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3 China
and the Libyan muddle By Peter
Lee
The next week, the GCC hardline played
an important role in driving the deliberations of
the Arab League on the Libyan no-fly zone.
The Arab League's position on Libya has
not been a model of consistency.
Prior to
the meeting, Libya's membership in the Arab League
had been suspended for its brutal crackdown on
demonstrators.
With the Libyan situation
in flux - and Libya's ambassador to the Arab
League resigning in protest - it was certainly
reasonable to
place Libya on probation, as
it were, until things sorted themselves out.
When Gaddafi sent a replacement delegate
to participate in the Arab League meeting on March
12, a Reuters report indicated that the league
still intended to engage with Gaddafi:
"I don't think that they will be
allowed to attend because the decision of the
council of ministers was to suspend the
participation of the Libyan delegation," Hesham
Youssef, the League official, told Reuters.
He added that the Arab League had not
severed all ties to the Tripoli government and
there was a need to discuss the crisis with
Gaddafi's administration, including the
humanitarian situation and how to stop the
violence.
"We may meet them. But not in
the context of the meeting of the council of
ministers," Youssef said. "Nothing has been
scheduled as of yet," he said.
"There is
a need to discuss all kind of details with
Libyan officials," he said. "All these steps
require communication with those who control the
situation in Libya," he said.
Ahmed Ben
Helli, deputy secretary general of the Arab
League, told Reuters that "talks and
consultations exist".
Youssef said the
Arab League had also been in touch with the
rebel National Libyan Council in Benghazi.
[5]
However, Gaddafi & Son managed
to overtax the patience of the Arab League.
In addition to its problems with Saudi
Arabia, Libya has also perversely managed to get
on the wrong side of most Shi'ites in the Middle
East.
As James Denselow of The Guardian
reported Gaddafi united both Hezbollah and the
Hariri government of Lebanon - which drafted the
UN Security Council no-fly-zone resolution -
against him for his suspected role in the murder
of a Lebanese Shi'ite cleric. Iran, Hezbollah's
patron (and not a member of the Arab League) has
been equally vociferous in condemning Gaddafi. [6]
A statement by Gaddafi during the
assassination spat with Saudi Arabia speaks
volumes concerning Libya's talent for burning
bridges beyond nations all the way up to the
regional level:
The Libyan leader continued his
criticism to the Arab League and the lack of its
member states of what he described the unity of
ranks in the Middle East. He said that the
relations between Libya and Italy are better in
thousand of times that Libya's relations with
her sister Egypt." He added that the relations
between Tunis and Germany is much better from
its relations (Tunisia) with
Libya.
After Gaddafi's humanitarian
outrages and insults against the Arab League, Amr
Moussa, the Egyptian Secretary General of the
league - who had endured Gaddafi's high-handed
dismissal of AL mediation during the crisis in
Saudi-Libyan relations - clearly saw no need to
shelter Gaddafi in the name of Arab unity.
Before the Arab League meeting, Moussa
told Der Spiegel he believed that Gaddafi was
delusional:
SPIEGEL: Are you trying to influence
him? When was the last time you spoke with the
Libyan leader? Moussa: The way he is now
behaving means a personal telephone call makes
no sense. Gaddafi lacks the insight that
Tunisia's (former) President Ben Ali and
(former) Egyptian President (Hosni) Mubarak
showed by stepping down. Gadhafi truly believes
that the unrest is controlled from abroad and
that the Libyan people still adores him.
[7]
In the run-up to the Arab League
meeting, Saif Gaddafi demonstrated that the acorn
did not fall far from the tree:
Saif al-Islam, one of Gaddafi's
sons, told supporters in Tripoli this week the
Arabs were "nothing". "Screw Arabs and the Arab
League," he said. [8]
The Arab League
apparently decided to return the favor.
To
use an overworked metaphor, Gaddafi faced a
perfect storm of negative factors in the week that
the Arab League met in its offices just off Tahrir
Square in Cairo.
