Khalifa Haftar: A true leader of Libya

Guest post by Adel Karim
March 8, 2017

(This is a submitted article, reflecting the author's opinion).

In the run-up to the presidential elections the internal situation in Libya is getting sharper.

This situation has affected not only ordinary people, but the separated Libyan tribes and communities. Many of them began to realize that their choice will determine the whole country's future.

Thus, many tribal leaders and Libyans believe that Khalifa Haftar is currently the only person able to reunify the country, and provide its stability and security. He is considered to be a man who will return peace and prosperity to the country.

Representatives of the Supreme Council of the Libyan Tribes and Cities believe that the current situation in Libya is affected by controlled chaos aimed at prolonging the political and economic crisis.

Analysts estimate that such an opinion reflects the nation's mood. According to different sources, more and more Libyans support the LNA's leader Khalifa Haftar's policy. It is also evidenced by his increasing international influence.

At the talks held on July 25 in Paris, French President Emmanuel Macron held a meeting between Libya's UN-backed Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj and Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar. The negotiations led to the road map that was formulated to settle the Libyan crisis and to the truce agreement between the parties. It was also stressed by Macron at the press conference.

Besides, last December supporters of Khalifa Haftar held demonstrations in Benghazi, Tobruk and Tripoli calling on him to take charge of the country. A lot of Libyans believe that the Government of National Accord headed by Fayez al-Sarraj is no longer legitimate. They condemn Sarraj's policy that led to the uprising of many fragmented factions controlled by foreign countries like Turkey or Qatar. 

Libyan tribes share the same point of view. Their leaders are reportedly showing greater support for Haftar due to their belief that he can be the one to stop the terror in the country and deal with extremist groups that make obstacles on the way of government's restoration.

Apparently, Libyans are divided between two political forces. However, more and more people realize that their vote will determine the country's fate. That's why they are ready to put away all the disagreements of the past and unify under one common goal.

On Malta, Pilots Defect

May 6, 2011
last edits June 22

The Colonels Spill the Beans
It was Monday, February 21, less than a week after protests in Libya began. It had just become clear an armed rebellion had "liberated" most of the country's sizable cities, and all of the cities in the northeast. Desperate measures might be in order for any government wanting to re-establish order, when, on that day, the world was told, by two amazing whistle-blowers about one of these measures. The Tripoli Post reported two days later: Libyan Military Pilots Defect to Malta

Two Libyan Air Force fighter pilots on Monday defected and flew their jets to Malta where they told authorities they had been ordered to bomb protesters. [...] Maltese government authorities said that the two pilots, both colonels, took off from a base near Tripoli, and that one of them has even requested political asylum.

The two pilots, currently being questioned by the Maltese police, said they decided to fly to Malta after being ordered to bomb anti-government protesters in Libya's second largest city of Benghazi.

They are reported to have said that they had been asked to bomb their own people and would not. The bombs were on the aircraft and the guns were fully loaded with ammunition.

The story told by these pilots, being double-confirmed between them, and well in-line with the worst the West always presumed from Gaddafi, was taken as simple and solid fact. But the real fact is, only, that we have these pilots claiming their order was to destroy innocents with such overwhelming firepower. It wasn't to attack militant positions, where they had stolen cities by force and planned to overthrow the whole government. No, it was simple protesters they were sent to kill, because Gaddafi hates peaceful protest.

So early in the uprising and civil war, there was this widely seeded claim that Gaddafi was "bombing his own people" - or at least, had tried to have these two do it. There's been only the whispiest evidence of such attacks otherwise - numerous alarmist "reports," with no photos or video of the attacks, or even any consistent aftermath, like craters in the streets.

And against the word of the Malta pilots, there are  stern government denials, satellite-based evidence (of some sort) claimed by the Russians, and common sense indicating it would be a stupid and suicidal thing to command. There are much better and cheaper ways to kill slow-moving crowds than with a Mirage (a helicopter, for example, can just hover instead of having to swoop over repeatedly). 

Just the belief in this order paved the way for Gaddafi's destruction - talk of a no-fly zone to protect civilians from these supposed air attacks began the next day, February 22. And it was this trojan horse that unleashed the current air war for regime change that's already decimated Gaddafi's ground forces (up to one third of armor and soldiers incinerated), and killed one son and three grandchildren at least.

A Link to the Plotters?
Now, we know there was an air force colonel, Abdullah Gehani, arrested in late January for plotting against the government. Charged with civil aviation in Benghazi, he reportedly made contact with a European secret service in November 2010, and also with the protest planners.

Gehani might well have had some underlings on board as well, so that even after his arrest and the uprising's start, someone else could locate two trustworthy, disloyal fighter pilots for an important propaganda mission. Al Jazeera reported that both pilots were themselves "senior colonels," but otherwise there's been little or no detail about them. The whole story went pretty quiet once its purpose was served.

Most likely, this alleged order would only be disobeyed shortly before or even after takeoff. It would be an emotional, spur-of-the-moment decision. Neither of the colonels, in this supposed police state of informants and twisted loyalty, was too afraid the other would shoot him as a traitor. They both decided together it was time to flee, and while that's fully possible, it would work better with some agreement well before taking off - with or without orders to kill.

This is a cynical theory, but it can't be logically ruled out. Nor can their alleged mission, really, but it is inherently short on logic. The F-1 is not so good at crowd control, but it does excel at escaping quickly once it's been stolen, making it a perfect weapon for running off armed with live bombs and the lies that turned them to propaganda.

Mysterious Frenchmen: An Escort Mission?
Finally, what at first seems a peripheral oddity. The same day these guys landed in Malta, a few hours later it seems, two helicopters from Libya also landed. The Tripoli Post again:

On the same day police also questioned seven passengers who landed in Malta from Libya on board two French-registered helicopters, with Malta government sources saying the helicopters had left Libya without authorisation by the Libyan aviation authorities and that only one of the seven passengers - who say they are French citizens - had a passport.

These people claimed to be simple oil workers, fleeing just after Benghazi had fallen. But they had not their proper ID, suggesting clandestine (or just forgetful?) work. They were from France, where the European end of arranging the protests was apparently based (Gehani's alleged contact was with the French DGSE). Who were they, and what were they doing in Libya in the days before the no-fly discussion started? They and their rides are covered a bit more in-depth at this follow-up post.

They might help explain the fighters, commissioned by the French-Rebel conduit, as escort duty on the first leg of the choppers' illegal (and slower) flight. I would suspect they all set out together from rebel-held Benghazi, despite the defector story of scrambling from Tripoli.

Any such protection might help explain the armaments, in case anyone tried to enforce the law. And it would be a nicely efficient double-mission - cover the whole unauthorized escape, then land with with the mental seeds of the rebels' NATO air support. It also works towards giving the game up. What are the odds the colonels would happen to fly off with this order and snap to the north on winds of conscience, just as these unauthorized clandestine Frenchmen were leaving?

Again, that would work better with some agreement well before taking off.

Update, June 22: Reader Felix left some comments beneath a related post, about the arrival of these pilots on Malta, which he witnessed. I mistook him for Maltese, but he was there only on holiday, he says.

[June 6]
This was a very important propaganda coup to launch the war to the gullible scribes of the west. I was fortunate to observe the arrival of the Libya jets above my head. Contemporary reports tell of the helicopters arriving shortly before the jets though I have no recollection of seeing them although there was much large helicopter activity during the week. Certainly the two jets did not arrive as defecting pilots might- whatever that might be - but they performed a kind of airshow above the Med some time before , swooping and circling like a display team. They then vanished out to sea again, before eventually returning according to the normal flightpath. I thought it extremely odd. As they landed overhead, the Libyan markings were visible from beneath.

[June 16]
It was only a brief show of skill - but they vanished for a while before returning in a straight descent as a tourist plane might make, one followed by the other about a minute later. I couldn't get out my camera as I was otherwise occupied. Only that evening did the signficance become apparent as I watched the news on Al Jazeera.

That would be an interesting addition - making sure to be noticed first, making a big show of their arrival, does seem less than consistent with someone escaping in fear and horror at the orders they were just given. Instead they show the flourish of someone delivering an important part of a big master plan they're excited to be part of.

Gaddafi Salutes NATO

July 12, 2011

I thank Brian Souter again for a tip off to an excellent dispatch from Libya that I found heartening and inspirational:

Franklin Lamb. "France Says NATO Bombing Has Failed" Foreign Policy Journal. July 12, 2011

Tripoli - One of the jokes heard at this week’s massive pro-government Friday post prayer rally at Green Square (in most of the other Arab countries Friday’s are days of rage against the government du jour but in Libya Friday prayers are followed by massive pro-Qadaffi rallies attended two weeks ago by close to 65% of Tripoli’s population) is about how each morning Libya’s leader, following early morning Fajr prayers dons his formal uniform, complete with those huge epaulets, and salutes the small NATO flag he tapes to his bathroom mirror as he moves from place to place dodging NATO drones and assassins. 

