Showing posts with label Libya Crisis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Libya Crisis. Show all posts
Sunday, 6 March 2011
Monday, 28 February 2011
From The Guardian: Saif al-Islam Gaddafi: The new face of Libyan defiance by Jamie Doward
Colonel Gaddafi's son was educated in London and has friends in the City and Westminster. Or he did until last week.
Geneva places a high premium on guarding secrets, but rumours are a different currency. Amid momentous scenes being played out across the Middle East last week, sources in the Swiss financial centre were privately gossiping about a visit to Geneva earlier this year by Farhat Bengdara, the governor of the Central Bank of Libya.
According to one popular rumour, Bengdara had visited Geneva with a purpose. He was there to make changes to key Swiss accounts, into which flow hundreds of millions of dollars of Libyan oil money that are then allocated to the Libyan Investment Authority and the Libyan Central Bank.
Financiers in Geneva gossip that, as far back as 17 January, Bengdara established that four new names would be added as signatories on three crucial accounts controlling much of the money. The signatories were Colonel Muammar Gaddafi; his son Khamis, who heads Libya's infamous martyrs' battalion; the Libyan leader's daughter Aisha; and his son Saif al-Islam.
Where Libya's petro-dollars may have been channelled in the weeks since tensions first erupted across the Arab world is hard to say. But those who know him would be surprised if Saif did not hold the answers.
The westernised 38-year-old, who studied at the London School of Economics and enjoys close friendships with senior British politicians and financiers, has become the focal point of the conflict now threatening to rip Libya apart.
Whereas Gaddafi senior has always been seen in the west as a dictator – albeit one brought back into the fold – Saif, a trained architect who established a medical charity and was considered his father's heir apparent, held out the promise of a new dawn.
As far back as 2002, Saif told an interviewer that Libya needed democracy. "It's policy number one for us. First thing democracy, second thing democracy, third thing democracy," Saif said, using a rhetorical technique he was to repeat last week to far more sinister effect.
With mercenaries flooding the streets of Libya's major cities and horrifying stories of murder and mayhem emerging in piecemeal fashion via social networking sites, despite a government-enforced news blackout, such a promise now looks spent.
Saif's desire to act as a mouthpiece for his father has lent the tragic scenes unfolding in Libya a surreal, sometimes ridiculous dimension. His appearances in front of the television cameras suggest a man increasingly unhinged. Arms folded, jaw firmly out, Saif is a manifestation of defiance. It is clear he is very much his father's son, albeit, as one Twitter user wryly observed, someone who seems to have styled himself sartorially on Stringer Bell, the drug lord in the US cop show The Wire.
The similarities may not stop there. A man who reportedly likes to keep tigers and falcons, "Saif is urbane, charming and psychotic", according to one person who has met him. This appraisal seemed to be confirmed last Sunday night when Saif appeared on domestic television to threaten a civil war in which his father's regime "will fight to the last minute, until the last bullet".
By Thursday he was on CNN promising that the violence in his country would make Libya "stronger, more united". Saif pledged: "Libya will have a better future as one united nation. [We will] not let a bunch of terrorists control our country and our future."
Displaying a hubris that is likely to be replayed in video clips for years to come, Saif boasted that his family had a "Plan A, Plan B and Plan C". But all of the plans, it transpired, were the same: "To live and die in Libya."
These were the fulminations of a man whose options were increasingly limited. It was a far cry from 2008 when, having collected his doctorate from the LSE, Saif pledged to donate £1.5m to the university for a global governance unit. "I've come to know Saif as someone who looks to democracy, civil society and deep liberal values for the core of his inspiration," Professor David Held, a political theorist at the LSE, said at the time.
Last week, while the university was reconsidering its links to Saif as a "matter of urgency", Held too was reappraising his former pupil. "My support for Saif al-Islam Gaddafi was always conditional on him resolving the dilemma that he faced in a progressive and democratic direction," Held said. "His commitment to transforming his country has been overwhelmed by the crisis he finds himself in. He tragically, but fatefully, made the wrong judgment."
Whether others, however, will be quick to break their ties remains to be seen. Saif's connections extend into the City of London and Westminster.
