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All Necessary Measures?

Name: All Necessary Measures?
Author: Ian Martin

The United Nations and International Intervention in Libya

Ian Martin

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eBook - ePub

All Necessary Measures?

The United Nations and International Intervention in Libya

Ian Martin

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About This Book

The international intervention after the 2011 Libyan uprising against Muammar Gaddafi was initially considered a remarkable success: the UN Security Council's first application of the 'responsibility to protect' doctrine; an impending civilian massacre prevented; and an opportunity for democratic forces to lead Libya out of a forty-year dictatorship. But such optimism was soon dashed.

Successive governments failed to establish authority over the ever-proliferating armed groups; divisions among regions and cities, Islamists and others, split the country into rival administrations and exploded into civil war; external intervention escalated. Ian Martin gives his first-hand view of the questions raised by the international engagement. Was it a justified response to the threat against civilians? What brought about the Security Council resolutions, including authorising military action? How did NATO act upon that authorisation? What role did Special Forces operations play in the rebels' victory? Was a peaceful political settlement ever possible? What post-conflict planning was undertaken, and should or could there have been a major peacekeeping or stabilisation mission during the transition? Was the first election held too soon?

As Western interventions are reassessed and Libya continues to struggle for stability, this is a unique account of a critical period, by a senior international official who was close to the events.

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Publisher

Hurst Publishers

Year

2022

ISBN

9781787388574

Topic

Politik & Internationale Beziehungen

Subtopic

Zwischenstaatliche Organisationen

THE CASE FOR INTERVENTION
AND THE SECURITY COUNCIL MANDATE

It has become common for Libya and Iraq to be coupled together as leading examples of the failure of western intervention. Whatever the ultimate judgement on each intervention, no purported parallel could be less apt.

The 2003 invasion of Iraq to oust Saddam Hussain was a gratuitous decision by George W. Bush, supported by Tony Blair. The 2011 Libyan uprising, like the neighbouring uprisings of the Arab Spring, took western leaders by surprise. The west had largely made its peace with Muammar Gaddafi after he agreed to decommission Libya’s chemical and nuclear weapons programmes and settled legal proceedings regarding the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, and had come to value Libya as an ally in its counter-terrorism efforts. It was major sections of the Libyan people who decided that they would no longer put up with his regime, and it was their uprising and Gaddafi’s reaction to it that compelled external actors to consider their own responses.

Even as the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt headed towards the ousters of Presidents Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak, there were few expectations among either Libyans or Libya experts of a similar uprising in Libya.¹ Gaddafi’s combination of an effective state machinery of repression and distribution of Libya’s oil riches to maintain the standard of living of its population was assumed to be able to contain dissent. Gaddafi condemned events in Tunisia; but amid expressions of discontent on social media, demonstrations that included occupations of empty and unfinished flats in protest at housing shortages, and some arrests, he engaged in meetings to try to calm tensions. The regime began talking of increasing salaries, and he sent his son al-Saadi to try to head off demonstrations in Benghazi.² No evidence has emerged of encouragement of an uprising by any of the western governments that had been happily back in business with Libya and welcoming the counter-terrorist cooperation of its security services (despite their record of violating human rights)³ before the events of mid-February took them by surprise. Frederic Wehrey cites US diplomats as saying that the CIA representative at the US embassy in Tripoli, ‘concerned with preserving his agency’s counterterrorism relationship with the regime, was the most forceful in arguing against the likelihood of serious unrest’.⁴ As Alison Pargeter writes: ‘Even the most seasoned of Libya-watchers were stunned that the Libyans were finally able to shake off the fear and to rise up en masse.’⁵

