Libia (Continuación)

MundoÁfrica,

Col. Moammar Kadafi and his family must be busily looking for a new abode, just like his neighbors Zine el Abidine ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak had to do recently. Where can the colonel go? Over the years he has cultivated, funded, entertained and lavished presents and prizes on many world leaders. Someone will surely spare him a place to pitch the tent he always travels with.

Kadafi may not be a terribly exacting person, but he does have some minimum requirements: a relatively cheap piece of land for his tent, access to water, electricity and free Wi-Fi. With the international community and his own people searching for his stashed funds, he cannot afford expensive locations.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoÁfrica,

¿Se convertirá Libia en una nueva Somalia? La hipótesis de un escenario yihadista tras el enfrentamiento civil.

Tema: Si el conflicto libio produjese desintegración estatal, vacío de poder y caos social, al-Qaeda en el Magreb Islámico y quizá un refundado Grupo Islámico Combatiente Libio dispondrían de oportunidades favorables para el terrorismo.

Resumen: En el territorio libio pueden darse las condiciones que permitan una actividad terrorista por parte de grupos y organizaciones yihadistas, en concreto de al-Qaeda en el Magreb Islámico, del Grupo Islámico Combatiente Libio que podría ser refundado o de células e individuos independientes. Aunque hay indicadores políticos y sociales que no permiten descartar la posibilidad de que el Estado libio se desintegre y cunda un caos que convierta al país en espacio favorable para la extensión del yihadismo global, otros sugieren que este sería únicamente el peor de los escenarios imaginables.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoÁfricaMundoAmérica, ,

In March of 1974, when I was a young Army captain, I was sitting in a conference on civil-military relations at Brown University. Rep. Les Aspin (D-Wis.) was onstage expounding on the lessons from Vietnam about military interventions. He then stopped and looked right at me and the four West Point cadets at my side. "You, the young officer and cadets sitting there - never in your lifetimes will you see us intervene abroad," I recall him saying. "We've learned that lesson."

For all his brilliance, Aspin couldn't have been more wrong.

We have launched many military interventions since then. And today, as Moammar Gaddafi looks vulnerable and Libya descends into violence, familiar voices are shouting, once again: "Quick, intervene, do something!"…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoÁfricaInternacionalTerrorismo Internacional,

En los años setenta y ochenta del pasado siglo, las autoridades libias patrocinaban actividades terroristas en Oriente Medio y Europa Occidental. Desde los años noventa, han combatido con determinación, fundamentalmente por razones de interés propio, a elementos relacionados con el yihadismo global que se desenvolvían en el interior de su país. Pero su comportamiento en relación con otras expresiones de terrorismo islamista o aparentemente islamista continuó siendo oscuro. Libia atraviesa ahora por una conflictividad en cuyo desencadenamiento ningún grupo u organización yihadista parece haber tenido papel relevante alguno, pese a que Muamar el Gadafi haya culpado a Al Qaeda de la situación.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoÁfrica, ,

In diplomacy, as in medicine, the cardinal principle in any crisis is to first do no harm. The Obama administration's approach to Libya has violated this principle in at least two respects. Having made matters worse for Libya's democratic opposition, the administration now must be willing to reverse the damage it has done.

First, there's the arms embargo, imposed by the U.N. Security Council with strong U.S. support two weeks ago. Initially advertised as a measure that would weaken the Gaddafi regime by preventing it from acquiring additional weapons, the State Department this week revealed its view that the U.N. embargo also makes it illegal to provide defensive arms to the opposition.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoÁfrica,

Leaders around the world are vigorously debating the advisability of a no-fly zone to stop the violence unfolding in Libya. Some cite Bosnia, where NATO took too long to protect civilian populations in the mid-1990s. Others remember Rwanda, where President Bill Clinton expressed regret for not acting to save innocent lives. But the stakes in Libya today are more appropriately underscored by the tragedy that took place in southern Iraq in the waning days of the Persian Gulf War.

As coalition forces were routing the Iraqi army in February 1991, President George H.W. Bush encouraged the Iraqi people to "take matters into their hands to force Saddam Hussein the dictator to step aside."…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoÁfrica,

In Wednesday’s IHT, H.D.S. Greenway argued against Western enforcement of a no-fly zone over Libya. “Another Anglo-American intervention,” Greenway wrote, “would awaken all the suspicions that once again the world’s present and past policemen were interfering because of oil.” Job C. Henning, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for the Study of the Presidency, disagrees.

