Time for NATO intervention in Libya (again)?

Brown Bomber

Judging by the UN's own stance on Syria I would say yes.

the Council strongly condemned the continued widespread, systematic and gross violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms by the Syrian authorities, such as arbitrary executions, excessive use of force and the killing and persecution of protesters, human rights defenders and journalists, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, torture and ill-treatment, including against children.
http://www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=11680&LangID=E

Arbitrary Executions and Excessive Use of Force

(Sirte) – Fifty-three people, apparent Gaddafi supporters, seem to have been executed at a hotel in Sirte last week, Human Rights Watch said today. The hotel is in an area of the city that was under the control of anti-Gaddafi fighters from Misrata before the killings took place.
http://www.hrw.org/news/2011/10/24/libya-apparent-execution-53-gaddafi-supporters

===

A U.N. commission of inquiry on Libya, which has not been able to enter the country since Gaddafi was driven from power, said it had received many reports of ill-treatment of black Africans and dark-skinned Libyans by anti-Gaddafi fighters.


Media reports from Libya have shown cowed blacks herded into trucks and raised accusations of summary executions. Blacks captured by anti-Gaddafi forces have told Reuters that they were innocent migrant workers mistaken for Gaddafi fighters.
http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE78I0G420110919?sp=true

===

A former ISA member, Ibrahim Khalifa al-
Surmani, a father of six, was found dead
on 10 May in the south-western outskirts
of Benghazi. He had been shot in the
head. His hands and feet were bound and
a scarf was tightly tied around his neck.
He was missing a piece of flesh from his
right calf and marks on his trousers
indicated that he had been kneeling. A
blood-stained note bearing his name was
found by the body; it read: “…a dog
among Gaddafi’s dogs has been
eliminated”.
http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/MDE19/025/2011/en/8f2e1c49-8f43-46d3-917d-383c17d36377/mde190252011en.pdf

===

A mass grave believed to contain the remains of Gaddafi loyalists has been discovered in the Nafusa Mountains in Libya, adding to concerns over the way the Libyan rebels treat captives and the civil population in territories under its control.
­The five mutilated bodies were found in a water tank just off the main road between Zintan, the area’s main town, and Al-Qawalish, according to The Daily Telegraph newspaper.

The identity of the men, one of whom had been decapitated, remains unknown.
http://rt.com/news/mutilated-corpses-libya-rights/

===

(New York) – Militias from the city of Misrata are terrorizing the displaced residents of the nearby town of Tawergha, accusing them of having committed atrocities with Gaddafi forces in Misrata, Human Rights Watch said today. The entire town of 30,000 people is abandoned – some of it ransacked and burned – and Misrata brigade commanders say the residents of Tawergha should never return.

Human Rights Watch interviewed dozens of Tawerghans across the country, including 26 people in detention in and around Misrata and 35 displaced people staying in Tripoli, Heisha, and Hun. They gave credible accounts of some Misrata militias shooting unarmed Tawerghans, and of arbitrary arrests and beatings of Tawerghan detainees, in a few cases leading to death.
http://www.hrw.org/news/2011/10/30/libya-militias-terrorizing-residents-loyalist-town

The killing and persecution of protesters, human rights defenders and journalists

Gadaffi era broadcast journalist Hala Misrati has possibly been killed. This is apparently her last known appearance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-HcbPD4JWw

Here is footage of her captured by gun-toting Libyan Rebels.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bCSr_Pflcg

According to her former colleague Dr Yusuf Shakir , Misrati has has been raped 17 times.

Arbitrary Detention

Former Libyan rebels are still holding about 7,000 prisoners, the United Nations says.
The detainees are being held without access to legal process because the police and courts are not functioning, and some may have been tortured.
Many are sub-Saharan Africans suspected of being mercenaries hired by the Gaddafi regime.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-15932105

Torture

Libya: Deaths of detainees amid widespread torture
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/libya...ure-2012-01-26

The ex-rebels even send detainees to get medical aid so they can torture their prisoners further. A situation which has left Mediciens sans Frontiers to abandon it's operation in Misrata.

TRIPOLI/BRUSSELS, 26 JANUARY 2012 – Detainees in the Libyan city of Misrata are being tortured and denied urgent medical care, leading the international medical humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) to suspend its operations in detention centres in Misrata, MSF announced today.

