolution, there were media reports in South Africa that President Zuma had ordered the Treasury to freeze assets linked to Gaddafi and his associates.

“The process is underway and we are writing letters informing them that no money will be allowed to leave South Africa,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Clayson Monyela said.

In Uganda, there was enough unease to force the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs James Mugume, to come out and deny that Libyan government assets in the country would be seized.

However, the main independent newspaper, the Daily Monitor, reported there was still uncertainty over Libyan regime investments.

According to the Monitor, the Libya African Investment Portfolio (LAP) has investments of more than $375 million in Uganda covering different sectors including real estate, hotels, telecommunications, oil and manufacturing. 

A day after that report, the government announced it was freezing the assets — even though it opposes the bombing of Libya.

In Zambia too, the government has announced it will freeze Gaddafi family assets. 

The danger for Libya is that even before the sanctions, its companies were embroiled in too many business and regulatory disputes, and the UN resolution could embolden rivals to pounce on them, or regulators to punish them.

According to the Monitor, and as reported in this newspaper at the beginning of the crisis, the LAP-owned Uganda Telecom is struggling to shake off a lawsuit demanding the payment of a combined sum of about Ush30 billion ($13 million) accumulated from alleged non-payment of interconnection charges for a period of about three years. 

Its dispute with the country’s largest telco, MTN, which is in court, deteriorated further two weeks ago when MTN announced it would sever its interconnection agreement with UTL over its failure to clear a Ush20 billion ($8.7 million) debt accumulated through non-payment of interconnection charges since 2007. UTL, however, disputes the debt.

Other players including Airtel Uganda and Warid Telecom have reportedly also threatened to take serious action against UTL if it doesn’t clear a combined debt of about Ush12 billion ($5.2 million) that the two telcos say accumulated through non-payment of interconnection charges. The LAP Green Network has a 69 per cent stake in UTL.

In Rwanda, where the Libya Arab Africa Investment Company (Laico) has interests in a hotel, Novotel Umubano, and telecommunications, senior officials told The EastAfrican that it is in dispute with the government and regulator over failure to perform on its sale agreement.

In 2007, LAP Green bought 80 per cent of the capital of telecoms operator Rwandatel. The LAP Green Network is part of the Libya-Africa Investment Portfolio (LAP).If the shooting and killing continues in Libya, and the push for sanctions against Tripoli becomes massive, it could be a nightmare for a continent that has only recently started to restore some international business confidence after years of failed state-managed economies and reckless nationalisation.

This is mainly because the trail of Libyan money in Africa is simply too long.

Libya investments

Libya has put $65 billion into sovereign wealth funds, including one specifically designed to make investments in Africa.

The money is invested through the $5 billion Laico, through Libya Oil Holdings, the Libya African Investment Portfolio and the Libyan Foreign Investment Company (Lafico).

The Libya Africa Investment Portfolio was launched with $5 billion in capital, but it is not clear how much cash it holds now.

LAP this year helped set up a London asset management firm called FM Capital Partners.

The head of the firm says it will invest about 40 per cent of the Libyan assets it has under management in African projects.

Another of the fund’s projects is LAP Green Network, a mobile phone operator that has commercial operations in Niger, Ivory Coast, Uganda and Rwanda and is planning to launch operations soon in Chad, Sierra Leone, Togo and Southern Sudan.

LAP is also the main shareholder in Afriqiyah Airways.

The name is Arabic for Africa and it says its mission is to link African states to each other.

It operates routes that are poorly served by major airlines. Destinations include Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso, Bangui in the Central African Republic and Douala in Cameroon.

Laico has investments in hotels, banking, real estate, textiles, and aviation in South Africa, Madagascar, Comoros, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Republic of Congo, Gabon, Central African Republic, Mali, Chad, Niger, Mauritania, Benin, Togo, Ghana, and Liberia, and Guinea

In the long-term, the collateral damage from the Libya crisis could stretch on for years to come, and leave a nasty taste in Africa’s mouth.Small wonder African presidents are doing strange loops and hoops over the no-fly zone.