Saif is an acquaintance of Lord Mandelson and met the former Labour minister at a Corfu villa the week before it was announced that the Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, would be released from a Scottish prison. The two men met again when they were guests at Lord Rothschild's mansion in Buckinghamshire.
Rothschild's son and heir, Nat, also a close friend of Mandelson, held a party in New York attended by Saif in 2008. Saif in turn invited Nat Rothschild to his 37th birthday party in Montenegro, where the financier is investing in a luxury resort.
Prince Andrew, too, has played host to Saif at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle and the two men have also met in Tripoli. Others whom Saif classes as good friends include Tony Blair and, bizarrely, the late Austrian far-right leader, Jörg Haider.
On Friday night, at the end of a week in which hundreds are believed to have died and Saif's credibility in the west evaporated, the man whose name means "Sword of Islam" in Arabic appeared delusional. "Everything is calm," Saif told a group of foreign journalists who had been invited to the Libyan capital.
"If you hear fireworks, don't mistake it for shooting," Saif added, smiling as he greeted the press outside a luxury hotel boasting a glittering lobby and chandeliers. But the calm was unnatural. It was the quiet of empty streets that would normally be bustling on a Friday night.
Saif insisted that much of the reporting was "lies" spread by a hostile media and denied claims his father's forces had bombed civilians. "We are laughing at these reports," he said, urging reporters to interview "hundreds or thousands" of people for themselves.
"The biggest problem is the hostile media campaigns against us. They want to show Libya is burning, that there is a big revolution here," he said. "You are wrong. We are united. Peace is coming back to our country."
A few miles away the thousands of desperate migrant workers besieging Tripoli airport, kept out by police using batons and whips, told a different story.
Geneva places a high premium on guarding secrets, but rumours are a different currency. Amid momentous scenes being played out across the Middle East last week, sources in the Swiss financial centre were privately gossiping about a visit to Geneva earlier this year by Farhat Bengdara, the governor of the Central Bank of Libya.
According to one popular rumour, Bengdara had visited Geneva with a purpose. He was there to make changes to key Swiss accounts, into which flow hundreds of millions of dollars of Libyan oil money that are then allocated to the Libyan Investment Authority and the Libyan Central Bank.
Financiers in Geneva gossip that, as far back as 17 January, Bengdara established that four new names would be added as signatories on three crucial accounts controlling much of the money. The signatories were Colonel Muammar Gaddafi; his son Khamis, who heads Libya's infamous martyrs' battalion; the Libyan leader's daughter Aisha; and his son Saif al-Islam.
Where Libya's petro-dollars may have been channelled in the weeks since tensions first erupted across the Arab world is hard to say. But those who know him would be surprised if Saif did not hold the answers.
The westernised 38-year-old, who studied at the London School of Economics and enjoys close friendships with senior British politicians and financiers, has become the focal point of the conflict now threatening to rip Libya apart.
Whereas Gaddafi senior has always been seen in the west as a dictator – albeit one brought back into the fold – Saif, a trained architect who established a medical charity and was considered his father's heir apparent, held out the promise of a new dawn.
As far back as 2002, Saif told an interviewer that Libya needed democracy. "It's policy number one for us. First thing democracy, second thing democracy, third thing democracy," Saif said, using a rhetorical technique he was to repeat last week to far more sinister effect.
With mercenaries flooding the streets of Libya's major cities and horrifying stories of murder and mayhem emerging in piecemeal fashion via social networking sites, despite a government-enforced news blackout, such a promise now looks spent.
Saif's desire to act as a mouthpiece for his father has lent the tragic scenes unfolding in Libya a surreal, sometimes ridiculous dimension. His appearances in front of the television cameras suggest a man increasingly unhinged. Arms folded, jaw firmly out, Saif is a manifestation of defiance. It is clear he is very much his father's son, albeit, as one Twitter user wryly observed, someone who seems to have styled himself sartorially on Stringer Bell, the drug lord in the US cop show The Wire.
The similarities may not stop there. A man who reportedly likes to keep tigers and falcons, "Saif is urbane, charming and psychotic", according to one person who has met him. This appraisal seemed to be confirmed last Sunday night when Saif appeared on domestic television to threaten a civil war in which his father's regime "will fight to the last minute, until the last bullet".
By Thursday he was on CNN promising that the violence in his country would make Libya "stronger, more united". Saif pledged: "Libya will have a better future as one united nation. [We will] not let a bunch of terrorists control our country and our future."
Displaying a hubris that is likely to be replayed in video clips for years to come, Saif boasted that his family had a "Plan A, Plan B and Plan C". But all of the plans, it transpired, were the same: "To live and die in Libya."
These were the fulminations of a man whose options were increasingly limited. It was a far cry from 2008 when, having collected his doctorate from the LSE, Saif pledged to donate £1.5m to the university for a global governance unit. "I've come to know Saif as someone who looks to democracy, civil society and deep liberal values for the core of his inspiration," Professor David Held, a political theorist at the LSE, said at the time.
Last week, while the university was reconsidering its links to Saif as a "matter of urgency", Held too was reappraising his former pupil. "My support for Saif al-Islam Gaddafi was always conditional on him resolving the dilemma that he faced in a progressive and democratic direction," Held said. "His commitment to transforming his country has been overwhelmed by the crisis he finds himself in. He tragically, but fatefully, made the wrong judgment."
Whether others, however, will be quick to break their ties remains to be seen. Saif's connections extend into the City of London and Westminster.
Saif is an acquaintance of Lord Mandelson and met the former Labour minister at a Corfu villa the week before it was announced that the Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, would be released from a Scottish prison. The two men met again when they were guests at Lord Rothschild's mansion in Buckinghamshire.
Rothschild's son and heir, Nat, also a close friend of Mandelson, held a party in New York attended by Saif in 2008. Saif in turn invited Nat Rothschild to his 37th birthday party in Montenegro, where the financier is investing in a luxury resort.
Prince Andrew, too, has played host to Saif at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle and the two men have also met in Tripoli. Others whom Saif classes as good friends include Tony Blair and, bizarrely, the late Austrian far-right leader, Jörg Haider.
On Friday night, at the end of a week in which hundreds are believed to have died and Saif's credibility in the west evaporated, the man whose name means "Sword of Islam" in Arabic appeared delusional. "Everything is calm," Saif told a group of foreign journalists who had been invited to the Libyan capital.
"If you hear fireworks, don't mistake it for shooting," Saif added, smiling as he greeted the press outside a luxury hotel boasting a glittering lobby and chandeliers. But the calm was unnatural. It was the quiet of empty streets that would normally be bustling on a Friday night.
Saif insisted that much of the reporting was "lies" spread by a hostile media and denied claims his father's forces had bombed civilians. "We are laughing at these reports," he said, urging reporters to interview "hundreds or thousands" of people for themselves.
"The biggest problem is the hostile media campaigns against us. They want to show Libya is burning, that there is a big revolution here," he said. "You are wrong. We are united. Peace is coming back to our country."
A few miles away the thousands of desperate migrant workers besieging Tripoli airport, kept out by police using batons and whips, told a different story.
Sunday, 27 February 2011
Thursday, 24 February 2011
From the BBC News Website: Who's Propping up Gadaffi? by Frank Gardner
Unlike in Egypt or Tunisia, it is not the conventional military that holds the balance of power in Libya.
Instead, it is a murky network of paramilitary brigades, "revolutionary committees" of trusted followers, tribal leaders and imported foreign mercenaries.
The actual Libyan Army is almost symbolic, a weakened and emaciated force of little more than 40,000, poorly armed and poorly trained. It is part of Col Muammar Gaddafi's long-term strategy to eliminate the risk of a military coup, which is how he himself came to power in 1969.
So the defection this month of some elements of the army to the protesters in Benghazi is unlikely to trouble Col Gaddafi. Not only can he do without them, his security apparatus has not hesitated to call in air strikes on their barracks in the rebellious east of the country.
So, who is propping up his regime and allowing it to stay in power while two of its neighbouring leaders have fled amid a massive momentum for regime change throughout the Middle East?
Internal Security
Like many countries in the region, Libya has an extensive, well-resourced and brutal internal security apparatus.
Col Gaddafi is usually flanked by his personal guards when he appears in public Think East Germany's Stasi or Romania's Securitate pre-1989, where no-one dared criticise the regime in public in case they were reported to the feared secret police, and you can see the similarities.
During my own visits to Libya I have always found it hard to get ordinary people to speak freely on the record to a journalist, as government "minders" are always watching and noting who says what.
Some of Col Gaddafi's own sons have worked in internal security but today, the key figure in Libya's security apparatus, both internal and external, is Gaddafi's brother-in-law, Abdullah Senussi.
A hardliner with a thuggish reputation, he is strongly suspected of being the driving force behind the violent suppression of protests, notably in Benghazi and the east of the country.
As long as he keeps advising Gaddafi to tough it out there is little chance of his stepping down.
The Paramilitaries
Libya has a number of "special brigades" answerable not to the army but to Gaddafi's Revolutionary Committees.
One of these is believed to be commanded, at least nominally, by one of Col Gaddafi's maverick sons, Hannibal, who clashed recently with Swiss police in Geneva after allegations he abused hotel maids there.
The paramilitaries, sometimes known as the "People's Militia", have so far been largely loyal to Col Gaddafi and his close circle known in Arabic as Ahl al-Khaimah - "People of the Tent".
If the paramilitaries changed sides and joined the protesters en masse this would seriously undermine Col Gaddafi's ability to survive.
The Mercenaries
This has been one of the darker and particularly disturbing facets of the Libyan uprising.
Continue reading the main story
“
Start Quote
Libya-watchers are now speculating whether Col Gaddafi's regime will carry out its own self-fulfilling prophecy of civil war ”
End Quote There are persistent reports that Col Gaddafi's regime has been making extensive use of hired African mercenaries, mostly from the Sahel countries of Chad and Niger, to carry out atrocities against unarmed civilian protesters.
Libyan witnesses say they have been firing from rooftops into crowds of demonstrators, in essence carrying out the orders that many Libyan soldiers have refused to obey.
Col Gaddafi has long fostered close relations with African countries, having turned his back on the Arab world some time ago, and there are an estimated 500,000 African expatriates in Libya out of a total population of six million.
The number of those serving as pro-Gaddafi mercenaries is thought to be quite small but their loyalty to his regime is said to be unquestioned and there are reports of extra flights being laid on to bring in more in recent days.
The Tribes
Libya, like the other Arab revolutionary republics of Yemen and Iraq, is a country where your tribe can help define your loyalties, but in recent years the tribal distinctions have blurred and the country is less tribal now than it was in 1969.
Continue reading the main story
Do Libya's tribal ties matter?
Col Gaddafi himself comes from the Qadhaththa tribe. During his 41 years in power he has appointed many of its members to key positions in his regime, including those for his personal safety.
Just as Saddam Hussein did in Iraq and President Saleh has in Yemen, Col Gaddafi has been adept at playing off one tribe against another, ensuring that no one leader risks posing a threat to his regime.
Libya-watchers are now speculating whether Col Gaddafi's regime will carry out its own self-fulfilling prophecy of civil war and deliberately arm the tribes loyal to the regime to put down the protest that has already seen it lose the eastern half of the country.
Instead, it is a murky network of paramilitary brigades, "revolutionary committees" of trusted followers, tribal leaders and imported foreign mercenaries.
The actual Libyan Army is almost symbolic, a weakened and emaciated force of little more than 40,000, poorly armed and poorly trained. It is part of Col Muammar Gaddafi's long-term strategy to eliminate the risk of a military coup, which is how he himself came to power in 1969.
So the defection this month of some elements of the army to the protesters in Benghazi is unlikely to trouble Col Gaddafi. Not only can he do without them, his security apparatus has not hesitated to call in air strikes on their barracks in the rebellious east of the country.
So, who is propping up his regime and allowing it to stay in power while two of its neighbouring leaders have fled amid a massive momentum for regime change throughout the Middle East?
Internal Security
Like many countries in the region, Libya has an extensive, well-resourced and brutal internal security apparatus.
Col Gaddafi is usually flanked by his personal guards when he appears in public Think East Germany's Stasi or Romania's Securitate pre-1989, where no-one dared criticise the regime in public in case they were reported to the feared secret police, and you can see the similarities.
