Ranier Fsadni
Libyan playbook, you say?
As the death toll mounts in Syria, reporters have taken to saying that diplomats are losing hope that the Syrian opposition will unite itself enough for there to be a repeat of the Libyan playbook, last year. But which playbook would that be? The photoshopped news reports distributed as fact or the grimier picture that is slowly emerging now?
Since what follows is a critical account of what was reported about the Libyan conflict, let’s be clear about one or two things.
Muammar Gaddafi was a tyrant, linked directly or indirectly to documented, gross human rights abuses. His regime was a kleptocracy and it is doubtful whether piecemeal reforms could have rehabilitated it.
Likewise, the Assad regime in Syria is one of the most brutal in a rather competitive league table.
However, if we are going to start bandying terms like “Libyan playbook”, and then use that to press our own politicians to take action, we need to protect ourselves from myth and the sins of omission committed by the greater part of the international press when reporting on and from Libya. Some of the sins I was guilty of myself.
As the Libyan conflict unfolded and spread, there were reports of civilian massacres where the uprisings had occurred. As the showdown with Benghazi approached, before Nato’s intervention, the fear of genocide was real. There had been reports of crowds being shot at like fish in a barrel in Tripoli’s main square. Malta, of course, had two fighter pilots defect, saying they had been ordered to bomb the opposition.
However, at no point in the conflict, or since, did documented footage of such massacres surface. Evidence of rebel fighters’ shelters pounded – certainly. But, apparently, there was no one around to film with a mobile phone (as has happened, for instance, in Syria).
Moreover, there were no reports to speak of that if civilian massacres were occurring it would have been an unusual departure for Col Gaddafi. He certainly had a record of aerial bombing rebel armed forces. There is documented proof – even from the conflict itself – of rebels being killed like vermin. But not civilians who did not directly participate in the conflict. (The siege of Misurata was a siege against an armed population. Before Nato’s intervention, the loyalist troops had lost – according to a Misurata squad leader I have spoken to – about the same number, 8,000, that the city had.)
None of this is to justify any of the acts of violence by the Gaddafi regime. It is about auditing the reports we had, including my own. I myself did wonder about what was missing from them. I should have wondered aloud.
These gaps are worth reporting now for another reason. They help us, from outside, to have a better sense of the full range of Libyan sentiments now. Every Libyan I know who has returned from Tripoli reports the heady sense of freedom that people of all ages are experiencing.
The absence of Col Gaddafi’s image, which used to be omnipresent, the disappearance of his favourite green colour, the defiant spray-painted slogans make the city seem less of a wreck. It also drains some of the tension caused by the rise in theft and robbery, symbolised perhaps most powerfully in the sheer number of cars driving around the city without number plates. People are proud to have taken part in the uprising.
However, there are other sentiments as well, perhaps more so in the interior. Friends who spent the conflict abroad, anti-Gaddafi to the core, who have now returned to their country report their surprise at encountering many more supporters of Col Gaddafi than they expected – in those large areas, in fact, that stayed out of the conflict (meaning they refused also to heed the colonel’s call to arms).
However, they are also realising why. They can find no one to confirm large civilian massacres, even in Tripoli. The claims about mercenaries on Viagra conducting mass rapes have yet to be substantiated and the evidence has eluded at least one attempt by Amnesty International to collect it. (No doubt, individual rape did occur but if we use that standard to condemn the regime, we will need to apply it wherever armed men, including (say) US forces, rape women.)
The upshot of such comparisons of claims and evidence is that, while the end of the old regime is generally accepted, as is the beginning of the new, there is also a sense that the new order, like the old, has a pack of lies as part of its foundation. That things are not what they seem. And that’s not a good foundation for a vibrant democracy.
With respect to our democracies, it would appear that the press reporting from Libya (the representative of the International Crisis Group was one of the honourable exceptions) accepted propaganda as fact and seemed eager to do so. It was arguably in a good cause. But the service of truth, however inconvenient, is the best cause of all.
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Alfred Falzon
Feb 10th, 10:27
@ Paul Caruana
Your casuistics will not drive the message home!
Had Russia and China, both notorious for their contempt of fundamental human rights, opted for the defence of the free Syrian people by NOT vetoing the UN Resolution condemning the al-Assad murderous regime, the scenario today would have been completely different!
Small wonder that the free Syrians are today vehemently protesting against Russia and China, two despotic countries which are to blame for the butchering of so many innocent civilians, including a high number of casualties among CHILDREN, since they have become accomplices to such heinous crimes!
A well-known local China apologist and PL activist, who ostentatiously defended those responsible for the massacre of several students and intellectuals on Tien-an-Men Square way back in 1989 (vide write-up in "The Times"), an equivalent of the pro-Kadhafi stooge KMB, may perhaps have second thoughts and finally make his presence conspicuous in a show of solidarity with the Syrian pro-democracy activists in front of the Chinese Embassy today!
Alfred A. Falzon
Paul Caruana
Feb 9th, 19:56
What is ironic is that, from a humanitarian point of view, the need of a military intervention in Syria would be more justified than was the case in Libya.
So why isn't this done?
A Number of reason come to mind:
1 - Conveniently, Russia and China have vetoed any feeble attempts to censor Syria on this issue. While on the surface various western nations feign indigation at this, they have secretly breathed a sigh of relief that the UN security council has, in effect, provided a legal cover for NOT intevening.
