FOCUS ON LIBYA: A compendium

Featuring : 

• Nathaniel Manheru
• Yoweri Museveni
• Stephen Gowans
• Sam Akaki

Libya: Africa and the Victorians

By Nathaniel Manheru
As I write, Libya is burning. It is in the throes of war, more accurately, of a "righteous" aggression.
The list of the aggressor nations is as familiar as it is predictable: US, UK, France, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Norway, Denmark and Canada. Missing in this Western league is Portugal. Missing in this unholy league is Germany, itself historically the venue and convenor of the 19th Century meeting that made the colonial phase of imperialism an abiding ethos in international relations.
I am referring to the Berlin Conference of 1884 which laid the ground rules for the partitioning of Africa, while averting likely conflict between and among Europe's rapacious participants. Creating a sub-category in this invading group ranged against Libya is America and Canada, themselves offshoots and creatures of another colonialism. Together, they make a statement about latter-day colonialism spearheaded by erstwhile colonies. That is how rich imperialism is today, how weak Africa is today and, God forbid, tomorrow. Being a colony of a colony is the worst fate for a people, a continent. Being unsure of your futures is worse. It is a despairing thought.

Tahrir in London?
The abstainers are not any more righteous. I contest any such claims. Merkel faces a political meltdown by way of her personal political prospects and those of her party. She cannot afford a war even though Germany is the only economy in Europe that can sustainably pay for a war as things stand. Her economy has held firm and is in fact the motive force for the rest of Europe whose economic fortunes are worse than those of any sick "man" ever to inhabit Europe in lived history. Britain - our Britain - is among the worst, which is why its youths are now threatening to turn Trafalgar Square into another Tahrir, this time in the heart of Europe. Of course it won't happen but that isn't the point of the preceding sentence. Things have really gone down for Albion and most probably are set to be much worse. Tahrir is a statement of Anglo-pessimism, a statement of a people overborne by a sense of entrapment.

Ascendency of Merkel
Merkel is aware she needs to consolidate the German economy while European folly drives the rest of his peers down an abyss, goes to war with lame consensus, sparse means, fragile economies, a tattered causa belli. Is it not wars that raise some powers while destroying others? And great powers are hardly great warriors; rather, they are great economies that assert their might on the smouldering ruins of war; nations that suture gaping wounds, plaster broken limbs, of gasping warrior states now prostrated by the cost and fatigue of war. America consolidated her global power through some gentleman called Alfred Marshall and his

Marshall Plan, itself a post-Second World War economic recovery package for war-weary Europe.
Germany herself was the aggressor and loser of that war, and the recipient of that recovery package. As was Britain, as was France, but seemingly with diminishing lessons for these two. Having caused, fought and lost two wars, Germany knows wars do not pay, indeed that wars are bad business for those embroiled. Rather, wars create opportunities for dominance only for nations that either do not get involved militarily, or do so marginally. As US did in both world wars, while revving up its munition economy.

Reverse Marshall Plan.
In both wars, US was in this curious habit of waiting for the eleventh minute to intervene, even then doing so well away from home. Except for Pearl Harbour, damage was largely overseas, and on affected families who lost loved ones. See what has happened to US now, having for the first time fought wars it conceived, wars it declared but cannot finish. Its economy is on a tailspin and a new world power, or powers are set to emerge, all on the back of a reverse Marshall Plan to America itself. So, Germany will not go to war and has said so in the Security Council. Commentators piqued by this German decision, and playing a goading game on it, claim Germany has lost international influence. I doubt that very much. It has ducked international obloquy, while gaining another day to consolidate its economy so as to rule Europe with a smile. Let time tell.

Careful Portugal
Well, Portugal cannot play war games any more, now or in future. It shall only fight wars that she must, and these have to be wars that threaten its very soil. Colonies undid it in the 1970s, giving it the dubious profile of being the only coloniser in history to be undone by struggles in its colonies. Never before had overseas wars in colonies back-lashed in that very direct way on the metropolis. Never before had such wars caused regime change in the metropolis. Since 1974-75, Portugal has learnt to be careful abroad, very careful, which is what has rehabilitated her on the, itself the setting for its dishonor in the previous century. I have dwelt a little too long on history. I need to come back to today.

Operation Odyssey Dawn
The powers that are burning Libya are doing so under what they have termed Operation Odyssey Dawn, itself an operational code name fraught with augury for Africa. If it is the dawn of a journey, are we in for a long haul, a long march?
Who is the traveller? Journeying to where? Someone else must deal with that. Suffice to say, the code does imply not just a shared military strategy but also a shared global prognosis and goal, with Africa as the setting for this Conradian odyssey whose rallying cry remains unchanged: exterminate the brutes!


Conradian surreality
As with Conrad's Heart of Darkness, what is happening along that vast sand river we call Libya, is surreal. The French fired the first aerial salvo and it imparted much honour on the French escutcheon. Sarkozy - the outsider - is now plumed in bright armour of revived Gaul militarism. You want to understand that what stings French honour is validation of the phrase from an ancient writer: "Gallos quoque in bellis floruisse audivimus (We have heard that the Gauls, too, once excelled in war"). No nation once the grandeur of memory.
Only contemporary fearsomeness can be deployed, indeed can yield result in realpolitik. French honour sorely needed a chivalric fillip. There is a loud military hardware marketing text that is running well ahead of the whole war against Libya. All the participating nations behave like they are at an air show set in a vast desert where only the sand is the limit. You cannot miss the voyeurism that has accompanied the assault on Libya, as each assaulting nation displays practically what it is capable of militarily. It is a huge selling effort, only with a little bit of Afro-Arab blood, bad blood of a brute at that!

Legal versus just war
But it is also a war of yawning holy ironies, which is what makes it a fitting tribute to the land of Allah. This is a cynical point to make and I make it to sting insensate Africa, most insensate Arab League. The Western world has intervened in Libya under a UN resolution numbered 1973, itself a significant year for an Africa struggling against Western colonialism. That fateful resolution made the war itself legal.
When you read coverage of that war, you wonder whether these so-called experienced Western journalists know the difference between a legal war and a just war. But then how can they ever do given that the West is still to give the world, let alone fight, a just war? Legal wars do satisfy and fulfill statutes, whether national, regional or international, as appears to be the case in this one. As for just wars, well, the proposition gets slightly more entangled with human values, indeed gets value-laden. The ends have to be noble, indeed have to justify the sacrifices of war as a means. I am oversimplifying a complex matter and I prefer it that way. Please don't impugn my knowledge on this one. I could take you along and along with analysis until the morrow, like the proverbial light but incessant rains of mubvumbi, whose seepage is known to go very far, indeed to reach the core and pith of the earth!
Usadheerere!!

Very wide remit
Operation Odyssey Dawn, we are told, is meant to save Libyan civilians in danger from a bloody dictator in the form of their leader, one Muammar Gaddafi, Brother Leader as he prefers to be called. The resolution does not require Gaddafi to actually harm his people. Rather, it requires the assaulting powers to merely think he intends to do so for them to attack. And they need not attack Gaddafi's advancing infantry. They are empowered to take "all the necessary measures" to avert what they think may pose a threat to Libyan civilians, including, nay especially, those in rebellious Benghazi!
Now, let us be fair. There appears to be a whiff of nobility in the reference to saving Libyan civilians, a whiff that appears to make the war eligible to be considered just. That hint is further reinforced by the requirement of a ceasefire in Libya, a development and condition that can only make civilian life thrive and multiply, consistent with God's vision for mankind. That, ladies and gentlemen, is noble, is nobility itself.


