What we are witnessing is a power struggle between two wings of a repressive, dictatorial regime, and not a struggle for democracy, human rights and the Libyan people's prosperity.
abdelbariatwan.com
29 April 2011
Major-General Abdel Fattah Younis was Gadaffi's minister of the interior until February, responsible for one of the most brutal and repressive security instruments in the Middle East. Col. Khalifa Heftar has lived in Virginia, USA, for 20 years, where he has been trained by the CIA.
I have to admit that I am engulfed by sadness every time I come to write about the way the Libyan situation is unfolding; when I witness the way the country is being torn apart and how the whole nightmare is being completely mis-represented and distorted by a huge media machine, paid for by parties with enormous funds, and which has almost dominated Arab public opinion.
The rebellion started out in all innocence with protestors demanding freedom, social justice and the rule of law from the Colonel Gadaffi's dictatorial regime.
The people had finally had enough of their country being treated like a private estate by Gadaffi and his sons: even to the point where, when one of these sanctified heirs was arrested in Switzerland, Gadaffi threatened to cut off that country' supply of Libyan oil.
He even went so far as to call for fragmenting Switzerland and handing its parts over to Germany, Italy, and France.
The revolution was legitimate, increasingly so when Gaddafi threatened to crush the rebels, and hunt them down from house to house. Saif al-Islam, his son and heir apparent, promised to end the task in the city of Benghazi in less than forty-eight hours.
Suddenly the peaceful revolution turned into a military rebellion, and our television screens were filled with images of rebels riding tanks, brandishing heavy weapons and making victory signs every time they liberated a city or position, dancing in jubilation over the bodies of Libyan soldiers loyal to the dictator – soldiers who only a few months earlier were the pride and joy of all the Libyan people.
The rebels initially said they rejected foreign interference in all its forms, then they asked for the implementation of a no-fly zone to protect civilians from the tyrant's aircraft and his bloodthirsty reprisals. In the absence of any Arab intervention, all parties welcomed the UN Security Council resolution [1973] which enabled this and saw it as clearly the only option to prevent a bloodbath in Benghazi at the hands of the Colonel and his sons.
Until then the media picture was clear: visually confirming the poorly armed and equipped rebels' struggle against heavily armed tanks, airplanes and an army of mercenaries, some from Africa and others from other Arab countries.
The real turn around took place when NATO stepped up its operations, and began to deviate from the mandate of UN Security Council resolution; NATO planes pounded the other party with more than 150 cruise missiles, and tonnes of bombs, killing a great many soldiers on the ground. General Mullen, US chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that NATO air operations had destroyed more than forty per cent of the Libyan regime's defence capabilities.
What we are witnessing is, in fact, the Libyan tyrant seeking the assistance of barefoot, poorly clothed mercenaries facing an armed opposition assisted by mercenaries heavily armed with rockets and aircraft under the banner of NATO, which comprises more than 40 nations, led by the United States.
More than that, the Gaddafi regime is now fighting a NATO-backed breakaway wing of itself. The composition of the rebel leadership bears this out: their commander is Col. Khalifa Heftar who has been trained by the CIA in Virginia where he lived for more than 20 years; Major-General Abdel Fattah Younis was Gadaffi's minister of the interior until February - along with the self-styled 'President of the Revolution', former Minister of Justice Abdul Jalil Mustafa, he was responsible for one of the most brutal and repressive security instruments in the Middle East.
What we are currently witnessing is a power struggle between two wings of a repressive, dictatorial regime, and not a struggle for democracy, human rights and the Libyan people's prosperity. Major-General Younis served Colonel Gaddafi for more than forty years and is well aware of all his crimes against the Libyan people; and Mr. Abdul Jalil Mustafa in his previous incarnation sentenced opponents of the dictatorial regime to torture and death – how then, can he now be fair?
These men have simply shifted their loyalties from the service of the Libyan regime's repressive authoritarianism to fight under the banner of NATO. They do not care at all, it is as simple as shifting the gun from one shoulder to another. Even if thousands of people on both Libyan sides are killed. It is as though those thousands were not Libyan Arabs and Muslims.
Military experts from Britain, France and Italy are training and guiding Libyan opposition troops while US drone aircraft are currently launching continuous bombardments of the other side's positions in Tripoli, Sirte and Sabha. Their most recent strike on Bab al-Aziza in Tripoli wrecked Colonel Gaddafi's offices, killing and wounding dozens.
