Just kill your own people: The world will turn a blind eye

Now that the Gaddafi forces seem to push eastward and that the international powers are apparently reluctant to intervene in Libya, he might well regain control of the entire country or at least all major towns and oil wells except perhaps for Ben Ghazi. Also the Japanese earthquake and nuclear threat came as a blessing for Gaddafi, as it distracted the media attention from the state-orchestrated bloodshed in Libya. Even a possible No Fly Zone might already come too late.

If this scenario plays out, will he get away with this? To some, this may seem unlikely in light of the carnage he is responsible for. But it would not be the first time that the West would prefer an Arab strongman to remain in power. In fact, this has been the consistent pattern over the last decades, where ruthless dictators in the region, particularly if they were ready happy to form economic and military alliances, received staunch support from Western governments. Even Saddam Hussein was allowed to stay in power by George H.W. Bush after the first Gulf War - after which he took bloody revenge on the Kurds and Shia Muslims, who rose up against the regime.

Might a similar fate await the Libyan opposition forces and eastern Libya? Based on Gaddafí's reputation, this is a real possibility, and a very grim scenario could unfold.

But will the international community and European governments tolerate this? Yes, they probably will, as long as Gaddafi stays away from supporting violent attacks on Western goals.  

Over the past decade, the West has been all too happy to collaborate with Gaddafi, who used to be an international pariah, almost immediately after he abandoned his weapons and nuclear programmes. Over the past decades, prominent European politicians such as Tony Blair, Silvio Berlusconi and Nicolas Sarkozy have been cosying up to Moammar Gaddafi because it served them very well. While Gaddafi gave European companies a significant stake in Libya’s oil economy and volunteered to act as Europe’s brutal border police (since Libya disregards refugee and human rights!), he received regained international respectability, despite the continuation of brutal internal repression.

For instance, Blair’s infamous 2004 "Deal in the Desert" brought in billions in British business deals. Since sanctions were lifted in 2004, UK firms have sold sniper rifles, tear gas, wall-breaching projectile launchers and crowd control ammunition. It allowed the almost doubling of exports to Libya, worth almost £500million in 2009 alone. According to one source, at least 150 British firms operate in Libya, including British Airways, Marks & Spencer, HSBC, KPMG, Ernst & Young, PWC, Land Rover while BP landed a £1.3billion gas and oil deal and a further £545million project to drill for oil.  Also Shell has been a huge investor in the country and British imports of Libyan oil have topped £1billion in recent years.

Would the West really be willing to give up these business interests if Gaddafi prevails? Who does really belief that?

Libya has also collaborated closely with the EU, and Italy in particular, on border controls and the establishment of detention camps for irregular migrants. Libya was a particularly favoured partner because it disregards any refugee rights. In 2004, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Gaddafi signed a pact to curb irregular migration to Italy, with Libya agreeing to deport unauthorized sub-Saharan migrants over Libyan territory to their origin countries. Two months after the Libyan-Italian agreement, the EU agreed to lift its 18-year arms embargo because.

Italy lobbied hard to lift the ban officially because Libya could import equipment to better control its borders, and financed the construction of three detention camps for irregular immigrants in Libya. Libya has also been collaborating closely with Italy in concerted expulsions of undocumented migrants from Italy via Libya to their alleged origin countries, including Bangladesh, Egypt, Eritrea, Ghana, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sudan, and Syria.

This has made the Italian government and the European Commission complicit in the brutal human rights violations against migrants and refugees in Libya. The Libyan government is known to have arbitrarily imprisoned and randomly deported migrants expelled from Italy to their alleged origin countries, which include Sudan and Eritrea, where some of them faced torture and persecution. More generally, Europe has consistently turned a blind eye to the systematic human rights violations towards sub-Saharan migrants in Libya, who now become a vulnerable target for racist violence. Hundreds of thousands of these migrants are now stuck in Libya, and have become the victim of mob violence and exactions by Gaddafi-militia.

Western powers and intellectuals like Anthony Giddens have not only turned a blind eye towards massive human rights abuses in Libya. They have also encouraged them by giving Gaddafi an air of international respectability. In the case of collaboration on migration issues, his disrespect for migrant and refugees’ rights made him even a favoured partner. The weapons they sold to Gaddafi are now used to kill civilians and the oil money is used to pay his militia.

If Gaddafi regains control, I suspect that Western powers will not risk backing the opposition movement.

But how will they manoeuvre their way out of this, now that they have so strongly condemned the Gaddafi-regime?

First, time will do is work. Sanctions will not be lifted immediately, but the memories of the brutalities will gradually fade. As has happened in the past with some many other human rights atrocities.  

Second, Western politicians may try to recast the freedom struggle in Libya as a (tribal) "civil war” . This can be a rhetorical way out, enabling them to say “Well, actually, there are no bad guys or good guys, and Gaddafi at least brings stability. We’d rather have a brutal dictatorship than a failed state”.

Ironically, in that case Gaddafi’s strategy will have paid off: sowing terror and violent anarchy to show that without you the country will fall apart. Ben Ali and Mubarak have tried something similar, but in their case the army was eventually not willing to massively kill civilians. Gaddafi’s militia were. If he wins, Gaddafi’s revenge on the opposition forces may be ruthless. It also shows once again that, essentially, the West does not care about a few thousands more Arab or African deaths. After all, we need to keep the oil flowing.

The Arab revolutions have made two things very clear. First, all positive change has come from within Arab societies, defying all Western stereotypes about Islam and Arab culture and people allegedly not being “compatible” with or “ready” for democracy. Second, Western government have not only failed to support the democracy movements, it has actively supported dictatorships in the region by fostering close economic and military relations. Many governments oppose a No Fly Zone over Libya from the principle of non-interventionism. However, is active support to dictatorships not a form of interventionism?

Doing nothing – letting the carnage continue – also is a choice.

While the state-orchestrated killings in Libya and elsewhere continue, the empty mantras of Western leaders, their endlessly repeated concerns about “stability” and their unwillingness to take a clear stance blatantly show that Western governments they fear democracy in the Middle East and North Africa, because it upsets their cosy relationships with the dictators ruling the region, who serve corporate interests, never mind that they brutally repressed their own people.

Yesterday, Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek International, stated on twitter:

“If Gaddafi wins, the message will be: just kill your people. The world will stay away.”

I am afraid he is right.

Let's hope Gaddafi does not win.  

But don’t count on the West.