Surfeit of morality
Even much better, the resolution forbids deployment of ground troops by any foreign power, all to uphold Libya's sacred sovereignty. That too, ladies and gentlemen, is laudable and most consistent with the raison d'etre of the AU and the vision of its founding fathers. It also strikes a happy code with Zanu-PF, does it not? That party's vocabulary begins and ends with this complex word, does it not? The resolution also says the participating nations must report to the Secretary General and through him to the Security Council within set times. Real accountability!

Even much, much better, the resolution recognises the right of the Libyan people to decide their own futures.
It does, too, recognise the Arab League as siblings of Libya. Even the AU is referred to by the resolution. At face value, the resolution appears aware of the need to address the morality of that war. That means there is moral awareness, in which case any failures and lapses that follow cannot be exculpated on grounds of amorality (being unable to grasp or discern what is moral). They have to be dealt with as culpable instances of immorality (conscious violation of known and believed moral standards). I am being commonsensical and I like it too. After all, is not the absence of common sense the bane of our world?


All under a war chapter
Before we see how well the invading countries have lived up to the moral ideals and requirements of the resolution, let us deal with the environment and architecture of the resolution itself. It is a United Nations Security Council Resolution, taken under Chapter 7, which allows for intervention. That is the same resolution Britain and America would have wanted invoked against our country in 2008. Read together with the brand new notion of "responsibility to protect" which is now a UN stricture, Chapter 7 does allow for international intervention in circumstances in which developments in a given country is thought to endanger world peace and life of the citizenry of the affected country, while the responsible government is either unable or unwilling to protect the affected citizens. That is why it is called a war chapter. I am mangling complex issues to simplify what is happening in Libya, what could happen to any other part of the world. Let us make another point.


A resolution that could have flopped
The Security Council as presently constituted has African states seconded there on a non-permanent basis. These are South Africa, Nigeria and Gabon. It has Arab states who are expected to represent that part of humanity. Let us for a moment refuse to be bogged down by who is permanent and who wields or does not wield veto power, important though these matters are. We can debate that another day. In any case no veto power was used, regrettably. In any case, no member was barred from voting, again regrettably.

Within built-in limits we have suffered as Africa since the launch of the UN, the decision on Libya was taken by a relatively representative structure of the world body. As already stated, Africa was represented, the Arab world was represented, Asia was represented, Latin America was represented, Europe and America were over-represented, as indeed they have always been historically. Even Germany too, was represented! It was within the means of that body - through its representative membership - to give the resolution another direction, other than the one it eventually took. There was no fait accompli for anyone.

Only dilemmas arising from decisions and stances taken by those responsible for Libya, both consanguineously and hemispherically. The Security Council needs a minimum of 9 votes for a resolution to carry the day. This rule is only bent by the exercise of a veto by any one or group of its permanent members. As matters developed, resolution 1973 won by well over the minimum nine, with no veto exercised and with numerically significant abstentions to have taken the vote in another direction. Russia, China, India, Brazil, Germany and possibly one or two others abstained. All have given reasons for their abstentions, reasons clearly indicating that they could have voted against the resolution if only, if only . . . But it is still too early to make the point.

Afro-Arab complicity
Developments on that fateful day for Libya, for the Arab League and for Africa, as well as the mathematics of the vote, seem to indicate that resolution against Libya was legal, just and deserved. Three African countries - South Africa, Nigeria and Gabon - voted for action against Libya as proposed by the resolution. All countries representing the Arab world in the Security Council voted for action against Libya. In any case prior to the resolution, the Arab League had actually passed a resolution endorsing the idea of a no-fly zone ostensibly to save endangered civilians. The resolution amounted to endorsing foreign intervention in

Libya. The secretary general of the Arab League is one Amry Moussa from Egypt, itself a foremost member of the League, but also an African country. Potentially the Arab League had a good leg in the Arab world, a better leg on the African continent. Its resolution and that of the UN could have been different, except by choice.

Betrayal of the continent.
Just before the UN resolution, the Security organ of the AU had met in Addis Ababa and had issued a resolution which did three fundamental things. It decried Gaddafi's undemocratic ways at home, stressing the entitlement of the Libyan people to good, democratic government available to all peoples of the world. It decried the situation of conflict inside Libya and agreed on a five-presidential team to find facts on what was happening on the ground, for purposes of recommending an AU-supervised package for stabilising and reforming Libya. Thirdly, it affirmed the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Libya, warning foreigners to keep off the Libyan soil until Africa asked for help.

The Peace and Security Council (PSC) which met in Addis never, never endorsed what was to follow under the UN resolution. But the three African countries did not uphold the AU position in voting with the West for intervention in Libya, a resolution sweetly couched as a no-fly zone. Africa had triggered a mechanism for remedial action and some of the countries representing Africa on the Security Council were part of the African remedy as proposed by the PSC. Those countries chose to take narrow national positions, as opposed to the continental one to whose development they were either a party or bound by.
The triad strength that did not help
Much worse, coincidentally two of Africa's giant states are in the Security Council. I am referring to South Africa and Nigeria. The third - Egypt - had had an opportunity as holding executive chair of the Arab League.

That means Africa fell in its triad strength, betrayed by its lead nations. Ironically, these are the nations with ambitions to gain permanent seats in the Security Council, however emasculated. They have been departing from the Ezeluwini consensus during which Africa demanded permanent and fully dressed seats to match and countervail any other permanent member of the Council. Could national positions and ambitions have got the better of Africa's principle and vision on Libya, thereby on itself?

Recanting Arab League
As things went, the fact of an African and Arab block vote for intervention in the Security Council amounted to legitimizing a war and an intervention which imperialism had long planned but was hesitant to execute unilaterally. Once those block votes came, imperialism wasted no time in declaring an unjust war Africa and the Arab League made both legal and symbolically defensible. We gave the West the moral symbolism, which is why President Mugabe spoke of self-treason. It is telling that apart from President Mugabe and the ANC Youth League, no one else on the African continent has spoken against what is going on in Libya. Moussa seems to suggest the Arab League, having noticed what its resolution and vote have occasioned, is beginning to recoil. Far from redeeming the League, this actually deepens its moral crisis, its political failures.

The power that Africa misused
With the stance taken by South Africa and Nigeria in the Security Council, it is difficult to see how Africa can repose trust in a leadership which cannot defend it against ravishment by imperialism. Or a leadership which votes for itself and not for principles and positions Africa will have taken. South Africa and Nigeria have failed the test of African trusteeship, but in a way that warns the continent against thinking that a seat or seats on the Security Council brings to it foolproof defense and security. That status would have to come with parameters binding which ever country attains it, to prevent national unilateralism and mortagaging Africa's Security Council resource to foreign causes. Whatever the circumstances, foreign encroachment on a continent with a past we have had, can never be justified, except if and when it unfolds on our terms as Africans.