As the world looks on, the discredited dictator Muammar el-Qaddafi brutally clings to power and represses an uprising that seeks to reject his 40 year rule. Part of a broader exhilarating and unforeseen sea-change in Arab politics, the Libyan situation is unique in that the state has responded to protests by murdering its citizens.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoÁfrica,

The rebellion in Libya stands out among the recent unrest in the Middle East for its widespread violence: unlike the protesters in Tunisia or Egypt, those in Libya quickly gave up pursuing nonviolent change and became an armed rebellion.

And while the fighting in Libya is far from over, it’s not too early to ask a critical question: which is more effective as a force for change, violent or nonviolent resistance? Unfortunately for the Libyan rebels, research shows that nonviolent resistance is much more likely to produce results, while violent resistance runs a greater risk of backfiring.

Consider the Philippines. Although insurgencies attempted to overthrow Ferdinand Marcos during the 1970s and 1980s, they failed to attract broad support.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoÁfrica,

The brutality of Col. Moammar Gadhafi's repression of the liberation movement in Libya is clear. He and his cohorts are using machine guns and planes to kill their own people. We saw similar brutality in the early 1970s when serving in the U.S. ambassador's post in Uganda. While all the evidence was present about the serious violations by Idi Amin, there was never a formal indictment of him by any legal jurisdiction. Amin, after an eight-year reign of terror, lived a comfortable exile in Saudi Arabia, where he died having escaped the criminal trial that he so deserved. The world should make sure that does not happen to Col.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoÁfrica,

Watching events unfold in Tunisia and Egypt last month, the Libyan dictatorship became nervous. Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s regime promised no-interest loans and free housing, and released several political prisoners, including my two uncles and two cousins, who had been held for 21 years.

They had been arrested in March 1990, in the same week that my father, the political dissident Jaballa Matar, was kidnapped from his home in Cairo and taken to Libya. Like him, they were tortured and wrongfully imprisoned without trial. In 1996, my father was moved; news of him stopped. To this day, he is among the “disappeared” who have vanished into Colonel Qaddafi’s prison system.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoÁfrica,

Numerosas voces en todo el mundo, desde Europa a América pasando por Libia, piden la intervención de EEUU para ayudar a deponer a Gadafi. Sin embargo, por derrocar al ex dictador iraquí Sadam Husein, Washington ha sido denunciado reiteradamente por agresión, engaño, arrogancia e imperialismo.

Estamos ante una extraña inversión moral, teniendo en cuenta que el mal provocado por Sadam pertenecía a un orden de magnitud muy por encima del que por ahora ha causado el tirano libio. Gadafi es un asesino caprichoso; Saddam era uno sistemático. Gadafi también es demasiado inestable y perturbado como para rivalizar con el aparato baazista iraquí, que era un sistema nacional integral de terror, torturas y asesinatos a gran escala.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoÁfricaMundoAmérica,

Era yo tan solo una bebita en los brazos de mi madre miliciana, apenas un trozo de "hombre nuevo" sin modelar, cuando aquella primavera de 1977 Fidel Castro viajó a Libia. El coronel Muamar el Gadafi lo recibió con todos los honores y le otorgó la Condecoración al Valor, una distinción que se le confería por primera vez a una personalidad extranjera. Frente a las cámaras, el comandante en jefe retribuyó con un apretón de manos al recién nombrado como guía de la revolución. Se miraron y se reconocieron en sus similitudes. Más tarde pasaron al encuentro no televisado, a esa reunión a puerta cerrada donde se fortalecieron los pilares de lo que sería una alianza que duró por más de 30 años.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoÁfrica,

On entend battre les tambours de la guerre. Alors que la guerre civile a éclaté en Libye et que des milliers de personnes fuient les combats, les Etats-Unis évaluent l’option d’une intervention marine et aérienne, selon Thom Shanker du New York Times. Dimanche, «trois sénateurs influents, issus des deux partis, ont renouvelé leur appel en faveur d’une zone d’exclusion aérienne afin de plaquer au sol les chasseurs libyens qui bombardent la population. Les sénateurs ont pressé l’administration Obama de réagir de façon plus agressive en fournissant aux rebelles un support logistique et des armes», écrit Shanker.

Le 26e Corps expéditionnaire des Marines, doté de deux navires d’assaut amphibies capables de frappes au sol, dans l’air et sur mer, est à une «distance de frappe» de Tripoli.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoÁfrica

During the past week academic institutions have expressed contrition at past links with Libya and parliament has debated whether control order legislation should continue. Yet there has been total silence as to why it was that Libyan dissidents came to form a significant block of those made subject to control orders, and to a second highly contentious measure: deportation to a country that practised torture.

