BY OWN CORRESPONDENT
Ten years ago Western countries entered the Libyan civil war. And they achieved “victory” by completely destroying Libya.
French, British and American warplanes on March 19, 2011 soared up into the sky.
Their target was Libya, where anti-government forces had continued for more than a month struggle against the government of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi on the coast near the city of Benghazi.
Nicolas Sarkozy, then France president, assumed the role of the main instigator of the hostilities.
He argued that without the intervention of Western forces, the rebellious enclave of Benghazi would have expected massacres.
Documents published over the past 10 years testify that Paris had in mind, first of all, its own interests.
Sarkozy hoped to increase the French stake in Libyan oil production and thwart Gaddafi’s plans to create a pan-African currency that could supplant the monetary system (CFA fran ) tied to Paris.
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Before March 19, the Libyan authorities announced the suspension of hostilities, but they could not prevent the invasion by Western forces through diplomatic maneuvers.
The background of the events and a further insight into French motivations was provided in a freedom of information disclosure by the US State Department in December 2015.
On April 2, 2011 Sidney Blumenthal, advisor and unofficial intelligence analyst to the then US secretary of state Hillary Clinton, reported this conversation with French intelligence officers to the secretary of state:
According to these individuals Sarkozy’s plans were driven by the following issues:
- A desire to gain a greater share of Libya oil production,
- Increase French influence in North Africa,
- Improve internal political situation in France,
- Provide the French military with an opportunity to reassert its position in the world,
- Address the concern of his advisors over Gaddafi’s long term plans to supplant France as the dominant power in Francophone Africa.
It was also to prevent the creation of an independent hard currency in Africa that would free the continent from economic bondage under the dollar, the International Monetary Fund and the French African franc, shaking off the last heavy chains of colonial exploitation.
Another entry from Clinton’s files buttressed the same theme.
In September 2011 – according to American sources – Sarkozy announced to his Libyan allies specific figures: 35% of the local oil industry will be transferred to French big business.
Libyans opposed to the Gaddafi regime agreed to take this opinion i and entered negotiations. By that time, there was a month before the final collapse of the Gaddafi regime.
The progressive collapse of the firmly held Gaddafism was preceded by prolonged hostilities.
French military planes soared up to the sky on March19, 2011 and were joined by British and Americans aircraft on the same day.
The Allies focused on the military infrastructure of the Gaddafis – airfields, air defense systems, tanks and armored personnel carriers.
The scattered actions were replaced by a common North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) operation, which began on March 23.
This regrouping of forces was met without pleasure in Paris, where they hoped to retain their leadership.
From a financial point of view, this is exactly what happened: none of the Western countries spent as much on the Libyan war as France – € 320 million.
But politically, the influence of Paris only waned as the Americans came to the fore.
Then US president Barack Obama, who received the Nobel Peace Prize only for calling for an end to the wars, supported Sarkozy in unleashing the bombs on Libya. He was echoed by his allies from Britain to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates Emirates, who had long-standing claims to Gaddafi.
What began as an operation to help besieged rebels turned into protracted hostilities, the course of which logically led to a change of power in Tripoli.
A collision happened.
Resolution of the UN Security Council, allowed Nato to start awar against Libya, did not provide for the forcible conversion of Jamahiriya.
This put the leadership of Nato in an uncomfortable position.
Then Nato secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen has repeatedly stated that his military is only providing assistance to the rebels and does not personally consider Gaddafi to be their goal.
But this is contrary to the facts.
On the night of May 1, 2011, Nato members nearly took the life of the Libyan leader: the bombing of the bunker, in which Gaddafi himself was to be killed, left behind victims – the son and three grandchildren of the Libyan leader.
Later, the British Ministry of Defense also admitted that they collected information about the whereabouts of Gaddafi and shared it with the armed rebel formations.
As a result, death of Gaddafi in October 2011 was the result of joint efforts of the Americans, the French and the rebels.
Escaping from Sirte Gaddafi fled, accompanied by security and his son Mutassim in cars, but was tracked down by an American drone, after meeting with which he was forced to change the route.
But he could not escape the shelling of the French aviation. Its strike was too strong: the French bombs left behind several dozen corpses and made the further advance of the convoy impossible.
Miraculously surviving Gaddafi hid with his son in a nearby building, but rebels found him there. In the ensuing shootout, Gaddafi was wounded, and then he was in the hands of his enemies, who lynched him.
The consequence of the Nato bombing called “humanitarian intervention” was that the peace in Libya was replaced by a series of civil wars, riots and unrest.
The attitude of the West towards Libya has also changed, they began to see in it as the source of problems that did not exist in the era of Gaddafi, the main of which was the massive traffic of prohibited goods and illegal migration.
In 2016, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the British Parliament admitted that suspicions about Gaddafi, which served as a prologue to the war, were exaggerated, and the motivation of Paris, which involved London, was based on French narrow national interests.
In France they were also disappointed.
In 2018, President Emmanuel Macron denounced the Libyan operation as futile.
According to him, Western countries tried to change North Africa for the better, but they did not succeed, because it is impossible to bring democracy to any society from the outside.
Especially when democracy is brought under the wings of warplanes in the form of bombs and missiles dropped on peaceful cities and villages.
“You must love us because we are killing you and destroying your countries” – this is how the Western powers approach the rest of the world, especially those states that have natural resources that can be taken away and appropriated for themselves.
