Who Else is Helping the Libyan Leader?
Is Algeria Qadaffi's Ace in the Hole?
By ROB PRINCE
At this moment when it
appears that Muammar Qadaffi’s days in power are numbered, the Libyan
leader has made it clear repeatedly that he will stay and fight. So far
he has. His domestic support is evaporating around him, leaders of the
country’s 140 tribes siding with the rebels, military units siding with
the rebellion in larger and larger numbers, air force pilots and naval
vessels defecting to Malta. Much of his government, other than his sons,
has abandoned him as well.
What is left?
Those heavily armed private militias controlled by
his sons? The army of mercenaries from sub-Saharan Africa? Some Mirage
jet fighter planes with, until now, pilots less than willing to bomb
rebel strongholds? All that is true. Yet while the U.S. and Europe work
to isolate Qadaffi, he is not completely alone and without allies.
Given his ever shrinking domestic base, one has to
wonder how it is that Qadaffi can appear so defiant? It might come from
the fact that he is not entirely isolated and alone. Indeed, the support that
Qadaffi is garnering has stiffened the colonel’s backbone.
Qadaffi has the support of at least one important
regional ally, the Algerian government, which has both militarily and
diplomatically thrown its full (and substantial) weight behind his
effort to retain power. In so doing, it would appear that Algeria, which
has long cooperated with the US and NATO on its North and Sub-Saharan
Africa anti-terrorism policies, is breaking ranks to protect its
regime’s very survival.
Since its independence, Algeria has been controlled
by its military which lives high off the country’s oil profits at the
expense of its own people. Algeria’s leaders fear that if Qadaffi falls,
their hold on power will be that much more fragile. Their support of
Qadaffi is very much designed to save their own skins.
If Mubarak saw the writing on the wall as Ben Ali’s
little castle in Tunisia crumbled, so the Algerian military leadership
understands that if Qadaffi falls, it very likely is next in line, or if
not, not very far down the list. Desperate to cling to power, the
Algerian government is – while offering a few political and economic
concessions – essentially reorganizing the state’s substantial
repressive apparatus to weather the protest storm. But in addition, it
is pulling out all stops to support Qadaffi’s increasingly feeble hold
on power.
Maybe it is the support of its North African oil
producing ally Algeria, that has given Qadaffi that confident appearance
that he can indeed – with a little help from his friends – hold out
longer. An alliance of two of Africa’s most important oil producing
countries is nothing to sneeze at, and could have all kinds of
consequences. Should the alliance between the two tighten, and they
engage in a common front oil embargo, which some news outlets speculate
could happen, oil prices could jump to as high as $220 a barrel.
Less than a week ago, an Algerian human rights group
based in Germany, Algeria Watch,published a statement alleging that the
Algerian government is providing material aid – in the form of armed
military units – to Muammar Qadaffi to help prop up his shrinking (and
sinking) regime.
The statement opens thus:
“It is with both sadness and anger that we have
learned that the Algerian government has sent armed detachments to
Libya to commit crimes against our Libyan brothers and sisters who have
risen up against the bloody and corrupt regime of Muammar Kadhafi. These
armed detachments were first identified in western Libya in the city of
Zaouia where some among them have been arrested. This has been reported
in the media and confirmed by eye witnesses.”
Zaouia is the site of fierce fire fights between the
residents of Zaouia, now a zone liberated from Tripoli’s control and
under the authority of rebel forces on the one hand, and the military
elements still faithful to Qadaffi on the others. There were recent
reports of a 6-8 hour battle in which Qadaffi’s forces, led by one of
his sons tried to recapture the city but were repulsed by the city’s
defenders and pushed back after fierce fighting.
Algeria Watch goes on to accuse the Algerian
government of having provided the air transport planes that have carried
sub-Saharan African mercenaries from Niger, Chad and the Dafur province
of Sudan to Libya to strengthen Qadaffi’s position militarily. It goes
on to add that Algeria had played a similar role in transporting troops
to Somalia to support the U.S. directed government military offensive
against rebellious Somali tribes.
The statement goes on to allege that on the
diplomatic front the Algerian government has been lobbying different
European powers (which are presumably France, Italy, German, Belgium,
Luxembourg and Spain) pressing them to continue to support Qadaffi.
These diplomatic efforts are being led by Abdelkader Messahel, Algerian
Minister of Maghrebian and African Affairs. On the all-European level,
Amar Bendjama, Algerian ambassador to Belgium and Luxembourg, as well as
Algeria’s representative to the European Union and NATO and Belkacem
Belgaid, another Algerian diplomat whose responsibilities include NATO
and the EU, have together opened up an active lobbying campaign in
support of Qadaffi.
The political approach that Bendjama and Belgaid are
pursuing echoes Qadaffi’s own statements – that if his government were
to fall, Libya would fall into the hands of radical Islamic
fundamentalists – all this nonsense about Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Ladin
being behind the national uprising. Qadaffi’s argument is identical to
what Ben Ali and Mubarak have been arguing for decades: that they are
the alternative to an Islamic take over. The West might not like them,
but better Qadaffi than Osama. This kind of fear mongering – the threat
of Islamic radicalism – has lost its appeal in the current protest wave
in which the Islamic fundamentalist element has been marginalized or
irrelevant.
The lobbying is similar to what has happened in
Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen, where the first offer of concessions consists
of ceding as little as possible. Bendjama and Belgaid appear to be
pressing (unsuccessfully) for a solution that would see Qadaffi’s son,
Saif, replace his father. It is not clear if they are asking for some
kind of arrangement that would protect Qadaffi from prosecution in
exchange for stepping down, but such an approach is more than likely.
But as one of the first demands in the Tunisian, Egyptian and Yemeni
protests was precisely that no family member (sons or family member)
succeed these elder and now disgraced statement to power, it is not
likely that such arguments or suggestions will carry much if any weight.
There is more.
Under the direction of Colonel Djamel Bouzghaia, an
advisor to Algerian President Bouteflika on security matters, Algeria
has, according to the statement, `embraced’ a large number of elements
of disposed Tunisian president Zine Ben Ali’s private security force and
republican guard. These are the same units that were used as snipers to
assassinate demonstrators in Kasserine, Sidi Bouzid and Thala in
Tunisia. Now in the employ of Algeria, they too have been sent to Libya
to shore up Qadaffi’s regime. Bouzghaia works directly under Major
General Rachid Laalali (alias Attafi), head of Algeria’s external
relations bureau.
Who else is helping Qadaffi? It will be interesting to see what shakes out.
Rob Prince lectures in International Studies at the University of Denver. He
can be reached at [email protected]
http://www.counterpunch.org/
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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