Libyan Overview:
The insurrection of a sizable segment of the Libyan populace against the Libyan autocrat, Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi, is a continuation of the popular mutinies that have characterized the Mohammedan world recently. The Colonel, who has administered Libya dictatorially in the preceding 40 years, has epitomized Libya internationally with his outlandish speechification at times on world affairs and with his inimitable socialistic style of governance elucidated in ‘The Green Book’. The Colonel had shepherded a military coup d’état victoriously in 1969 that dethroned the then Libyan royalty that had administered Libya in the aftermath of Libyan liberation in 1951 from the UN Trusteeship of France and the UK.
Colonial Libya:
Libya had been administrated unfeelingly by the Italians subsequent to the Italian triumph in the 1911 Italo-Turkish War. Libya was one of four Italian colonies in northern and eastern Africa that underwent profound Italian involvement militarily, politically and culturally. Thousands of Italian settlers converged on fertile Italian Libya as well as on Italian Somalia, Italian Eritrea and Italian Ethiopia to derive monetary advantage from farming in the arable zones there as well as from infrastructural development like railway and road construction, industrial development, etc. The infrastructure and economy of these colonies experienced considerable enhancement under Italian supremacy. However, the institutionalized prejudice of the Italians in the colonies, especially under Fascistic Italy, and the general bellicosity of Italian colonialism alienated the indigenous Africans and spawned deep resentment for the Italian colonialistic presence.
Libyan Crisis vs Egyptian Crisis:
The world needs to deal with the Libyan uprising differently. Its handling of the popular revolt in Egypt recently cannot be the response to the Libyan emergency. Egypt was governed by President Mubarak, who, despite all the disparagements of his rule by the Egyptian political opposition, provided political stability to Egypt and engendered improvements in certain sectors of the Egyptian economy. Mubarak was a significant contributor to the skirmish against transnational Crescentic terrorism, which has bedeviled the Islamic world as well as non-Islamic territories. The security situation in Egypt largely enhanced under his Presidency. There was Egyptian tranquility with Jewish Israel. But the protests, led by some segments of the Egyptian populace, against governmental subornment, joblessness and paucity of freedom, persisted. Mubarak never really intended to respond genocidally to dismantle the popular demonstrations against him on the Egyptian streets. The protestors were, for the most part, permitted to express their opposition to Mubarak by positioning themselves in the now landmark areas such as Tahrir Square. Importantly, the Egyptian armed forces were on the side of the populace and never resorted to indiscriminate killing of the protestors. Mubarak’s Egypt was an intimate ally of America and the West, with the former unequivocally declaring that it sympathised with the demonstrators.
American President, Barack Obama, and the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, conversed about the need to usher democracy in Egypt. It had been conveyed unambiguously to the Egyptian autocrat that his time is up and that he had to create the foundations sooner rather than later for democracy in Egypt. He had to either resign from the Presidency or not contest in the Presidential elections in September. There was copious global pressure on Mubarak to dethrone himself. Mubarak was no Gaddafi and was not infamous for his verbal ludicrousness. Eventually, Mubarak bowed down to the popular wishes to thwart debilitating bloodletting.
Libya Of Sabotage In The 1970s, 1980s and 1990s:
Libya, on the other hand, has been guided by the ‘Brother Leader’, Colonel al-Gaddafi, who has had a pretty nefarious track record. Libyan terrorists, sponsored by their State headed by the Colonel, have been involved in a broad assortment of belligerent activities such as the deadly detonation of the UTA Flight 772 in 1989, the devastating Lockerbie bombing in 1988, the lethal bombardment of a nightclub in Berlin in 1986, etc. Several Libyan militants have been found guilty by various national courts of conspiring and executing these terroristic acts. Libya, led by the Colonel, was a participant in the unlawful and clandestine atomic proliferation trade in the 1980s and 90s that was championed by the now dishonorable Pakistani nuclear scientist, AQ Khan. The Libyan State, under the Colonel, had bequeathed military as well as monetary assistance to numerous terrorist organizations globally that have engendered havoc in different countries. These terrorist entities were not restricted to Mohammedanism, with some being non-Islamic disruptive outfits as well.
