HELP THE LIBYANS!

© C. T. ten Dam, February 2011
Caspar ten Dam, chairperson ICHI
26 February 2011, Groningen, the Netherlands
Addition, 14 March 2011

As in Bosnia, Rwanda and other places in the 1990s, the United Nations, NATO, the European Union and other international bodies once again dither, are too slow to keep up with developments, and do not seem to have the blueprints and rapid-reaction forces in place to even implement a no-flight zone over Libya.

At least France andGreat Britain seem ready to intervene, and the Arab League has just called for a no-flight zone – though again making it dependent on a UN Security Council resolution.

However, such steps and financial sanctions (Qaddafi has enough cash and valuables left to finance his armed forces), may be too little and too late. If the ‘international community’ really means what they say, i.e. that Qaddafi and his regime have lost all legitimacy and must go, then ALL member states should follow France and recognise the opposition’s Libyan National Council in Benghazi as the new government and state of Libya.

More importantly, the opposition forces should take independent steps to halt and roll back the current offensive of Qadaffi’s forces, who seem to have retaken Zawiyah, Ras Lanuf and other places in both east and west of the country.

The Libyan National Council should brace for the worst: ineffective international sanctions, no no-flight zone, merely symbolic support from abroad – and a siege and eventual fall of Benghazi, conceivably a fatal blow to the liberation struggle.

Therefore, it should NOW allow the public and secret military support it can get to arrive by sea, air or land – decent, trustworthy volunteers and mercenaries (see main text), and heavy weapons, particularly those that can shoot Qaddafi’s warplanes from the sky.

Be imaginative in those steps; do not wait for the ‘international community’ to give sufficient aid to defeat Qaddafi. That aid may never come.

See further ICHIurgentLibya2011.pdf