Diplomatic solution
July 19, 2011
Four months after the first NATO airstrikes on Libya, the complicated situation in the northern African nation appears unchanged. Over the weekend, US diplomats met with representatives of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi for initial talks. This shows that western nations are urgently seeking a way out of the military impasse.
It has been four months since the NATO strikes began on March 19 to protect Libya's civilian population. Now, slowly but surely, the alliance is running out of legitimate targets it could bomb - at least if it doesn't want to break UN Resolution 1973 or endanger civilians. While dictator Gadhafi is holed up in his stronghold in Tripoli, British and French forces have to procure their expensive ammunition indirectly - from Germany, for example, that didn't even vote for the deployment.
Only ground troops could truly support the rebels effectively and bring the decisive turn in the war. But the West can't and won't deploy them. The UN mandate doesn't allow it.
Four months after the NATO bombings began, the Libya Contact Group decided to recognize the rebels as the legitimate representatives of the Libyan people. But that is at most a symbolic act, and a blank check for the future participation in a government which doesn't even exist yet.
The rebel's transition council in Benghazi is little more than an opposition government which is not democratically legitimized and with a limited sphere of influence. This makes it easier for Russia to interpret the diplomatic recognition of the rebels as a one-sided partisanship in a civil war. In return, Moscow refuses to cooperate in the UN Security Council and condemn other human rights violations in the region - which is currently hurting the opposition in Syria in particular.
In the middle of this stand-off, negotiations could open a back door - provided that Gadhafi give up his power and go into exile. The rebels are also holding on to this assumption. They are stuck: rebel forces control the country's eastern regions, but they haven't succeeded in a decisive breakthrough on the western front.
The sanctions against Libya haven't been successful yet. They will take effect in the long-term at most when frozen funds from Gadhafi's assets are made available to the rebels. France plans to transfer the first installment of some 250 million euros ($354 million) of Gadhafi's money to the rebels.
Germany is also, in principle, in favor of making the funds available to the Libyan people. They could, for example, use the money to buy weapons. But who is going to guarantee to the western states that these weapons won't land in the wrong hands one day? Civil wars are a fertile ground for Islamic extremists and terrorists. Yemen serves as a deterrent example.
The status quo, though, is just as unacceptable. The civilian population, whose protection the international community had actually intended, is suffering unduly. In the rebel stronghold Misrata, mine fields and hunger threaten the lives of the destitute population, who can only be supplied with the minimum of food and other relief via the ocean. Fuel and food have become scarce in Tripoli, as well.
According to the UN, vaccines for children are lacking across the country. Not to mention the mental stress of all those Libyans who are long-term traumatized by the daily threat of bomb attacks. The distress of the population directly opposes UN Resolution 1973.
Four months after the war broke out in Libya, the fighting may possibly take a break in the fast during Ramadan. Maybe it's an opportunity to bring the dictator to step down using political means. Washington in the meantime appears interested in this solution, as well.
Author: Daniel Scheschkewitz / sac
Editor: Rob Mudge