Libyan rebels win international recognition as country's leaders

[jefferson_dem]

Source: Guardian

30 governments and groups including Nato and Arab League recognise Libya's transitional council as 'legitimate authority'

Ian Black, Middle East editor guardian.co.uk, Friday 15 July 2011 13.45 BST

Libyan rebels fighting to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi have won recognition as the country's "legitimate authority" from the entire international contact group co-ordinating policy on the crisis.

Franco Frattini, Italy's foreign minister, announced the largely symbolic move at an Istanbul meeting of the group – one of a swathe of political and economic measures designed to ratchet up pressure on Gaddafi.

Britain also announced that it was deploying four more fighter aircraft to take part in Nato's bombing campaign.

"The entire Libyan contact group decided to recognise the NTC as the legitimate authority of Libya," Frattini told reporters. "So no other option but for Gaddafi to leave."

<SNIP>

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/15/libyan-rebels-international-recognition-leaders

[pampango]

1. WaPo: U.S. to recognize Libyan rebels as legitimate government

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle-east/western-arab-leaders-meet-in-turkey-on-libyas-future/2011/07/15/gIQAZLbjFI_story.html

The United States is granting Libyan rebel leaders full diplomatic recognition as the governing authority of Libya, after five months of fighting to oust longtime ruler Moammar Gaddafi, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday.

The decision--announced at a meeting here of 30 Western and Arab nations--paves the way for the rebels to access some of Libya’s frozen U.S. assets, which total more than $30 billion. The money that comes with full diplomatic recognition has been increasingly important in recent weeks for the cash-strapped rebels, who have found themselves in a stalemate with Gaddafi's forces.

For weeks, U.S. officials have stopped short of full diplomatic recognition even as they inched up support for the Libyan rebels’ cause. The main concern was over how capably and inclusively the rebel leaders would govern, said a senior U.S. state department official who was not authorized to speak by name. The United States decided to change its position after a presentation to the international contact group by Mahmoud Jebril, the foreign representative of the transitional council, who walked through the rebels’ post-Gaddafi plans for governing Libya.

The worry among U.S. and other foreign powers was that after Gaddafi falls, the oil-rich country could become embroiled in tribal conflicts or ethnic tensions. A British-led group planning for post-Gaddafi Libya is recommending that the Libyan army be left intact to avoid the tactical mistake made after the Iraq war, when U.S.-led forces dismantled Saddam Hussein’s army.

[iandhr]

2. U.S. to recognize Libyan rebels as legitimate government

Source: Washington Post

ISTANBUL--The United States is granting Libyan rebel leaders full diplomatic recognition as the governing authority of Libya, after five months of fighting to oust longtime ruler Moammar Gaddafi, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday.

The decision--announced at a meeting here of 30 Western and Arab nations--paves the way for the rebels to access some of Libya’s frozen U.S. assets, which total more than $30 billion.


“I am announcing today that, until an interim authority is in place, the United States will recognize the TNC as the legitimate governing authority for Libya, and we will deal with it on that basis,” Clinton said, using the acronym for the rebels’ governing Transitional National Council.

The foreign ministers of France and Italy, both of whom recognized the rebels earlier in the conflict, said all nations at the meeting were now prepared to follow suit. France pledged to unfreeze $250 million in assets in coming days and give the money to the rebels, and Italy pledged to unfreeze $100 million.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle-east/western-arab-leaders-meet-in-turkey-on-libyas-future/2011/07/15/gIQAZLbjFI_story.html?wpisrc=al_national

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Inuca]

4. ??????????????????? n/t

[Arctic Dave]

7. The excuse she used for the US involvement in Libya is that she "felt bad"

for not intervening in Sudan and didn't want the "massacre" to happen there like in Sudan. Sudan is still suffering and people are getting murdered en masse and the US and NATO aren't doing jack about it except talking.

Sudan also has very little oil. Go figure.

[pampango]

8. Sudan actually is #20 in terms of its oil reserves so it has more than

a whole bunch of other countries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_proven_oil_reserves

The UN has been involved in Sudan for years. "The Security Council, by its resolution 1590 (2005) of 24 March 2005, decided to establish the United Nations Mission in the Sudan (UNMIS) to support implementation..."

