by Stephen Brown
As fighting raged around the Eastern Libyan city of Ajdabiya on Sunday, a delegation from the African Union (AU) landed in Tripoli with permission from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to meet with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. This latest diplomatic effort is the AU’s second attempt to mediate the Libyan crisis. Earlier in the conflict, the Western military alliance had not allowed another AU peace delegation to fly to the strife-torn country.
Headed by South African President Jacob Zuma, the delegation also includes the presidents of Mauritania, Mali, Congo as well as Uganda’s foreign minister. Lindiwe, an aide to Zuma, said the AU delegation’s first priority is to arrange a ceasefire.
“If you have to resolve anything through peaceful means, you always make sure there’s a ceasefire,” Zulu said. “Everybody has to lay down their arms and then everyone has to come around a table and have a discussion as to where they want to take the country.”
NATO’s change of heart in allowing the African delegates to meet with Gaddafi is most likely connected with the battlefield situation. After sizing up the military capabilities of both Gaddafi’s forces and the opposition, NATO now knows there will be no quick end to the conflict and may itself be responsible for this.
U.S. Army General Carter Ham, head of the U.S. African Command, echoed this view when he told members of the House Armed Services Committee on April 5 NATO air strikes may have prevented a Gaddafi victory, but is responsible for creating a stalemate that may last a long time. In a surprise statement that contradicted everything President Obama has repeatedly said about the US role in Libya, Ham added the military is considering sending in American ground troops.
“I suspect there might be some consideration of that,” Ham said. “My personal view at this point would be that’s probably not the ideal circumstance, again for the regional reaction that having American boots on the ground would entail.”
Besides the embarrassment for Obama, if such a startling about-face did come about, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates would have to look for new employment. Gates is on record as saying American ground troops would never be sent into Libya “as long as I am in this job.” It is also noteworthy that calls from the White House demanding that Gaddafi step down have recently become as rare as Obama’s declarations that he would close Guantanamo Bay.
NATO air strikes, the rebels’ main weapon in combating the better trained and equipped Gaddafi troops, are also having less effect on the fighting’s progress. One reason is that Gaddafi’s soldiers are learning to conceal their heavy equipment, the main target of NATO warplanes, in built-up areas. Gaddafi knows NATO is operating over his country under a UN mandate to save civilian lives and is making effective use of human shield tactics to prevent NATO air forces from tipping the fighting in the rebels’ favour.
The other reason for NATO’s waning military effectiveness is the lack of American airpower. American warplanes were withdrawn from a combat role on April 4. This in turn led to rebel complaints that there are now too few air strikes and that NATO is too slow to respond to bombing requests. To remedy the warplane deficit, the British government is reported to have begun pressuring other NATO governments to send more ground attack aircraft to the conflict.
Given the bleak prospects regarding the rebel forces’ ability to defeat Gaddafi in a short war and the expense and ruinous effects a long war would entail, the Western alliance now appears willing to try diplomacy. At a press conference on April 8, NATO spokesperson Oana Lungescu hinted the alliance was prepared to explore this route.“NATO is in command of the military mission, but we know there can be no purely military solution to this crisis,” Lungescu said.
Since the beginning of the conflict, the 53-member African Union has called for negotiations regarding the Libyan crisis. Rwanda is one of the few AU states to support the NATO bombing, since it experienced its own horrific genocide and does not want to see Gaddafi’s forces commit another one.
Gaddafi has already attempted to negotiate a solution to the conflict at the AU’s headquarters in Addis Ababa, but the rebels refused to send any representatives, demanding the Libyan leader step down first. The AU is probably the organisation Gaddafi most favours to mediate negotiations. It is loaded with dictators as corrupt and brutal as he is who see in the Libyan leader’s downfall a threat to their own rule. Like Gaddafi, they also have little respect for democracy and human rights.
Gaddafi is biased towards the AU for other reasons. He has had the heads of poorer African states on his payroll and may still do so, even paying these countries’ AU membership dues. Libya is also one of the biggest contributor’s to the AU’s budget which was only $250,453,697 in 2010. To give an example of the AU’s lack of resources, NATO had to pay for the peace delegation’s trip to Tripoli.
But while the AU has been accused of being nothing more than a collection of like-minded thugs whose main preoccupation is keeping each other in power, it has done some good things for Africa in the past. It successfully opposed apartheid in South Africa, prevented genocide in Burundi and has sent some troops, unfortunately only from two member countries, to Somalia, where they have been effective. Its three representatives on the UN Security Council also voted for the No-Fly Zone.
However, even if the AU delegates’ mission is successful and a ceasefire is arranged and both sides are brought to the negotiating table, the killing of civilians will not stop. As long as Gaddafi and his armed followers remain a force, no Libyan is safe. And if any deal is struck, Gaddafi will be sure to circumvent it. Unfortunately, while the AU’s diplomatic efforts may grant NATO and the United States a respite, Western military arms still remain the only force that can save the Libyan people from Gaddafi’s tyranny.
Stephen Brown
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