All the horror scenarios are now possible
Much worse, the UN resolution seems to be a package in either regime change or/and secession. Neither are values of the AU. In a very short time in the invasion, the issue of Gaddafi's fate both as a human being and as a leader of Libya, came up. Was he fit to live? Was he fit to remain president of Libya? Or would one action - seemingly unintended and accidental - resolve both? Such as hitting him to smithereens by a stray missile? Or bombing his compound as indeed happened, for the second time by the way? This is where the issue of the remit of the UN resolution comes in. As it stands, resolution 1973 does allow and accommodate just about anything anyone with a fighter jet or warship wants and pleases to do. It allows for "all measures necessary" to protect civilians anyone thinks are about to be endangered by the Libyan regime.

The civilians it protects are dissenters who have rebelled against central authority in Libya. That means if Obama wakes up thinking a-ahh Gaddafi should be punished for escaping American bombs in 1989, he can legitimately send his boys to take him out for being the most probable source of orders to Libya's fighting army. Or if Cameroon thinks the spirit of Lockerbie has not been expiated by oil deals which Blair secured and the billions which Gaddafi paid by way of compensation, he can easily make the physical elimination of Gaddafi part of the necessary measures. Or much worse, if this invading concert of the West thinks Libyan oil is "endangering civilians", they can legitimately take full control of it in a way that feeds into their anemic economies as an unintended and much regretted consequence of a UN war! Thanks to Africa and the Arab world, all these horror scenarios are now possible.


Libya's own Taiwan
Much worse, if Gaddafi survives to fight another day, he will find himself presiding over a new Libya with its small "Taiwan" whose centre is Benghazi. Elsewhere in Europe, divisions of Cold War era have given way to unification, which is why we now have greater Germany. Or where these have led to guided fragmentation as in the former Soviet Union, these have been to prepare for the reincorporation of these smaller states under the European Union in a way that makes them perpetual underdogs barking against threats of, or from a resurging Russia. Worse, for America, any state that is silly enough to want to secede, must be in a position to subdue the rest militarily, a requirement written into the American constitution. This trend towards larger polities in Europe, towards maintaining territorial integrity of America, is what is being challenged in Libya which does not deserve it. And that means Africa, too, does not deserve larger formations, which is why its already fragmented states are being attacking even further. A major principle of the AU is taking a major knock.


No fly-zone in history
I said if Gaddafi survives, he has to fight another war. I mean it literally, not figuratively. Judging by what happened to Saddam, the no-fly zone is just a phase, a battle, in a war which a marked state has to lose, in which a marked leader has to be guillotined. A no-fly operation is meant to degrade defences, allows invading countries to rehearse for a full, televised war. Gaddafi can only postpone his demise, delay the occupation of his country, indeed delay the take-over of Libya's oil assets. We need to understand imperialism from history, recent history in this case.


Degrading moral pretences
How has the war itself panned out, in relation to its moral bearings, assuming war can ever have that? Prior to the war and even the UN resolution, the West evacuated all its personnel in Libya. That amounted to two things, namely that westerners were above Libyan civilians who deserved collective "protection" under a no-fly zone resolution. That made them a superior race, a superior citizenry, did it not? They are the residents of Libya for fat, peaceful days of oil rigs, opulent banking, and construction tenders, but endangered species to be saved from wars triggered by their home governments, is it not? Secondly, the evacuation was an admission that the resolution and the operations would cost civilian lives, whether from direct hits or vengeance.

This is where irony and moral bankruptcy begins. By evacuating their own nationals, the invading countries confirmed they would be spilling civilian blood, Libyan blood, well against the dictates of the resolution. Already, a lot of blood has been drawn by those blind missiles lobbed into urban cornubations, whether from the sea or from the air. The West's fighter planes have been degrading not just Gaddafi's defences, but resolution 1973's moral pretences. Our next sight will be of Libyan civilians either trekking out as refuges or hurdled on an open desert as war displaced. All these men and women are civilians and would have had food and shelter under Gaddafi.

Rebels with multinational airforce
Much worse, assuming the air attacks stop Gaddafi by way of a stalemate, what happens when anti-Gaddafi begin to advance on other cities en route to Tripoli as desired by the invading West? Surely there will be fierce fighting in and around civilian-filled cities and towns? Will the West still enforce a no-fly zone between rebels and Libyan army, indeed adopt "all measures necessary" to dissuade rebels from advancing towards cities they wish Gaddafi is ejected from? Or will they - as we all fear they will - will they become the airforce of Libya's "democratic demonstrators"? In which case a real first will have emerged from Libya where "civilian demonstrators" who have already notched a half-first by being the first ever to demonstrate with small arms, tanks, and huge anti-aircraft guns, will be the first to afford a multinational western airforce, indeed will be the first ever group to command American forces abroad.

When little Qatar does not make an Arab summer
I ask more of moral questions? Why have the Arab nations refused to participate? Don't tell me this nonsense about Qatar and United Arab Emirates. These are not Arabs, whether by bearing or by size, if you get what I mean. Egypt "will none of it", to use Shakespearian English. Saudi Arabia, far from showing up this campaign, is in fact doing the exact opposite, that is by rolling its tanks into Bahrain to support Gaddafi's poor alter ego. By the way, Bahrain houses American bases, which is why monkey business will not be allowed from demonstrators in that country. Change will come to Bahrain, but on Washington's terms. So, why are Arabs not backing their resolution? Or extending the revolution which started in Tunisia to other climes such as Yemen and Saudi Arabia itself? As for Qatar, what its Aljazeera has been doing through airwaves, its small army is now prepared to do together with western invaders.


The story of Gaza
Still I ask more of moral questions. Gaza. What happened in 2008/9? Israel moved in and pulverized the civilians of Gaza. These are no less civilian than the blest Libyans; no less visible to the Arab League and United Nations than the civilians of Benghazi. Equally, the intervening countries of today were there in those years of Gaza's assault. Why no resolution imposing a no-fly zone on Israel? Why no attack on the compound of Israeli president who even in personal moral terms, was a failure? Not even an enquiry? And as events would dictate, the militants of Gaza have now goaded Israel which as always has responded disproportionately. Civilians have already died. No UN meeting. No UN resolution. No Arab League resolution.

No Vote for Veto
Were countries which abstained complicit in the ravishment of Libya? Of course not. Veto countries like China and Russia might see the moral principle at stake, but they need a cue from regions and continents which house the country under assault. We saw it here when SADC said no to Zimbabwe's planned assault. South Africa took a firm stance which it has now undermined. In the case of Libya, both Africa and the Arab League undermined any likely support, whether by veto or by vote, from China and Russia, Brazil and India. They failed to use their vote or the threat of it, to trigger a veto which was sure to come. That is how Libya was let down. Or more accurately, how Libya let itself down and, with that, the rest of Africa. It sounds paradoxical, callous even as I appear to be blaming the victim. Yes I am.