"The Security Council further decided that UNMIS would consist of up to 10,000 military personnel and an appropriate civilian component, including up to 715 civilian police personnel."

http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/unmis/

In some ways the UN has done more in Sudan than it has done in Libya (6 years and 10,000 "boots on the ground"). It just never attracted much attention in the US because we were not directly involved.

I guess we all "feel bad" about what happened in Darfur, Rwanda and other genocides. There was little chance of Bush intervening in Darfur (since he had a couple of other "interventions" he was already working on).

That's a reason the the UN passed the Responsibility to Protect doctrine in 2005 so that the international community would take a stance in these cases instead of wondering why individual countries didn't intervene on their own.

[Arctic Dave]

9. Having "boots on the ground" translates to spectators.

Sitting in a barbed wire compound and saying, yeah, there are atrocities going on doesn't mean jack to the people who died. Nor, did it translate into direct military intervention or a bombing campaign.

As for the amount of oil, you prove my point that they are in the list of countries with minimal financial reasons to intervene, which is exactly what the Libya coup is about.

[pampango]

13. UN R2P interventions was most recently successful in the Ivory Coast which has no oil.

Some members of the UN Security Council (the UK, France and the US) attempted to authorize an R2P-based intervention in Burma (no oil) in 2007 but this was vetoed by Russia and China. More recently France, the UK and the US sought to have the UN SC condemn Syria for its crackdown on protesters, but again Russia and China threatened a veto. The only UN intervention Russia and China did not veto was Libya which, perhaps not coincidentally, is a major oil exporter.

It seems that Russia and China only condone UN interventions in oil-producing countries while they veto interventions in non-oil producing countries. At least the US, the UK and France have sought to have the UN provide help to civilians in regardless of what resources their economies are based on.

In addition to the Ivory Coast and Burma, the UN has intervened in Kenya and Kyrgyzstan to protect civilians. None of those countries produce significant amounts of oil.

http://www.responsibilitytoprotect.org/

As for "boots on the ground" there seems to thankfully be a lot of resistance to the idea of foreign "boots on the ground" in Libya even if in some people's opinion they would just translate into spectators.

With regards to Sudan, are you arguing that the UN should have intervened more forcefully and effectively to stop the atrocities, that its intervention was intentionally ineffective because Sudan has relatively small oil reserves or that the UN should not have intervened at all despite the atrocities?

[Igel]

15. That was post hoc R2P.

Nothing happened until the UN--specifically the French--were attacked. Then they responded, and increasingly responded.

R2P is like the UN approval of Kosovo. After the fact, when it was safe.

R2P adherents have every reason to make as much of their beliefs as possible. It's called PR when it's political, self-aggrandizement when it's personal (or the opposition).

[joshcryer]

18. No, before South Sudan's independence Ethopia sent in actual troops with capacity to shoot.

They were policing, most certainly, not just observers.

[marasinghe]

12. much of the oil (60% i believe) happens to be in South Sudan; hence its becoming the newest nation.

meanwhile (kid just returned from volunteer stint in Juba) - the entire country has less than 35 govt. doctors, more or less 1 govt. psychiatrist, and aggressive psychiatric patients are chained to trees inside prison compounds (only because they lack any facilities, for institutionalizing such patients). most medical work is being done by volunteers & NGO's like MSF.

Links:

http://www.southsudanmedicaljournal.com/assets/files/Journals/vol_3_iss_2_may_10/ssudanworkforce.pdf

http://www.southsudanmedicaljournal.com/archive/may-2010/mapping-the-specialist-medical-workforce-for-southern-sudan-devising-ways-for-capacity-building.html

http://allafrica.com/stories/201107081004.html

MSF: Medicins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without borders)
http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/news/allcontent.cfm?id=72

[joshcryer]

19. South Sudan has closer to 75% of the oil, however, for Independence they agreed to a 50-50 split.

They truly wanted to be separated from the Sudan atrocities and actually benefit from the oil wealth, it would be unfair to slander Southern Sudanese for their desire for freedom and democracy, which Cloony and many other advocates supported.

[Igel]

14. One of the interventions was Sudan, Of course.

It's a conceit that things really got moving after Clooney and (D) got involved up to their necks in the South Sudanese conflict.

(R) were aware of it after about 2003, when it became a big evangelical issue. Muslims oppressing Xians (and animists) in a rebellion that was partly a long-standing desire for self-determination and partly a revved revolt against the imposition of an Islamic Constition and shari'a even in Muslim-minority areas had something to do with it. It was viewed as persecuting Xians.

It was when the Lost Boys attracted attention as a group of black males who were oppressed by a civil war and needed out sympathy and compassion that it attracted widespread attention.

But by the time the R2P folk were involved the situation was already coming under control; the peace agreement was a year after they became aware of the long-standing conflict. Darfur had far more to do with the peace agreement than human rights activists. Hell, even * had far more to do with it than human rights activists. In fact, it was one of his "interventions."

[joshcryer]

17. You want the US and NATO to act unilaterally?

Wow. And people call me a hawk for supporting UN actions.

[dipsydoodle]

5. lol

:rofl:

[dipsydoodle]

6. What is more important

is for the people of Libya to accept them. A situation which is not necessarily so.

[David__77]

10. Frattini is hilarious.

Oh, yes, the "contact group" say so, and reality will conform to the glorious "contact group!" The wishful thinking is so funny.

[marasinghe]

11. guess the elections must've happened under the NATO radar. (n/t)

[joshcryer]

16. Good.

[pampango]

20. Juan Cole: 32 Nations Recognize Free Libya

http://www.juancole.com/2011/07/32-nations-recognize-free-libya.html

It is important that the Contact Group meeting was hosted by Turkey, a major Muslim nation, and chaired by the United Arab Emirates, so this was not just a Western initiative. In fact the UAE foreign minister was most vocal on the need for more international pressure on Qaddafi. The international recognition of the TNC is important in part for resource reasons. Most of the Contact Group countries, including the US, have frozen Qaddafi’s bank accounts, containing tens billions of dollars that he wasn’t spending on the welfare of his people. This diplomatic step clears the way for the US and others to cede control of the frozen funds to the TNC, an infusion of resources that could well make the difference in the conflict.

Doug Saunders reports from Benghazi on the heady sense of liberation in that city, with censorship gone and the five Qaddafi propaganda rags succeeded by 126 newspapers of all political tendencies, some of them critical of the TNC. One, Youth Call is run by teenagers and edited by a fourteen-year-old young woman, Sadus Jahmi

One reason for the slowness of the war is that the United Nations allies helping the Free Libya forces do not want to destroy Qaddafi’s military, taking a lesson from what happened in Iraq. There, when the US liquidated the Iraqi military, it threw the country into chaos that persists today. Rather, they will try to advance against the Qaddafi brigades gradually enough to leave them intact, encouraging them to defect (which of course large numbers already have), in hopes of integrating them into a new national army. I was told this by Free Libya speakers at a meeting I attended a couple of weeks ago at the Cultural Center in Tunis, sponsored by the Tunisian Progressive Democratic Party. James Dorsey, writing at al-Arabiya, makes the same point today. It is a wise way of proceeding and has a good chance of success, since many defecting members of the Qaddafi brigades have expressed remorse for how they were deceived by the regime (they are told that the Free Libya forces are al-Qaeda foreigners).

Of course another reason for the slowness of the war is that Free Libya forces are mostly untrained teenagers, bravery more often their virtue than savvy tactics and strategy on the battlefield. The indiscipline in these green ranks has sometimes led to looting and other abuses, according to Human Rights Watch. This problem is in the field, from all accounts, and not owing to policy or TNC directives, unlike the war crimes committed by Qaddafi brigades, which have often been ordered from the top. HRW admits that Free Libya abuses pale in comparison with the “atrocities” committed by Qaddafi brigades.

[Cereal Kyller]

21. Gotta like it!

[AverageJoe90]

22. Alright! =D

Now let's just hope the Muslim Brotherhood doesn't end up hijacking the revolution like they tried to in Egypt.