“Our leader does this”, one young lady informed me first with a wide smile and then growing serious, “because the NATO bombing of Libyan civilians, which the US/NATO axis claims Qaddafi is doing, has caused his popularity to skyrocket among our proud and nationalist tribal people. I am one example of this. 

Yes, of course we can use some new blood and long overdue reform in our government. Which country cannot? But first we must defeat the NATO invaders and then we can sort out our problems among our tribes including the so-called “NATO Rebels.”

The main point, which I've missed as I'm still not following the news closely, a rather surprising turn from the onetime gung-ho leader of all this:

The Russian and Chinese leadership has grown increasingly critical of NATO’s actions in Libya and are now firmly demanding an immediate and permanent ceasefire.
[...]
On Sunday, July 10, France seemingly allied itself with Russia and China in calling on NATO to immediately stop its counterproductive and counterintuitive bombing, as more countries witness public demonstrations against NATO’s actions in Libya. French Defense Minister Gerard Longuet said in Paris that it was time for Qaddafi loyalists—which France acknowledges have been rapidly increasing in number—and Libyan rebels “to sit around a table to reach a political compromise” because, he said, “there was no solution with force.”

Wow. I mean, wasn't that the only solution considered up until now? And isn't France the country that hosted the plotter who helped them deal with the uprising, four months before it began? Aren't they the first to call the rebel's Libya's new government, and the first and fiercest to bomb the old one? Didn't they just admit they'd been long breaking the UN arms embargo by air-dropping weapons to rebels in the Nafusah mountains? And they only said they could stop now as those rebels proved they were armed enough to overwhelm Libyan military sites, kill their defenders, and seize heavier weapons yet?

Further, Mr. Lamb speaks of France's trans-Atlantic partner:

NATO, Diplomatic, and Congressional sources confirm that the Obama Administration erred badly in thinking that Libya’s regime would collapse “in a few days, not weeks” as Obama assured the American public who has to pony up the estimated $5 billion in costs through July 31, 2011. Obama’s egregious miscalculation may cost him his presidency if the economy does not.

This refers to his stance first outlined on March 3, after about a week of hazy rumors and disinformation, that "Colonel Gaddafi needs to step down from power and leave." The guy has been there long enough, and I for one wouldn't mind seeing that happen. But now I hope he'll be able to stay in office long enough to first see Obomber out.

"Un Avenir Incertain" in Libya

June 25, 2011
last update July 7

Such is the title of a French-language report from the International Center for Research and Study on Terrorism and Aide to Victims of Terrorism (CIRET-AVT) and the French Center for Research on Intelligence (CF2R). Translating to "an uncertain future," it's based on a month-long tour of Libya, rebel-held and government-held, in the month of April. The report says it was completed in May, so it's at least a month old by now as it finally comes to my attention.

PDF download links, CF2R hosted: French original, English language CF2R posting. Thanks to Peet73 for alerting me of the translated version.

It was mentioned more recently by RFI English, and by the conservative National Review Online - because it's a Democrat's war, I presume. As both these note, the report focused on the terrorist/Jihadist aspect of the rebel uprising, finding it a significant part of the mix making up the rebel fighting force and leadership. This joins former al Qaeda prisoners of Guantanamo Bay and others seeking an Islamic emirate with conservative Libyan monarchists (including former Justice Minister Mustafa Abdel-Jalil), opportunistic defectors, and a minority of true pro-democracy forces that the whole lot has been portrayed as.

The al Qaeda element has, in my opinion, been over-played by the Libyan government and American conservatives. It's a handy way to cause doubts, when standard appeals to fairness and truth fall flat. Islamists like the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, al Qaeda in the Maghreb, former aQ detainees like Sufyan bin Qumu and Abdelkareem al-Hasadi are involved in the fighting, especially in Dernah. There is no doubt of that, and any video shows that about 50% of all rebel vocabulary consists of Allahu Akbar.

But despite their enthusiasm, they will not in my opinion be running Libya once this is done. The main danger they pose is putting up an awkward fight as they're told this and refuse to accept it right off. And if their number are high enough, and the specter of TNC-brokered NATO control feared enough ... well, it might be a concern. My opinion could be wrong, and it's all worth more study.

The report also makes some other very interesting observations, as translated in the NRO piece:

Little by little, [Misrata] is starting to appear like a Libyan version of Sarajevo in the eyes of the “free” world. The rebels from Benghazi hope that a humanitarian crisis in Misrata will convince the Western coalition to deploy ground troops in order to save the population.
[...]
It is thus now obvious that Western leaders — first and foremost, President Obama — have grossly exaggerated the humanitarian risk in order to justify their military action in Libya.

The real interest of Misrata lies elsewhere. . . . The control of this port, at only 220 kilometers from Tripoli, would make it an ideal base for launching a land offensive against Qaddafi.

It is a little-known fact that Benghazi has become over the last 15 years the epicenter of African migration to Europe. This traffic in human beings has been transformed into a veritable industry, generating billions of dollars. Parallel mafia structures have developed in the city, where the traffic is firmly implanted and employs thousands of people, while corrupting police and civil servants. It was only a year ago that the Libyan government, with the help of Italy, managed to bring this cancer under control.

Following the disappearance of its main source of revenue and the arrest of a number of its bosses, the local mafia took the lead in financing and supporting the Libyan rebellion. Numerous gangs and members of the city’s criminal underworld are known to have conducted punitive expeditions against African migrant workers in Benghazi and the surrounding area. Since the start of the rebellion, several hundred migrant workers — Sudanese, Somalis, Ethiopians, and Eritreans — have been robbed and murdered by rebel militias. This fact is carefully hidden by the international media.

(bolding mine throughout)

Up until the end of February, the situation in western Libyan cities was extremely tense and there were clashes — more so than in the east. But the situation was the subject of exaggeration and outright disinformation in the media. For example, a report that Libyan aircraft bombed Tripoli is completely inaccurate: No Libyan bomb fell on the capital, even though bloody clashes seem to have taken place in certain neighborhoods. . . .

The consequences of this disinformation are clear. The U.N. resolution [mandating intervention] was approved on the basis of such media reports. No investigative commission was sent to the country. It is no exaggeration to say that sensationalist reporting by al-Jazeera influenced the U.N.

During the three weeks [that Az Zawiyah was controlled by the rebels], all public buildings were pillaged and set on fire. . . . Everywhere, there was destruction and pillaging (of arms, money, archives). There was no trace of combat, which confirms the testimony of the police [who claim to have received orders not to intervene]. . . .

There were also atrocities committed (women who were raped, and some police officers who were killed), as well as civilian victims during these three weeks. . . . The victims were killed in the manner of the Algerian GIA [Armed Islamic Group]: throats cut, eyes gauged out, arms and legs cut off, sometimes the bodies were burned . . .

Dumas and Verges: Defend Monsters - Not Gaddafi

June 1/2 2011

I'm not entirely sure NATO can be sued, effectively anyways. But two French lawyers of some repute are ready to give it a try, on behalf on Libyan civilian victims of the organization's air strikes. And more to the point here, they're prepared to defend the leader targeted by all these deadly explosions - Muammar Gaddafi. Some excerpts from a news story on this:

French ex-Minister in Libya, would defend Gaddafi
Peter Graff, Reuters, May 29 2011

Tripoli (Reuters) - Former French foreign minister Roland Dumas visited Libya as a lawyer to prepare a legal case on behalf of victims of NATO bombing and said he was prepared to defend leader Muammar Gaddafi if he is sent to The Hague. Dumas, who served as foreign minister under socialist President Francois Mitterrand, said he had seen several civilian victims of NATO bombing in a hospital and had been told by a doctor there that there were as many as 20,000 more.

I rather doubt that high a number, an issue I'll cover seperately. Nonetheless, there are victims, likely well into the hundreds or perhaps low thousands. It is worth a pause to notice that we can't be sure, considering NATO's record of assassination attempts and 'inability' to confirm things, that there haven't been 20,000.

Nonetheless, as Dumas continued:

"This is brutal, brutal aggression against a sovereign country," Dumas told a news conference in a Tripoli luxury hotel on Sunday, attended by people introduced as family members and supporters of relatives of civilian casualties.

"At the moment we have been retained, we have a mandate on behalf of the victims of the military bombardment of NATO, who carried out their military action against civilians with the artificial -- very artificial -- cover of the United Nations," Dumas said.

"Following an approach by the government of Libya, we have decided to make this trip to see for ourselves the condition of the victims and the situation," he said.