Following the bombings in London on 7 July 2005, known within a day to have been carried out by young British nationals, Tony Blair said: "The rules of the game have changed." Within weeks he had initiated an agreement with Colonel Gaddafi on the deportation of Libyan dissidents who had sought asylum and whose presence, he claimed, constituted one of the gravest threats to the security of this country.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoÁfricaMundoAmérica,

Hugo Chavez is trying to come to the rescue of his friend and fellow "colonel," Moammar Kadafi. The Venezuelan president has offered to mediate Libya's civil war, and warned against any foreign intervention in support of Libya's opposition, which now controls much of the east of the country, including the port of Benghazi, home of the Hugo Chavez soccer stadium. The Venezuelan government even railed against the move to oust Libya from the United Nations Human Rights Council because of Kadafi's violent crackdown on his own people.

The attempt by Chavez (winner of the Kadafi International Prize for Human Rights in 2004) to play a role in Libya's future is unlikely to amount to more than a Quixotic gambit, though it remains a distinct possibility that Kadafi could find himself a comfortable retirement home in Venezuela (some reports in the British news media already have one of his sons hiding out on Venezuela's Margarita Island).…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoÁfrica,

Curioso mundo este, en el que muchos de los que en 2003 calificaron a Bush de genocida por haber intervenido en Irak para expulsar del poder al sangriento tirano Saddam Hussein hoy levantan fervorosamente la voz para reclamar se haga contra el tirano sangriento Muammar el-Gadafi lo que entonces tan vehementemente se condenó. ¿Acaso merece el libio el castigo moral y militar que tan ardorosamente se puso en duda en contra del iraquí? ¿Tuvo este mejores credenciales éticas que aquel? ¿Cuál es el baremo de la indignidad para evaluar si la intervención militar para derrocar al tirano está o no justificada?…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoÁfrica,

¿Intervenir o no intervenir? Esa es la cuestión. Ver lo dispuesto que está Muamar el Gadafi a matar a todos esos libios que, según él, le "aman" -aunque lo demuestren de formas extrañas-, vuelve a situarnos en un debate fundamental de nuestra era.

Desafío a cualquiera que vea los ataques de los aviones de Gadafi contra esas ciudades asediadas a no reconocer que, por lo menos, es legítimo preguntarse si las potencias extranjeras no deberían intervenir de alguna forma para impedir que siga matando a su pueblo. Y es evidente que algunos libios están de acuerdo. En un artículo publicado el otro día en la página web de The Guardian, "Muhammad Min Libya", un bloguero que escribe desde Trípoli, se opone con elocuencia a "toda intervención militar de cualquier fuerza extranjera sobre el terreno", pero es partidario de una zona de exclusión aérea.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoÁfrica, ,

As Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi tightens his grip on the Libyan capital, Tripoli, and the millions of people trapped inside, the world is debating how it can help the opposition, including no-flight zones and air strikes.

But there’s a less aggressive, though perhaps even more important, step we can take: ensuring that Libyans can communicate with the outside world.

Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter and communications devices like camera-enabled cellphones have been important tools for protesters in the revolutions that are rocking Arab countries. This is particularly true in countries like Libya that lack opposition political parties or even formal opposition movements, requiring protesters to build communications networks literally overnight.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoÁfrica,

En los últimos días se ha producido un cambio fundamental. Lo siento físicamente, en la ligereza de mi espalda. No me he visto la cara en el espejo, pero el ojo de la mente me dice que la antigua tristeza de mi mirada ya no está. Muamar el Gadafi, que se ha cernido sobre Libia durante los últimos 42 años, sigue ahí, pero la historia lo ha superado: ahora es imposible imaginarse el país con él dentro.

Durante los últimos 32 años, desde que mi familia abandonó Libia, no he dejado de sentirme vigilado. Recuerdo una ocasión en la que, al aterrizar en Heathrow, y después de pasarme gran parte del vuelo haciendo rabiar a mi querido padre por su nuevo color de pelo, escuché que un hombre que esperaba en el vestíbulo de llegadas le susurró al de al lado: "¿Pero qué aspecto tiene ese Jaballa Matar?".…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoÁfrica,

In the wake of a trillion-dollar war that gave Iran more say than the United States in Iraq's future, and the longest war in U.S. history in Afghanistan that seems headed for another trillion dollars and is yet to shrink the Taliban insurgency, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates wisely said those who would want to take on a third military operation - against Libya's Col. Moammar Gadhafi - should have their heads examined.

But some hawks are agitating for action against the Libyan pariah, beginning with a no-fly zone (NFZ). That's easier said than done. Col. Gadhafi isn't friendless. For a couple of hundred dollars a month per volunteer, he can get more mercenaries from African states to his south - Niger, Chad and Mali.…  Seguir leyendo »