NATO's Failure in Libya: Lessons for Africa

Tawergha and the Myth of ‘African Mercenaries’

112 Africa Institute of South Africa Tawergha and the Myth of ‘African Mercenaries’ The fighting in Tripoli went from neighbourhood to neighbourhood, with NATO planes and apache helicopters supporting the ground forces that were in the process of ‘seizing the city’. Once the Western media focused on the Libyan leadership that led the assault on Green Square and on the Gaddafi compound, the leader who emerged as head of the Tripoli Military Council was Abdelhakim Belhadj (or Abdul Hakim Belhadj). Here was another contradiction for states that had been fighting Jihadists. Belhadj had been a military commander of the LIFG who received his first military training from the US-supported elements who were fighting against the Soviet occupation in Afghanistan. After his service in Afghanistan, Belhadj was arrested in Malaysia and rendered to Libya by the CIA. (He has recently filed a law suit against the British for complicity in torture he sustained following his rendition.) Belhadj had long been associated with the opposition to Gaddafi and the LIFG’s abortive armed struggle in the Benghazi region. As Martinez explained in the book Libyan Paradox, ‘between 1995 and 1998, the LIFG carried out guerrilla operations against the security forces in the Benghazi region, prompting a military response on the part of the regime in the form of bombing raids on the mountainous regions of Jebel al Akhadar where the militants had their hideouts.’217 What the LIFG was unable to accomplish on its own against Gaddafi in 1990s, it did with NATO’s assistance in 2011. The ‘victory’ of the forces that comprised the Tripoli Military Council came at a very high price for hundreds of thousands of Libyans. This is because the nature of the fighting pitched neighbours against neighbours when the Libyan armed forces of Gaddafi collapsed, early in the ‘rebellion.’ The Libyan armed forces had been degraded under Gaddafi because the regime feared a coup d’état. This fear intensified after the rebellion broke out and officers such as Younis defected. Western reports on the divisions in the army have outlined the depth of the infiltration of the Libyan establishment after years of seeking reconciliation with Western states. Saif al-Islam had 113 Tawergha and the Myth of ‘African Mercenaries’ Horace Campbell developed deep relations with the intellectual frontpersons for imperialism and Muammar Gaddafi had enabled the imperial intervention by his close collaboration with their intelligence agencies. During the initial stages of the integrated Qatar/special forces/private military contractors assault on Tripoli, the spokesperson for Gaddafi boasted that the regime had 65 000 armed personnel ready to defend Tripoli. Yet, when the special forces of NATO and Qatar entered the capital, with Belhadj as the Head of the Tripoli Military Council, the 65 000 forces who were supposed to defend Tripoli were nowhere to be seen. It devolved upon the citizens opposed to NATO to defend their communities. The mythical 65 000 personnel had been superseded by militias under Gaddafi’s sons. These ‘paramilitary’ forces under Gaddafi were better at internal repression than dealing with foreign threats. From the annual studies of the International Institute of Strategic Studies and from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, it was possible to obtain detailed information on military expenditures under Gaddafi. According to these sources, there were supposed to be over 120 000 persons under arms in Libya by January 2011: Army, 45,000; paramilitary, 40,000; Air Force, 8,000; Air Defence, 15,000; and Navy, 8,000.218 Undoubtedly, the Libyan armed forces were no match for the sophisticated weaponry of Britain, Canada, France, the US and other forces of NATO, but the Vietnamese had shown that political mobilisation and organisation of citizens to defend their society could neutralise superior weaponry. Gaddafi did not learn this elementary lesson. Although the Libyan armed forces were composed of a number of paramilitary forces and security services, these armed elements acted as a means of controlling the power of the regular military and providing Gaddafi and his family with security. The narrative of ‘tribal’ loyalties ensured that the military units around Sirte, the birthplace of Gaddafi, were the best equipped and the most loyal. Libya had billions of dollars, but Gaddafi did not know how to buy and maintain weapons, or how to spend money in uplifting the technical and intellectual level of the army. Saif al-Islam, in dabbling with Islam and neo-liberalism, only served to confuse the soldiers as to where they should stand. Thus, when a...