Gaddafi’s response to the uprising

The outbreak of the Libyan uprising in Benghazi, with the arrest of the lawyer Fathi Terbil on 15 February 2011 and a ‘Day of Rage’ on 17 February, has been well described in several detailed accounts.⁶ The uprising began with peaceful demonstrations that were quickly met with lethal force. The International Commission of Inquiry on Libya mandated by the UN Human Rights Council found that Gaddafi’s forces engaged in excessive use of force against demonstrators in the early days of the protests, leading to significant numbers of dead and injured: the nature of the injuries indicated a clear intention to kill, and the level of violence suggested a central policy of violent repression.⁷ Its report described shootings of protesters in Benghazi, Misrata, Tripoli, Al Zawiyah and Zintan. Human Rights Watch relayed contemporary accounts of killings of demonstrators in Benghazi, Al Bayda, Ajdabiya and Derna in eastern Libya, and in Misrata, with an estimated death toll of at least 233 in four days to 20 February, followed by at least sixty-two dead after random firing at protesters in Tripoli on 20–21 February.⁸ The commission was later informed by doctors that between 20 and 21 February over 200 bodies were brought into morgues in Tripoli. Further shootings took place in Tripoli after Friday prayers on 25 February, when deaths were probably far greater than on 20 February, with wounded persons being shot in the head and later in hospital.⁹ Amnesty International found that in eastern Libya, where most of the casualties were in Benghazi and Al Bayda, some 170 people were killed and more than 1,500 injured between 16 and 21 February alone; scores of them were unarmed protesters, while others were killed in the context of armed clashes.¹⁰ The Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) said there was credible evidence that 500–700 civilians died as a result of shootings in February.¹¹ The ICC Pre-Trial Chamber found that there were reasonable grounds to believe that there was a state policy designed at the highest level aimed at deterring and quelling the February demonstrations by any means, including the use of lethal force. It characterised this as a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population, constituting crimes against humanity, in which hundreds of civilians were killed by the security forces and hundreds injured, primarily as a result of shootings, and hundreds arrested and imprisoned.¹²

Elements of Gaddafi’s army in the east quickly threw their lot in with the uprising, while civilian rebels and individual military defectors took up arms to take and defend control of their cities, attacking police stations and other symbols of the regime. It became impossible to distinguish those who had remained unarmed among the growing numbers of dead and injured, but the commission rejected the regime’s claim that it was only after demonstrators had acquired arms that security forces began using live ammunition. In Al Zawiyah, the situation turned violent after the 32nd Brigade under Gaddafi’s son Khamis arrived to regain control of the city and fired on still peaceful protesters.¹³ Elsewhere, civilians became victims of bombardments, including with Grad rockets and cluster munitions, and other indiscriminate use of force. Amnesty International reported that Gaddafi’s forces often targeted residents in opposition-held areas who were not involved in the fighting:

They fired indiscriminate rockets, mortars and artillery shells as well as cluster bombs into residential neighbourhoods, killing and injuring scores of residents. On several occasions they fired live ammunition or heavy weapons, including tank shells and rocketpropelled grenades (RPGs), at residents who were fleeing—in what appeared at times to be a policy of ‘shoot anything that moves.’ Such attacks were particularly widespread in Misratah, but in some cases also took place elsewhere, such as in and around Ajdabiya, when al-Gaddafi forces regained control of the area.¹⁴

Cities retaken by Gaddafi’s forces, including Al Zawiyah and Zuwara, faced a campaign of reprisals, including enforced disappearances. In Tripoli and Zintan, Gaddafi’s forces raided hospitals and removed people injured in the protests. In the Nafusa Mountains area, scores of people disappeared when they ventured out of opposition strongholds, particularly around checkpoints established by Gaddafi’s forces, from late February onwards. A detained BBC team gave first-hand testimony of torture of those allegedly involved in the uprising in Al Zawiyah,¹⁵ and televised ‘confessions’ and later testimony confirmed torture and ill-treatment. Amnesty International noted that the practice of abducting individuals deemed as opponents or critics of the political system, followed by a denial of their arrest and the concealment of their fate and whereabouts, was a recurring feature of Gaddafi’s rule.¹⁶ This early pattern of behaviour of Gaddafi’s forces is relevant to the assessment of what could have been expected if they had gone on to retake Benghazi.

The regime’s rhetoric was uncompromising from the outset. In a televised speech on 20 February, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi—until then the hope of reformers—declared that the army would support his father to the last minute: ‘[W]e will fight until the last man, the last woman, the last bullet.’ A close adviser, Mohamed al-Houni, later revealed that he had drafted for Saif the elements of a conciliatory speech; it seems that this had been put aside after discussions within the Gaddafi family.¹⁷ The eventual unscripted speech did criticise the actions of the army in Benghazi, saying that it had been under stress and was not used to crowd control, and made reference to the possibility of new media laws, civil rights and a constitution. But it also accused the protesters of being drug addicts, and its ultimate tone was belligerent. Al-Houni would write in an open letter:

I was at your side for over a decade … [Then] one unfortunate night, at one frightening moment, came that speech in which you threatened the Libyan people with civil war, the destruction of the oil industry, and the use of force to decide the battle. You chose your side in the conflict very clearly: you chose the side of lies.¹⁸

In a later interview in an Arab newspaper, Saif said: ‘When the situation was good and perfect, I acted as an oppositionist, reformer, and everything. But when people step over red lines, I beat them with the boot. I beat them and beat their fathers too.’¹⁹ The significance of Saif’s speech in dashing hopes of a peaceful transition is attested by Mustafa Abdul Jalil, Gaddafi’s former justice minister who became chairman of the rebels’ National Transitional Council (NTC):