Source:theeastafrican.co.ke

Libya Needs Cancer of Gaddafi Removed, But U.S. More Slasher Than Surgeon

                                 

The Security Council voted late Thursday by 10 votes to zero, but with five abstentions, for a resolution that authorized military action to protect civilians. The resolution included many understandable reservations and cautions, bearing in mind the US record. Not least it precluded foreign occupation.

We can accept that a patient with a brain tumour might desperately need surgery, but there is still cause for alarm if Jack the Ripper offers to operate. Both method and motive are open to question.

So while no person with a conscience wants Gaddafi to win his sanguinary battle of repression against his own people, there are more than enough doubts that the US is the appropriate specialist to call. However, like Jack the Ripper - they do have the knives.  We should avoid the reflexive binary positions both of those who support any intervention in an Arab country and those who equally obdurately oppose any intervention by any Western power, anywhere.

In fact, ever since the 2005 General Assembly when Kofi Annan steered the UN General Assembly into accepting that that the Security Council’s remit over threats to peace and security extended to what was happening inside sovereign nations, there is legal grounds for Security Council intervention.

There is clearly present need, unless the world is prepared to stand by and watch massacres of disloyal Libyans. And of course, one of the problems with the US as a self-appointed instrument in this case is that Washington seems neutral about not dissimilar events in Bahrain, Yemen or even in Gaza, preferring to arm the perpetrators and provide some measure of diplomatic protection. The sudden US rediscovery of Libyan tyranny is also somewhat problematic, as indeed are its previous military attacks on Libya.

Susan Rice, the US Ambassador to the UN spoke eloquently, and from her previous record, probably sincerely, about the need for intervention. However, a few weeks before she had with deep insincerity cast a veto expressing her own and American opinion on Israel’s repression and breaches of international law in the West Bank!

Even accepting the motive, method is a problem. Consistently in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, the US has shown a predilection for high technology ariel warfare and shown a propensity to risk civilian life rather put its own military at risk. Even in Kosovo,  which most of the locals consider gratefully to have been a “good” war, President Clinton’s refusal to countenance ground forces or risk American casualties by bombing from below  15,000 feet incurred unnecessary casualties and eroded international support, while not frightening Serb leader Milosevic in the slightest.

In Libya, it might be different. Clearly identifiable columns of government forces trailing along the few passable roads along the coast would make an easily identifiable targets. But US over-caution, in wanting to take out Libya’s negligible air defences before acting could easily involve serious mistakes and casualties. No one who saw the WikiLeaks video of the helicopter gunning down journalists in Baghdad is going take the sensitivity of the US military for granted. We do not want Benghazi destroyed to save it.

On the positive side, decisive intervention would send a clear message to Gaddafi’s forces, largely one might presume motivated by fear of reprisals from the regime that there were speedier and worse consequences than that, or indeed an eventual trip to International Criminal Court in The Hague.  

As to motive, one of the reasons that Russia has been reluctant to consider a military option, apart from its own bugbears like Chechnya, has been Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s personal experience of American arrogance in times past. Moscow supported intervention against Iraq after the invasion of Kuwait, and then as UN Ambassador he was consistently snubbed and humiliated by the US and UK as they pursued the resolutions, the sanctions, the air strikes and the rest, far beyond the intention of the resolutions or the will of the majority of the Security Council.

So, immediate surgery is needed. It would be best to find a more trusted surgeon, but if Jack the Ripper has the only scalpels, what do you do? 

Just before the vote I suggested that there are two elements that should be considered in any such UN resolution, both to get Russian and maybe even Chinese support, and to reassure many others around the world. 

The first is to ensure a sunset clause. Any mandate for military action should have precise limitations both about the nature of operations and a time limit. It should return to the Council within days or weeks for a renewal of authority. Secondly, there is a need  to ensure that there is some element of shared control over operations. After the Rwanda and Srebrenica debacles no one, including the UN Secretariat itself, would or should entrust this task to international civil servants. But a subcommittee of the Security Council, or even a revival of the long somnolent UN Military Staff Committee, of representatives of the Permanent Five members should provide some reassurance against irrational exuberance on the part of the  Pentagon. The machinery is there just waiting reactivation. Indeed the Pentagon has a Military Staff Committee whose purpose is to liaise with the UN body. 

