My take on this whole Libya issue so far:
- Gaddafi softened his stand and won some recognition from the West. Many leaders from the West met him. Libya was back in the international fold, with trade and commerce, mainly relating to oil.
- Revolutions started in different parts of Middle East and started spreading like wildfire. Many dictators, 'friends' of the US, were challenged, two stepped down (Tunisia and Egypt).
- Other countries' leaderships have so far not budged to the protesters' demands (Libya, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Yemen).
- Libya stands out like a sore thumb because Libyan rebels are actually well armed, unlike in the other countries.
Why France's position is apparently malafide:
What puzzles me, however, is that the West, all of a sudden, have found enough cause to point fingers at Gaddafi, as if all the human rights abuses he is accused of happened in the past few weeks.
Au contraire, he has been repressing his people all throughout. Yet France chose to oppose him now. Why?
The timing must be noted. France recognised the anti-Gaddafi faction(s) when all the cities with oil infrastructure were slipping out of the latters' control. Who are these rebels? Where did they come from? Who is funding them? Who is supplying them with weapons and ammunition? One thing to note here is that, while there were many political prisoners in the prisons, there were many real criminals as well. The protesters and rebels have freed all of them and they are, in all likelihood among the rebels. This takes the rebels and their portfolio far away from anything that can be called potentially humanitarian. The rebels are equally capable of human rights abuses, and who can guarantee that they are not doing it anyway? They threatened to attack Sirte, Gaddafi's native place, despite the fact that Gaddafi was in Tripoli. So what was to objective? Did it have something to do with the population of Sirte being largely pro-Gaddafi?
'Jungle-Law':
The fact that one country can threaten to intervene in the internal affairs of another country in itself a proof of jungle-law. The world still work on the principle of '
survival of the mightiest'. Gaddafi's call for ceasefire has been a masterstroke, and can be called '
survival of the fittest'. He has denied Monsieur Sarkozy the moral high ground, saved his military for obliteration yet maintaining enough firepower to overwhelm the rebels at a later time, now that their back is almost broken.
Why India, along with Russia, PRC, Germany and Brazil are right:
- It is not a case of good-vs-evil anymore.
- Pro and anti-Gaddafi forces are both armed.
- The credentials of the rebels are suspect.
- Selective display of humanitarian sympathy for armed Libyan rebels while ignoring unarmed protesters elsewhere by Monsieur Sarkozy exposes his double standards and raises suspicions on his real intentions.
Kudos to India for abstaining! Good job for not supporting yet another '
jungle-law', where France becomes the self-styled policeman of the world.
op:
