Libya's future: no new dawn in sight
by Vu Thu Ha
Almost two weeks after the launch of the "Odyssey Dawn" campaign, the Western-led military intervention into Libya, the vision of a new dawn for Libya's people seems as distant as ever.
While world leaders were busy discussing a "better future" for the country without the presence of long-time Libyan strongman Muammar Gadhafi nor anti-regime leaders at an international conference this week, the Libyan people were still fighting each other on the ground with missiles and air strikes supporting anti-Gadhafi rebels.
The operation, mainly led by the United States, France, and Britain, and now commanded by NATO, was waged to implement the United Nations Security Council's resolution 1973 authorising "all necessary measures" to protect civilians. But while the bombardments have neutralised Gadhafi's air force to protect rebel forces, they have also reportedly killed hundreds of civilians and forced thousands of others to flee the country - although President Gadhafi is also to blame for civilian deaths.
Many people are now comparing the bombing in Libya to NATO's bombing in Belgrade, Serbia, 12 years ago, which killed hundreds of innocent people and was also initiated as a "humanitarian mission".
Coalition commanders do not describe what is happening in Libya as a war. But obviously they are joining forces with the Libyan rebels in the war against Gadhafi.
Many countries, including some world powers and Viet Nam, have voiced their oppositions to NATO's campaign, as they find it neither justified nor effective. Protests have been held worldwide against the military intervention into a sovereign state.
Chinese President Hu Jintao on Wednesday warned visiting French President Nicholas Sarkozy, an ardent proponent of the bombing campaign, about the risk of causing a humanitarian crisis, instead of offering humanitarian assistance.
Germany, a Western power and also a NATO member, refused to join the campaign from the outset and abstained from voting for the UNSC resolution.
On the battleground, fierce fighting is still raging. The allies' bomb and missile attacks could not stop forces loyal to Gadhafi, who have been driven to the corner, from keeping on fighting. Neither could they help the unarmed, untrained and unorganised opposition rebels to victory.
Some NATO members have mentioned the possibility of arming and training the rebels, which is not authorised in the UN resolution. If it is allowed to happen, it will add more fuel to the fire. Libya risks being plunged into an endless civil war while NATO countries are likely to be dragged into a prolonged conflict and costly engagement which many were probably unprepared for, especially when their leaders are already struggling at home with spending cuts and plunging popular ratings.
Some analysts have even raised a more threatening prospect where worsening turmoil and more killings of civilians, partly caused by the Western forces, would offer a helping hand to al-Qaeda and jihadists to get a foothold in the country, and worse, across the whole region. Paradoxically, Bengazi and the eastern part of the country, now the rebels' stronghold, are reported to be where anti-American and pro-jihad sentiment are popular, according to a Wikileaks-revealed document entitled Extremism in Eastern Libya from the US embassy in Tripoli in 2008.
The London International Conference on Libya on Tuesday, which gathered representatives from nearly 40 countries and international organisations, agreed to set up a contact group to lead international efforts to map out Libya's future but stopped short of answering what the future would look like and how to achieve it.
Instead of considering many countries' call for reaching a genuine and immediate ceasefire and negotiations on the country's future with the presence of the current government and the opposition rebels, the NATO-led coalition is still insisting on the overthrow of Gadhafi, despite the fact that regime change is not a mandate in the UN resolution. That is certainly unacceptable for Gadhafi, which forces him and his loyalists to carry on the fight ‘until the last breath".
Even if Gadhafi is toppled, there is no guarantee that the little-known rebel forces could manage to run the multi-ethnic, multi-tribal Libya without plunging the country into a more internal warfare or power struggle, like we saw in Iraq.
As the fighting is still raging and no sides seem to be winning, the outcome remains as uncertain as ever. But the cost of the war is very clear: more Libyan people will die, whether they are rebel forces, Gadhafi loyalists or merely innocent people.— VNS