During my own visits to Libya I have always found it hard to get ordinary people to speak freely on the record to a journalist, as government "minders" are always watching and noting who says what.
Some of Col Gaddafi's own sons have worked in internal security but today, the key figure in Libya's security apparatus, both internal and external, is Gaddafi's brother-in-law, Abdullah Senussi.
A hardliner with a thuggish reputation, he is strongly suspected of being the driving force behind the violent suppression of protests, notably in Benghazi and the east of the country.
As long as he keeps advising Gaddafi to tough it out there is little chance of his stepping down.
The Paramilitaries
Libya has a number of "special brigades" answerable not to the army but to Gaddafi's Revolutionary Committees.
One of these is believed to be commanded, at least nominally, by one of Col Gaddafi's maverick sons, Hannibal, who clashed recently with Swiss police in Geneva after allegations he abused hotel maids there.
The paramilitaries, sometimes known as the "People's Militia", have so far been largely loyal to Col Gaddafi and his close circle known in Arabic as Ahl al-Khaimah - "People of the Tent".
If the paramilitaries changed sides and joined the protesters en masse this would seriously undermine Col Gaddafi's ability to survive.
The Mercenaries
This has been one of the darker and particularly disturbing facets of the Libyan uprising.
Continue reading the main story
“
Start Quote
Libya-watchers are now speculating whether Col Gaddafi's regime will carry out its own self-fulfilling prophecy of civil war ”
End Quote There are persistent reports that Col Gaddafi's regime has been making extensive use of hired African mercenaries, mostly from the Sahel countries of Chad and Niger, to carry out atrocities against unarmed civilian protesters.
Libyan witnesses say they have been firing from rooftops into crowds of demonstrators, in essence carrying out the orders that many Libyan soldiers have refused to obey.
Col Gaddafi has long fostered close relations with African countries, having turned his back on the Arab world some time ago, and there are an estimated 500,000 African expatriates in Libya out of a total population of six million.
The number of those serving as pro-Gaddafi mercenaries is thought to be quite small but their loyalty to his regime is said to be unquestioned and there are reports of extra flights being laid on to bring in more in recent days.
The Tribes
Libya, like the other Arab revolutionary republics of Yemen and Iraq, is a country where your tribe can help define your loyalties, but in recent years the tribal distinctions have blurred and the country is less tribal now than it was in 1969.
Continue reading the main story
Do Libya's tribal ties matter?
Col Gaddafi himself comes from the Qadhaththa tribe. During his 41 years in power he has appointed many of its members to key positions in his regime, including those for his personal safety.
Just as Saddam Hussein did in Iraq and President Saleh has in Yemen, Col Gaddafi has been adept at playing off one tribe against another, ensuring that no one leader risks posing a threat to his regime.
Libya-watchers are now speculating whether Col Gaddafi's regime will carry out its own self-fulfilling prophecy of civil war and deliberately arm the tribes loyal to the regime to put down the protest that has already seen it lose the eastern half of the country.
The Fall of Benghazi
The northern Libyan city of Benghazi is the beginning and crux of the revolt against Col Muammar Gaddafi.
"When local people there came out to protest last week, they were fired on from a huge army base in the centre of the city with heavy artillery, including anti-aircraft guns.
In response, they simply took on the army, with homemade petrol bombs.
They loaded construction site vehicles with petrol and rammed them against the walls of the barracks, and ground down the troops inside.
After two or three days of bitter fighting - with the aid of some defection from the government side - they took the base, defeating some of the country's most elite forces."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12573890
"When local people there came out to protest last week, they were fired on from a huge army base in the centre of the city with heavy artillery, including anti-aircraft guns.
In response, they simply took on the army, with homemade petrol bombs.
They loaded construction site vehicles with petrol and rammed them against the walls of the barracks, and ground down the troops inside.
After two or three days of bitter fighting - with the aid of some defection from the government side - they took the base, defeating some of the country's most elite forces."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12573890
Wednesday, 23 February 2011
Full Length and Excerpted Articles on The Situation in Libya
Sins of the father, sins of the son
Wikipedia image showing Ghaddaffi and Yugoslav president Josep Broz Tito, in 1975
"Ever since his ascension to power, through a military coup, in 1969, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi has used every piece of revolutionary rhetoric in the book to justify his actions, which include consolidating power in the hands of his relatives and close associates and creating a network of security forces and militias to coerce Libyans into conforming to the whims of his cruel regime.