Libya's own failures
Firstly, the autocracy in Libya exposed the Libyan Republic. It was needless, counterproductive even. It was gratuitous and little was at stake to derogate from civil liberties of Libyans. Gaddafi was and is an unmitigated despot who thought he could use oil and cross-border investments to stave off threats. Secondly, Gaddafi was not a principled politician. His mercurial character made it very difficult to tell what he represented, beyond the wish for eternal power itself. He caused and sponsored many wars on the continent, indeed destabilized many states on the continent simply out of cynicism or to create client states that would cheer him at home and abroad. That was despicable. Very few wars on the continent did not have his meddlesome hand.

Libya and Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe got Libyan assistance in its fight against British colonialism and this must be acknowledged publicly. We have a lot to thank Gaddafi for that. Equally, Gaddafi took a firm stance on the land issue, even driving from Lusaka to Harare to visualize the scope of the land issue here. That, too, was laudable. Well, after the land acquisition, Gaddafi sent in a tillage unit to help us fight off sanctions and sanctions-related limitations. The equipment is still here, helping out with food security. There are other instances and forms of assistance which one cannot write about. But something went drastically wrong in the mid 2000s.

Because of sanctions, Zimbabwe desperately needed Libyan oil, on generous terms too. We already owed Libya, but still counted on her support. Little did Zimbabwe know that around that time, Libyan foreign policy was undergoing sea-change. She was making overtures to Europe and America, and was using Britain and Blair for that, including the Italians. She sought to close the chapter on nuclear weapons and

Lockerbie and sold its own mother for that consuming goal. To succeed, she dangled billions of dollars by way of compensating Scotland for Lockerbie, dangled oil deposit permits soon to be auctioned off. She also dangled her country's huge reserves which looked for commercial homes. Above all, she flayed friends and fellow Africans for Europe.

The story of Tamoil
In this great courtship, Zimbabwe became one of the early casualties. Tamoil, the Libyan oil concern with which Zimbabwe sought a supply relationship, gave part of its shareholding to British interests, thereby creating a situation where we were actually negotiating with the British for oil supplies meant to fight off British punitive measures. It never worked. Given the role that President Mugabe had played in campaigning against western sanctions on Libya during his tenure as AU chairman, this Libyan action was not very nice. Here was Zimbabwe facing the same sanctions Libya had gone through, and had defeated them using Africa, specifically Zimbabwean support. Why would Libya not help out a brother country in similar predicament?

Africa and the Victorians
Much worse, oil Libyan concessions went up for auctioning, all of them ending up with western oil conglomerates. The man was investing in his relations with the West. Russia took note. China took note. Libya had crossed the floor, was in mad dalliance with the Wes, mistaking itself for an equal partner. At the AU, Libya was beginning to play big, even using traditional structures in many African countries to legitimse its quest for continental leadership.

Uganda was furious. South Africa was furious. Nigeria felt challenged. Zimbabwe was critical but accommodative. This is key to understanding the Security Council vote. The dominant feeling was one of jeering distraught Libya, or simply showing indifference to its fate, with very few countries - among them Zimbabwe - excavating vital principles underlain by Gaddafi's personal offensiveness. The last straw came during the Africa-Europe Summit last year in Tripoli. The cup of African tolerance simply overflowed. Far from standing with Africa against Europe, Gaddafi was pleading with Europe to get specialized surveillance aircraft with which to fight African immigrants using Libya as entrepot. And when the attack on his country began, he threatened to allow African immigrants free passage into paranoid Europe. He sought to play on

Europe's fears of the black peril, to stave off attack. Africa took note. In that same meeting with Europeans, Gaddafi showed a schizophrenia which upset many Africans. Was he Arab; was he African? Europe sought to drive a wage between Africans and Arab Africans, all in the name of developmental differential. Gaddafi seemed to find that uplifting, more so given that the distinctions put him well above generalised African poverty.

Just before the attack, Gaddafi made mediation proposals that marginalized Africa and privileged Western countries that are part of its assault. France was supposed to lead in brokering peace, the same France which fired the first salvo. Again Africa took note of a Gaddafi whose heart was in Europe, his country and contempt on African soil. That did not help. But his fate illustrates one important lesson for Africa and those who wield African power. It is when you have done all to appease the West, including selling off family silver to it, that you are at your most vulnerable. After that, you will be so worthless to the West, that only your own death becomes the last rite. You can never placate the Victorians, more so when capitalism is in crisis. Icho!

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Yoweri Museveni's reflections on Libya

By the time Muammar Gaddaffi came to power in 1969, I was a third year university student at Dar-es-Salaam. We welcomed him because he was in the tradition of Col. Gamal Abdul Nasser of Egypt who had a nationalist and pan-Arabist position.

Soon, however, problems cropped up with Col. Gaddafi as far as Uganda and Black Africa were concerned:

1. Idi Amin came to power with the support of Britain and Israel because they thought he was uneducated enough to be used by them. Amin, however, turned against his sponsors when they refused to sell him guns to fight Tanzania. Unfortunately, Col. Muammar Gaddafi, without getting enough information about Uganda, jumped in to support Idi Amin. This was because Amin was a ‘Moslem’ and Uganda was a ‘Moslem country’ where Moslems were being ‘oppressed’ by Christians. Amin killed a lot of people extra-judicially and Gaddafi was identified with these mistakes. In 1972 and 1979, Gaddafi sent Libyan troops to defend Idi Amin when we attacked him. I remember a Libyan Tupolev 22 bomber trying to bomb us in Mbarara in 1979. The bomb ended up in Nyarubanga because the pilots were scared. They could not come close to bomb properly. We had already shot-down many Amin MIGs using surface-to-air missiles. The Tanzanian brothers and sisters were doing much of this fighting. Many Libyan militias were captured and repatriated to Libya by Tanzania. This was a big mistake by Gaddafi and a direct aggression against the people of Uganda and East Africa.

2. The second big mistake by Gaddafi was his position vis-à-vis the African Union (AU) Continental Government “now”. Since 1999, he has been pushing this position. Black people are always polite. They, normally, do not want to offend other people. This is called: ‘obufura’ in Runyankore, mwolo in Luo – handling, especially strangers, with care and respect. It seems some of the non-African cultures do not have ‘obufura’. You can witness a person talking to a mature person as if he/she is talking to a kindergarten child. “You should do this; you should do that; etc.” We tried to politely point out to Col. Gaddafi that this was difficult in the short and medium term. We should, instead, aim at the Economic Community of Africa and, where possible, also aim at Regional Federations. Col. Gaddafi would not relent. He would not respect the rules of the AU. Something that has been covered by previous meetings would be resurrected by Gaddafi. He would ‘overrule’ a decision taken by all other African Heads of State. Some of us were forced to come out and oppose his wrong position and, working with others, we repeatedly defeated his illogical position.

3. The third mistake has been the tendency by Col. Gaddafi to interfere in the internal affairs of many African countries using the little money Libya has compared to those countries. One blatant example was his involvement with cultural leaders of Black Africa – kings, chiefs, etc. Since the political leaders of Africa had refused to back his project of an African Government, Gaddafi, incredibly, thought that he could by-pass them and work with these kings to implement his wishes. I warned Gaddafi in Addis Ababa that action would be taken against any Ugandan king that involved himself in politics because it was against our Constitution. I moved a motion in Addis Ababa to expunge from the records of the AU all references to kings (cultural leaders) who had made speeches in our forum because they had been invited there illegally by Col. Gaddafi.