During his dictatorship, Libya was also involved in an indefensible territorial war against its African neighbor, Chad, during the Cold War. The conflict was a byproduct of the lengthy Libyan backing, under the Colonel, for the mutinous forces in northern Chad. Also, the Colonel is a rather volatile and wobbly leader cerebrally as evidenced by the ranting in his speeches from the 1970s till recently. His backing for the grisly Somali pirates and for the despots of dissimilar countries in different continents enlightens us about the dangerous maverick that the Colonel is and has been. He had financially supported and provided diplomatic recognition to the Uganda presided by the President, Idi Amin, who was known for his horridly oddball personality. The Colonel bizarrely endorsed the genocidal Christian Serbian tyrant, Slobodan Milosevic, even when it was broadly deemed internationally that Milosevic’s Christian forces were perpetrating ethnic purging in the 1990s in largely Crescentic Kosovo. This explained the ideological and psychological contradictions of the Colonel. His alliance with authoritarian national chiefs such as the Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez, and with the erstwhile Liberian despot, Charles Taylor, basically reflected that the Colonel was an agent of disruptiveness and sabotage globally. Taylor has been indicted by the Sierra Leonean Special Court for war felonies and felonies against humankind that were implemented by Taylor’s militias during the vicious civil conflict in neighboring Sierra Leone. The Colonel’s Libya has subsidized the Pilipino militant secessionist organization, Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which has brutalized the innocent Pilipinos to achieve the goal of a self-governing State in southern Philippines. The Colonel’s agents caused tremendous bloody damage throughout the world such as in London in April 1984 when the Libyan diplomats in the city fired at the Libyan refugees, who were remonstrating against the capital punishment meted out to two Libyan dissenters. This firing bumped off a British policewoman, Yvonne Fletcher. This appalling incident liquidated ambassadorial ties between Britain and Libya for several years.
Current Libya:
If the Colonel’s forces had rapidly obliterated the recent uprising without undue slaughtering of the revolters, the world could have accepted that as the victory of a powerful autocrat still in control of his country and the military. One would have had to acknowledge that the Colonel was still the potent boss of Libya. However, the conflict between the State’s official armed forces and the rebel soldiers has dragged on for so many days now. The rebellious troops have joined the civilian opposition to the Colonel’s rule and have conquered keynote areas of Libya, especially in the country’s east. This illustrates incontrovertibly the degree of bitterness and hatred in the opposition’s psyche for the Colonel. There is oceanic abhorrence for the Colonel in mammoth zones of Libya now. The opposition is beginning to solidify its hold over myriad strategic areas of Libya. The military goriness with which the Libyan State has endeavored to quash these popular protests has led to innumerable popular demises. The Colonel has even refused to inaugurate a dialogue with the opposition to craft an acceptable deal that would entail eventually the democratization of Libya and that would, at the very least, and for starters, trim the constitutional dictatorialness of the Colonel. Also, this civil strife is anchored in tribalism as the Colonel’s tyrannicalness has spawned loads of loathing for his tribe. The demonstrators on the Libyan lanes predominantly belong to the opposing tribes of Libya that desire to witness the dethronement of the Colonel and his tribe.
It is strongly possible that these demonstrators are not yearning for democracy but are merely yearning for liberation from the Colonel’s autocracy. Their desire simply is to see the deposition of the Colonel and the installation of a new national chief. Democratization may not be as important for them as the free world would like to believe. However, if the civil war in Libya does not end in the near future and if the bloodletting continues, foreign military intervention will become imperative to stabilize Libya. Obviously, then, the mission should be to unseat the Colonel and install a personality, who will bring back sereneness to Libya, and initiate a political dialogue that could engender democracy of some sorts in the Libyan future. The fresh leader would have a better chance of stabilizing Libya, discontinuing the bloodshed and terminating the torture of the political rebels. Also, if the civil war continues, the lucrative oil refineries and fields of Libya could be under threat from the State’s militias or from the self-centered anarchists in the country.
Libya, in the last few years, has attempted to reintegrate itself with the international community by forfeiting its construction of destructive chemical and nuclear weapons. Libya has permitted multinational inspectors, headed by the UN, to analyse its nuclear weapons program and to obliterate it. The Colonel has repeatedly condemned the venomousness of Al-Qaeda and sympathised with America due to 9/11 in interactions with the American media. There has been sizable cooperation from the Libyan authorities on this issue since 9/11, which led to the West befriending Libya cautiously in the last few years. Also, the Colonel had realized that the years of international sanctions against Libya had weakened its economy, which needed global money for its revivification. However, the Colonel refused to liberalize the Libyan polity.
However, the latest Libyan violence clearly illustrates that there has to be decisive intercession from the globe to resolve this crisis. Sanctions, seizures of monetary assets and embargoes can only work up to a certain point.
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