MSF teams began working in Misrata’s detention centres in August, 2011, to treat war-wounded detainees. Since then, MSF doctors were increasingly confronted with patients who suffered injuries caused by torture during interrogation sessions. The interrogations were held outside the detention centres. In total, MSF treated 115 people who had torture-related wounds and reported all the cases to the relevant authorities in Misrata. Since January, several of the patients returned to interrogation centres have even been tortured again.


“Some officials have sought to exploit and obstruct MSF’s medical work,” said MSF General Director Christopher Stokes. “Patients were brought to us in the middle of interrogation for medical care, in order to make them fit for further interrogation. This is unacceptable. Our role is to provide medical care to war casualties and sick detainees, not to repeatedly treat the same patients between torture sessions.”
http://www.msf.org/msf/articles/2012/01/libya-detainees-tortured-and-denied-medical-care.cfm

Ill-treatment, including against children.

Thousands of people, including women and children, are being illegally detained by rebel militias in Libya, according to a report by the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Many of the prisoners are suffering torture and systematic mistreatment while being held in private jails outside the control of the country's new government.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/leaked-un-report-reveals-torture-lynchings-and-abuse-in-postgaddafi-libya-6266636.html

And this is just scratching the surface.

cyberhog

The responsibility to protect civilians only applied while a major irritant of the West was in power.The fact that the people of Libya are still suffering terrible horrors is of no concern to NATO.

"We are not present in Libya and we have no intention to return," Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told a news conference.

...

"On October 31 we terminated the operation because we clearly assessed that we had done our job and done it successfully," he said. "This is also the reason why we have no intention to return. Our mission has been completed."

http://zeenews.india.com/news/world/nato-will-not-return-to-libya-despite-clashes_755086.html


Ousting Gaddafi was clearly all NATO cared about. Libyans that still face persecution, torture, and death are on their own.

AlekSmart

cyberhog wrote: »

The responsibility to protect civilians only applied while a major irritant of the West was in power.The fact that the people of Libya are still suffering terrible horrors is of no concern to NATO.




http://zeenews.india.com/news/world/nato-will-not-return-to-libya-despite-clashes_755086.html


Ousting Gaddafi was clearly all NATO cared about. Libyans that still face persecution, torture, and death are on their own.

It would be of interest to hear what exactly Gen Rasmussen's definintion of what his "Job" actually was in relation of Libya.

It's more evident,on a daily basis,that the UN1973 resolution's talk of protecting innocent Libyan civillians from their Government's Military threat is becoming more threadbare.

Future generations of Libyans may well have to reassess the well tended anti-Gadaffi fervour which the Islamist rebels and their UN/NATO allies facilitated.

African countries,even North African ones,really need to know their place and role in the big-picture,such as being dependant upon and grateful for endless Western aid schemes,and not be harbouring such mad and bad notions as launching their own communications satellites or irrigating their desert wastelands...such talk is dangerous.

Libya will be waiting quite some time for a leader with half the committment and vision for the country which Gadaffi was possessed of.....the sad reality for Libyans,is Gadaffi's vision tended to really (:eek:) worry some of the Big Players in the market,and as such he needed to be removed from the scene asap....as Gen Rasmussen might say..."Job Done-Time for us to go home"...:(

AlekSmart

AlekSmart wrote: »

It would be of interest to hear what exactly Gen Rasmussen's definintion of what his "Job" actually was in relation of Libya.

It's more evident,on a daily basis,that the UN1973 resolution's talk of protecting innocent Libyan civillians from their Government's Military threat is becoming more threadbare.

Future generations of Libyans may well have to reassess the well tended anti-Gadaffi fervour which the Islamist rebels and their UN/NATO allies facilitated.

African countries,even North African ones,really need to know their place and role in the big-picture,such as being dependant upon and grateful for endless Western aid schemes,and not be harbouring such mad and bad notions as launching their own communications satellites or irrigating their desert wastelands...such talk is dangerous.

Libya will be waiting quite some time for a leader with half the committment and vision for the country which Gadaffi was possessed of.....the sad reality for Libyans,is Gadaffi's vision tended to really (:eek:) worry some of the Big Players in the market,and as such he needed to be removed from the scene asap....as Gen Rasmussen might say..."Job Done-Time for us to go home"...:(

Why blame others for what Libyans are doing to Libyans?

smurgen

well Gaddafi was Libyan and the west blamed him for doing ill to Libyans, why should it be any different this time

mike65

As the UN backed the motion which had the inevitable effect of removing Gaddaffi the UN should have been ready to go in once he was gone. The usual screw up (that said only a most naive person would have failed to predict a messy period or retribution and power grabs.

davoxx

well the oil's safe and still in dollars, so that's the main thing ...

where are all the guys who said the NATO sponsored coup of libya was a humanitarian cause?
are they still in iraq looking for wmd?
or they now looking at iran for their non-corporeal nuclear weapons?