2 - And why should they? Quite frankly, several western nations have just about had it with this militiary intervention business, especially in these hard economic times
3 - Added to that, Syria has no oil (as Libya) so there is really no economic interest to influence matters there.
4 - Last but not least, Syria happens to be a next door neigbour to Israel. If the Syrian regime feels threatened, it might be tempted to play a desperate card, and try to forcibly retake the Golan heights. It would fail, but might arouse Arab sympathies enough for it to survive another day, even if it risks a major middle east conflict, whose final outcome could be dangerously unpredictable.
Ultimately, the brutal suppression of the Syrian people in blood might be the most convenient option for the rest of the world (not obviously the syrian people).
Martin Cassar
Feb 9th, 19:35
…. In a nutshell, Aljazeera channel with its state-of-the-art technology and the use of a 20 euro PC programme (fotoshop) and well-trained staff reporters along with CNN Aand Fox news has once again played a key role to secure another rich-oil country in a trail to keep the Chinese giant aside!
Libay had the wealth but lacked the power to protect its wealth.
The whole Libyan population and the whole of Africa for this matter dosent worth 20 euros in war-for-natural-resources calculations.
We are living in a jungle; the rule of the jungle is very simple: survival for the fit
This double veto by Both Russia and china is backed by a Russian nuclear arsenal and a Chinese growing economy. Russia and China are not Libya or Iraq.
Both the EU and the USA have been financially backing and providing political immunity to the illegal occupation of Zionists for the past 60 years and very few that lift a finger to protect the Palestinians.
Do as I say or you will be wiped-off the map, says nuclear powered Russia
Do as I say or you will go begging in the street, says the financially-growing communist dragon that soon will swallow Wall Street and EU.
As for USA and EU they only have one thing left: to use military machines to ‘remedy’ the collapse of he already deteriorated capitalist economies. This however can be done by keep-lecturing small wealthy nations about democracy and human rights….etc and keep flexing the military mussels to get some funds by fabrications, lies (if required) and creating the conditions for terrorism (if necessary) of some wars so they can sell weapons then take part of some business.
Looking forward to read the upcoming piece, probably will be in connection with a looming attack on Iran!
Alfred Falzon
Feb 10th, 09:58
@ Martin Cassar
Much of what you stated may be true but there some innuendoes which cannot be left unchallenged.
The references to Iran, Zionism, the unwarranted digs at objective Al-Jazeera world news agency and TV channel echo what Hamas of the Gaza Strip, Iranian despot Ahmedinejad, Hisbollah of Lebanon have been hammering for years in their quest to wipe Israel off the map!
So who are the terrorists that are seriously threatening world peace?
And you expect the FREE NATIONS to look at such a scenario by sitting on the fence with glee!
Go and tell that to the marines!
Alfred A. Falzon
Martin Cassar
Feb 10th, 13:10
@ Alfred Falzon.
Sir,
So who are the terrorists that are seriously threatening world peace?
I challenge all politicians, the ones inside and outside the White House included along with the Vatican and the UN to give a definition to what terrorism is.
However. ACTA is still on the pipe-line, so, please have a look at these two reports and draw your own conclusion.
http://www.321gold.com/editorials/maund/maund092906.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hefIti-uFUo&feature=related
Mr Mark Anthony Mifsud
Feb 9th, 17:15
Well, it hasn’t taken us very long to realise that we were diddled into supporting an obscene neo-colonialist venture. It hasn’t taken us very long, because it was always pretty evident that the reports were unreliable, that the Western media were spinning a tale to a specific agenda, and that regime change was the intent… Oh yes, did I forget to mention oil?
Indeed, Ghaddafi was a repressive dictator, occasionally a bloodthirsty one, and his removal from power should be no cause for heartbreak… but his removal came about as engineered by western interests and in favour of western interests. His removal came about at the cost of a civil war which the west encouraged, at the cost of 30,000 to 50,000 Libyan lives (estimates vary) and by plunging the country into blood-soaked anarchy… not that the western media really cares anymore. There lies the heartbreak.
Alfred Falzon
Feb 9th, 15:28
@ Albert Farrugia
Two wrongs do not make a right, so please stop playing the apologist for the murderous Kadhafi regime which butchered over 50,000 Libyan civilians and maimed another 20,000 of them!
As regards the black Africans you mentioned, action is being taken by the NTC and human rights activists, the latter being completely free to operate in Libya today,unlike in despot Kadhafi's time when they were banned or thrown into prison!
May I further point out that many of the so-called "black immigrants" were mercenaries from Somalia and Chad paid to kill Kadhafi's own people, running amok in several towns, especially in Misurata, just to demonstrate their odious "allegiance" to the tyrant and his gang!
Alfred A. Falzon
Albert Farrugia
Feb 9th, 12:04
So there is no evidence of massacres after all. So why did NATO intervene so forcefully? Wasn't this, after all, really a repeat of the "weapons of mass destruction" lie? And what about the atrocities being committed now? By armed thugs wearing the royal flag calling themselves "freedom fighters"? Terrorising, raping,killing black immigrants? Who is now assuming the "responsiblity to protect" which was invoked to justify NATO intervention? I still think Europe will rue the day when it trying to play the hero and intervened in Libya to force a regime change.
Franco Farrugia
Feb 11th, 10:05
Wow! So much for your love for freedom of peoples!