4. The fourth big mistake was by most of the Arab leaders, including Gaddafi to some extent. This was in connection with the long suffering people of Southern Sudan. Many of the Arab leaders either supported or ignored the suffering of the Black people in that country. This unfairness always created tension and friction between us and the Arabs, including Gaddafi to some extent. However, I must salute H.E. Gaddafi and H.E. Hosni Mubarak for travelling to Khartoum just before the Referendum in Sudan and advised H.E. Bashir to respect the results of that exercise.

5. Sometimes Gaddafi and other Middle Eastern radicals do not distance themselves sufficiently from terrorism even when they are fighting for a just cause. Terrorism is the use of indiscriminate violence – not distinguishing between military and non-military targets. The Middle Eastern radicals, quite different from the revolutionaries of Black Africa, seem to say that any means is acceptable as long as you are fighting the enemy. That is why they hijack planes, use assassinations, plant bombs in bars, etc. Why bomb bars? People who go to bars are normally merry-makers, not politically minded people. We were together with the Arabs in the anti-colonial struggle. The Black African liberation movements, however, developed differently from the Arab ones. Where we used arms, we fought soldiers or sabotaged infrastructure but never targeted non-combatants. These indiscriminate methods tend to isolate the struggles of the Middle East and the Arab world. It would be good if the radicals in these areas could streamline their work methods in this area of using violence indiscriminately.

These five points above are some of the negative points in connection to Col. Gaddafi as far as Uganda’s patriots have been concerned over the years. These positions of Col. Gaddafi have been unfortunate and unnecessary.

Nevertheless, Gaddafi has also had many positive points objectively speaking. These positive points have been in favour of Africa, Libya and the Third World. I will deal with them point by point:


1. Col. Gaddafi has been having an independent foreign policy and, of course, also independent internal policies. I am not able to understand the position of Western countries which appear to resent independent-minded leaders and seem to prefer puppets. Puppets are not good for any country. Most of the countries that have transitioned from Third World to First World status since 1945 have had independent-minded leaders: South Korea (Park Chung-hee), Singapore (Lee Kuan Yew), China People’s Republic (Mao Tse Tung, Chou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping, Marshal Yang Shangkun, Li Peng, Jiang Zemin, Hu Jing Tao, etc), Malaysia (Dr. Mahthir Mohamad), Brazil (Lula Da Silva), Iran (the Ayatollahs), etc. Between the First World War and the Second World War, the Soviet Union transitioned into an Industrial country propelled by the dictatorial but independent-minded Joseph Stalin. In Africa we have benefited from a number of independent-minded leaders: Col. Nasser of Egypt, Mwalimu Nyerere of Tanzania, Samora Machel of Mozambique, etc. That is how Southern Africa was liberated. That is how we got rid of Idi Amin. The stopping of genocide in Rwanda and the overthrow of Mobutu, etc., were as a result of efforts of independent-minded African leaders. Muammar Gaddafi, whatever his faults, is a true nationalist. I prefer nationalists to puppets of foreign interests. Where have the puppets caused the transformation of countries? I need some assistance with information on this from those who are familiar with puppetry. Therefore, the independent-minded Gaddafi had some positive contribution to Libya, I believe, as well as Africa and the Third World. I will take one little example. At the time we were fighting the criminal dictatorships here in Uganda, we had a problem arising of a complication caused by our failure to capture enough guns at Kabamba on the 6th of February, 1981. Gaddafi gave us a small consignment of 96 rifles, 100 anti-tank mines, etc., that was very useful. He did not consult Washington or Moscow before he did this. This was good for Libya, for Africa and for the Middle East. We should also remember as part of that independent-mindedness he expelled British and American military bases from Libya, etc.

2. Before Gaddafi came to power in 1969, a barrel of oil was 40 American cents. He launched a campaign to withhold Arab oil unless the West paid more for it. I think the price went up to US$ 20 per barrel. When the Arab-Israel war of 1973 broke out, the barrel of oil went to US$ 40. I am, therefore, surprised to hear that many oil producers in the world, including the Gulf countries, do not appreciate the historical role played by Gaddafi on this issue. The huge wealth many of these oil producers are enjoying was, at least in part, due to Gaddafi’s efforts. The Western countries have continued to develop in spite of paying more for oil. It, therefore, means that the pre-Gaddafi oil situation was characterized by super exploitation in favour of the Western countries.

3. I have never taken time to investigate socio-economic conditions within Libya. When I was last there, I could see good roads even from the air. From the TV pictures, you can even see the rebels zooming up and down in pick-up vehicles on very good roads accompanied by Western journalists. Who built these good roads? Who built the oil refineries in Brega and those other places where the fighting has been taking place recently? Were these facilities built during the time of the king and his American as well as British allies or were they built by Gaddafi? In Tunisia and Egypt, some youths immolated (burnt) themselves because they had failed to get jobs. Are the Libyans without jobs also? If so, why, then, are there hundreds of thousands of foreign workers? Is Libya’s policy of providing so many jobs to Third World workers bad? Are all the children going to school in Libya? Was that the case in the past – before Gaddafi? Is the conflict in Libya economic or purely political? Possibly Libya could have transitioned more if they encouraged the private sector more. However, this is something the Libyans are better placed to judge. As it is, Libya is a middle income country with GDP standing at US$ 89.03 billion. This is about the same as the GDP of South Africa at the time Mandela took over leadership in 1994 and it about 155 times the current size of GDP of Spain.

4. Gaddafi is one of the few secular leaders in the Arab world. He does not believe in Islamic fundamentalism that is why women have been able to go to school, to join the Army, etc. This is a positive point on Gaddafi’s side.

Coming to the present crisis, therefore, we need to point out some issues:

1. The first issue is to distinguish between demonstrations and insurrections. Peaceful demonstrations should not be fired on with live bullets. Of course, even peaceful demonstrations should coordinate with the Police to ensure that they do not interfere with the rights of other citizens. When rioters are, however, attacking Police stations and Army barracks with the aim of taking power, then, they are no longer demonstrators; they are insurrectionists. They will have to be treated as such. A responsible Government would have to use reasonable force to neutralize them. Of course, the ideal responsible Government should also be an elected one by the people at periodic intervals. If there is a doubt about the legitimacy of a Government and the people decide to launch an insurrection, that should be the decision of the internal forces. It should not be for external forces to arrogate themselves that role, often, they do not have enough knowledge to decide rightly. Excessive external involvement always brings terrible distortions. Why should external forces involve themselves? That is a vote of no confidence in the people themselves. A legitimate internal insurrection, if that is the strategy chosen by the leaders of that effort, can succeed. The Shah of Iran was defeated by an internal insurrection; the Russian Revolution in 1917 was an internal insurrection; the Revolution in Zanzibar in 1964 was an internal insurrection; the changes in Ukraine, Georgia, etc., all were internal insurrections. It should be for the leaders of the Resistance in that country to decide their strategy, not for foreigners to sponsor insurrection groups in sovereign countries. I am totally allergic to foreign, political and military involvement in sovereign countries, especially the African countries. If foreign intervention is good, then, African countries should be the most prosperous countries in the world because we have had the greatest dosages of that: slave trade, colonialism, neo-colonialism, imperialism, etc. All those foreign imposed phenomena have, however, been disastrous. It is only recently that Africa is beginning to come up partly because of rejecting external meddling. External meddling and the acquiescence by Africans into that meddling have been responsible for the stagnation in Africa. The wrong definition of priorities in many of the African countries is, in many cases, imposed by external groups. Failure to prioritize infrastructure, for instance, especially energy, is, in part, due to some of these pressures. Instead, consumption is promoted. I have witnessed this wrong definition of priorities even here in Uganda. External interests linked up, for instance, with internal bogus groups to oppose energy projects for false reasons. How will an economy develop without energy? Quislings and their external backers do not care about all this.