I was counting on Saif Al-Islam’s speech to be balanced. It was a speech prepared for him by a man called Mohamed Abdel-Muttalib Al-Houni. If he had made this speech to the people, he would have been able to replace his father and things could have been resolved amicably and a constitution could have been drafted according to the people’s needs … But Saif Al-Islam came out with threats and said the country would be divided. It was a speech that was not expected.²⁰

Two days later, Muammar Gaddafi made his first public speech since the beginning of the uprising. He referred to rebels as ‘rats’²¹ and alleged that young protesters had been given hallucinogenic drugs. He cited past actions by other governments, including Yeltsin’s attack on the Duma, the crushing of demonstrators in Tiananmen Square with tanks, deaths in the FBI siege at Waco, and the American destruction of Fallujah: ‘[T]he unity of China was more important than those people in the square; the unity of the Russian Federation was more important than those in the building.’ He threatened the death penalty for anyone who used force against the authority of the state. He concluded by saying that he would march with his supporters ‘to purify Libya inch by inch, house by house, home by home, street by street, person by person, until the country is cleansed of the dirt and scum’.

His speech had an immediate impact on those who would play leading roles in the later intervention. It was televised while the UN Security Council was holding its first meeting on Libya. UK Prime Minister David Cameron was on a scheduled trade promotion trip to the Gulf, accompanied by executives from eight British arms manufacturers; he had diverted for a hastily arranged six-hour stopover in Cairo to visit Egypt’s Tahrir Square²² and the following day watched Gaddafi’s speech in a hotel room in Doha: he judged Gaddafi ‘defiant, deranged—and determined’.²³ A private insight into the mind of Gaddafi around this time is to be found in former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair’s transcripts of two phone conversations on 25 February, in which Gaddafi claimed that the rebels in Benghazi wanted to name it ‘Al Qaeda Emirates’ and were paving the way for Bin Laden in North Africa. He maintained that there was no bloodshed and no fighting except when rebels attacked police stations, but he would have to arm the people and get ready for a fight against ‘a campaign of colonisation’.²⁴

International condemnation

The actions of the regime were unresponsive to a chorus of condemnation and sanctions short of military intervention. On 22 February, the Arab League condemned the use of force against civilians and suspended Libya’s participation in the league. This was echoed on the same day by the General Secretariat of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC). On 23 February, the AU Peace and Security Council condemned the indiscriminate and excessive use of force and lethal weapons against protesters, and called on the Libyan authorities to ensure the protection and security of citizens. On 25 February, the UN Human Rights Council held an emergency session, condemning the violence, establishing its commission, and recommending that the General Assembly should suspend Libya from the council, which the assembly did on 1 March.

In New York, the UN diplomatic community was greatly impacted by the defections of Libya’s representatives. Deputy Permanent Representative Ibrahim Dabbashi, supported by most members of the mission, had called a press conference on 21 February at which he called for referral of Libya to the ICC and imposition of a no-fly zone. Still acting formally on behalf of the Libyan government from which he had defected, and without the authority of the permanent representative, Dabbashi managed to call for a meeting of the UN Security Council. When it met on Libya for the first time on 22 February, both Dabbashi and Permanent Representative Abdurrahman Shalgam, a former foreign minister and close associate of Gaddafi, claimed to represent the Libyan government. In the end, Shalgam addressed the meeting, saying that he had been trying to persuade senior members of the government to stop the bloodshed but telling reporters that he continued to support Gaddafi, his childhood friend.²⁵ The council issued a press statement (an action that requires unanimous agreement of a negotiated text), condemning the use of force against civilians and repression against peaceful demonstrators and calling on the government of Libya ‘to meet its responsibility to protect its own population’. By the time the council met again on 25 February, the defections had culminated in that of Shalgam himself. In open session, after Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had briefed the council, he made an impassioned speech calling for the UN to save Libya with ‘a swift, decisive and courageous resolution’, to be embraced by a weeping Dabbashi.²⁶ In his memoir, Ban describes this as ‘the most incredible moment of diplomatic history I had ever witnessed’.²⁷

On 26 February, the council adopted its first resolution on the situation, Resolution 1970. The UK, which introduced the draft, included in it every sanction short of a trade embargo or the use of force: an arms embargo; a travel ban and assets freeze on senior members of the Gaddafi regime; referral of the situation in Libya to the ICC. Forcing the pace of negotiations over thirty-six hours with deliberate speed, the UK nonetheless expected more resistance from other members than it received. When it tabled the resolution for vote without prior agreement of the US to the ICC referra...