Through his support for revolutionary movements in different parts of the world - ones, of course, which did not endanger his own rule - he has sought to portray himself as the 'defender of the oppressed', earning the wrath of the West in the process. But the people now courageously defying his regime's savage suppression are sending the message that anti-Western slogans, even if occasionally backed up by support for just causes, can no longer sustain oppressive regimes in the region.
Ghaddaffi with Serbian president,Boris Tadic (image from Wikipedia)
A new era is underway in which leaders will be judged on their ability to represent the aspirations of the people and in which they will be held accountable for their actions. Issuing rallying cries against a foreign enemy, even when that enemy is very real, while inflicting injustice on one's own people will no longer be permitted.
Post-colonial Arab regimes, including those that rode the waves of or even at one point genuinely represented anti-colonial resistance, have had to resort to a reliance on secret police and draconian laws to subordinate their subjects. The lesson is clear: Without a representative democracy, Arab republics have metamorphosed into ugly hereditary dynasties that treat their countries like their own private companies.
While trampling over the interests of his own people, Gaddafi has modeled himself as the champion of the Palestinian cause, reverting to the most fiery verbal attacks on Israel. But this is a recurring theme in a region where leaders must pay lip service to the plight of the Palestinians in order to give their regime the stamp of 'legitimacy'. Gaddafi's 'support', however, did not prevent him from deporting Palestinians living in Libya, leaving them stranded in the dessert, when he sought to "punish the Palestinian leadership" for negotiating with Israel.
image from BBC
But even more cynical than his "pro-Palestinian" stand is his exploitation of the plight of the African people by anointing himself the leader of the continent. It is tragic, if reports prove to be true, that he used migrant sub-Saharan African labourers against the Libyan protesters. But it is, sadly, very believable that a ruthless dictator, driven hysterical by the prospect of losing his wealth and power, might pit the poor and marginalised against the poor and oppressed."
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/02/201122271939751816.html
"Ever since his ascension to power, through a military coup, in 1969, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi has used every piece of revolutionary rhetoric in the book to justify his actions, which include consolidating power in the hands of his relatives and close associates and creating a network of security forces and militias to coerce Libyans into conforming to the whims of his cruel regime.
Through his support for revolutionary movements in different parts of the world - ones, of course, which did not endanger his own rule - he has sought to portray himself as the 'defender of the oppressed', earning the wrath of the West in the process. But the people now courageously defying his regime's savage suppression are sending the message that anti-Western slogans, even if occasionally backed up by support for just causes, can no longer sustain oppressive regimes in the region.
A new era is underway in which leaders will be judged on their ability to represent the aspirations of the people and in which they will be held accountable for their actions. Issuing rallying cries against a foreign enemy, even when that enemy is very real, while inflicting injustice on one's own people will no longer be permitted.
Post-colonial Arab regimes, including those that rode the waves of or even at one point genuinely represented anti-colonial resistance, have had to resort to a reliance on secret police and draconian laws to subordinate their subjects. The lesson is clear: Without a representative democracy, Arab republics have metamorphosed into ugly hereditary dynasties that treat their countries like their own private companies.
While trampling over the interests of his own people, Gaddafi has modeled himself as the champion of the Palestinian cause, reverting to the most fiery verbal attacks on Israel. But this is a recurring theme in a region where leaders must pay lip service to the plight of the Palestinians in order to give their regime the stamp of 'legitimacy'. Gaddafi's 'support', however, did not prevent him from deporting Palestinians living in Libya, leaving them stranded in the dessert, when he sought to "punish the Palestinian leadership" for negotiating with Israel.
But even more cynical than his "pro-Palestinian" stand is his exploitation of the plight of the African people by anointing himself the leader of the continent. It is tragic, if reports prove to be true, that he used migrant sub-Saharan African labourers against the Libyan protesters. But it is, sadly, very believable that a ruthless dictator, driven hysterical by the prospect of losing his wealth and power, might pit the poor and marginalised against the poor and oppressed."
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/02/201122271939751816.html
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