2. If you promote foreign backed insurrections in small countries like Libya, what will you do with the big ones like China which has got a different system from the Western systems? Are you going to impose a no-fly-zone over China in case of some internal insurrections as happened in Tiananmen Square, in Tibet or in Urumqi?

3. The Western countries always use double standards. In Libya, they are very eager to impose a no-fly-zone. In Bahrain and other areas where there are pro-Western regimes, they turn a blind eye to the very same conditions or even worse conditions. We have been appealing to the UN to impose a no-fly-zone over Somalia so as to impede the free movement of terrorists, linked to Al-Qaeda, that killed Americans on September 11th, killed Ugandans last July and have caused so much damage to the Somalis, without success. Why? Are there no human beings in Somalia similar to the ones in Benghazi? Or is it because Somalia does not have oil which is not fully controlled by the western oil companies on account of Gaddafi’s nationalist posture?

4. The Western countries are always very prompt in commenting on every problem in the Third World – Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, etc. Yet, some of these very countries were the ones impeding growth in those countries. There was a military coup d'état that slowly became a Revolution in backward Egypt in 1952. The new leader, Nasser, had ambition to cause transformation in Egypt. He wanted to build a dam not only to generate electricity but also to help with the ancient irrigation system of Egypt. He was denied money by the West because they did not believe that Egyptians needed electricity. Nasser decided to raise that money by nationalizing the Suez Canal. He was attacked by Israel, France and Britain. To be fair to the USA, President Eisenhower opposed that aggression that time. Of course, there was also the firm stand of the Soviet Union at that time. How much electricity was this dam supposed to produce? Just 2000 mgws for a country like Egypt!! What moral right, then, do such people have to comment on the affairs of these countries?

5. Another negative point is going to arise out of the by now habit of the Western countries over-using their superiority in technology to impose war on less developed societies without impeachable logic. This will be the igniting of an arms race in the world. The actions of the Western countries in Iraq and now Libya are emphasizing that might is “right.” I am quite sure that many countries that are able will scale up their military research and in a few decades we may have a more armed world. This weapons science is not magic. A small country like Israel is now a super power in terms of military technology. Yet 60 years ago, Israel had to buy second-hand fouga magister planes from France. There are many countries that can become small Israels if this trend of overusing military means by the Western countries continues.

6. All this notwithstanding, Col. Gaddafi should be ready to sit down with the opposition, through the mediation of the AU, with the opposition cluster of groups which now includes individuals well known to us – Ambassador Abdalla, Dr. Zubeda, etc. I know Gaddafi has his system of elected committees that end up in a National People’s Conference. Actually Gaddafi thinks this is superior to our multi-party systems. Of course, I have never had time to know how truly competitive this system is. Anyway, even if it is competitive, there is now, apparently, a significant number of Libyans that think that there is a problem in Libya in terms of governance. Since there has not been internationally observed elections in Libya, not even by the AU, we cannot know what is correct and what is wrong. Therefore, a dialogue is the correct way forward.

7. The AU mission could not get to Libya because the Western countries started bombing Libya the day before they were supposed to arrive. However, the mission will continue. My opinion is that, in addition, to what the AU mission is doing, it may be important to call an extra-ordinary Summit of the AU in Addis Ababa to discuss this grave situation.

8. Regarding the Libyan opposition, I would feel embarrassed to be backed by Western war planes because quislings of foreign interests have never helped Africa. We have had a copious supply of them in the last 50 years – Mobutu, Houphouet Boigny, Kamuzu Banda, etc. The West made a lot of mistakes in Africa and in the Middle East in the past. Apart from the slave trade and colonialism, they participated in the killing of Lumumba, until recently, the only elected leader of Congo, the killing of Felix Moummie of Cameroon, Bartholomew Boganda of Central African Republic, the support for UNITA in Angola, the support for Idi Amin at the beginning of his regime, the counter-revolution in Iran in 1953, etc. Recently, there has been some improvement in the arrogant attitudes of some of these Western countries. Certainly, with Black Africa and, particularly, Uganda, the relations are good following their fair stand on the Black people of Southern Sudan. With the democratization of South Africa and the freedom of the Black people in Southern Sudan, the difference between the patriots of Uganda and the Western Governments had disappeared. Unfortunately, these rush actions on Libya are beginning to raise new problems. They should be resolved quickly.

Therefore, if the Libyan opposition groups are patriots, they should fight their war by themselves and conduct their affairs by themselves. After all, they easily captured so much equipment from the Libyan Army, why do they need foreign military support? I only had 27 rifles. To be puppets is not good.

9. The African members of the Security Council voted for this Resolution of the Security Council. This was contrary to what the Africa Peace and Security Council had decided in Addis Ababa recently. This is something that only the extra-ordinary summit can resolve.

10. It was good that certain big countries in the Security Council abstained on this Resolution. These were: Russia, China, Brazil, India, etc. This shows that there are balanced forces in the world that will, with more consultations, evolve more correct positions.

11. Being members of the UN, we are bound by the Resolution that was passed, however rush the process. Nevertheless, there is a mechanism for review. The Western countries, which are most active in these rush actions, should look at that route. It may be one way of extricating all of us from possible nasty complications. What if the Libyans loyal to Gaddafi decide to fight on? Using tanks and planes that are easily targeted by Mr. Sarkozy’s planes is not the only way of fighting. Who will be responsible for such a protracted war? It is high time we did more careful thinking.