It's the guy with Dumas that has me concerned:

Dumas was accompanied by prominent French defense lawyer Jacques Verges, who said his goal was to "unmask those assassins" responsible for NATO air strikes. Verges said he had wept in hospital upon meeting civilians wounded "solely because they are Libyans."

Verges -- whose clients have included Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie -- and Dumas had been among lawyers expected to defend ousted Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo, who is being investigated for alleged human rights abuses during the conflict sparked by the disputed 2010 presidential election.

Their names were dropped from the most recent list of Gbagbo's lawyers.

I think Gaddafi as well should drop - or not retain - the team. I don't trust, or know much about, these guys. But it seems to me they might be the establishment anti-establishment of France. And as well all know, France has a lot of its people working this war. The one Libyan defector that wound up in France was the one who made contact with the DGSE, protest leaders, and defecting military, to help arrange the protest-war. Their top "human rights" philosopher, Levy, has made an eloquent-sounding case for supporting the rebels (including this laughable episode). Its water privatizing companies have the most use for Libya's publicly-owned "Great Manmade River." France's diplomats were the first to recognize their rebel foot soldiers as Libya's government, its Air Force is taking the lead in bombing, and its strangle little president Sarkozy oversseing it all unapologetically, pinning all France's war crimes on Gaddafi and painting himself as a big hero.

So when some top French war criminal defenders come out to "defend" the target of these psyops, be wary.

Admittedly, the two sound quite possibly sincere, and I don't know much about either. Dumas I've never heard of, in fact, but Verges is a Thailand-born French maverick, immortalized in that Terror's Advocate movie I've been meaning to see. He's made fame, money, and maybe history defending of various terrorists (most famously Carlos the Jackal) and even Nazi war criminals like Barbie. Here's the trailer:

At the end is the line that, clever as it is, troubles me in this context:

I was asked "would you defend Hitler?" I said "I'd even defend Bush! But only if he agrees to plead guilty."

Would he defend Obama, Cameron, or Sarkozy for their current war crimes if they admitted to them? If he defends their adversary Gaddafi, will he require the Leader to first admit his guilt for the charges he's being saddled with by the International Court that's Criminal? Gaddafi needs someone who understands that he is not the monster he's portrayed as, not someone who thinks it's cool to cozy up to monsters.

Nouri al-Mesmari, and Paris

April 24 2011
last update June 1

At the center of Franco Bechis' allegations of a pre-planned Libyan civil war is one Libyan defector and his hosts in Paris, France. Nouri al-Mesmari, formerly head of state protocol for Libya, is clearly of a shared spirit with those who've left service to side with the rebellion. But unlike the rest, seems to have split off from the Gaddafi regime four months before the February 17 uprising, rather than in the days and weeks after. In that time, he instead spoke to the world from Paris, as seen at left (al Jazeera, February 27).

And as for what he did with this four month head start, we have a report from Italian journalist Franco Bechis suggesting that with French support, Nouri al-Mesmari helped pre-arrange the rebellion-to-regime change in Libya that is still awkwardly unfolding. [1] Not all of Bechis' sources are verified to my satisfaction, but it's all consistent with what we do know (to be explained separately) and worth consideration. Following is an abbreviated chronology, drawn from that:

Oct. 20 2010 - Mesmari flies off to Tunisia, with his immediate family, for "health reasons" (heart-related).
Oct. 21 - The family is in France, reports Maghreb Confidential.
Nov. 28 - Libya issues an arrest warrant for Mesmari, for embezzlement of state funds. He's put under house arrest the next day.
Dec. 12 - An alleged meeting is held, in Paris, between al-Mesmari and three high-level members of the opposition February 17 movement.
Dec. 15 - He's released for irregularities, making his detention illegal, and housed at liberty on the state dime in a fancy hotel.
Feb 5 - Gaddafi’s son Moatassim returns alone after a week in Paris trying to presuade Mesmari to come back to Libya
Feb 1-16: The regime launches pre-emptive arrests of protest leaders (including the three who reportedly met Mesmari) and February 17 leader Jamal al Hajj, who had called for the uprising to happen.
Feb 15 - Protests begin two days ahead of the called-for "Day of Rage," marking a Benghazi uprising 15 years earlier. Violence flares from the start, with police stations and such attacked. Predictably, the state cracks down with counter-violence in numerous cities. Regime change wouldn't happen the way it did in Tunisia and Egypt.
Feb 18-22 - "Protesters" somehow seize all cities on the northeast coast and several cities in the west. They vow to topple the regime and, ideally, to kill Gaddafi.
Feb 22 - In protest, Mesmari formally resigns and joins the rebels, from Paris, on live TV. It's his first public appearance. As he said to al Jazeera on the 27th, complaining of the later defectors and resignations:

"Some of them are just resigning lately because they found out there is no choice for them only to resign. Why they did not do it from the beginning, from the starting? But at the moment, they didn't know that it would be successful. And now because it is the end of it, everybody is resigning."

Again, that was only ten days and about 400 dead into the civil war he allegedly helped engineer.

Reasons for Leaving Previous Job (please explain fully)
In the days after his resignation, al-Mesmari gave several TV interviews, in which he described himself as "a pure diplomat," who never participated in Gaddafi's terror machine, never tried to "polish his face," and "never been around with him." "I am [was] in charge of the diplomacy in Libya," he told al Jazeera on February 27. "Relationship with the embassies. And you can reference to those embassies how I was with them." [2] According the French news site Jeune Afrique, he also did things like arrange for the travel of world leaders in Libya, and even handled the routing of monthly payments from the treasury to col. Gaddafi's children. [3]

Mr. al-Mesmari has a lean and unsettled look, but adorned with with an artsy glasses-and-goatee combo, frequently dyed hair, and occasional Gaddafi-esque designer military costumes. Alex Lantier at the World Socialist Website describes him as "a prominent pro-free-market reformer in the Libyan ruling elite." [4] Considering the February 17 leaders are described (by another leftist at the Monthly Review) as western-educated "entrepreneurs," [5] this might give us a taste of the freedoms they seek. But I've yet to see (direct) supporting evidence of any of their economic inclinations.

Business intelligence site Maghreb Confidential reported on his arrival in France "normally, Mesmari sticks closely to his boss’s side, so there’s some talk that he may have broken his long-standing tie with the Libyan leader.” [4] But he's never given a reason for splitting, aside from the regime' response to protests in February. Until then he was in France for "health reasons" only. The exact motives behind his flight can't be known for sure, but if he'd decided to split with Tripoli, two possibilities pop to mind.

Perhaps a deeper reason, as Jeune Afrique reported, "the gunshot murder of his son in 2007, disguised as a suicide by authorities." [3] That must have an interesting back-story (no further details available). However, the immediate temporal trigger has been speculated as a public slap to the face from col. Gadddafi, for some disappointment, at a mid-October African Union conference in Sirte. [3] He was in Paris within eleven days after that.

A month into his unscheduled vacation, Tripoli issued the arrest warrant over stolen money. If the Jeune Afrique report is correct, he might have access to state funds and perhaps decided to steal some he felt entitled to. Asked in if he had enriched himself under Gaddafi's rule, he responded:

Thanks to God I never done it, I - thanks to my family I can - I come from a rich family, I have even some of the wealth of my family have been monopolized [nationalized], and I am still struggling to get it back. I never enriched myself, I never touched the house of the people ... [6]

Jeune Afrique also noted Mesmari "is the son of a former minister of the monarchy, but he broke with his past by trading his name to that of Ben Shaban his tribe." [3] And he had his family money partly swallowed by the state, and his son potentially murdered by it. This is a man with grievances. However, these charges were only filed after he'd flown unauthorized to France, and it's not likely they only "noticed the money missing" after that. He was wanted back, but probably for something else. French inteligence DGSE called him a "Libyan wikileaks," according to Bechis. [1]

Libya tried hard to convey forgiveness and entice the defector back. On December 16, a state media official named Abdallah Mansour tried to meet with Mesmari in Paris, but was arrested. [1] At the end of January, the leader's son Moatassim Gaddafi was allowed to have meetings, but was unable to convince Nouri to return.

"[Gaddafi] left Paris alone on February 5. The son of Muammar Kadhafi, who had been staying at the luxury Bristol hotel since late January, failed to persuade Nuri Mesmari to return home. [...] While claiming 'everything has now been resolved’ with Libya, Mesmari seems reluctant to return without iron-clad 'guarantees.’" [4]

Or, alternately, he had a hunch the regime he was being invited to re-join would soon be overthrown. If any uprising or revolt was planned, February 17 would be the obvious zero day. Mesmari's unwillingness to return less than two weeks before this, might well have been taken as a bad omen.

Alleged Contacts, Notable Surprises
But the planners in Benghazi and the defectori in Paris appear on the surface as just ships passing in the night. Libyan rebel site Feb17.info included this in an article on post-rebellion defections:

A less expected deserter, however, was Nouri Mesmari, Libyan Chief of Protocol. Because of his long history of loyalty to the Gaddafi and his regime, Mesmari’s televised statement of resignation given on Tuesday from Paris (where he was staying for “health reasons”) came as a shock to Libyans around the world. [7]

Not necessarily so to those he'd been talking with secretly - including the GDSE. But to the rest of us outside that loop, the surprises kept coming from Paris. Well known for rejecting Cowboy Bush's Iraq war back in 2003, France took the lead in this UN Security Council-approved mission to keep Gaddafi from "bombing his own people." This "no-fly zone" acted as a trojan horse, releasing on Libya an unathorized full-on air campaign for regime change. From protecting innocents to tactical air support for rebel forces, the way was led, unexpectedly, by Sarkozy's France, the very nation that had hosted Mr. al-Mesmari. Coincidence?

His knowledge of the regime and the future are not so useful (see below) but his contacts apparently were. According to Bechis, he spoke with intelligence people while under custody, and put them on the path to contacting a potent clandestine dissident. This was Libyan Air Force colonel Gehani, whom agents managed to meet with in mid-November in Benghazi. [1]

Gehani then talked to whoever he did, and as the 15-year anniversary of the February 17 uprising drew nearer, three leaders of the group of that name reportedly flew to Paris and met with Mesmari. Bechis gives these as Fathi Boukhris, Farj Charrani, and Ali Ounes Mansouri, all arrested prior to the uprising, along with col. Gehani. [1] But as Bechis notes, it was too little too late - they'd managed to convey something from up north, steeling the resolve of those less known who remained at liberty and moved so effectively two weeks later.

More small clues in interviews
There are very few sources around of his words since "coming out" to the world as anti-Gaddafi. There are his two TV interviews of the February 23rd, available on Youtube. One in Arabic, channel unknown. [8] I cannot tell what he's saying, but he's got an odd and unhappy face. One eye blinks incessantly, the other - apparently prosthetic - not at all. It's this, plus his demeanor - awkward cadence, frequent devolution to frustrated shouting - that led one commentator to feel that

"[At] any moment, tentacles could burst from his chest to shoot acid or bat-like brain parasites at the studio crew. It makes me very uneasy to watch him, and my cats refuse to be in the same room when he is on the screen." [9]

A much longer video, done in English, was aired the same day on Qatar-based al Jazeera (in standard media disclosure form, it should be noted that Qatar is heavily underwriting the Libyan civil war which al Jazeera has reported on so partially). He discusses there the state of Gaddafi's regime now, from what he's seen on TV. Mercenaries have replaced the military, which has all either defected or was were in danger of such. "He has no more trust in the armed forces," he said, because they "let him down and went to the people." [6]

Four days later, he again spoke of a survival instinct among those who still remained loyal, to escape prosecution for past crimes abroad. [3] The free-form defection of Foreign Secretary Musa Kusa, who flew to London and then left for Qatar without being arrested for either Lockerbie or the Yvonne Fletcher shooting, again shows Mesmari's poor predictive skills. Mr. Kusa is currently living in Qatar, it must be noted, deciding not to taunt the brits by waltzing in - and out - again with his secret formula. [10] He remains there now, as the Qatari Mesmari.

From what he says to al Jazeera, the French one has not so much usable inteligence as well-rehearesed rebel talking points. For example, throughout these interviews, Mr. Mesmari and his anti-Gaddafi co-guests all agree in denying any silly talk of a civil war. That is Gaddafi propaganda to scare people, they all said in late Feruary, one whole week into it. The people as a whole, east and west, and the government, and the military, and the tribal leaders, had risen up unanymously in rejection of the governmnet.

Yet in coming weeks, all cities in the west reverted to government control with relative ease, aside from the vital and strategically-reinforced Misrata. Otherwise, as the front has stayed around or in Ajdabiya in the east, this really does look like an east-west civil war here with a few more weeks to feel it out. These are sometime solved by partition, which none of the rebels or western leaders seem favorable towards. They seem to require a full take-over.

Around 14:20 in the video, Mesmari almost seems to be reading from a teleprompter positioned below the camera. He seems to be moving his head to follow scrolling text, once stumbling over a word and having to catch up quickly. (14:48). If so, he's only getting prompts, not any well-written script (that would sound unnatural, wouldn't it?). What he says in that block is interesting:

"The time is coming and the date is coming and it is very short. Nobody saw it, nobody was expecting this revolution of my compatriots. They never expected. They just got upset, and they went so quickly. So quickly. They didn't receive any international aid. And I feel very sorry that the international aid is coming only now, and it is too late. They let my people down. Children, old people, old women dying in the streets, and God - knows - wherearetheir bodies now, buried - some - where" [2]

So the revolt was planned to happen a little more slowly, I gather, and with better material support at the very outset (remember, this complaint came only ten days after the Day of Rage). As far as I can tell, he pretty much went quiet after this period. But the plan he might have helped set up was well under way and other players - inside "free Libya," in world capitols and board rooms, in TV studios and command centers - were taking center stage in shaping the long-awaited new nation.

Sources:
[1] Bechis, Franco. "Sarkozy manovra la rivolta libica." Libero March 23 2011. Original text (Italian): http://www.stampalibera.com/?p=24406
[2] Interview with Mesmari. "Inside Story." Al Jazeera. February 27 2011. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObAbe2CvjjA
[3] Barrouhi Abdelaziz. "Fin de partie pour Mesmari." Jeune Afrique. December 7 2010. (Google translation used) Original URL: http://www.jeuneafrique.com/Article/ARTJAJA2604p021.xml0/arrestation-mouammar-kaddafi-seif-el-islam-detournement-de-fondsfin-de-partie-pour-mesmari.html
[4] Lantier, Alex. "Reports suggest French intelligence encouraged anti-Gaddafi protests." World Socialist Website (WSWS). March 28 2011. http://wsws.org/articles/2011/mar2011/inte-m28.shtml
[5] Prashad, Vijay. MR zine, Monthly Review. April 2 3011. http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2011/libya030411p.html
[6] Interview with Mesmari. "Inside Story." Al Jazeera. February 23 2011. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uUNZDD1LAE
[7] It's Easy to Jump a Sinking Ship. By contributor "F4T1." Posted February 28 2011. http://feb17.info/editorials/it’s-easy-to-jump-a-sinking-ship
[8] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmGYl2YlWNo
[9] http://www.rumproast.com/index.php/site/comments/note_to_al_jazeera_for_the_love_of_god_please_stop_interviewing_nouri_masoo/
[10] Daily Mail. April 14. http://m.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1377043/Libya-Anger-Musa-Kusa-allowed-flee.html

Russia "Fires" Gaddafi, MIGHT Be Able To Help Save Libya

May 29/30 2011

It appears now that the Libyan government has lost its most powerful, if rather half-hearted, defender on the world stage: the mighty Russian Federation. It was at the G8 summit in France, of all places, where turnaround seems to have happened.

US President Obama used the event to, as Jonathan Steele put it in The Guardian, "abandon his public caution and make it clear that regime change is now the western objective in Libya." Russia started out by heightening their opposition to that into the following unprecedented, but still muted, criticism:

Russia’s ambassador to France, Alexander Orlov, told The Associated Press that the NATO campaign has gone too far. As a result, he said, Russia feels "burned" and doesn’t want to support a U.N. resolution warning Syria about its crackdown on anti-government protesters.  "We will be very careful," he said in an interview at Deauville. [source]

By the end of the conference, they agreed with the other leaders that, however it happened, Gaddafi had in fact "lost legitimacy" and must step down. And they're taking the lead in talks to makeit happen, if possible. I'm still parsing this, but I'd venture that the Russians' thinking to that end seems more mechanistic and based on cold reality than the pseudo-moralistic and free-floating proclamations of their belligerent counterparts in the NATO bloc. There's room for something interesting here, as well as for more predictable failure.

Russia 'Fires' Qaddafi
By Elizabeth Surnacheva
Gazeta, Russia
Translated By Yekaterina Blinova
May 27, 2011
http://worldmeets.us/ http://worldmeets.us/gazetaru000026.shtml#ixzz1Nhpd2JHI

As a result of the G8 summit in Deauville, it has fallen on Russia to resolve the problem of Muammar Qaddafi. Dmitry Medvedev said he supported the desire of Western countries to remove the Libyan leader and has sent his special envoy to Benghazi for negotiations.

In French Deauville, one of the busiest G8 summits in terms of agreements has come to an end. The final statement took up 25 pages. But the key agreement turned out to be one on Libya. The Kremlin, which spoke skeptically at first about the operation in that country, has finally agreed with the West that the Jamahiriya political regime must be changed.

Russia has been the most powerful (if not the most incisive) critic of NATO's deceptive regime change campaign in Libya. But here, even Russia's elites have finally joined the pod people it seems, in the apparent global consensus (among white, northern elites) that can turn any twisted notion into the accepted truth.

This is, however, the first time I'm aware of where it was openly specified that the whole governmental and economic system ("the Jamahiriya political regime") must be changed, beyond the simple "departure" of Gaddafi and his sons that has been demanded. That's potentially interesting. I've suspected from the outset that was the real target, and the relevant gripes against the Jamahiriya pre-date by far any 2011 atrocities. Surnacheva continues to the summit's final, bold, and rather philosophical conclusions:

The unified position on Libya was recorded in the final declaration. The leaders of Group of Eight stated that Muammar Qaddafi has lost his right to govern.

The document notes that the Libyan government was unable to fulfill its duty to protect the population of its country, and has lost its legitimacy. "Qaddafi and the Libyan government have failed to fulfill their responsibility to protect the Libyan population and have lost all legitimacy. He has no future in a free, democratic Libya. He must go," says the document. Russia backed the statement and at the request of its partners, has sent its envoy.

The government has lost its ability "to protect the Libyan population." Indeed, something about not being allowed to shoot its own guns, spend its own money, or do anything, really, has hampered Libya's ability to protect its people from the rebel uprising and its racist, terrorist actions. Nor by a mile can they prevent the relentless bombs of the rebellion's NATO benefactors. Now that these things are fact, obviously, he can't govern the country he sort-of built, and he must ... I dunno, go somewhere else.

The president announced at the conclusion of the summit that he was sending Mikhail Margelov to Benghazi. Medvedev said, “I have decided to dispatch my special envoy to Africa, Mr. Margelov. He is flying out to Libya immediately.” According to the Russian leader, if the colonel steps down voluntarily, “then we can discuss how to go about it, what country might take him in, on what terms, what he can keep and what he must lose.” Medvedev said that Russia would not be the country that takes Qaddafi. According to the president, the global community no longer sees Qaddafi as the recognized leader of Libya.

Keep? The government, the whole system, just as illegitimate as HE is? HE will have to leave, and what? Keep the system, take it with him? What do the people get to keep, IN LIBYA? (more on the trade-offs here)

Russia said May 27 it’s seeking to negotiate Qaddafi’s departure, for the first time supporting the goals of the military campaign led by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. 

Qaddafi has forfeited his right to govern and Russia is using its contacts with the Libyan regime to persuade him to step down, President Dmitry Medvedev said in Deauville, France, after a Group of Eight summit.

Fact is, right or wrong, it's happening. May as well cash in, right? Might score a few brownie points with the new management, which NATO member France selected late last year. And they can use the brownie points; the upstarts have been less than favorable to Moscow in the past. For even abstaining from the vote on a "no-fly zone" (no govern zone, really) at the UNSC, they were told they'd get no oil contracts in Libya, ever.

AFP - A former top minister in Moamer Kadhafi's regime who has fled to Europe in a fishing trawler told AFP in an interview that he believes China and Russia have "lost" the race for oil in Libya. "Kadhafi has no future now," said Fathi Ben Shatwan, a former Kadhafi ally whose last government post was as energy minister and who made a dramatic escape from the besieged city of Misrata under fire from government troops.
[...]
"The new democracy will deal very well with the people who helped us" including with oil sector rewards for Italy and France, which have officially recognised the opposition interim national council in Benghazi. "Russia and China lost. They shouldn't have done this," he said, referring to the abstention of Moscow and Beijing from a UN Security Council vote that authorised military intervention by international powers in Libya.

He dismissed Kadhafi's threats to grant oil contracts to Russia and China as "a sort of game" by a desperate man.

http://www.france24.com/en/20110407-china-russia-have-lost-oil-race-libya-ex-minister

A game perhaps, but Gaddafi's team has been outplayed here by mr. Shatwan's. Now that Russia has turned around some to their own number one sticking point, the rebel attitude has followed. Surnacheva continues:

In Benghazi, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, the head of Libya’s Interim Transitional National Council, welcomed the Russian offer. “Free Libya is looking forward to building and strengthening its relations with the Russian Federation,” he said in an e-mailed statement yesterday.

He also expressed interest in discussing a cease-fire under anyone's leadership, so long as the Gaddafis first just went away somewhere. It's hoped the whole government would then collapse, which it might, having failed to create a strong enough identity of its own (despite some trying).

All this said, agreeing against Gaddafi does give the Russians something they haven't had yet - a currency, if token, with the NATO bloc and "the world community." And their recent forays into a negotiated solution do, to me, show at least glimmers of the basic world sanity entirely lacking in NATO's our-way-by-all-means approach.

Russia's new activism on Libya
Vladimir RadyuhinThe Hindu, May 26

Ahead of the G8 summit in France on May 26-27, Russia has stepped up diplomatic activity in the Arab world in an effort to recapture the initiative it lost to the West in the recent turmoil in the region.

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov earlier this week met in Moscow with a delegation of the Libyan opposition led by former Libyan Foreign Minister Abdurraham Muhamed Shalgham. The meeting took place less than a week after representatives of the Libyan government and the special UN Secretary General's envoy for Libya Abdul-Ilah al-Khatib visited Moscow.

Mr. Lavrov said Moscow's main goal in engaging the two warring sides was “to promote an immediate end to the bloodshed, to the military activities.”

“It is important at this stage to help define the participants in future talks… that would represent the interests of all political forces [and] all tribes in Libya,” Mr. Lavrov said adding that a concrete list should be the result of an “all-Libya consensus.”

The bolded parts are those NATO and the rebels are dead-set against. A peaceful, non-pressured, democratic approach in Libya will not produce the desired outcome. And that, in turn, would deflate their illusions about what the people of Libya really want. But this is the right place to look and the right way to do it, whether Obama, Sarkozy and Cameron like it or not. What this means next to the announcement Medvedev signed just after is unclear at the moment, but hopefully something positive can come of this turn as far as saving the best of the revolution, rather than the none of it currently planned.

Sorry, Col. Gaddafi, Libyans who love him ... there are no ways forward, barring miracles, that will be easy. Something big must give. Even the Russians, and even I, can see this. It's not right, but it's real.  Think on that long and hard. If there's one thing you seem really bad at, it's being realistic. Get better quick, my advice.

Seven Frenchmen Escape Benghazi

May 28 2011

Super Pumas Reach Malta
February 21 - after six days of protests bleeding into open conflict, Benghazi had fallen to the rebels, anchoring all of eastern Libya under their control. 400 miles to the northwest, on the tiny island nation of Malta, two Libyan Air Force Mirage fighter jets famously landed with a tale of being ordered to bomb the protester/jihadists. This crucial claim started the talk of a no-fly zone, which eventually led to the current international bombardment, mostly by the US, UK, and France.

The same day, just hours earlier, two helicopters had also fled Libya to make an emergency landing on Malta. The Tripoli Post reported:

On the same day police also questioned seven passengers who landed in Malta from Libya on board two French-registered helicopters, with Malta government sources saying the helicopters had left Libya without authorisation by the Libyan aviation authorities and that only one of the seven passengers - who say they are French citizens - had a passport.

Pakistani paper Dawn reported similarly:

Two French-registered Super Puma civilian helicopters also landed on the Mediterranean island around the same time, carrying seven passengers who said they were French working on oil rigs near Benghazi.

The helicopters were given permission to land in Malta but had not been given clearance to leave Libya, indicating they had escaped, the sources said.

Agence France Press describes the helicopter passengers as:

... seven people who said they were French nationals working on oil rigs near Benghazi, although only one had a passport, the sources said.
[...]
All those who have landed are being held at the airport in Malta until their identities are confirmed.

One presumes they've long since been released, but it seems that happened more quietly than how they first came into Malta's protection. One can only wonder what they found out, if anything, about these seven mysterious Frenchmen in that interim?

One of the helicopters is apparently shown in this video of the defecting aircraft filmed in the still of the night. The other is the same, as seen in a few photos, like the one here. The markings say Heli-Union, and despite the ambiguity of its name, it is apparently a French company (website in French, and English secondarily). They do specialize, among a few other things, in "air transport by helicopter on behalf of oil and gas companies."  That's consistent with airlifting out offshore oil workers, as one presumes they would be (Libya's oil is mostly off-shore or well inland, under the desert, so "near Benghazi" on the coast suggests they weren't down in the desert, like these oil workers who fled a Canadian-run station attacked by rebels on the 21st, and ran deeper into the desert.)

What French Can Mean
It's entirely possible for off-shore oil workers to lose or leave behind their passports. However, their lack of proper ID might also, possibly, suggest a more clandestine type of work back in just-conquered Benghazi. And they were from, of all nations, France.

It was in Paris where the European end of arranging the protests and takeover was allegedly based. As Italian blogger Franco Bechis reported in March, based on leaked documents, an Air Force defector in Benghazi named Gehani was contacted by the French secret service DGSE. This happened on November 18 2010, Bechis reports, on the tip of Nouri al-Mesmari, Libya's former protocol chief.

Mr. Al-Mesmari had, in his turn, fled into the arms of the French imperialists in October. He apparently made contacts with the DGSE during his brief house arrest following on embezzlement charges from Tripoli. He was of course released, and allowed to meet people in Paris - like three of the top leaders from the February 17 protest movement.

Collectively, this suggests a pre-planned design to fuse a military defection (indirect coup) with a gauze of peaceful protest, a project somehow favored or facilitated by Paris. And France sure was gung-ho to support the rebellion for full takeover, weren't they?

Despite their intense support afterwards, no outside powers were officially aware of or involved in the initial uprising itself. Any planning was limited in nature and purely Libyan, we're to presume. And it seems as if their turn to violence was just a spontaneous reaction to unexpectedly fierce government repression and - obviously - an unwillingness to just say "ow! Okay, okay, sorry, I didn't know you'd get so mad!"

That last, to me, is a clue that somehow the "protesters" suspected that someone powerful (aside from God) had their back. And of all the nations now backing the rebels with what's been called "like God's own Air Force," France has the covert people best-placed to be involved - hypothetically - in the war's initial phase.

In this context, it's worth asking who were these seven guys on the Super Pumas, and what were they doing in Libya in those days right before the no-fly discussion started.

They could be oil workers as they say. Even down to the Heli-Unon choppers, that cover - if it's cover - makes perfect sense. A well-designed cover will, of course.

Alternately ... maybe it's just a cover. They're too small and a bit too foreign to be any public fighting force. But they might have advised, or ran some narrow tactical missions at night. They might have been on stand-by only for such things, or nothing more than observers for Paris, to get their own clearer view of how the natives were handling things.

An Escort Mission?
The civilian helicopters trying to escape from a government they were helping overthrow might help explain the fighter jets that landed just after they landed safely on Malta.

These French-built Mirages would seem, by the orders they claimed to have defied, to have taken off under Libyan government command. But considering the alleged Gehani-DGSE link, it seems possible the colonels flying those birds were rebel-aligned well before "receiving" the order to bomb protesters. They might have been commissioned by the French-Rebel conduit, as escort duty on the first leg of the choppers' illegal (and slower) flight. I would suspect they all set out together from rebel-held Benghazi, despite the implication the defectors scrambled from Tripoli, or within an area of government control.

Any such protection might help explain the armaments, in case anyone tried to enforce the law that says, I would guess, that mysterious Frenchmen cannot leave a war zone without letting the government find out who they are and what they just did. And it would be a nicely efficient double-mission - cover the whole unauthorized escape of rebel helpers with their stolen defector jets, then land with with the mental seeds of the rebels' NATO air support - a false claim of a planned massacre, with the missiles in place to prove they'd been armed for it.

It also works towards giving the game up. What are the odds the colonels would happen to fly off with this order and snap to the north on winds of conscience, just as these unauthorized clandestine Frenchmen were leaving?

Why February 21?
It seems reasonable here to presume that foreigners like the oil workers they claim to be would usually work in an area during peace and stability time, leave as soon as things get crazy, and then come back when it's stable again. Now, it's true the Libyan civil war did move swiftly, but still, it's noteworthy how these guys did about the opposite of the usual.

The first protests were on Feb 15th, in Benghazi and a few other towns, with violence increasing each day and in other cities through the 17th - the pre-announced "day of rage," which doesn't bode well for any hopes for less of the same. In these first few days, order still prevailed, and it would be a good time to get out. 18th, ugly ... 19th, worse ....

Only on the 20th did things really get topsy-turvy. It seems al-Baidah at least had already come under rebel control, and in Benghazi, The Katiba barracks, a major army base, was blown open by a suicide bomber, and the spoils were quickly sent out to other cities right away. Labraq airport 100 miles east was finally taken with this boost, on the 21st. By then all of the eastern region of Cyrenaica, and even a nice buffer into the Sirte basin, was rebel-held, and armed with solely Libya stocks, untraceable to Paris.

The protest could now safely become a civil war and Gaddafi could be forced out for acting like he's fighting a civil war against "civilans" who now can do whatever they want - because they started it, briefly, as a "peaceful, homegrown protest." Their unseen work to this end complete, any French plotters might flee as described above, if possible with the disinfo defectors in their Mirages providing armed escort.

Desperate for Recognition / Gambia?

May 24 2011
last edits June 3 2011

Desperation in Action
It seems the pathetic puppets of the Libyan rebel Transitional National Council (TNC) are craving recognition; that is, as the legitimate government of all Libya. They're still outnumbered on the ground, in Libya, by people who reject their insane rebellion. And they still lack the official nod from the mighty US and the UK, for somewhat murky reasons, but have had for some time now that honor from a triad of large-ish players - France, Italy, and Qatar, plus a few later additions.

Perhaps hoping to start a fad out of it, the TNC has been caught stretching the truth a little as to who else was willing to call NATO's ragtag, "outunmbered" foot soldiers "the government of Libya."
Radio Australia News, May 6

Several countries have denied claims they have recognised a rebel council as the valid government of Libya.

Rebels in Benghazi have claimed that Canada, Denmark, Spain and the Netherlands have become the latest states to recognise the council, which was set up to rival the regime of Colonel Moammar Gadaffi.

However three of those governments - Spain, Canada and the Netherlands - have denied the rebels' claims.

Denmark had also denied it, in a perfect four-for-four fail. Reuters, May 5

Denmark denied on Thursday that it had officially recognized Libya’s Transitional National Council (TNC) of rebels, but said it did recognize the organization as a relevant partner for dialogue.

That's not how it was supposed to work. They were supposed to be so inspired the rebels' proud proclamation to go ahead and confirm the allegation by recognizing the TNC. That it failed is a somewhat bad sign for them, and something they obviously should not have tried.

The Ones Not Joined: The Triad
those who do recognize the rebels as the legitimate arbiters of Libya's future are a telling lot with each their own unstated true motives. There are six total, last I heard, and we should start with the main and original three, France, Qatar, and Italy.

France was the visionary leader in proclaiming the future of Libya. Little surprise, given they hosted a defector from late 2010 who reportedly helped France link up with and assist coup plotters at home. This was apparently sewn into the planned February protests, which did instantly turn to a suprisingly effective military campaign to take over the whole country. After this happened, the French were the first to recognize the rebels, and loudest in promoting and carrying out high-tech air support for their advance to Tripoli. They were reportedly promised a third of all Libyan oil contracts around the same time they started this little club.

The Persian Gulf Island state of Qatar is an authoritarian capitalist Islamic petro-kingdom, not unlike Bahrain where the US has given a nod to a repression of protesters worse than anything Gaddafi's forces actually did. Qatar was, I believe, the second nation to join France's club and recognizing the rebels. Qatar is reportedly helping manage the first of Eastern Libya's oil exports, and they've hosted both a top-level meeting on Libya's future, and their top defector, Moussa Koussa. This reviled but apparently immune foreign minister and longtime regime villain is reportedly, from Qatar, helping NATO identify buildings to bomb in the hopes of killing Gaddafi. Er, taking out command and control.

Qatar has also helped all along with, at the very least, the Qatari-owned Arab news juggernaut al Jazeera. The network's coverage of this uprising has been notably irresponsible and alarmist, especially at first when it mattered most and helped fuel the chaos Qatar is now profiting from.

Italy was I think the third to join, but as I recall, had been the first in all the world to declare Gaddafi's government non-existent. This really cuts more to the chase, doesn't it? Thay have a history in Libya too deep for me to touch yet, a huge current dependence on their oil, and so on. They also, it's said, have a lot to lose, many outstanding arrangements, but these were cut off with the early decision to erase the old regime. It's only the later decision to directly support the rebels, with diplomatically and militarily, that has caused problems selling the idea at home under Berlusconi's shaky leadership. A more robust involvement in line with France and Qatar, or the US and UK for that matter, is thus unlikely to come from Italy.

The Other Three
As for who else has joined the original three, I've seen two versions, but I'm going with the latter.
RadioAustralia:

France, Italy, Qatar and Ghana have already recognised the National Transitional Council, which is based in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi, as the legitimate representative of the Libyan people.

China Daily, May 4

So far six countries -- France, Italy, Qatar, Maldives, Kuwait and The Gambia -- have officially recognized the rebels' "lawful status" in Libya.

Both Ghana and Gambia are in sub-Saharan, western Africa. Either would be an odd choice, odd enough to consider the one I find better supported, Gambia, seperately below. Maldives, a nation of tiny islands south of India - I have no insights on their reasons. Sorry.

Kuwait, however, is another Gulf state like Qatar and Bahrain. It has no appetite for its own protesters, but Gaddafi's they seem to be lapping at. They have probably the same interests in oil as Qatar, and likely some plans to promote their best ideas of Islam in Libya, or whatever.

And, as the originators of the war-enabling Iraqi army baby incubators story, Kuwait's royals have to be quite impressed with one aspect of this war. A legion of impersonators of that scripted PR episode has been flowing from the rebel side in an unprecedented info war (snipers shooting kids, mass rapes by Afro-mercs on viagra, targetting the faithful at the mosque on a Friday, chemical warfare plans, etc.)

Gambia Recognizes the Rebels?
But I see no obvious reason for sub-Saharan Africans to support the rebels, and a few decent reasons for them to specifically support Gaddafi. (At least ideologically, if not in practice). To join this small club usually takes some solid interest and a little bit of risk on the world stage.

Gaddafi's pan-African vision, and generous aid to help the continent develop and, eventualy, unify, are popular in countries like Ghana and Gambia. Both are cited (Ghana perhaps in error) as recognizing the rebels, who hate Gaddafi's pan-African vision, and represent some nasty racists who - at least briefly - hated black Africans enough to kill probably hundreds. And they captured many more, nearly universally for the crime of "African mercenary."(side-note: an okay article from Gambia on the "mercenaries" allegations)


Gambia, or The Gambia, a tiny nation that's mostly a river on the western apex of Africa, is not a natural addition to the club. What interest do they have in creating the new Libya? All I'm aware of in particular linking the two countries is a number of foreign workers in Libya captured by rebels. One with an interesting story hailed from Gambia before being arrested, and then shown to Western journalists, as a foreign Gaddafi-paid mercenary. LA Times, March 23 related his account after he suddenly spoke up out of turn:

"I am a worker, not a fighter. They took me from my house and [raped] my wife," he said, gesturing with his hands. Before he could say much more, a pair of guards told him to shut up and hustled him through the steel doors of a cell block, which quickly slammed behind them.

Several reporters protested and the man was eventually brought back out. He spoke in broken, heavily accented English and it was hard to hear and understand him amid the scrum of scribes pushing closer. He said his name was Alfusainey Kambi, and again professed innocence before being confronted by an opposition official, who produced two Gambian passports. One was old and tattered and the other new. And for some reason, the official said the documents were proof positive that Kambi was a Kadafi operative.
[...]
[O]ur interpreter, a Libyan national, asked [LA Times reported David] Zucchino: "So what do you think? Should we just go ahead and kill them?"

Even when the charges are clearly unsafe, there's a possible motive for the rebel captors in such cases to stubbornly insist their wards are in fact criminal mercenaries. Guilty until proven innocent has always been the standard against Gaddafi, and the rebels know this. Those familiar with the US justice system know similar attitudes all too easily stick to people of color, and deep-east Libya seems to have the same problem.

This allows them to hold people, who want to go home and have homes that want them. That could, to a shrewd and unethical mind, present an opportunity - bargain the return of these men "guilty, er, possibly guilty of very serious crimes, punishable by death in our laws," in exchange for, "oh, say ... diplomatic recognition?"

A Precedent? The Southern Tribes
Other captured Afro-mercs, 157 of them taken en masse in and near al-Baida, were seen by an official from Human Rights Watch in early March. He found they were partly southern, black-skinned Libyans of long-native tribes, and partly Libyan dual-nationals from elsewhere in Africa. None were foreign mercenaries as claimed by the rebels. All were reportedly released, but we can't really be sure that was done without any strings attached.

The recent tribal council of May, in Tripoli, was criticized mainly for not haing all the tribes represented there.  Richard Boudreaux, Wall Street Journal:

Absent were eastern tribes and western Berber tribes, which have been hostile to the Col. Gadhafi during his four decades of rule, and tribes from the south that have sought to remain neutral in the 11-week-old uprising.

Most information I see suggests these tribes would and usually do support Gaddafi. They haven't formally embraced the rebels, but have for some reason chosen to sit things out, lessening the tribal array against NATO's upstarts. What is it about the rebels that gives them such a magic touch with their darker-skinned neighbors in and around Libya - this African country they're taking over for the Gulf Arabs and the Euro-Americans?

Two Tribal Opinions on Libya's Future

May 9/10 2011

A Tribal Denial of Tribal Warfare
On May 5, leaders of the Euro-Capitalist tribe gathered in Rome to plot Libya's future, with a consensus by and large, that sitting leader Muammar Gaddafi, plus his loyal clan, must leave power. They were already isolated, it was often repeated, from the real people of Libya, who had defected and rebelled all at once, in a spontaneous wave. But barring a Gaddafi surrender, the near part of that future was to be charted right through the air war against the regime, all in the name of the people of Libya.

Yet the same day a prominent group of Libyan tribal leaders - traditional pillars of society - met in Tripoli to have their own say (Explained in some detail here). The meeting was called by the tribes themselves, and hosted, by all accounts, about 2,000 chiefs, representing most, but not all, the tribes of Libya. Their actual influence is somewhat debatable, but their message, by a wide margin, was that Gaddafi must stay, Libya should be re-united under his rule, NATO should stop its bombing and the rebels should lay down their arms and agree to peaceful settlement. Some tribes were prepared to send fighters to help the government, if need be. But they called for peace; as one attendee put it:

"We reject the fighting in Libya...we strongly reject foreign intervention. We call on our brothers in the eastern regions – the armed ones, the misled ones – we call them to peaceful dialogue."

It's been widely ignored and marginalized as unrepresentative and a stunt by the regime, although no one has yet explained how they pulled it off.

A rebel spokesman dismissed claims that those attending the Tripoli conference represented all Libyan tribes. "Libya doesn't have 850 tribes," said the head of the political committee of the rebel's Transitional National Council, Fathi Baja, in the eastern city of Benghazi. "Gadhafi is just a big liar. ... He never had any legitimacy. The Libyan people did not choose him." [source]

This complaint doesn't go far. The generaly accepted number of tribes is "at least 140" and not much more. 850, given wrongly as the number of tribes, apparently refers to clans or sub-tribes (the mammoth Warfalla tribe has 55 clans). In reality, the meeting makes the best case yet that NATO's humanitarian mission does not represent the wishes of any clear majority of Libyans.

When The Tribes Were Said to Say the Opposite
But it wasn't the first time the chiefs from Tripoli to Tobruk were said to have spoken up about Gaddafi and the future. The first time was publicized just a few days earlier, and it wasn't as ignored or as harshly cross-examined as this latest conference. Indeed, the late April achievement was widely noted with the simple proclamation of fact that "Libya's tribes have called on col. Gaddafi to step down."

But to see what it really was, let's start with this from National Post, April 28:

Chiefs or representatives of 61 tribes from across Libya called for an end to Col. Gaddafi's four decades of rule in a joint statement released by Bernard-Henri Lévy, the French writer who has become the Paris-based unofficial spokesman for the revolt.

"Faced with the threats weighing on the unity of our country, faced with the manoeuvres and propaganda of the dictator and his family, we solemnly declare: Nothing will divide us," said the statement, released in the rebel stronghold, Benghazi. "We share the same ideal of a free, democratic and united Libya.

"The Libya of tomorrow, once the dictator has gone, will be a united Libya, with Tripoli as its capital and where we will at last be free to build a civil society according to our own wishes."

Mr. Lévy is credited with pressing Nicolas Sarkozy, the French President, to mobilize international political and military support for the rebels.

"Each of the tribes in Libya is represented by at least a representative. In this list of 61 signatures, some tribes are represented 100 percent, others are still divided," Mr. Lévy said.

The messenger, Mr. Levy, is a French philosopher-activist-celebrity, the richest one around, who likes to be called BHL and pose with serious "visionary" eyes beneath his windswept hair sculpture. It was he who officially convinced president Sarkozy in March to make France the first nation to extend diplomatic recognition to the rebel Transitional National Council. I don't think I like him, but he does have that hilarious fling with "Boutlism," citing the work of a joke persona for an important philosophical argument in some grandstanding book.

But this joint letter wasn't just a paper exercise, nor just passed on by the Frenchman. They actually met, with each other and with Levy. Wall Street Journal, May 8

On the opposition side, chiefs and representatives of 61 tribes met in Benghazi in April with Bernard-Henri Levy, a French philosopher and staunch advocate of Western intervention in Libya, to affirm their unity and confront “the dictator [Col. Gaddafi] who is trying to play Libya’s tribes against each other; dividing the country to better rule,” read a statement posted on the website of French periodical La Regle du Jeu.

The periodical also posted scanned pages bearing the signatures of the gathered tribal elders, who included a Benghazi-based leader of one Warfalla’s almost 55 clans.

The significance of such an act is likely to be limited given that Libya’s tribal heft remains in the center and west in areas still under Col. Gaddafi’s control where most tribes continue to uphold the “document of honor” they signed with the regime in the past. [source]

The publication in question, La Regle du Jeu (The Rules of the Game, sharing the same name as a creepy film about Nazi-era French elites), has its website here, and the letter in question revealed here, with a picture of Bono-Henri hanging out with some of the berobed Libyan elders. Dated April 27, this posting is only thing I've seen called the full text. That itself is dated April 12, two weeks prior, and it's in French. The scans beneath confirm the signed documents were also completely in French. Who translated the Libyans' words? Were they able to review the translation before signing? Did Mr. Levy and his unbuttoned shirt write the whole thing, and just charm them all into signing it how he explained it?


There is some background in French at Levy's website, which shows the picture at left, apparently of the meeting - which only had 32 tribal representatives. (I have a rough translation of this whole thing, and some comments, posted here). The other half of the names were gathered later, and according to Levy, "all the tribes of Libya, I repeat, [are] present here," including the largest one, all the southern ones (via one representative), "Lockerbie bomber" al-Megrahi's tribe, and the leader's own, al-Gaddafa (with two representatives, he says)!


Comparison
First, it's clearly relevant that these rival tribal opinions come from their respective capitols (Tripoli and Benghazi) and wound up reflecting, more-or-less, the position of the leadership seated in that capitol. It's not fair to denounce the one as a Gaddafi stunt without at least wondering if the other was a Rebel-French PR move as opposed to a genuine reading of Libya's tribal temperature.

Mr. Levy says "each of the tribes in Libya is represented by at least a representative." It's not clarified if that term means someone selected by the tribe's leadership as a rep, or just a member of the tribe. A certain subset of these 61, unspecified, were spoken for by the actual tribal chief. "In this list of 61 signatures, some tribes are represented 100 percent, others are still divided," whatever exactly that means.

If "each of the tribes in Libya" is represented - and there are 140 of them to just five dozen names - we have a problem. Some of these signatories must be standing in for multiple tribes, or turnout was only 42%. And that's combining chiefs and representatives, which may just mean members. In fact, considering this pathetic turnout, it seems they weren't even trying to get a wide sampling. More likely, they focused on those few dozen who'd be reliably on message, and strained to get the most tribal appearance from that pool.

To turn Fathi Baja's complaints on their head, "Libya doesn't have just 61 tribes. The rebels and Mr. Levy are just big liars." That might be a bit extreme, but their attempt clearly pales next to the later meeting in Tripoli.

Do the math: about 2,000 tribal chiefs, compared to "61 chiefs or representatives." A well-publicized gathering with hundreds of public speeches in their native tongue and own voices, and provided transcripts to compare with the video. Compared to a behind-the-scenes meeting with a couple of staged photos, announced only two weeks later, followed by signatures attached to a single letter that only speaks once, which they couldn't even read, being in French and for France. As the statement they signed closes:

Nous profitons de ce message, confié à un philosophe français, pour remercier la France et, à travers la France, l’Europe : ce sont elles qui ont empêché le carnage que nous avait promis Kadhafi ; c’est grâce à elles, avec elles, que nous construirons la Libye libre, et une, de demain.

(trans):
We take the opportunity of this message, given to a French philosopher, to thank France and through France, Europe: it is they who have prevented the bloodshed that we had been promised by Gaddafi, it is thanks to them and with them that we build a free Libya, and a unified tomorrow.

(trans):
سنكون يدفعون لك مرة أخرى لسنوات قادمة. تهاني.

Lévy Explains the Tribal Rejection of Gaddafi

May 10 2011

Below is a French to English translation of Bernard-Henri Lévy's explanation of his supposed joint letter by the trines of Libya. The wonky text is presented in full and in order, but broken up with comments.

Call of Benghazi

April 27, 2011

Read the appeal: All the tribes of Libya are one.

Read below decryption Bernard-Henri Levy.

The publication of this text is in many ways an event.

Signed by leaders or representatives of all tribes that make up Libya, he said the country's unity, he demolishes the idea, too often accepted as a matter of course, a nation divided into as many segments as tribes, it argues against the prejudice of Tripoli, and to a lesser extent, of Fezzan, which remain the bastions facing the rebel Cyrenaica, Gaddafi still a powerful

Again, plese note - there are about 140 tribes in Libya, something like 1,000 or more clans. The "appeal" in question was signed by 61 people. Even if they were all chiefs of 61 tribes (they weren't), that would be 42% of the tribes.

Also, the letter was two weeks old by the time it was published. Perhaps that was time to secure the 29 signatures to add to the original 32 to get the final 61.

On 12 April evening in a suburb of Benghazi during a meeting organized by Dr. Almayhoub, member of the National Transition Council and Chairman of the Council of Elders and dignitaries, that the idea of this call is born.

A text was then drafted and ratified soon by the 32 tribal leaders present or represented - basically, and that evening, the tribes of Cyrenaica martyrs and cities of the West.

Then, within days, contacts have been made , messages were launched, emissaries were dispatched towards all the other tribes of the country - the very ones which is assumed to Gaddafi or living under the terror of his army.

The result is there.

Indeed - they only had 32 representatives at the time of drafting. But a number signed later, to which Mr. Levy returns, providing some suspiciously impressive details I cannot yet vouch for or de-bunk - in particular, one man is claimed for the largets tribe, Warfalla, another one standing in for all southern tribes, one from "Lockerbie bomber" al-Megrahi's tribe swears off the regime, as does a "leader traditionnel" of the al-Gaddafa tribe, the Libyan leader's own!

The text has gathered signatures from Mouftah Al Matouk Werfali, chief of the tribe Warfalaa, located Baniwalid, is one of the largest tribes in western countries.

He considered the comments received and the signature of Al Nasr Sharif Sayfal, traditional leader of the tribes Al Gaddafi (Qadhafi's tribe) and Oulad Suleiman (present in Fezzan but whose center is Hrawi, near Sirte, city Gaddafi's birthplace and is considered one of its bases).

All the tribes of the city of Sabha in the South, all these tribes Al Fazazouna

was believed, too, acquired or not daring to disavow Gaddafi, are represented by Al Hajj Ali Al Fazan which we specify in a message accompanying that many leaders in his region who were unable, for security reasons, to ratify the manifesto. are with him through the heart and mind.

Similarly, the tribe Al Maguarhaa in the south: one of its leaders, Abdullah Sanusi, is the brother-in-law of Gaddafi and a pillar of his regime, but the signature of Al Hajj Moussa Al Magurahi, representative of one of the oldest and most influential families in the region is denied the claims of Tripoli to have his full support.

The presence among the signatories, Abd Al Kader Al Targi which is one of the leaders of the tribe Tawarik Al is also a major indication: Al Tawarik tribe, which has links with the Tuareg of Niger Algeria and Mali, is deemed Gaddafi - from today, it should not be.

There is also the coastal tribe Sourman: it is the birthplace of General Kheildi Al Hamed, mate Gaddafi, but here it is that, through Al Hajj Al Mabrouk Soumana says brightly that she chose the camp of insurrection.

Mohamed Al Dhmani Al Agilé represents the tribe Al Agilé, west of Tripoli.

Ashour Al Bou Krisse Wershefani Wesrhefanaa represents the tribe Wesrhefanaa, which is another tribe of the west of the capital, in the Al Azizia which is considered a stronghold of the most loyal and strongest of the Guide.

And there's still the case Khalifa Saleh Al-Qadhafi, leader of the tribe Al Gaddafi is, again, the tribe of Gaddafi: Khalifa Saleh Al Gaddafi was able to sign this text as it is nowadays, but its in Benghazi Announces Signing of others who can still be done openly.

From the sound of it, this Benghazi-origin document was signed by everyone near and dear to the regime itself. It would take some serious finding out to verify this interpretation. And again, it was only five dozen names, east and west, that were gathered at the end of it. Yet Levy continues and closes:

All the tribes of Libya, I repeat, present here.

All have, through one of their chiefs, ratified the manifesto.

The myth of Libya cut in half has lived.

The cuts, more accurately, no longer geographically separating the free tribes of the East than in West always be based on which the regime: it is political, internal to the tribes themselves, which when not clear to have or be on track to have an allegiance to the National Transitional Council, at least, outstanding leaders are here.

There will, very soon, that Libya - expressed through the text I am pleased and honored to make public today.

Bernard-Henri Levy