It is possible that these might have averted some of the abstentions, but certainly the language of the resolution, invoking constant reporting to and monitoring by the Security Council and the Secretary General, averted the otherwise inevitable vetoes. Ban Ki Moon’s principled stands on the region’s regimes over the last few months, for which he has had insufficient credit, suggests he will certainly take the job seriously. 

Those who are opposed to intervention on principle will of course continue to do so. But the Libyan opposition, who have asked for help, are the ones who will pay the price for others’ high-mindedness.  Pragmatic mandates could help.

source:fpif.org

Indict Muammar Gaddafi now for War Crimes in Sierra Leone

Aroun Rashid Deen – With international pressure already mounting on Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and with the International Criminal Court now in the process of gathering information on civilian deaths in Libya, the Special Court for Sierra Leone and the International Criminal Court have a profound opportunity to indict Gaddafi for war crimes and crimes against humanity he has committed in Sierra Leone. The United Nations has already sanctioned Gaddafi’s government, and now it’s time his prior crimes in West Africa are brought to justice, too.

Muammar Gaddafi was the mastermind and key financier of the brutal war that left hundreds of thousands dead in Sierra Leone in West Africa in the 1990s. The war would not have happened in the first place had it not been for the desire of the Libyan leader to punish the government of Sierra Leone for what he regarded as its siding with the West in the 1980’s when Gaddafi was at loggerhead with particularly the United States and Britain. It was also part of Gaddafi’s broader agenda including his geopolitical ambition to destabilize much of West Africa and establish satellite states in the region to be headed by puppet regimes that will be doing his biddings.The decade-long war ripped Sierra Leone apart. Thousands of its victims, whose arms and limbs were chopped off by rebels,were reduced to paupers, roaming the streets as beggars in Freetown and other cities. Children as young as a day old were also among those whose arms and limbs were hacked off by Gaddafi’s rebels. Pregnant women, too, were disemboweled with delight in their display of ghastlybrutality.

As part of his criminal plans to set West Africa on the warpath, Gaddafi instituted a program of guerilla warfare in Libya for a group of disgruntled West Africans, including a group of Sierra Leoneans he had invited to Tripoli to undergo training. The men who led the war on Sierra Leone — former Liberian leader and warlord, Charles Taylor and Sierra Leone’s rebel leader, Foday Sankoh, and The Gambian Fugitive, Kukoi Samba Sanyang– were among those who trained in Libya.

The ring leaders of the Revolutionary United Front rebel group, which was fighting to overthrow the government of Sierra Leone, also received massive financial support from Libya through Gaddafi’s People’s Revolutionary Council.

Long before the government of Sierra Leone and the United Nations jointly set up the Special Court for Sierra Leone to prosecute key suspects of the war for war crimes and crimes against humanity, calls have been made for Gaddafi to face international justice for his role in Sierra Leone — like Charles Taylor now in The Hague. An opposition leader in Sierra Leone, Charles Margai, who was one of the strong advocates for Gaddafi’s indictment, was incensed when Gaddafi visited the country in 2007. In a BBC interview, he called on Sierra Leoneans to boycott the reception that was hosted for him at the national stadium.

David Crane, the first Chief Prosecutor at the Special Court,considered indicting the Libyan dictator. The former prosecutor, who now teaches law at Syracuse University, says that the direct participation of the Libyan leader in the wars in both Sierra Leone and Liberia caused the “murder, rape, maiming, and mutilation of over a million human beings…” But calls for justice were not heeded because it appears principle Western nations developed a fondness for Mr. Gaddafi following his so-called positive gestures, such as his abandoning of WMD programs.

In January 2004, former French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin was quick to express hope that French firms would participate fully in business activities in Libya. This followed Libya’s signing of a deal to pay $170 million to relatives of French victims of a UTA French airliner bombing in 1989, which was blamed on Libya.Current French President Nicolas Sarkozy also went to Tripoli in July 2007.