• Museveni is President of Uganda   

                                                                     ***
Libya, Bahrain: West exposed

By Stephen Gowans
IN a previous article, I pointed to three factors to exp-lain the West's decision to intervene militarily in Libya to prevent the government there from putting down an armed rebellion while it tacitly approves the Gulf Co-operation Council's military intervention in Bahrain to put down a peaceful rebellion there.
The double-standard, I argued, reflects dramatic differences between Libya and Bahrain in their relationship with the United States and its dominant investor and corporate class.
Bahrain is the home of the US Fifth Fleet, has long-standing warm relations with Washington, and stro-ngly caters to Western corporate and investor interests.
Since the Khalifa regime supports US corporate profit-making and military interests, and a new regime might not do the same to the same degree, Washington is prepared to allow Saudi and other GCC troops and tanks to assist Bahraini authorities in violently quelling a peaceful rebellion.
Libya, I pointed out, doesn't provide bases for the US or other Western militaries, hasn't had long-standing warm relations with Washington, and isn't particularly accommodating of Western corporate and investor interests.
From a neo-colonialist standpoint, Western powers could do better in Libya.
Some readers objected, arguing that in recent years Libya has sought to open itself to Western corporations and investors and has struck a number of deals with Western oil companies.
It cannot be concluded, they continued, that the West's decision to intervene militarily in Libya was motivated by Western profit-making considerations, for Libya is already catering to Western business interests.
To be sure, Libya has opened itself to the West, but doing deals with Western corporations is not the same as engineering a wholesale subordination of domestic interests to those of foreign bankers and corporations - typically, what corporate-and investor-oriented Western governments look for in Third World "partners".
For the wealthy scouring the globe for investment opportunities and corporations seeking export markets, an opening door in Libya doesn't necessarily mean that Libya's business climate is fully conducive to maximising profits. That Libya allows some Western corporations to operate in the country doesn't guarantee that investments are safe from expropriation; that performance requirements aren't imposed on foreign investments; that repatriation of profits isn't controlled; that taxes aren't high; or, that there is a commitment to labour market "flexibility".
In short, the Muammar Gaddafi government may, in recent years, have sought to expand Western access to investment opportunities in Libya, but that alone doesn't mean that the conditions of access were regarded by corporations and investors as being as desirable as they could be, or as desirable, for example, as those provided by the government of Bahrain, or a desirable as those a future government might provide.
The Heritage Foundation provides a guide to how accommodating countries are to the profit-making interests of US corporations and investors.
Every year the foundation publishes an Index of Economic Freedom, which ranks countries on how open they are to exports and foreign investment; how low their taxes are; how committed they are to protecting property rights, and so on. In short, how strongly a country favors foreign businesses and investors over its own people.
Significantly, governments that are perennially targets of US government regime change efforts rank at or near the bottom of the index.
This year's list identifies the following 10 countries as the least economically free (i.e. least accommodating to foreign businesses), in order, from worst to slightly better:
l North Korea
l Zimbabwe
l Cuba
l Eritrea
l Venezuela
l Myanmar
l Libya
l Democratic Republic of Congo
l Iran
l Timor-Leste

Seven of the bottom 10 (North Korea, Zimbabwe, Cuba, Venezuela, Myanmar, Libya and Iran) are the targets of open regime change operations by the United States and its allies, carried out ostensibly because the targetted countries are not protecting human rights; threaten regional stability; or, in the case of Libya, because the government is said to be attacking its own people.
That these countries happen to be considered the least accommodating of foreign business profit-making points to an ulterior motive on the part of Western governments to bring about regime change, and to use human rights and humanitarian rhetoric as a cover for pursuing the economic interests of Western corporate and investor elites.
Significantly, not one country in the top 10 is a target of Western regime change efforts.
If regime change were linked to human rights concerns and not unfavorable investment and export conditions, we might expect to find regime change targets scattered throughout the rankings, rather than bunched up at the bottom.

One counter-explanation is that economically free countries tend to respect human rights, which is why the worst offenders on both counts are found at the bottom of the list.
However, this couldn't possibly be true, for the United States, which has an atrocious human rights record (Guantanamo; Abu Ghraib; torture and rendition of prisoners; arrest and detention without charge; extrajudicial assassination; weakening of Miranda rights; spying on its own citizens; restrictions on travel to Cuba, and so on) ranks as the 9th freest country in the world in economic terms, and Saudi Arabia, the least free country in terms of political and civil liberties, and perhaps the most contemptuous of human rights, ranks in the top half.
Bahrain, as it turns out, is ranked number 10 of 179 countries on the Heritage Foundation list, next to the United States.
Regionally, Bahrain is top-ranked in North Africa and West Asia, while Libya, ranked 173 overall countries, falls dead last in regional rankings.
Bahrain's higher ranking is based on an array of government policies aimed to please foreign businesses.
Property ownership is secure and expropriation is unlikely, whereas in Libya foreign companies are vulnerable to expropriation.
Bahrain welcomes foreign investment and allows new businesses to be 100 percent foreign owned and controlled, while Libya screens foreign investment, imposes performance requirements on foreign investors that domestic investors are not required to meet, and demands that Libyans have a 35 percent stake in foreign companies that operate in the country.
And while Bahrain imposes no restrictions on repatriation of profits, Libya does.
On trade, Bahrain imposes few restrictions on imports, while Libya maintains a variety of tariff and non-tariff barriers to help local firms develop.
With the exception of oil companies, businesses that operate in Bahrain pay no corporate tax, while businesses in Libya are subject to a tax rate as high as 40 percent.
Personal income tax is extremely low in Bahrain, but can reach as high as 90 percent in Libya.
And while Bahrain provides businesses maximum flexibility as business deal with employees, even allowing businesses to pay desperation-level wages, Libya demands that businesses meet minimum standards on pay and working conditions.
In short, the Bahraini monarchy runs a foreign-investment-and-import-friendly regime, while Libya's economic policies favour local investors and businesses and provide a minimal standard of protection for labour.
A government that was more like Bahrain's, and less like Gaddafi's, would unquestionably be congenial to foreign business interests.
Some readers contend that Western military intervention in Libya is aimed at preventing the slaughter of Libyan civilians.
But a stronger case can be made that Western military intervention is aimed at regime change, and that far from protecting civilians, Nato bombing is only setting the stage for a prolonged civil war by weakening loyalist forces and thereby allowing the rebels to contest for power.
There are a number of reasons why the Nato operation in Libya can be seen as a regime change effort, apart from the motivation of replacing the current government with one more congenial to Western profit-making interests, as discussed above.
First, the decision of the French government to recognise the rebel opposition as the legitimate government was a declaration that France, at least, is manoeuvring to install a new government in Libya.
Indeed, both France and Britain have acknowledged that they are seeking the ouster of Gaddafi.
Second, US secretary of state Hillary Clinton said "Gaddafi's ouster was the ultimate goal of the UN resolution" and while US president Barack Obama denied this, he did say that the military "campaign will likely continue as long as Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is in power."
If the intervention's goal is to protect civilians and not install a new government, how can the aims of France and Britain and the comments of Clinton and Obama be reconciled?
Third, Washington hopes that sanctions "combined with Nato air power, will be enough to turn the tide militarily".
While the UN Security Council resolution authorises the use of military means to protect civilians, it doesn't authorise the use of military means to aid rebel forces. Yet newspapers on March 23 were full of stories on how fresh air strikes were allowing rebel forces to recover lost ground.
For example, The Wall Street Journal commented:
"The hope for the West is that a continuation of military pressure on Col Gaddafi's forces, even at somewhat lower levels in coming days, combined with continued forward movement by the rebels, will be enough to make the Libyan army either buckle or turn on the Libyan leader.
That would produce the outcome the West hopes for - the removal of Col Gaddafi."
Meanwhile, the New York Times reported, "the air strikes have lifted the rebels back from the brink of defeat in the eastern city of Benghazi and enabled them to rush west along the coast past their farthest gains of the previous peak weeks ago."
It is clear that the intention of the military intervention, which was authorised when the rebels' defeat by loyalist forces was imminent, was to weaken the government side to allow the rebels to rally and seize the momentum.
This hardly favours a quick resolution of the conflict. The conflict could go on for some time, perhaps taking more lives than would have been lost had the UN sent a fact-finding mission in return for a cease-fire, or had loyalist forces successfully put down the uprising weeks ago.
The potential for the conflict to drag on, fuelled by the aid Nato provides the rebels through its air strikes, was acknowledged by US secretary of defense Robert Gates.
The Pentagon boss said "he couldn't be sure Nato would have finished its mission by year-end."
The idea, then, that the UN Security Council authorised military intervention to protect civilians has no substance.
Furthermore, the idea that the intervention is protecting civilians, whether that is the real intention of the intervention or not, seems unlikely, since the outcome so far has been to create the conditions for a protracted civil war - one moreover, that will be worsened by civilian deaths caused by Nato bombing on behalf of rebel forces.
If the rebel forces prevail and extend their control to all of Libya, or eventually settle for partition of the country, we can expect the economic policies of the future government to be closer to those of Bahrain, and therefore closer to the profit-making interests of Western corporations and investors.
In this sense, the UN Security Council, and the military operation it authorizes, can be seen as investments in making Libya a more attractive place to do business in.
Finally, it might be pointed out, as Johnstone has, that the Gaddafi government has invested a considerable part of its oil revenues in sub-Saharan Africa, contrary to the usual practice among Arab oil states of shipping the proceeds of their oil sales to New York investment banks, the London Stock Exchange, and US arms manufacturers.
These practices are more conducive to Western business interests than Gaddafi's investments in Africa, and might be expected to become the standard practice in Libya if the rebel movement succeeds in ousting Gaddafi.
  