Beyond the malice of the
Gulf monarchs, the hatred of Lebanon, and the
disdain of Abu Moussa, there is a genuine and
widespread desire in the Arab world to support the
Libyan rebels, and to prevent a Gaddafi victory
that might serve as a repudiation of the
democratic and revolutionary tide sweeping the
region.
This desire was reflected in the
deliberations in the mixture of old-school
autocrats and newly-minted bourgeois democrats in
the councils of the Arab League in the form of
good, old-fashioned panic.
There appears
to have been a generalized fear that any signs of
going easy on Gaddafi would be regarded as treason
against Arab democracy and dignity by the aroused
demonstrators and activists besetting Arab
governments across Africa and the Middle East.
As the Voice of America reported:
"Obviously things are changing
around the Arab world, and indeed in the Arab
League as well," acknowledged Hesham Youssef,
chief of cabinet to the Arab League secretary
general.
Youssef qualified the Arab
League resolution, which was adopted Saturday
evening, while demonstrators outside the Cairo
headquarters were crying "Action, action! We
want action not words!" as "a clear indicator
that the Arab world is entering a new phase".
"Clearly some of the practices that could have
passed before cannot pass now," Youssef added.
The Arab League official acknowledged
that calls around the Arab world for democracy
is imposing "a more forthcoming and a more
effective approach" by the league towards all
issues, including those related to human rights.
"The influence of (Arab) public opinion is now
becoming very marked in the positions and
policies adopted by the Arab League," Youssef
said. [9]
If the name Hesham Youssef
sounds familiar, he was the same official who
complaisantly told Reuters before the meeting that
there ''is a need to discuss all kind of details
with Libyan officials''.
What a difference
a week makes, at least in the Middle East in 2011.
The fact that the Middle East's ultimate
autocracy, Saudi Arabia, had the opportunity to
turn the Arab regime's freedom-and-democracy
anxiety to account against Libya is, perhaps,
somewhat ironic.
The general fug of fear,
opportunism, anger, and disarray may account for
the fog of misleading rhetoric surrounding the
Arab League's decision.
The call for the
Libyan no-fly zone was reported to be a unanimous
resolution.
Perhaps it was, but with an
asterisk.
It subsequently emerged that
Algeria and Syria were strongly opposed to the
measure. The Syrian state media subsequently came
out with a solidly traditional statement opposing
Western intervention in Arab affairs, one that
Beijing no doubt found welcome and appropriate.
Syria's ambassador to the Arab League
stated to the gathering:
"Any such intervention is a
violation of Libya's sovereignty, independence
and territorial integrity, and is inconsistent
with the Charter of the League of Arab States
and the principles of the international law…
Ambassador Ahmed warned that any
decision by the Council to impose a no-fly zone
on Libya could become a mere legal tool and a
legitimate cover in the near future to target
Libya militarily by a resolution of the NATO or
the UN Security Council in order to legitimize
the military intervention.
"Syria
affirms that any decision by the AL Council, in
order to get unanimous approval, must take into
account clear and unequivocal guarantees of the
absolute rejection of all forms of foreign
intervention in Libya, and the commitment to the
national unity and territorial integrity of
Libya and its people, along with the need of
protecting the Libyan citizens against the air
strikes they are subjected to," indicating that
the AL must not accept any foreign intervention
in Libya or give cover for such intervention or
be part of it.
After putting the
resolution to the vote, Ambassador Ahmad stated
that Syria is not part of this resolution, as it
rejects all forms of foreign intervention in
Libya's affairs out of its keenness on Libya's
territorial integrity, sovereignty and
independence.
Following the announcement
of the Syrian stance, Algeria's Foreign Minister
and head of the Mauritanian delegation asked for
their countries' stances to be registered
against the content of the resolution because it
has not addressed the remarks and sources of
concern expressed by the delegations of Algeria
and Mauritania at the first
session.
It transpires that there was
a second resolution condemning foreign
intervention in the Libya crisis; when bookended
with the contradictory first resolution calling
for imposition of a no-fly zone, the League
appears somewhat ridiculous.
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