Forked tongue

The West's endorsement of the responsibility to protect doctrine in Libya is yet another example of its double standards.

INTERNATIONAL Criminal Court (ICC) chief prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo's request, in the third week of May, to issue arrest warrants against Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, his son Saif al Qaddafi and Libyan intelligence chief Abdullah al Sanussi, even as North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) warplanes were wreaking havoc on the country, is yet another illustration of the double standards adopted by the West.

The ICC seems to be specialising in targeting African leaders and heads of state. There already is an ICC warrant of arrest against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. Now that the West's goal of dividing Sudan has been achieved, the ICC seems to be in no hurry to execute the warrant. As things stand today, Libya too seems to be on the verge of partition, with NATO helping proxies of the West to retain control of the oil-producing eastern part of the country. Qaddafi was repeatedly warned that if he did not give up the fight and leave the country, he would meet the same fate as former heads of state like Slobodan Milosevic. The Yugoslav leader, too, had stood up to the military might of NATO.

Many people feel that it would be more in the fitness of things for the leaders of the United States, France and the United Kingdom to face war crimes charges. These three countries were responsible for waging the unlawful war on Libya.

The Charter of the United Nations does not permit the use of military force for humanitarian interventions. The no-fly zone authorised by the U.N. Security Council had not mandated the use of stealth bombers, cruise missiles or Predator drones to target civilian centres and infrastructure.

The U.N.'s responsibility to protect doctrine, which was evolved after the Rwandan genocide, has not been recognised as international law, but the West has used it as a pretext to intervene militarily in countries that do not kowtow to it. Recently, the Arab League asked the Security Council to impose a no-fly zone over Gaza to prevent the killing of Palestinians by Israeli air strikes. Given Washington's unblinking support for Israel, there is no possibility of such a request being approved by the Security Council. More than 1,400 Palestinians, many of them women and children, were killed during the Israeli assault on Gaza two years ago.

Responsibility to protect

During a discussion on the issue of responsibility to protect in the U.N. General Assembly in 2009, the Cuban delegate raised a pertinent point. Who is to decide if there is an urgent need to intervene in a given state, according to what criteria, in what framework, and on the basis of what conditions? Who decides it is evident that the authorities of a state do not protect their people, and how is it decided? Who determines that peaceful means are not adequate in a certain situation, and on what criteria? Do small states have the prospects of interfering in the affairs of larger states? Would any developed country allow in principle or in practice humanitarian intervention in their territories? These questions highlight the inherent duplicity of the responsibility to protect doctrine being propounded by Barack Obama, Nicolas Sarkozy and company in the case of Libya.

The Nuremberg tribunal set up to try Nazi war criminals had ruled that launching unprovoked wars of aggression was the most serious of war crimes. NATO has been specifically targeting Qaddafi, his family and top officials of his government for physical liquidation. His youngest son and three of his grandchildren were killed when a NATO missile demolished their residence in a Tripoli suburb on April 30.

The major countries of the world, such as the U.S., Russia, China and India, are not members of the ICC and reject any accountability regarding its actions. Libya, too, is not a member and has said that it is not answerable to the diktats of Moreno. The ICC is increasingly being used as a tool by the West in its bid to re-establish the neocolonial hold over Africa's huge natural resources. It has not bothered to investigate seriously the human rights abuses committed by the U.S. in Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries despite several requests. It wants to arrest Qaddafi for crimes against humanity, while former U.S. President George W. Bush is penning his memoirs in peaceful retirement. At least 650,000 Iraqis were killed as a result of the American occupation of Iraq that he ordered.

Russia and China have been openly critical of the sharp escalation in NATO military strikes in the part of Libya controlled by the government in Tripoli. On May 19, NATO planes and missiles sank eight warships of the Libyan Navy that were anchored in the ports of Tripoli, Sirte and Al Khums. NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said that this was part of the game plan to topple the Libyan government. We have significantly degraded Qaddafi's war machine. And now we see the results. The opposition has gained ground, he said. His views were endorsed by President Obama in a speech on May 19. Obama said that time was running out for Qaddafi. He does not have control over the country, he said.

Libyan government spokesman Musa Ibrahim described the American President's views as delusional. He emphasised that it was not for Obama to decide the future of Qaddafi. The Libyan people, he said, will determine their future.

