BY THE TIME you read this editorial, there should be more clarity about the whereabouts or fate of President Muammar Gaddafi. As of last night, the consensus among the trio of governments that are quite anxious to have him out of power – the United States of America, Britain and France – was that his regime had “crumbled” and he must “go”.
So far as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is concerned, having provided sustained air strikes to facilitate the anti-Gaddafi forces struggling over the past six months to topple his regime, the Libyan leader’s 42 years of power have come to an end.
The Western nations that first led the diplomatic battle to oust him from power were to subsequently make good use of the military resources of NATO in providing the air strikes that were to ensure effective cover for the ground battles being waged by the anti-Gaddafi forces.
It would not have escaped the attention of more than independent observers that, to attain “regime change” in Tripoli, NATO was quite discriminating in management of the United Nations resolution to “protect civilians”. In practice, the so-called “no-fly zone” resolution was overwhelmingly in favour of the anti-Gaddafi forces while bombs were targeting key military and other infrastructures of the Libyan government and with increasing casualties among even non-combat supporters of Gaddafi.
The Libyan conflict, heavily focused up to last night on the besieged capital of Tripoli, had dramatically developed last February against the bloody battles for “regime change” in Tunisia and Egypt, where the governments were traditionally backed by the very western nations that are deeply involved in ousting Gaddafi from power with the support of NATO’s air strikes.
Questions of immediate relevance would include what happens in Libya, after Gaddafi, since so little is known about the composition and integrity of the National Transitional Council (NTC) hurriedly put together in Benghazi amid reports of links with al-Qaeda and militants that owe their loyalty more to tribal attachments than the democracy and rule of law for which “regime change” in Tripoli has been the vociferous claims.
Regrettably, at no stage in the past months of armed conflicts has there been any serious effort by the governments backing the anti-Gaddafi forces to promote dialogue for a resolution instead of incessantly pushing for “regime change” which, it must be noted, was not the stated objective of the UN’s “no-fly zone” resolution that has been methodically used by NATO to systematically weaken the government in Tripoli at a very heavy price in loss of lives and destruction.
It is to be hoped that with the collapse of the Gaddafi-led regime in Tripoli strenuous, honest efforts will be made for an end to the bloody conflicts and to enable the emergence of a confidence-building climate before tribal and regional clamour for vengeance gains ground in a very volatile situation – without Gaddafi.