A victorious Gadafy would be certain to punish the people for daring to turn on him
IN HIS fight to finish Libya’s eight-day uprising, Muammar Gadafy has deployed African “mercenaries”, tanks, helicopters and warplanes, but his bloody show of force has failed to stop Libyans from demanding his resignation. Consequently, his control of the country is diminishing, his circle of supporters is shrinking and his options are narrowing.
Libya has been cut in two by the uprising and repression.
The capital, Tripoli, and portions of Tripolitania in the west remain under his domination, although firing is reported in Misrata, 200km east of Tripoli, and clashes are said to be raging between pro-and anti-Gadafy military units at the Gharyan base to the south. If either of these strategic locations fall to the rebels, his grip in Tripoli could become tenuous.
In the country’s restive second city, Benghazi, and Cyranaica, its hinterland in the east, citizens are celebrating their freedom and flying the flag adopted in 1951 at independence.
Frontier posts on the eastern border with Egypt are manned by rebels who hold the coastal cities – Tobruk, Darna, Bayda and Benghazi – and there have been skirmishes at the oil centre of Ajdabiya, south of Benghazi.
Defections are depriving Gadafy of loyal comrades in the military. The highest-ranking official to resign, interior minister Abdul Fattah Younis al-Abidi, was a member of the old guard who helped Gadafy mount the coup that toppled the king in 1969.
Abidi, now based in Benghazi, accused Gadafy of planning an all-out attack on the populace.
Abidi said he was supporting the uprising which, in his view, will achieve victory in “days or hours”. Another veteran of the 1969 coup, Maj Gen Suleiman Mahmoud, commander of the Tobruk garrison, joined the uprising along with the elite forces under his command.
On the political front, justice minister Mustafa Abdul Jalil has resigned and Youssef Sawani, head of the Gadafy Foundation, the power base of the colonel’s second son, Saif al-Islam, has stepped down.
These domestic defections are far more important to the embattled leader than the rash of resignations by diplomats posted abroad in Beijing, New Delhi, New York, Kuala Lumpur and Cairo, whose abandonment of Gadafy has impressed the international community.
Gen Abidi said Gadafy was a “stubborn man” who will “either commit suicide, or he will get killed”. But until he has become a fatality of his own folly, he is certain to punish the Libyan people because they have dared to turn against him.
One of the instruments he has been using to crush the uprising has been a force allegedly comprised of “mercenaries”. There have been reports that these armed elements have arrived by air and bus from Sub-Saharan Africa. Libyans who have encountered these men say they speak French rather than Arabic, suggesting that some, at least, may come from Chad.
Cambridge University’s Prof George Joffe has suggested these fighters may be holdovers from the 1980s, when Gadafy in- vited Muslims to settle in Libya and raised a military force, dubbed the Islamic Legion, to defend the Muslim world from external aggression. He used the legion to intervene in the affairs of African states. Joffe said he might now be employing members of this force, personally loyal to him, to defend his regime.
He may also be calling in IOUs from African rulers he backed with his legion and oil monies.
A second instrument is the internal security apparatus, which has long carried out repression of the opposition. This apparatus employs thousands in different capacities. A third is the body of men and women employed in the popular committees that form the basic structure of his system of governance.
The uprising has been able to overcome Gadafy’s legions, security men and committees in the east because the region is far from the capital, and organised opposition to his rule has been long-standing.
In the west, he has been more successful in containing the rebellion because it was spontaneous, and Tripoli is the power base of his regime.
The rebellion-repression could continue for some time. Neither Gadafy nor the protest movement can afford to lose. This battle is certain to be his last, while his opponents equally know they and their families are unlikely to survive defeat.
