Muammar Gaddafi. Photo: EPA
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Interview with Dr. Mansouria Mokhefi, head of Middle East and North Africa Studies at the IFRI, the Institute of Foreign Affairs studies in Paris, France.
Just to remind you that the coalition, the Western countries, NATO intervening in North Africa and in Libya had one objective – to have Gaddafi out of Libya. They have to readjust this objective because, obviously, they could not reach it after five months of fighting in Libya and I am not sure that they are really adamant about Gaddafi leaving Libya. This is one thing from the western perspective of NATO countries intervening there. Now, the prime minister is calling for a dialog. Yes, you are absolutely right to ask the question – what kind of dialog, how real could this dialog be, because right now, after five months of this civil war, we have an insurrection which has been supported, financed, armed, encouraged, directed by NATO against the part of the Libyan population that we have never talked about and I mean the people who are still supporting Gaddafi, people who are still loyal to him, people who do not want him to go. I do not see what kind of dialog we can have between these two parties ‑ insurrectionists on one side and the people who are supporting Gaddafi and who do not want him to go. Now, have we until now heard or seen any inclination from Gaddafi that he could leave? None and we know that he has a special personality, that he identifies himself totally to his country, that nothing seems to be foreseeable for him on the side of Libya, so your question about Gaddafi leaving – I cannot see him leave for the reasons I just mentioned. What could be the outcome? Obviously and finally with all the support that we have been getting the rebels are getting closer and closer to the capital. Before talking about the outcome after the victory I think we should first reflect on what is going to happen in Tripoli because once again, as I said and I keep stressing it, there are people who do not want these rebels to lead the country, who are still loyal to Gaddafi, who are against this intervention, and so on, and so forth. Once they get into Tripoli and defeat the loyal army and dismantle the government, then we will have to face new war leaders of Libya and first to figure out who they are really because we do not know.
Do you remember several weeks ago Mr. Gaddafi’s son seemed to have proposed something that looked at least like a legitimate solution to carry out the election?
He offered, yes, but the other part dismissed every offer from Gaddafi because, as I said earlier in this interview, their only aim, their only objective was to get rid of Gaddafi. Actually, I suspect that there has been no reflection, no analysis, no vision about what could be the outcome besides just getting rid of Gaddafi. So, that is why they dismissed everything that could have been leading to the beginning of negotiations or something like that. But now, after five months of the stalemate that we have been witnessing, maybe the solution can come from both parts. I was calling for dialog, for negotiations that involving the international community or a part of it. Africa is very involved in this; the African countries, especially the close neighbors are very concerned by this whole situation. Let me remind you also that there is a major neighbor in the area that is the only military power – I am talking about Algeria which has been very upset by the recent developments of the past five months in Libya, with the country with which it has a very long border and border that is a matter of concern. So, with so many countries having their interest at stake in this solution it could be a part of political negotiations.
The lack of viable strategy might actually result in the country just falling into parts.
No, I don’t share this very pessimistic opinion and I hope that we will not see this country disintegrating, but we cannot avoid seeing many problems. I do not think that any Western countries would let Libya disintegrate and I think that even the rebels with their own agenda will try to keep the country with any means the way it is now because, of course, we talked the past months about partition. I suspect that the consequences of Gaddafi’s fall are going to be dramatic for the African countries and for the whole power balance of the region.
Could you expand a little bit on that? Dramatic in which sense?
I think that economically it is going to be a disaster for the regional African countries that have been totally helped by Gaddafi, that were sustained the economy with his help and most of investments in those countries are in a way personal investments or business investments which means that they can fall with Gaddafi disappearing from Libya and the countries I am talking about cannot sustain themselves without the Libyan support to their economy. You know that Gaddafi has been in a way given up on his efforts and offers to create many unions with the Arab countries, he was very disappointed and for the past decades he really concentrated all his diplomacy in Africa and, as I said, economically he was very involved. So, economically it is going to be a disaster: the new leaders will not keep the same diplomacy, they will have another agenda and they are not very pleased with some positions that the African countries took concerning this conflict, I mean – they were not for the rebels. Secondly, I mentioned Algeria; I think with all the structural, economic, social problems Algeria is confronting with it remains the major power in the region, the only military force in the area and we should not disregard that Algeria will not allow the disintegration that we talked about or even having the Islamist power at its door. So, Algeria is looking very attentively at the situation because the whole security of the region is at stake. And, of course, I have not mentioned all the benefits that al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb have been taking from this situation and everybody knows that they have been benefiting from the weapons that have been given to the rebels that are probably a part of the action inside Libya and in any case building, reinforcing their parties outside Libya in the whole region and Algeria would not tolerate this.
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