NATO is now using European Union (E.U.) weaponry to bomb Libyan military assets. Much of Libya's recent defence purchases were from the very countries engaged in war against it. Initially, the three governments spearheading the aggression had hoped that Qaddafi would just pack up and leave the country and the rebel rabble in Benghazi would inherit the government's military assets. But things have not gone according to the script written at the NATO headquarters. The Libyan government has continued to fight in the face of overwhelming odds and despite the continuous bombing in the last two months. Qaddafi has repeatedly stated that he has no intention of leaving his homeland.

A military stalemate

Experts on the region say that the battle for Libya has resulted in a military stalemate. The end result could be the balkanisation of the country. Parallels are already being drawn with the situation that prevailed in Afghanistan after the ouster of the secular government in Kabul by the U.S.-supported mujahideen. The country consequently witnessed the rise of warlords and radical Islamists.

The civil war in Libya has already acquired the contours of a tribal war. Former Al Qaeda members are known to be actively fighting alongside the rebels in Benghazi.

The balkanisation of sovereign African countries, instigated by the West, has in fact already started. It was Sudan last year. Southern Sudan formally seceded last year. Many other African countries are facing secessionist challenges. It is in the interest of the West to once again redraw the map of Africa in pursuit of the neocolonial agenda. Southern Sudan and Libya could only be the beginning.

Many Africa-watchers believe that the war in Libya was triggered by the West to undermine the genuine demands for democracy in the region. By supporting those Libyans opposed to the policies of Qaddafi, the West could pose as a champion of democracy after the negative role it had played in the democratic upheavals in Egypt and Tunisia. Until the eleventh hour, Washington had supported the leaders of those countries, Hosni Mubarak and Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. In Bahrain, the Obama administration just stood aside and allowed the government there to crush the democracy movement there.

Long-term agenda

The situation in Libya was tailor-made for Washington to pursue its long-term military and strategic agenda on the African continent. One of the major goals of the U.S. African Command (Africom), currently headquartered in Germany, includes combating the growing Chinese influence on the continent. China was emerging as one of Libya's key energy partners.

Africom was also desperately looking for a military base on the continent. Now, the rebels in Benghazi, who owe their survival to Washington's tender mercies, will be more than willing to provide one in Libya, which is strategically located between Europe and sub-Saharan Africa. The control of Libya would also turn the Mediterranean into a NATO lake.

The Western military intervention also coincided with the Libyan government's championing of an African Union (A.U.) that would not be influenced by either the E.U. or Washington. Qaddafi was the strongest proponent of a separate currency for the continent that would replace the dollar and the euro. He was also toying with the idea of channelling the country's oil revenue directly to the Libyan people. He had said that he was fed up with the corruption in the country's administrative set-up. The administration has failed. The state economy has failed. The solution is that we Libyans directly take the oil money and decide what to do with it, Qaddafi had told the media.

The West feared a new round of nationalisations. It was a time when Western oil companies had once again entered the lucrative Libyan market after Qaddafi's rapprochement with the West eight years ago. The Libyan bureaucracy and many influential figures in the government stymied Qaddafi's efforts to distribute the oil wealth directly to the people. Today, many of them are with the Benghazi rebels.

Qaddafi may feel betrayed but not too surprised at the turn of events. In his marathon speech in the U.N. General Assembly two years ago, he listed the many instances in which the Security Council was hijacked by the West to target leaders who had stood up for just causes. He mentioned the attack against Gamal Abdel Nasser during the Suez Crisis of 1956. Nasser's fault was that he called for Arab unity against colonialism. Qaddafi also cited the examples of the wars in Korea and Vietnam, both instigated by Washington, in which millions of people lost their lives. He bemoaned the role of the Security Council, calling it the terror council controlled by the U.S.

Qaddafi said U.S. Presidents, since the founding of the U.N., were still sending the same message: And we shall lead the world, and we shall punish anyone whether they like it or not. We shall punish anyone who is against us.

He warned that all heads of state who dared to raise their voices against U.S. hegemony would meet the fate of the leaders of Yugoslavia, Grenada, Panama and Somalia. Manuel Noriega, the Panamanian President, is still in jail. Slobodan Milosevic died in jail. Qaddafi, from available indications, prefers to die with his boots on rather than spend his remaining days in a prison cell in The Hague.