Libya today, Sub-Sahara tomorrow 

By Sam Akaki
On July 11 2008, Britain and France, Africa’s leading former colonial masters and chief godfather to the apartheid regime, co-sponsored a draft United Nations Security Council Resolution 9396, which stated that, “the situation in Zimbabwe posed a threat to international peace and security in the region” and demanded that the country’s Government “immediately cease attacks against and intimidation of opposition members and supporters”.

Crucially, the resolution called for an international intervention under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, if the Zimbabwean Government failed to comply.
In a move that generations of Africans who lived under the white supremacist minority rule will never understand, four leading African personalities, namely MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga and Ugandan-born Archbishop of York John Sentamu actively supported the call for international intervention in Zimbabwe!
To emphasise his point, Archbishop Sentamu went further than most and appeared on Andrew Marr’s political show on the British Broadcasting Corporation, watched by billions of people around the world, and cut off his dog collar on camera, vowing never to wear it again until the UN intervened in Zimbabwe!
Luckily for the people of Zimbabwe and indeed the whole of sub-Saharan Africa, these countries: China, Libya, Russian Federation, South Africa, Vietnam, opposed the resolution while Indonesia abstained.
The “Idiot’s Guide to UN Language” may be useful to those who had supported the call for intervention in Zimbabwe in 2008. It should also be read by the Arab League members who recently initiated the call for a “no-fly zone” over Libya, and the three African members of the UN Security Council who voted for resolution 1973.  According to the guide, UN intervention under Chapter VII explicitly calls for the use of “any measures” to maintain or restore international peace and security.
To elaborate, Article 41 states that any measures “may include complete or partial interruption of economic relations and of rail, sea, air, postal, telegraphic, radio, and other means of communication, and the severance of diplomatic relations”. Article 42 states that actions may also “include demonstrations, blockade, and other operations by air, sea, or land forces”.
As unfolding tragedy in Libya graphically demonstrates, had the UN Security Council adopted the resolution on Zimbabwe and authorised the use of “any measures” to protect the MDC supporters, the country and the people — black and white — would have been subjected to the following actions, by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato).
Screaming supersonic fighter jets all over the sky looking to shoot down any aircraft (civilian, humanitarian or military) which attempts to take off from, land at or overfly Zimbabwe. Nato would take out the air defence systems, especially radar early-warning facilities and missile launchers which my threaten Nato aircraft and ships. Nato would destroy the command, communication and control systems.  Nato would destroy roads, bridges, airport runways, fuel storage and water facilities.  Nato would destroy military and state security apparatus.  Nato would destabilise the balance of power by bribing, kidnapping or assassinating leading politicians, military and businessmen suspected of supporting the regime.
Nato would seek to kill or capture President Robert Mugabe and anyone associated with him, handing them over to the opposition for a kangaroo trial and execution — as was the case with Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. Finally, Nato would deploy ground troops to occupy the country for decades “in order to protect civilians”!
Zimbabwe may have escaped Nato invasion and occupation, but the intervention in Libya is a dangerous precedent which will deplete the African Union.  The question is not if, but when, this process will start to move from Libya southwards. Why?
Across the continent, from Rwanda to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Ivory Coast, the Gambia, Central African Republic, Sudan and Zimbabwe, opposition leaders who claim to have been cheated in elections will now look to Nato to help them gain power. Sooner or later, they will call on their supporters to rise up, hoping that the UN will pass a coded but tough resolution authorising Nato to invade, occupy and effect regime change in their countries.
But will Nato-engineered regime change guarantee real democracy and lasting peace in Libya and other African nations?
Democracy is not an event that takes place in one day, and it cannot be imposed from outside. It is a home-grown process that takes many centuries.  It has taken Western countries over 300 years, several civil wars, two World Wars and the deaths of hundreds of millions of people to nurture their present liberal democracy, which is still far from perfect.
Therefore, it is very unrealistic for the West to demand and expect African countries, the oldest of which is less than 60 years old as an independent nation state, to practise perfect Western liberal democracies, which organise regular, free and fair elections and respect fundamental human rights.
At this time in their circle, the Western countries that now sit in judgment over Africa were ruled by absolute monarchs who decided who owned land, lived or died.  In Britain, for example, queens, bishops and anyone who stepped out of line had their heads cut off at the Tower of London.
Oliver Cromwell led the most savage civil war (which made the Rwanda genocide look like a Sunday picnic) before moving to Ireland where his troops murdered millions of innocent Irishmen, women and children.
Nato’s intervention in Libya which, as night follows days, will lead to a similar intervention in another African country, should unite African countries more than ever before.
They should take the following collective action to protect the independence and territorial integrity of their countries: refuse to recognise the so-called Transitional National Council in Libya, recall their ambassadors from the countries now attacking Libya, and demand the immediate reform of the UN Security Council and the inclusion of at least two permanent members from each continent, including Africa, to match Europe, which has Britain and France.
The UN, which is now aligned with Nato, has become a dangerous tool for the recolonisation and domination of Africa and other developing countries.
In that regard, instead of maintaining international peace and security as spelt out in the Charter, the UN could cause a third World War between China and the West with Africa as a battleground.
But the African Union also has a responsibility to future generations to encourage their members to develop independent institutions of state, free from the ruling elite.
It is only such institutions that will protect basic human rights and fight corruption without fear or favour, organise free and fair elections and, crucially, deny the opposition the excuse to invite Nato to intervene in Africa.

• Akaki, is a Ugandan-born British citizen, is director of London-based Democratic Institutions for Poverty Reduction in Africa (DIPRA).