The Libyan blues

EDITORIAL:THE FRONTIER POST

With the capture of the last army base in the capital city Tripoli by the rebels, the horrible 41-year-long tyranny of Libyan autocrat Muammar Qaddafi may have at long last kissed its destined sunset. But this may not be an end to the terrible travails of the long-suffering Libyan people. They indeed are now in harder and testing times. The Arab Spring that had erupted suddenly like a tidal wave and threatened to sweep out each and every entrenched despotic rule all over the region has already lost much of its steam and direction. Although still shaky, the nervousness that convulsed dreadfully-fortified autocracies, monarchies and sheikhdoms has perceptibly dissipated considerably. The tide too has visibly waned a lot.Libya nonetheless it has left in shatters, a deeply fractured polity. The insurrection against the Libyan tyrant was not as mass-based as were the popular revolts against despots Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt. They did have smallish privileged pockets of loyalties. But the street was wholly up in arms against them. In Libya, the rebellion had its main base in the east while the west was largely lukewarm, if not outright with the autocrat. His autocracy’s demise has thus left the North African Arab state with a sharpened east-west divide and heightened tribal antipathies. To piece together this broken polity, a formidable leader of national stature is direly needed. But that kind of a figure is not yet in sight. The National Transitional Council, which in fact is a conglomeration of the proxies hatched up by the NATO community, has no charismatic personality on it to undertake this onerous task of national reconciliation. In reality, it is mostly a collection of imported people and domestic defectors, many tainted with long association with the autocrat’s tyrannical dispensation. Mustafa Abdel Jalil, heading this council, himself was part of his regime. Jalil in fact was very much part of his brutal justice system, holding as he was the portfolio of justice before defection. Furthermore, the inexplicable murder of Abdel Fattah Younes, the military commander of the rebel forces last month bespeaks of internecine division within the council’s ranks. Most importantly, this top command structure is bereft of the rebels who originally threw the challenge to Qaddafi and stirred up the revolt to dislodge him. Only two of those pioneers were taken in. But they statedly have walked out of the council, expressing distrust in its principal leaders and disgust with their functioning. As such, the council is made up of the proxies that the NATO powers have propped up to lead the not-so-veiled NATO-driven campaign for the autocrat’s ouster. Still, the council stands a chance, even if bleak, to smoothen the ruffles in the shattered Libyan polity if the outside powers hold back and give it a free hand to reach out to the recalcitrant for a grand national reconciliation. Indeed, poking of foreign noses would be a great impediment to this difficult task. Although it would be unfair to belittle the courage of the Libyan rebels who risked their lives with an armed challenge to the autocrat’s tyrannical rule, the fact nevertheless stands this battle has in reality been fought between the Qaddafi forces and the NATO militaries. It is not just the NATO air action that crippled and threw his military largely out of the battlefield. Believably, the NATO advisors have played a crucial part in the invasion of the government forces and military installations by the Libyan rebels. Indeed, for the massive foreign military involvement in the Libyan revolt, this insurrection has lost much of its shine even on the Arab street. At home, it has left incurable scars on the western Libyans’ psyche. Though the NATO commanders and their conformist western media maintained throughout that their air assaults took out only military targets, causing no collateral damage whatsoever, such implausible assertions could only be taken with a big, big pinch of salt.Human beings, despite all the expertise and technological advancements, are still to fabricate a weapon so discreet that it would hit only the soldiers, not the civilians. The civilians did die in the NATO assaults, and not just few but very many. And while the rebels are grateful to their NATO helpers, the victims of their assaults are understandably hateful of them. Given this, any visible foreigners’ active role in their national tasks will incense very many Libyans and may ultimately even plunge them in a wholly undesirable internal conflagration, even a civil war. And a horrific eventuality it would be, as Libya is presently awash with weapons pilfered freely and in abundance from the arsenals of the defeated government forces. Hence, the outsiders must curb their thirst for the Libyan oil for the time being and let the Libyans alone to bring about their urgently-needed grand national reconstruction for their nation’s and the country’s good. They can have all the Libyan oil thereafter. After all, the Libyans have to sell it to raise the cash for their ravaged country’s rebuilding.