AlekSmart

davoxx wrote: »

Well,the oil's safe and still in dollars, so that's the main thing ...

Where are all the guys who said the NATO sponsored coup of libya was a humanitarian cause?
Are they still in iraq looking for wmd?
Or,they now looking at iran for their non-corporeal nuclear weapons?

Worry ye not davoxx,I should imagine they'll be along in a tick seeking links for those opinions of yours

AlekSmart

Rojomcdojo wrote: »

Why blame others for what Libyans are doing to Libyans?

It's not so much a blame-game as a reflection upon recent somewhat contradictory policy decisions by some decidedly dodgy Western Leaderships.

It's quite debatable that if the UN had decided to note,rather than act,upon the initial anti-Gadaffi notices it recieved then the Libyan situation would possibly not have developed into the vlatile mess it currently is.

I still do not buy into the "Libyan Oil" theory as being the major motivator in the UN/NATO operation...I remain convinced that Gadaffi's somewhat less than typical policies for Libya were causing no small degree of uncertainty even panic within certain European circles,notably French,British and Italian.

Gadaffi was,by a long shot,the most clear minded of African leaders in terms of where he saw his country progressing to.

It's noteworthy that in the months since his execution we still have not been presented with concrete evidence of his Governments supposed policies of mass exterminations or its destruction of cities and opposing tribal centres.

Even more noteworthy is the lack of,dare I say it,typical self-aggrandising palatial existence,in the theme of Emperor Bokassa,Uncle Bob Mugabe and literally dozens of other tin-pot dictators in the region....nope,Gadaffi was spending far more of his country's wealth on the general forward progerss of the country as a whole,for example the signing of contracts with Chinese Railway Building groups to expand Libyan Rail services.

It kinda underlines how thin the UN/NATO line actually was when the most oft repeated allegation we now hear is not Drums of Chemical Weapons,or Nuclear Weapons of Mass Destruction,but container loads of Viagra....the evidence for which appears to have been swallowed. :rolleyes:

davoxx

AlekSmart wrote: »

Worry ye not davoxx,I should imagine they'll be along in a tick seeking links for those opinions of yours

i sure hope so, otherwise my opinion of those responsible may never change ... :rolleyes:

they say it was about the people, so much so they set up a fund ...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13292852

"the US was trying to free more than $30bn it had frozen in Libyan assets."

lagente

Libya's former ambassador to France Omar Brebesh died in the custody of a militia from possible torture, Human Rights Watch has said.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0203/libya.html

smurgen

smurgen wrote: »

well Gaddafi was Libyan and the west blamed him for doing ill to Libyans, why should it be any different this time

Touché


I guess, the question comes down to: What to do? Is this violence merely a knee-jerk manifestation of national anger against a totalitarian regime built on fear? Or does it go far deeper, meaning that this violence is tribal and is just a taste of what is to come?

AlekSmart

Rojomcdojo wrote: »

Touché


I guess, the question comes down to: What to do? Is this violence merely a knee-jerk manifestation of national anger against a totalitarian regime built on fear? Or does it go far deeper, meaning that this violence is tribal and is just a taste of what is to come?

Yes indeed Rojomcdojo,I believe it goes far deeper than the UN/NATO could ever contemplate.

Whilst the "totalitarian regime built on fear" description may well tick all of our Western sensitivity boxes,it doesnt necessarily carry over cleanly into explaining the delicate balance which exists in many tribal cultures.

Gadaffi was probably the most adept exponent at Tribal Culture Management,something which we in the West are now only beginning to appreciate.

Gadaffi was not "of us" and in many ways he got right up the noses of our leadership structures,but,he knew his own peoples and he managed to bring Libya to a place few of his opponents would have been capable of doing.

There is little doubt in my mind that within a very short timeframe,Libya will have become a set of highly volatile Tribal seperatist entities which will revert to the traditional ways of doing Tribal business......and it won't sit well with us then either ! :eek: