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The International Institute for Middle-East and Balkan Studies (IFIMES) in Ljubljana, Slovenia, regularly analyses events in the Middle East and the Balkans. Dr. Anis H. Bajrektarević, member of the IFIMES International Institute and professor and chairperson Intl. Law & Global Pol. Studies at the IMC University of Applied Sciences, Krems, Austria, offers his observations on the ongoing Libyan affair and its impact on Africa. The most interesting sections from the analysis entitled “LIBYA - UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING, AFRICA[1]” are published below.

Dr. Anis H. Bajrektarević

● Professor and chairperson Intl. Law & Global Pol. Studies at the IMC University of Applied Sciences, Krems, Austria

● Member of the IFIMES International Institute

 

LIBYA - UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING, AFRICA[2]

Four men leading one man bound

One man whom the four men hound

One man counted bound and led

One man whom the four men dread[3]

If the sunny ‘Arab spring’ day is clouded in Tunisia by the incapability of domestic forces to turn the popular revolt into viable and badly needed socio-political reform, and if such a ‘Spring’ in Egypt is shadowed by the military uniforms and old faces with new rhetorics that are effectively running the country (jointly with the USAID and IMF), than the spring skies over Libya are full of pelting rain, across tribal lines. The inability of (coalition of the willing dressed in) the NATO to bring about a fast and decisive result in the Libyan episode puts Russia and China into a very comfortable position – to recapture initiative and lead moral condemnations on the international scene. (In the bold demonstration of solidarity ordered by Beijing, the China’s ambassador accredited to Libya was even walking every morning all the sites bombed in Tripoli in the night raids.) Nevertheless, in practical terms there was no real difference between the affirmative vote on the UN Security Council Resolution 1973 of France, the UK and the US, and the non-blocking abstention of Russia and China – both together were needed for the adoption of the resolution and the rapid intervention that came along. (To complete the puzzle, Brazil and India – contrary to their vocal anti-Western moralization – also casted abstentions, not negative votes, on the Resolution.)

The logics of you do not touch Syria (Russia) and you don’t touch Sudan (China), in exchange for a free upper hand in Libya presents itself as a seductive guess to the possible grand bargaining of the P-5 behind closed doors (offering comfort to the question of discrepancy between the loudly declared and factually committed). Still, from this short time distance with a lack of conclusive information, it is a highly speculative hint. Admittedly, up to this writing there has been no Security Council resolution followed by concrete action to stop mass and repeated atrocities in either Sudan or Syria. An additional international legitimacy burden streams & rings: a slow and weak response on a side of the Libya-intervention eager coalition of the willing to the colossal humanitarian catastrophe in the East/Horn of Africa–an outbreak that was mounting since the early spring of 2011 (not to mention Bahrain and Yemen)[4].

Young generations of Europeans are taught in schools about a singular entity called the EU. However, as soon as serious security challenges emerge, the compounding parts of the true, historic Europe are resurfacing again. Formerly in Iraq (with the exception of France) and now with Libya; Central Europe is hesitant to act, Atlantic Europe is eager, Scandinavian Europe is absent, Eastern Europe is bandwagoning, and Russophonic Europe is opposing.

The 1986 Reagan-led Anglo-American bombing of Libya was a one-time punitive action. And then for decades nearly nothing happened, as if everybody was busily reading the Book of Laughter and Forgetting[5]. But, as the saying goes: ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’, at least not after 19 March 2011. This time, Libya has been given a different attachment: The considerable presence of China in Africa, successful circumventing pipeline deals between Russia and Germany (which will deprive the Eastern Europe from any transit-related bargaining premium, and will tacitly pose a joint Russo-German effective pressure on the Baltic states, Poland and Ukraine), and finally Tunisian and Egyptian, EU friendly regimes fall –all combined– must have triggered alarm bells across the Atlantic Europe.

The economically prosperous (the most developed African state and a provider of solid jobs for many in the region, including Egyptians and Tunisians – over a million of their guest-workers), but of socio-politically spent clan-favoritism regime, and jovial leader, Libya emerged as an easy target. As an advocate of and engine to pan-African solidarity and unity, Libya was also an appropriate target for the Atlantic Europe – to pass the simple message: neither Gaddafi (-led cross-African coalition) nor China (or Indian Navy) can silently fill the gap after the collapse of the Soviet Union and subsequent loss of American strategic interest for Africa.

Indeed, the current deployment is the largest Anglo-French military involvement in the Middle East since their joint occupation of Sinai and bombardment of Cairo of late 1956 (the so-called Mivtza Kadesh, tripartite surprise attack on Egypt following the tensions over the Aswan Dam funding and Nasser’s nationalization of Suez). That time, the intervention has triggered the unthinkable Cold War’s precedence: By the joint blocking vote in the UN Sec. Council, the US and Soviets effectively forced Anglo-French troops to immediate withdrawal. It marked a It marked a humiliating (beginning of an) end of the Anglo-French colonial presence in the Middle East and Africa, an opening of stark rivalries between the Soviets and Americans to fill this gap, as well as the contemplation of leaders of newly liberated countries headed by Tito, Nehru, Nasser, Sukarno and Nkrumah to create a unified front of the Third way - Nonaligned movement.

This time in 2011, it seems that the military intervention after 5 months of uninterrupted air-raids was not bringing any decisive breakthrough. Therefore, diplomacy has been called for a help. The rebels[6] are getting recognized as the “Benghazi government” by ever more states. Still, this la fait accompli offers a very little comfort: not so long ago, South Vietnam existed, Katanga and DDR too, while Egyptians and Syrians lived together in the confederation. Taiwan, internationally recognized, was holding China’s seat in the UN Security Council.

So, what were the strategic objectives of the Anglo-French-led coalition: (i) to reassert the presence in the Arab world (from Libya to damage-control the affairs and the Facebook revolution outcome in the Francophone and Anglophone Maghreb); (ii) to renew presence in Africa and to slow China there; (iii) to send a bold message of prestige (glory of colonial past) and strength elsewhere in the world, in particular to the Central and Russophonic Europe – to essentially disagree that Russian oil, (geo-) politically and socio-economically, is the most affordable for (all in) the EU.

How did the Middle East (un-)use its membership in the regional groupings following the ‘Spring’? Well, the post-Napoleonic’s Alliance of Eastern Conservative Courts – alike, GCC (backed by its propaganda arm; Al Jazeera) was fast and unison, defensive yet decisive and effective on the peninsula. In the LAS, the GCC was influential and punitive (Libya). The Arab League was split, indecisive and non-convincing even to itself; but formally endorsed yet another external intervention against its own member. (Simultaneously, the LAS has even managed to shift the drafts of four resolutions on Palestine from its own responsibility, to the agenda of the 16^th NAM Ministerial on Bali in May 2011.) The OIC, unnoticed in its absence, ‘slept over’ the entire ‘Spring’. The late-arriving, generalized and cautious words of its Secretary General were more in line with the official Ankara (as the Gen-Sec. Dr. İhsanoğlu is Turkish national) then was it representing any formulated position of the OIC membership. It is yet another demonstration of inability of the organization without clear objectives, consensus and vision to be more than a lame paper-tiger, a fractured conglomerate of the fading cacophony. The LAS and OIC are on the best way to be remembered as the most inefficient and incompetent entities ever in the history of regional groupings.

Surprisingly, the African Union took though shy and discreet, some coherent diplomatic actions. The Grouping demonstrated a significant degree of maturity by avoiding the apparent Gaddafi’s attempt to shield himself behind the AU, and simultaneously it rested the extern pressures by acting independently. However, the Libyan affair carries the multifold message for the AU, both symbolic and practical.

Hence, this message must be particularly painful for the African continent, and is beyond the issue whether Gaddafi should be condemned as well as when and what an appropriate condemnation in this respect should have been. Gaddafi is probably politically dead, but what was bombed is economically the most successful African state, one of the very few with the universal education-, health- and housing- access, consequently of the lowest income gap disparity in the AU. The notion of state’s inner cohesion and territorial integrity, peace, welfare and prosperity – so badly needed all over Africa, is collapsing in the fractured Libya – yet another (possible success turned into a) failed African state.

And most importantly; one of the key questions that kept Europe (its resources and armies) occupied throughout most of the 19^th and early-mid 20^th century was: is it liberal to impose liberal values on non-liberal societies? (so brilliantly overviewed in the Kymlicka’s “Multicultural Citizenship” of 1995, and thoroughly re-debated in the two books of 2004; the Brzezinski’s “The Choice” and Fukuyama’s “State Building”). Africa for itself seemed to be answering that very question: if not through the liberation struggle (anti-colonial movements) of the 1950s-1970s, then surely by the final end of a notorious Nazi-alike apartheid regime (of a nuclear bomb eager Botha).

The way Africa now receives the current Libyan affair; it looks like the grand dilemma of liberalism is restaged again on their continent. Is any democracy deliverable by using the non-democratic (externally imposed) means and who issues the call (also; who controls the call and who controls the controllers); is justice served by fighting a crime with the public lynching; is the humanitarian intervention finally launched only if it presupposes the affirmative military consideration, and other non-humanitarian objectives? No mistake, for Africa this question re-emerges and it is far bigger than either Côte d’Ivoire or Libya or any of their leaders might (ever) be.

If the earlier stated speculative hint seduces us to conclude that while permitting the Libyan intervention, Russia saves Syria and Iran (to stabilize its south-west flank) and China saves Sudan (to maintain its primarily, geo-economically driven presence in Africa), the Anglo-French coalition, in its acting (besides reasserting the Africa, and traditionally considering the Mediterranean sea as its inner lake), shifts the flame from the Maghreb closer to the Izrael-GCC region, than what is the ratio of the US direct military involvement? Well, the US role in Libyan episode is primarily to deter any over-projection of the UK and France, while simulta-neously preserving its strategic status quo elsewhere in the region. That is hardly to any comfort for the financially and politically overextended US. Equally, it is of a little justification for Africa which feels as being largely ignored and sporadically humiliated in past two decades.

Election of the first US President with the Afro-American roots ever, was a grand sensation all over the globe. Particularly thrilled, it was a “forgotten continent” of Africa. To see that the young, liberal, Democratic president authorizes the military intervention was a shocking enough, but the fact that his first military deployment targets the Afro-continent was a disappointing blow for many.

The above stated is not a moralization but the warning. The political price of the intervention in Libya is and will be far higher for the US than for the Atlantic Europe.

The US imperatives in Africa and Maghreb were achievable and maintainable without the intervention in Libya. France and the UK, particularly in their strategic Francophone and Anglophone Maghreb neighborhood, were running short on their strategic options. Maghreb was their failure! Although the blame will be soon reduced and re-directed –as usual– on Brussels[7] and the EU Barcelona Process (the Process was anyway gradually eroded and actually already silently abandoned). Thus, for the Anglo-French coalition, it was of utmost importance to cool-off Tunisia and Egypt before Algeria and Morocco get ‘infected’ (and the sudden, eruptive strategic loss à la 1979 Iran occurs). As the inflammation of Maghreb progressed, the White House – reluctant and skeptical at first – was losing any contra-argument to hinder the Anglo-French intervention. Still, the Obama administration was not keen to let them act alone and unconstrained, outside the US-dominated (but costs co-sharing) NATO.

However, by busily trying to analyse the outcomes in the Middle East/MENA, we should not forget the impact of the current crises on Africa. Although the “forgotten continent” is not loudly voicing it (yet), it would be foolish to believe that the OIC- and LAS-disillusioned and the Arab-affairs absent Gaddafi did not manage one thing: to convince the “black continent” that Libya is in Africa (far more than in the Arab world), and that although assertively patronizing, Libya was not ignorant to the chronic problems of the continent. Further on, many in Africa – for right or wrong – have felt China as a hope (for its domestic achievements), but also as an opportunity (for its deeds in Africa).

Filling the vacuum in Africa (the Atlantic Europe was largely overextended by the domestic anti-colonial workings, and subsequently replaced by the two superpowers, until finally the US lost its strategic interest following the collapse of the Soviet Russia), China silently but widely entered the “forgotten continent” in last two decades. This time, African continent was approached by a completely different country from the economically poor but ideologically aggressive China of the 1950s and 1960s. A cordial, atmospheric pragmatism replaced any socio-economic or political conditionality; the beneficial direct investments replaced any ideological lecturing (or the HR/democracy preaching). Neither the superpowers not the Bretton Woods institutions have ever treated Africa this way. Despite all the international aid, Africa was sinking in ever deeper poverty, food scarcity, diseases, debts and insurgences. Chinese story was so contrasting: a backward, poor and populous – just as Africa is, China managed to effectively reform and to uplift as many as 400 million of its citizens from the poverty (below $1.25/day, 2005 PPP) – all that in just a two decades. An event, unprecedented in human history, China was not achieving with the help of the international organizations such as: WHO, FAO, UNICEF, WTO, IMF or WB, but all that by itself.

By deterring China while reasserting its influence over Africa will not be a lasting and cost-effective nowadays, if only resting on the power to coerce without an attraction of the offer, be it of the Anglo-French dominated Atlantic Europe, the US or Russia.

The old habits die hard! Neither the Al Qaida nor China is of the global geopolitical and ideological threat of what, once upon a time, was the Soviet Union.

The very collapse of communism neither was marked by some wall erosions in Berlin nor was it the day of the dissolution of the Soviet Union.[8] For years, a frequent joke all over Russia and the Eastern Europe goes: “What is worse than the communism? This, what comes after it!” Beijing has no such a joke. Ergo, the final end of the communism was coming when (officially determined Marxist-Leninist) China economically flourished by resting tight on a neo-liberal mantra. That means: China is predictable and integrated. The Al Qaida backpackers are predominantly nationals of the states with the considerable and lasting US presence. As seen, even the home address of the Saudi Rasputin has been detected. It reads: the Al Qaida construct is exposed and penetrable. All this, finally, concludes that both China and Al Qaida are (self-) containable. The (pre-Gorbachev) Soviet Union was unknown and unpredictable, socio-economically indigenous and ideologically different, big and assertive, fortified and impenetrable, nuclear and conventional, expanding and hardly containable on earth, bottom of the oceans, in air and in outer space. Past so many years, even Kissinger admits in his memoirs: “…we never knew…the Soviet Union was a black box for us…”[9]

Ergo, the Cold War jargon is increasingly seen as an outdated and non-appealing for ever more countries. Most of all, the “good-old” confrontational Cold War rhetoric neither justifies at home nor it effectively brings the international legitimacy from abroad for ever larger number of overseas actions. So, if the dictatum of the geopolitical imperatives necessitates (continuation of) certain foreign policy moves, the refreshed and modified wording surrounding them, can perhaps moderate the political costs.

In the years to come, we will see whether the current African frustrations were exploited for the geopolitical and geoeconomic ends of the non-traditional players in Africa (China, India, or Cuba–Venezuela/Brazil, etc.), and what is the cost-exposure faced by the traditional ones.

So far, we elaborated on Libya from the realistic perspective: Gaddafi vs. big powers considerations. But, Libya could be analyzed as a question of (a moral) principle too.

It is not that Libyan government does not deserve the condemnations. The problem is why not before, and why not a gradual approach!? As if Gaddafi past so many years has turned over night to the better or to the worse. Additionally, the pressing question for Africa is why elsewhere the international actions are ranging from inappropriate and disappointing (overly slow or too fast), asymmetric and disproportionate, to nonexistent and disastrous. And why, as I noted before, the notion of state’s inner cohesion, prosperity, territorial integrity and peace – so badly needed all over Africa, is collapsing in the fractured and partitioned Libya.

The Middle East, but especially Africa should not be left with the feeling that it is a message of macht politik – either silently bandwagon (with any of the P-5 who will in return shield you, whatever you do) or you will risk the military intervention, whatever you do. Admittedly, there is a third way – to go nuclear! To develop a secret nuclear program, than to walk to the Atomic Energy Agency one day and renounce the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) applicability; and the first next day to test your nuke. Your regime would face a lot of worldwide condemnations, the international community would issue serious warnings about an imminent invasion of your country, but soon they will occupy the non-nuclear (and a not-enough bandwagoing) Iraq instead. If Iraq is not available than Grenada, Haiti, Ivory Coast and the like, may serve the purpose well. Is that the message we want to send?!

To give such a blow to the multilateralism and to the nuclear non-proliferation system, no short-term objective is a match. We need principles and accorded actions as this is the only way to tackle the grave problems of this planet. We are lacking the elementary consensus in the Bretton Woods institutions, on the WTO DDR trade round, on a nuclear non-proliferation, on the post-Kyoto negotiations, and finally on the alarming state of environment. Ergo, on a global scale we fundamentally disagree on realities of this planet and the ways we can address them.

I am neither moralizing nor idealizing. The world based on agreed principles and com- monly willing action is not a better place. It is the only way for human race to survive.

Already some years ago, I noted in my writings (and for a decade in my lectures) that the confrontational nostalgia and academic inertia keeps recycling the Cold-War retorics, although the Soviet Union has disappeared from the geopolitical map over two daces ago. Hence, if these practitioners and thinkers are so fascinated with the simplified either with us, or against us logics - let's then keep it! Adjusted to reflect our today's realities (or as the grand Wiz of the EU, Jacques Monet used to say: if you have an unsolvable dilemma - enlarge the context), it would state as follows: either your socio-economic and politico-military policies and practices are for this planet and a very survival of human race or you are against the planet and every form of life inhabiting it. What we have witnessed in Libya is rather disturbing: as if the confrontational nostalgia, perpetuated by the intense competition over finite resources, in lieu of a real, far-reaching policy-making has prevailed again.

We falsely believed, all through the 20^th century, that the nuclear holocaust will put an end to the entire human race. No! It will be a slow, nearly-unnoticed, gradual but steady construction of the global gas chamber (filled by the green-house gas emissions). The way we extract, produce, transport, distribute and consume, the way we keep all this running on a blind obedience to the hydrocarbons, and finally the way how we do reflect and contemplate on all that, inevitably takes us right into the environmental holocaust.

Has the human race already passed the point of no return of its survival? Frankly, we do not know! Very sincerely, we do not care!! In every OECD country, an ordinary carpenter is far more paid then the university professor or the hospital doctor with the high medical specialization. Per average, the bank clerk (with under-Matura level) of any banking entity in the EU states earns 14 to 16 salaries annually (basically, creating no new value to the society), but nearly –per definition– protected by a life-long employment contract. At the same time, the majority of the EU double PhD top researchers (per definition, creating a new value for the society) have considerably lower income, and many of them are happy just to win 2 to 5 years research contract with the murky hope that the funding might be extended. Nearly all football players in the European Premier League as well as the Formula I drivers (essentially the modern age gladiators) have higher yearly incomes than the many key research institutes in the OECD states can afford annually to spend. Besides the superficial entertainment (enveloped by the ovations of masses, on a brink of collective orgasm à la Mussolini parades), it is actually a triumph of brutal competition or competing brutality (football) and a massive exhaustion of the hydrocarbons (Formula I) – what the added value do they create!?

Some may contra-argue by stating that the present-day football celebrates the sports and a healthy life though the triumph of the physical strength of a sportsman. The Antique Greece has celebrated its athletes, and nearly worshiped the contesters and winners of the Games paying a tribute to the all-mighty Olympus. Equally, the old Greeks largely encouraged and celebrated, promoted and (financially) supported its philosophers and scientists. It was the age when the consciousness blossomed, wisdom flourished and knowledge triumphed – the theoretical basis of all essential technological breakthroughs, that occurred in the course of subsequent centuries up to nowadays, are in fact originating from the Ancient Eagan world. Ergo, the Classic times knew about the important equilibrium between an intellect and human body. Modern Age has forgotten, disregarded, abandoned and tacitly ridiculed this wisdom.

Irrespective of our falsely placed priorities (and passionately sustained craving to re-channel and discourage, to derail and denounce any serious debate, far too often by hiding behind the superficial entertainment), of our obscure and encouraged greed and incompetence, of all our residual ignorance and arrogance, and of our paramount and loud anti-Intellectualism, the REAL facts are immitigable and are inexorably defeating:

There is no single peer-reviewed international journal that has published even one scientific article in last 30 years which reports on factual evidences that any organic (marine and conti- nental biota) or inorganic (soil, glaciers, water, polar caps, etc) system is doing better on this planet. There is no single RE or the UN report in last 30 years that credibly denies a worrying increase in severity and frequency of “natural” catastrophes worldwide. Finally, there is no single internationally recognized medical journal that does not constantly for the last 30 years report on an alarming increase in skin-cancers, respiratory and allergy related diseases.

We are drifting, dissolving and retreating on all levels and within each and every organic or inorganic system. For the grave, burning planetary problems, our human race needs an urgent and lasting, the consensus which presupposes bravery, virtue, vision and creativity. All this will not result from a fear of coercion, or from the further military (nuclear) confrontations, but from the universally shared willingness to accord our common planetary cause.


REFERENCES:

1. Kundera, M. (1984) “Unbearable Lightness of Being”, and (1979) “Book of Laughter and Forgetting”, Bibliothèque Gallimard

2. Dizdar, M. (1971) “Stone Sleeper”, Svjetlost

3. The UN Security Council Resolution 1970 (S/RES/1970 /2011/ of February 26, 2011), and the UN Security Council Resolution 1973 (S/RES/1973 /2011/ of March 17, 2011)

4. Bajrektarevic, A. (2011) “No Asian century without the pan-Asian Institution” Post Script THC, Jakarta 8:3

5. Kirkpatrick, D. (2010) “The Facebook Effect”, Simon & Schuster

6. The UN Development Program: Human Development Report 2010 (IHD Index, Poverty and Inequality);

7. The GCC Secretariat General: 21^st EU-GCC Joint Council and Ministerial Meeting, UAE/Abu Dhabi, 20 APR 11

8. The LAS Communiqué of March 12, 2011 (the Omani Foreign Minister announcing that the LAS has officially requested the UN SC to impose a no-fly zone over Libya)

9. Statements of the OIC Secretary General on Libya (Jeddah, 08 March; London, 29 March; 15 July), and the Astana Ministerial (Kazakhstan, Astana 28–30 June);

10. The AU Peace and Security Council Decision on situation in Libya (of 23 February and of 10 March), the AU Ministerial-level PSC Decision on Libya of 26 April, and the Peace and Security Commissioner’s briefing of the AU PSC of 13 July 2011;

11. Kymlicka, W. (1995) “Multicultural Citizenship”, Oxford Political Theory

12. Brzezinski, Z. (2004) “The Choice”, Basic Books (Perseus)

13. Fukuyama, F. (2004) “State Building”, NY Cornell University Press

14. Kissinger, H. (1999) “Years of Renewal”, Touchstone- Rockefeller Center

15. The World Bank – World Poverty Index, (2005 PPP), Statistics: 1990 – 2010;

16. CRESTA (Catastrophe Risk Evaluating and Standardizing Target Accumulations), CRESTA – Swiss RE 2010 Report on Future Zoning Approach



ABSTRACT:

By busily trying to analyse the outcomes of the revolts all over the Middle East/MENA theatre, we should not forget the impact of the current crises on Africa. Although the “forgotten continent” is not loudly voicing it (yet), it would be foolish to believe that the OIC and LAS-disillusioned, and the Arab-affairs absent Gaddafi did not manage one thing: to convince the “black continent” that Libya is in Africa (far more than in the Arab world), and that although assertively patronizing, Libya was not ignorant to the chronic problems of the continent. Further on, many in Africa – for right or wrong – have felt China as a hope (for its domestic achievements), but also as an opportunity (for its deeds in Africa).

Effectively deterring China while reasserting its influence over Africa will not be a lasting and cost-effective nowadays, if only resting on the power to coerce without an attraction of the offer, be it for the Anglo-French dominated Atlantic Europe, the US or Russia.

Finally, for the grave planetary problems, the international community needs a speed and the lasting consensus. This will not result from a fear of coercion, or from the further military (nuclear) confrontations, but from the universally shared willingness to accept our common planetary cause.



KEY WORDS:

Middle East/MENA, Libya, Military Intervention, International Legal System, Diplomacy, UN SC, GCC, LAS, OIC, African Union, China, Intl. Legitimacy, Grand Dilemma of (post-) Modernity, Social revolt, Distributive Justice, Inequalities, Disparities, Common Cause

Ljubljana, 27 August 2011

International Institute for Middle-East and Balkan Studies (IFIMES) – Ljubljana

Directors:

 Bakhtyar Aljaf       Zijad Bećirović  

                         





[1] This Article was published by Addleton publishers, New York, August 2011, (CRLSJ 3:1).

[2] The title itself paraphrases the name of a famous book: Unbearable Lightness of Being published in 1984 by one of the greatest Czech writers – Milan Kundera.

[3] Mak - Mehmedalija Dizdar, Bosnian poet of the modern generation. The quotation is actually an ending part of his poem: "A Note about the Five" (trans. Francis R. Jones), from his "Stone Sleeper" poetry collection (1966-71).

[4] From January 2011 up to this writing (late August 2011), the UN Security Council has adopted as many as 37 resolutions. Out of this total number, only 12 resolutions were dealing with the non-Africa related issues (just 2 resolutions were dealing with the Middle East, 7 about Côte d’Ivore and 6 about Sudan).

[5] This is the title of yet another famous book that Milan Kundera wrote about social amnesia (published in 1979).

[6] The rebels’ authority is predominantly composed of the Gaddafi’s inner circle defectors – many of them of a very questionable ethical, political culture and democracy, human rights and humanitarian law score.

[7] Indeed, in years to come, all countries surrounding the EU block will revert with some critical questions. To end this, the EU Member States will need an extra diligent effort for the credibility damage assessment to its idyllic-advertized good neighborly (‘unegoistic’, ‘dynamic’ ‘successful and mutually beneficial’) engagement that offers everything but institutions, from Morocco to Russia, usually referred to as the European Neighborhood Policy.

[8] It is usually portrayed by the picture of Muscovite handing over the Russian flag to the Soviet tank crew in August of 1991.

[9] While talking about Kissinger; the big irony is that “his president”, a rightist Republican, deeply hated at home and abroad, ‘hard-core’ Nixon has essentially closed the colossal suffering called the Vietnam war (opening the era of détente) which a decade earlier the universally beloved, ‘leftist’, young tolerant Democrat, President Kennedy has essentially escalated beyond the point of return (after the French withdrawal).


 

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World Security Network reporting from London in the United Kingdom, August 24, 2011


Dear Cavkic Salih,
 

"Do not just correct Libya's rotten system step by step but make a clear cut with the past and a large leap into the future based on radical reforms from the beginning, quick privatization, minimum national debt, and a strong, new currency."

In only a few months a long-serving dictator was ousted by his people with the strong support of NATO. Now it is time to look for the right decisions for the future of Libya and to focus on taking the first steps.

Here my 17 points of an action plan for a better future in Libya:

1. Do not just correct the rotten system step by step but make a clear cut with the past and a large leap into the future. This had been done very successfully in Estonia 20 years ago - a best practice example to copy. According to the experience of Estonia's freedom hero Tunne Kelam, for Libya this means:

- radical reforms from the beginning

- quick privatization

- a national debt limited to the minimum

- a strong new currency best coupled to the euro-zone.

A reform team should analyse and copy the best practices from Eastern Europe.

2. Build up a brand new tourist industry as it will bring many new jobs and open the country.

3. Education is key, including learning English and French with a focus on the study of traditional Islam, the UN Charter and democracy (a little like in Germany after the end of the Nazi-dictatorship starting in 1945).

4. Radical reform of the bureaucracy which otherwise will delay or inhibit all new initiatives.

5. Collect the stolen national fortune of the Gaddafi clan, estimated by a former Libyan Energy minister at more than USD 200bn, by asking an expert foreign company like K2 Global Consulting to look after it and report everything openly to the public. The frozen money on Western bank accounts must be released within the next two months. Until then some countries like Qatar, France or Germany can give the new government credit secured by those stolen money accounts in the range of USD 10bn. The process of those large money transfers must be made transparent to avoid corruption cases.

6. Make all income from oil and gas transparent for the first time and collect the national wealth in new Libyan Investment Funds. Copy the best examples from Singapore (Tamasek and GIC) with international auditing by PricewaterhouseCoopers or other firms. Report everything online.

7. Copy the best incentive systems globally for investors and give them a tax-free period of ten years, followed by only 15 percent tax afterwards, and for each dollar invested add two more as debt finance to stimulate the transfer of know-how and the creation of new jobs asap.

8. Form investment councils with the EU and special states as well as with the US, Japan and China.

9. Avoid large international donors and conferences with big names attached. These often sound good but delay immediate chances and are too vague in the actions taken as was seen in Iraq and Afghanistan for ten years. They produce more smoke than clear visions.

10. The EU and the US as well as Asian countries should open their markets for ten years for all products from North Africa like fruits and textiles to stimulate growth and jobs.

11. Libya in this transformation process must become more independent from its oil income which is ultimately like cocaine for such states. They subsidies too much for the masses and neglect the establishment of a balanced and healthy mix in the economy which is the only way to create jobs and long-term stability.

12. The country could now pre-sell its oil in an amount of perhaps USD 100bn to the EU, the US, China and Japan as oil reserves with a good discount and get in return cash in advance for reconstruction within the next few months.

13. End corruption by clear and simple laws and actions from this point forward to prevent more billions being stolen from the people.

14. Transfer Gaddafi, his sons and the former head of intelligence to the International Court of Justice.

15. Pay all heroes of the fighting, their relatives and the wounded a national donation for their sacrifices.

16. Invite a National Convention involving all tribes and groups to agree to a new constitution within 12 months with the UN Charter, the French and Turkish constitutions serving as benchmarks. Libya needs a modern and fundamental law protecting freedom and a balanced division of power soon. A referendum should follow and only thereafter free elections for the parliament in September 2012. Elections, when held too early, are no good as the people must first get know the new faces, parties and directions.

17. Agree on a national pardon for all officials of Gaddafi if they are not involved in murder or large corruption cases. Do not repeat the mistake of Iraq which ousted all officials of the Baath party and stripped the country of a functional administration.

Lots to do - but other countries have successfully done it with a fresh approach in the last 20 years. And Libya has a lot of carbon-money to invest.


Dr. Hubertus Hoffmann
President and Founder
World Security Network Foundation
 

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World Security Network reporting from London in the United Kingdom, August 19, 2011


Dear Cavkic Salih,
 

Not more words but innovative actions are needed now in Syria: "Establish a "Syrian Centre for the Registration of Crimes against Humanity" – where prosecuters can collect evidence of crimes and murder and victims report them to the staff. Form a "Free Syrian Parliament in Exile" which will have representatives from all different ethnic groups, religions and political groups in discussion together.”

The continuation of the killing of more than 1000 civilians in Syria by dictator Bashar al-Assad must now be answered by innovative actions by the Arab states and the West.

Words are not enough anymore, he does not listen to them.

The UN Security Council is blocked by the interests of two veto-members: Russia wants to sell more arms to Syria and China block any protest by all means as done in Beijing in 1989, when over 1000 Chinese citizens were killed.

My proposals are:

1.  Establish a "Syrian Centre for the Registration of Crimes against Humanity" - preferably in The Hague or Istanbul, Geneva or Berlin.

Prosecuters can collect evidence of crimes and murder. Victims can report them to the staff.

This has been successfully done by the German "Zentrale Erfassungsstelle Salzgitter" which for decades collected 42.000 pieces of evidence of crimes against Germans in the East German dictatorship (GDR).


2.  Form a "Free Syrian Parliament in Exile", preferably in Istanbul, which will have representatives from all different ethnic groups, religions and political groups in discussion together. Collect signatures of Syrians to promote this free assembly.

This has been done very successfully in Estonia where Tunne Kelam, Member of the International Advisory Board of WSN, and now a member of the EU Parliament, and the freedom heroes of his small Baltic country - which was forced into the USSR in 1940 - established the Congress of Estonia in 1990 where 499 delegates from 31 political parties were represented, including the ruling communists .
The permanent standing committee of the Congress of Estonia - the Committee of Estonia (Eesti Komitee) - was chaired by Tunne Kelam.

The Free Syrian Parliament as a first step should debate and agree on a modern constitution along the lines of the UN Charter protecting the freedoms of the people and promote religious and ethnic respect and tolerance.



In the Charter of United Nations it says:

“We, the people of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war,… to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human being, … and for these ends, to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours.”

In 1945, the founders of the United Nations saw tolerance as a key to the peaceful coexistence of the people of the world.

The UNESCO in its Declaration of Principles on Tolerance in 1995 stated:

“Tolerance recognizes the universal human rights and fundamental freedom of others”.

According to the UN and international law, universal human rights include: Freedom of speech, opinion, the press and religion.

Societies like the dictatorship in Syria that disregard these universal human rights present present a threat to their own people as well as other countries, as in Lebanon where the Syrian Secret Service was involved in the killing of President Hariri in 2005.


These actions should be funded by the EU and the US and must start soon.


Dr. Hubertus Hoffmann
President and Founder
World Security Network Foundation