The greatest irony of it all is that Sierra Leone and Liberia never got compensations from Libya for the untold suffering, infrastructural damage and needless loss of lives even though evidence suggests that he was the master-mind of the carnage.

Then British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, met Gaddafi in Tripoli in 2004. The meeting was christened with the signing of a deal by oil giant, Shell, estimated at hundreds of millions of British pound sterling for gas exploration rights off the Libyan coast.

In August 2008, Italy’s Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi visited Libya and signed a $5 billion dollars investment deal with Gaddafi. Condoleezza Rice, the former US Secretary of State has also been to Libya where she met with the controversial Gaddafi.

The Libyan leader’s promise to, at the least, pay compensations to relatives of his brutal crimes as well as his giving up of his WMDs were welcome news in a world — particularly in Europe — that confronts many terrorists activities. Oil supplies from Libya mean much to the West. But appeasing the West should not stand in the way for justice for Sierra Leone, just so because it is not an affluent country endowed with oil deposits.

Up till now, Gaddafi’s relations with the West were getting cozier by the day. His brutal treatment of peaceful protesters — who seek nothing more than just a political change that guarantees freedom and better living standards — shows clearly that Gaddafi is too grown to learn new tricks. He is fundamental in his choice to resorting to brutality as a means of addressing challenges.

Muammar Gaddafi bears the greatest responsibility for the brutality in Sierra Leone. The Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission set up at the end of the war found out that Libya contributed in a significant way to the chaos and mayhem that engulfed the country. Mr. Gaddafi’s role in the training in Libya and financing of the rebels justify his direct involvement in the mayhem. Such key roles deserve more than mere naming and shaming.

The desire for a share of Libyan oil or business prospect should not rub leading international policy makers of their moral responsibility to let Mr. Gaddafi account for his brutal misdeeds.

Gaddafi’s hatred for Sierra Leone goes back to the early 1980’s when then President of Sierra Leone, Siaka Stevens, in November 1982,  boycotted an Organization of African Unity conference Libya was scheduled to host. The 1982 conference lacked a quorum due to the absence of many heads of state as a result of controversies surrounding Gaddafi’s role in the rebellions that were going on in Africa at the time. Gaddafi must not go unpunished. What was good for the British and French must be good for Sierra Leoneans too.

Source:aloftnews.com

The impact of the fall of Ghaddafi, sub-Sahara African dictators’ colonel

The impact of the fall of Ghaddafi, should it happen, could be equivalent to the impact of the fall of the Soviet Union to Sub-Sahara Africa. (Photo:  Col. Muamarr Ghaddafi)

The sudden transition of the political landscape, especially in West Africa, in the 1990s owed much to the fall of the Soviet Union when countries that benefited from super-power patronage found themselves with limited external support. The results of that, without doubt, were the very destabilising wars and coups that took over in countries such as Sierra Leone and Liberia.

Since the 1970s, Libya had been the preferred ground for Sub-Saharan warlords who used it to train and arm fighters, who were then sent back to their respective countries to ignite national upheavals and skirmishes. Such recruitments were very effective in the Sierra Leone and Liberia wars. 

Today, not many Sub-Saharan leaders would deny receiving financial support from the celebrated Colonel. Asked by a Western journalist as to where he got his money from to build his spanking new airport, hospitals and roads, President Yayah Jammeh of the Gambia responded by saying that it was from the ‘Bank of Allah’. That ‘Bank of Allah’ was located north of the Sahara in Tripoli, and it never gave out pennies. In their desperate attempt to let their wretched, cancerous and corrupt party, SLPP, remain in power, supporters of the former President of Sierra Leone, Tejan Kabba, announced in 2007 that a shipload of rice from Libya was heading voters’ way. That prompted a massive euphoria in cities, in anticipation of free food in exchange for votes. In fact Ghaddafi became so influential that he was granted an honorary membership to the Sierra Leone parliament. That was another defining stage in the bastardisation process of Sierra Leone’s democracy.

