Let’s face it, with Britain and France, Libya needs no enemies( Mwana wa kitange Ssengooba, Webale nnyo article eno. At least there is a Ugandan with some sense. Nze Munno mitayo Potosi) Tuesday, September 20 2011 at 00:00
Share This Story 3Share<http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.monitor.co.ug%2FOpEd%2FCommentary%2F-%2F689364%2F1239054%2F-%2F12rd4i9z%2F-%2Findex.html&t=Daily%20Monitor%3A%20%C2%A0-%20Commentary%C2%A0%7CLet%E2%80%99s%20face%20it%2C%20with%20Britain%20and%20France%2C%20Libya%20needs%20no%20enemies&src=sp> Pictures are known for speaking thousands of words. This one spoke billions. To the extreme right was British Prime Minister David Cameron. Proud and tall, he stood. On his face, it was visible that here was a man full of condescension. The sort that are common of men who take pleasure in giving with one little finger and taking with two gargantuan palms and lest we forget, expecting unreserved gratitude from his beneficiaries. Ironically in this case, those he addressed are unmistakably benefactors as we shall soon see when the garbs of pretentious charity fall off and all the knuckles become bare. Then right at the end on the left of the photo was the diminutive wide-eyed French President, Monsieur Nicolas Sarkozy. A notoriously ridiculous man with a reputation of insatiable desires for controversies and an undisputed propensity to leave in his wake, multitudes irradiated. So huge is his ego that he would burst if he attempted to fit it in his small body. In the centre were two pathetic men. Puppets, to put it mildly. The Chairman of the National Transitional Council (NTC) of Libya, Mustafa Abdul Jalil, looked like a rain-soaked chicken that had come in from the cold and was so grateful to be hosted that it did not give a thought about the risk of being slaughtered and eaten. His failure to inspire the sort of confidence that drips from the demeanour of freshly successful revolutionary leaders, told of the story of what an ominous future awaits the once great Libyan Republic. Barely audible, like a man who did not know what to say, stood the Interim Prime Minister of Libya Mahmoud Jibril. From the look of things, it was like he had been called to the press conference at the last minute just to make up the numbers. That was the standing arrangement at the press conference in Tripoli on September 15 when Cameron and Sarkozy visited to ‘congratulate’ Libya on successfully deposing Muammar Gaddafi. You would be forgiven if you thought the ceremony was in London or Paris. The men at the edges were beaming with confidence while those in the centre who were being commended, appeared like they were besieged by a mob awaiting to pounce on them. The salutations sounded more like mockery for without the Nato air strikes, Gaddafi would probably still be perched in Tripoli; going on with his grandiose road shows surrounded by his Amazonian Brigade and pampered by his voluptuous nurses. Libya is surrounded. And in the crowd around it are two nations Britain and France that have a disreputable history of imperialism that begins as charity and ends up in despicable exploitation. On that day Cameron and Sarkozy had come to install the chiefs through whom they will rule Libya indirectly. The tomahawk missiles being the trinkets that Libya will have to exchange cheaply for its oil and gas. The decision to temporarily cease hostilities after the fall of Tripoli was of great significance. NTC had the upper hand while Gaddafi’s men were beating a desperately hasty retreat. That breather gave the Gaddafi loyalists time to regroup in Bani Walid and Sirte from where they are giving NTC fighters a reasonable fight. It also gave the Gaddafi loyalists adequate time to flee into exile with good ‘preparations.’ Reporting in The Independent on September 7, Kim Sengupta claimed that a convoy of up to 250 four-wheel-drive cruisers and trucks laden with fighters, dollars and gold, heading across the Libyan border into Niger, had been allowed by Nato which avoided carrying out air strikes on them. In the same article, Colonel Roland Lavoie, the chief spokesman at Nato’s Libyan operations base in Naples, is quoted as saying: “Our mission is to protect the civilian population of Libya, not to track and target thousands of fleeing former regime leaders, mercenaries, military commanders and internally displaced people.” It will not be surprising if the fugitives, who include Gaddafi’s wanted sons, regroup across the border and become a nuisance. The threat to the stability and security of a fragile Libya whose military capabilities ironically were greatly destroyed by Nato and the NTC as they pursued Gaddafi, will require a permanent presence of Nato. Libya’s dependence on Nato will become a matter of life and death. The masters of the game of colonialism have returned to Libya through the back door. They are likely to stay much longer and easily take even much more than their forefathers because this time round, they shall not start from scratch. Most of the infrastructure in the oil and gas industry is up and running. With friends like Britain and France, one needs no enemies. *Nicholas Sengoba is a commentator on political and social issues.* *nicholasseng...@yahoo.com*
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