There is a new equation in Libya: the dead who fall at the hands of Gaddafi's brigades are martyrs of the first class, while those who are killed by NATO missiles or US drone attacks – even if they are innocent and in the wrong place at the wrong time – are not martyrs at all.
Mr Musa Kusa, the Libyan leader's head of intelligence for twenty years, and his foreign minister for three, and before that his ambassador to several countries, was always full of fulsome praise for his Boss and his 'revolutionary spirit'. Now he has now given British, US and French intelligence a wealth of information about Gadaffi and his habits: it cannot be ruled out that the information that Kusa gave to these intelligence agencies may help NATO aircraft to kill Gadaffi, if they can, or kidnap him in the days or weeks ahead.
Mr Musa Kusa was the head of intelligence when his units opened fire on trapped prisoners in the infamous Abu Salim jail in Tripoli, massacring more than 1200 men. Not one of his eager interlocutors has asked Mr Kusa a single question regarding his role in this crime against humanity. Nor was this the only massacre in Libya, but Mr Kusa is innocent simply because he has transferred his gun from one shoulder to the other, and the same applies to all those other Libyans of his ilk.
This tripartite aggression by the US, France and Britain is not new to Libya and nor is the involvement of Italy in its affairs: in 1943 the former Italian colony's three administrative districts (Tripolitania to the Western North, Cyrenaica to the East and Fezzan to the Western South) were divided between Britain – which took administrative control of the first two – and France which controlled Fezzan. The US established the Wheelus airbase near Tripoli and five others within Libya, thus establishing its influence in the country's future.
It is incontesable that the overwhelming majority of Libyans want the departure of Libyan leader, his family and all his bloodthirsty cohorts, but the question that arises now is how much the Libyan people are going to have to pay for NATO to accomplish this task. Furthermore, how is this NATO engagement going to impact on Libya's future, given the devastation NATO and foreign intervention has caused in Iraq and Afghanistan.
We are not allowed to ask such questions, for accusations are ready that we receive money from the Libyan leader, and that we are clients of his regime. Yet nobody questions the motives of NATO or the intentions of the US administration: these are charitable angels and anyone who doubts them for one minute is regarded as insane, foolish, and a supporter of dictatorships, tyrants, and the repression of freedoms.
Arab League Secretary General Amr Musa is utterly silent and has kept away from the limelight. He said that the Arab League's request for foreign intervention in Libya was not intended to protect some Libyans and kill others. He has been the target of a vicious attack for making that statement, though he said the truth. Likewise, we too would be attacked if we say that truth. Musa was also due to sign the statement issued jointly by Barack Obama for the United States, Nicolas Sarkozy for France, and David Cameron for Britain. That statement demanded the departure of the Libyan leader, not only from Tripoli, but from Libya. Yet it was not said where he should go...perhaps to the other world. Musa did not sign that statement because he deeply regretted his support for foreign intervention in Libya.
It causes us great anguish to see our Libyan brothers burning in the fire of ferocious civil war. We have supported, and will continue to support Arab revolutions everywhere; but with anguish we see that the Libyan revolution has been hijacked by military men and politicians from the inner chambers of Gadaffi's tyranny who are motivated by their own personal desires for power and revenge. These motives they have sugared with a thin coating of the flavour of the times and a suggestion of concern for the people.
I would like to conclude this commentary by responding in advance to those who will launch into accusations that I side with Colonel Gadaffi, his crimes, and tyranny. When we were attacking Gadaffi and his regime, as we often have done over the years, most of his current opponents were either serving his regime and reaping millions of dollars, or standing in line in front of Sayf al-Islam al-Qadhafi's headquarters in London, writing accounts about his reformist intentions and giving their blessing to the prospect of his succession to his father. All those accounts are still in the archives of Al-Quds al-Arabi.
Abd-al-Rahman Shalqam, the former Libyan foreign minister and one of the opposition leaders, knows full well whether or not we were pro-Gadaffi regime at the peak of his regime's power, and whether or not we received his bribes in the millions of dollars. We will accept Shalqam's testimony because he is a man of conscience and ethics.
The only party that we will support is one which will strive in the first place to spare the blood of our brethren in Libya, and then to champion true reform and democracy. Libya's future should be decided according to the example set by Abu-Musa al-Ash'ari in a similar situation fourteen centuries ago. That is – both the tyrant and those fighting under NATO's wing should remove themselves from the stage and allow the true revolutionaries, the young people who have had the courage to rise up and stake their claim on the future, to form a new leadership.
Abdel al-Bari Atwan is the editor-in chief of the London-based newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi.
