Words, words, words. That is what that part of the Libyan people involved in an uprising against the Gaddafi regime is getting. The Sunday Times yesterday carried two examples. Malta Will Support ‘Every Effort’ To Help The Libyan People – Gonzi and The Quicker Gaddafi Goes The Better For Everyone – Liam Fox, British Defence Secretary.
One could quote many more utterings, some of them reasonably meaningful but falling short of what is necessary. The United Nations and the European Union have announced sanctions against the Gaddafi family and close friends, primarily by placing financial assets out of their grasp.
That was a step in the right direction, yet hardly far enough. To be fair to Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi, he took more than one step that way. Under his leadership, Malta was in the forefront as a staging post to take evacuees from the Libyan theatre to help them move on to their countries. On (our) per capita basis, Malta’s efforts were by far the greatest in that period.
Dr Gonzi personally also stood up to efforts by the Libyan regime to trade three Dutch hostages for the Libyan pilots who had defected to Malta with their aircraft rather than drop bombs or fire at the Libyan brethren as they had been instructed to do. He added his voice to the insistence that the Dutch personnel be released without pre-conditions and immediately.
They were, also through the help of Malta’s representative in Libya, Nader Salem Rizzo, despite the Libyan efforts of Seif al Islam, Muammar Gaddafi’s son and heir apparent, to turn the negotiations into a sick farce. These were plusses for Malta and the international community and relative blows to the regime. They did not, in essence, make the Libyan protesters’ difficulties any lighter.
In fact, by the end of the week, Seif al Islam could boast coldly it was almost over – the rebels, whom he calls terrorists, would soon be defeated.
That, actually, was always on the cards. The protesters won in Tunisia and Egypt because the strong army leaders behind the scenes told the despots they had to go. That did not happen in Libya. There were high profile defectors, including a leading minister, a comrade of Col Gaddafi in the 1969 coup against King Idris, and various top ambassadors. There were also defections from the ranks of the armed forces.
That raised the rebels’ morale and enabled them to take important towns in eastern Libya, including Benghazi and Brega. It was not nearly enough. Col Gaddafi’s core military in Tripoli, aided by highly paid mercenaries, remained faithful to him. And he had weaponry at his disposal vastly superior to the few arms the rebels managed to take over. The international media described Col Gaddafi’s weaponry as obsolete. Even if much of it was, it was still enough to outgun the protesters, most of them armed only with spirit, bile and stones in their hands.
The rebels did not want foreign military troops on their land. But they begged for a no-fly zone to protect them from Col Gaddafi’s main weapon against them, strikes from the sky. They received words, words and more words but no real deterrent to Col Gaddafi’s onslaught.
And so, with chilling precision, in the past week the regime began winning back important towns that had fallen to the rebels and seemed to herald success for them. Soon enough, probably this coming week, the regime’s forces will be in eastern Libya, in Brega and Benghazi. And words alone, plus sanctions that will only have financial effect in the future, will not help the rebels one comma, one full-stop.
They will go down in history as the bravest among the brave but as champions of a lost cause, leaving the regime in place to rebuild its hegemony.
That was not the case in Iraq and Afghanistan, were the charge was from top down. In Libya, where a true rebellion started from bottom up, the brave, hopeful citizenry was abandoned to its pitiful devices, easy meat for a regime armed to the teeth and without any qualms to use its weaponry against its own, mostly unarmed people.
More words will flow but the Libyan tragedy will soon be over. Only for a fresh one to start as the regime exacts horrible retribution.