In most countries in the region, Ghaddafi is the patron guru of dictators such as Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe. He propped him up so as to brutally and mindlessly attack his own people, blaming them for his failings.

Coups and elections are not successful without Ghaddafi’s intervention one way or the other. Prolonged and destructive civil wars are not possible without being sustained by the man who wants to unify Africa. 

The significance of Ghaddafi in Sub-Sahara Africa should not be underestimated at all; he is the only North African leader who looks southward. He considers himself very much African, and he advocates for a united Africa. This claim and link enabled him to detach himself from the Middle East, and used his huge oil wealth to bankroll the AU (Africa Union) (formally OAU- Organisation of African Union). Since the beginning of the Libyan upheaval the AU has remained silent, fearing that if any hasty statement is made to condemn the revered Colonel, it may come back to haunt them and their crumbling regimes. Even though evidence of extreme human rights abuses in the country has been made widely known, the AU still remains tightlipped.  This fear of speaking out is not so much about the seizure to financially prop-up dictatorial regimes; it is more or less about the man’s capabilities to change such regimes in these states should he survive his very own homegrown rebellion.

It is now a matter of who first is going to put his head in the snood by publicly condemning the Colonel. African dictators are fully familiar with the proverb that one should never crack a nut on the head of he who carries you on his shoulders. The widely publicised mercenaries being used in the quelling of the Libyan rebellion has come under scrutiny recently.  But, for those Sub-Saharan Africans who are typically familiar with the operations of the Libyan state, seeing African fighters in military jeeps on the streets is no surprise. Were they members of specific states’ forces from Sub-Saharan Africa who were on training missions but became caught-up in this bloody affair?  The answer may be found in what has been happening in authoritative states; fighters who spearheaded the civil wars in Sierra Leone and Liberia spent several years in the 1980s training in various military camps in Libya. And so did Angolan, Ugandan, and Congolese core rebel fighters. For many years, these training facilities acted as additional mentoring and monitoring schemes between the then pariah Libya and its subordinates. They also became places where new warlords were born; Foday Sankoh, Charles Taylor, Prince Johnson, Yoweri Museveni, Kukoi Samba Sanyan (Gambia), and the Kabila family of Congo.

Ghaddafi filled the void that was left by the collapse of the Soviet Union. Men and women who once trained in the Soviet Union now had a shorter distance to travel. Dictators who once received patronage funds from the Soviet Union now had Libyan oil money available to them. Students who once queued to go to ‘the USSR’ for studies now had to go to Libya under state sponsorships.

Ghaddafi’s influence on countries and institutions did not only stop in Africa; in the last few days the head of the London School of Economics resigned after it became public that the institution received substantial funding from Libya.

The departure of Ghaddafi, should it happen, would leave a very big void indeed. The question, however, is who would fill that void? That answer lies fairly and squarely with the Chinese! The Chinese have managed to put themselves in such an economic pole position in Africa that even new roads built by them ends on the East coast looking China-ward (just like Europeans did in colonial Africa when all roads ended on the West coast looking Westward! Easy shipment.) China is now so engaged in Africa that it ships anything that looks vaguely valuable! Dictators such as Theodore Obiang, who relied on the Colonel for security, would now have to look China-ward.

The current scramble by Western governments to gain a foothold in Libya backfired in some fashion when Britain’s Foreign Secretary, William Hague, announced that Ghaddafi had left for Venezuela during the second day of protest! The defiant Colonel appeared live on national TV to tell Hague that he was not for leaving. As Britain was busy airlifting its citizens out of Libya, China was shipping oil from the east coast of Libya!  It is even worrying for the British government when Libyan rebels held eight of its SAS military personnel.

For those African dictators who know the old Colonel very well, fence sitting is the best option for now. That, nonetheless, is very dangerous for their health.

President Koroma should now address the position of one of his honorary MPs.   

James Fallah-Williams, Sierra Leonean Human Rights Activist

Source:www.sierraexpressmedia.com