http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2011/1052/re6.htm
16 - 22 June 2011
Issue No. 1052
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875
Gaddafi doesn't do dotage
The endgame is not in sight, but the Libyan fight is shifting southwards and
westwards, postulates Gamal Nkrumah
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The infatuation of Africans with the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is more
about the continent's weaknesses than strengths, more about uncertainties than
certitudes. There are reports that the forces of the opposition National
Transitional Council (NTC) headquartered in the eastern Cyrenaican metropolis
of Benghazi have now moved south and are besieging strongholds of the Gaddafi
regime in southern Libya and in particular the desert bastion of Sebha.
Click to view caption
Libyan rebel fighter is seen on Misrata's western front line
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Yet it makes no sense for the African nations' close links with Gaddafi to
hinge on military calculations in Washington or Benghazi. An African rollover
deal with the NTC in Benghazi or with the NTC's benefactors in Washington would
not necessarily make the Libyan political impasse more tractable. Africa's
helping hand in easing the Libyan crisis also lightens a burden Washington
might otherwise bear.
Sebha, a spectacular fairy-tale historic city, is Libya's gateway to Africa
south of the Sahara. The warren of traditional shops and souks in the maze of
the market town were until recently patrolled by Gaddafi stalwarts. The
inhabitants of the city, now being castigated by the Pan-Arab satellite
television channels as being traitors to the Gaddafi cause are obviously pawns
in a hazardous game. They sit astride considerable uranium deposits and such a
trick, depicting them as double-crossers and mutineers, would have bad taste.
The strategic importance of the largest city in southern Libya, the heart of
the province of Fezzan, is paramount.
Round-the-clock rolling news channels, both Western and Pan-Arab, are making
the most of Gaddafi's military setbacks. Qatari-based Al-Jazeera, for instance,
has a muscular international newsgathering organisation with unlimited
beneficence granted by a tiny Arab Gulf state that possesses the world's
largest reserves of natural gas and considerable stocks of oil. Al-Arabiya, its
sister organisation based in equally prosperous Dubai, and funded by the
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that harbours a particularly acrimonious abhorrence of
the Gaddafi regime, plays a similar card to ensure that the Libyan leader
appears as the joker of Arab politics.
Africans, on the other hand, are being urged by the United States to forgo
their traditionally strong ties with Gaddafi. US Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton at a speech in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa at the African Union
headquarters pleaded with African leaders to sever ties with Gaddafi. "Your
words and your actions could make the difference in bringing this [Libyan]
situation to a close," Clinton told delegates at the AU headquarters.
This is hardly surprising. Gaddafi's Libya has in the past two decades invested
heavily in several African countries. The US is keen to upstage Gaddafi in
Africa. Non-oil US-African trade has quadrupled to $4 billion since former US
president Bill Clinton, Hillary's husband, signed the notorious African Growth
and Opportunity Act (AGOA) with a considerable number of Sub-Saharan African
states 11 years ago.
The curious characteristic of AGOA is that Bill Clinton excluded Arab and North
African nations, including Libya, when he signed the act in 2000. It is ironic,
therefore, that Washington as articulated by Clinton's spouse, now solicits the
assistance of African nations to speed up Gaddafi's demise. "Gaddafi must leave
power," Secretary of State Clinton categorically stated in Addis Ababa, making
clear that she needs Africa's help.
So who will halt Clinton's manipulation and machinations? Former US
Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney makes a good case for defending Gaddafi. She was
recently in Libya for a fact-finding mission. "Coming here and seeing for
yourself is particularly important since everything that you know about Libya
from the Western media is a lie," McKinney bitterly complained.
The same apparent contradictions underpin African attitudes to Gaddafi. I
suspect that as real political decisions concerning the future of Libya have to
be made, we will see African euphoria with Gaddafi fade as they begin to see
him more as an Arab autocrat and less like themselves.
As the make-it-up-as-you-go-it-along plan for unseating Gaddafi navigates over
narrower and more perilous desert tracks of Fezzan and southern Libya between
the politically suicidal Òê" as far as Gaddafi is concerned Òê" and the
ideologically intolerable Òê" Africans towing the American line.
Last week, Senegalese President Abdullah Wade became the first African leader
to be received by the NTC headquarters in Benghazi. Americans will judge as
they like and the past four months have demonstrated. One common trait in
Africans is that they respond better to explicitness than to being brushed off
with a "trust us".
Of all the Arab uprisings, Libya's was the only one that necessitated direct
Western intervention, as far as the West could see. Neither Yemen nor Syria
warranted Western military intervention. The question of double standards is
one that puzzles many Africans who would like a forthright answer that explains
why. It is not just a question of Libya's oil wealth or its geographical
proximity to Europe. Rather, it is a question of Gaddafi's networks in Africa.
That much was clear in Clinton's plea with her African counterparts at the AU
summit in Addis Ababa. Once the southern reaches of Libya's sprawling Saharan
region is firmly in the hands of forces loyal to the West, and by proxy, the
NTC, then the road to Tripoli is paved as another obstacle will be cleared out
of the way.
The West clearly thinks that with the help of Africa, Gaddafi will blink first.
Control of Sebha and Fezzan also entails the securing of the trans-Saharan
route to African countries south of the Sahara.
The motives compelling the forces loyal to the NTC to push southwards into the
depths of the Sahara aren't sufficiently explored by the international media.
The southern tribes of Libya have long supported Gaddafi because they perceive
him as the champion of those who have been dealt a bad hand in life, and
especially in the empty expanses of the Saharan wastelands.
The case for capturing Gaddafi could not be overstated as far as Washington and
its Western allies are concerned. But Sebha and its desolate surroundings could
emerge as the hideaway of a runaway Gaddafi. Perhaps that is why the NTC is
keen to capture the strategic desert stronghold. They do not want this Saharan
sanctuary to become his Bora Bora.
Pious and cowering by turns, the leaders of the NTC advocating high-mindedness
and the head of Gaddafi, keep the world guessing as to their next move. Their
generals steer a steady course between sassiness and sanctity. At the heart of
this new focus on the south is the NTC's conviction that NATO secured several
key military successes in Libya's Mediterranean littoral. They now need to
safeguard the Sahara through the good offices of the African states south of
the Sahara and by cajoling the southern tribes of Libya into joining the
anti-Gaddafi cause.
The account of their closing in on Tripoli rolls along with snappy anecdotes
about winning over tribes that were once fiercely loyal to Gaddafi. But
whatever accomplishments they might have achieved, they are far from fulfilling
a monumental sense of mission, driven as they are by NATO's directives.
Gaddafi is the sort of man that makes good use of his greater freedom among
loyal tribesmen in impregnable mountain terrain. If he becomes a fugitive in
his own land, it is likely that he would head a maze like Murzuk or Sebha. And
in Sebha, he will not slumber. The local Tuaregs, traditionally deft in their
judgment of character, will vouch for the man in the tent.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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