Tag Archives: World news

Ed Miliband’s Libya response shows he is no longer ‘son of Gordon Brown’

Posted by Allegra Stratton

After his criticism of the Iraq war, the Labour leader can approach challenge of a new intervention from first principles

James Callaghan, as a defeated Labour prime minister, was asked how he thought his successor, Margaret Thatcher, was handling the Falklands war. He reflected: “If only I had had a war.” It’s macabre political jingoism, very nearly upturned by the lessons of Iraq, but usually wars do well for prime ministers.

This week a war has helped a leader of the opposition. In the Commons on Monday, Ed Miliband, in response to David Cameron, talked of the imperative of intervening in Libya, drawing on the image of his parents fleeing terror in Europe, but also citing the west’s failure to support the republican side during the Spanish civil war.

Some of his friends urged against mentioning Franco, saying it was mawkish. But, he told waverers in the shadow cabinet, Labour was an international party. This conflict had the imprimatur of the UN, so Labour would be critical friends to the government.

The government thinks that to the public Miliband is “son of Gordon Brown”. Libya, by contrast, is a “clean-skin” of an issue. After his criticism of the Iraq war during the Labour leadership election, Miliband can approach the challenge of a new intervention from first principles.

One could pseudo-sagaciously say Libya “allowed Miliband to appear prime ministerial”. But, in always ascribing ulterior motives to politicians, we forget that the job must present stimulating questions about the world that it’s satisfying to try to navigate.

There is also a trend. A run that started a fortnight ago with a pretty good speech at the Scottish conference was noticed by some in Westminster when he outdid Cameron in prime minister’s questions on the subject of the NHS, was sustained in his response to Libya, and wasn’t upturned with his response to the budget on Wednesday.

Miliband, a details man, did not get stuck in the undergrowth of the budget as he might once have done but held to the big issue – the downgraded growth forecast. His job, he is learning, is not about handing in the best essay but often about getting good clips for the News at 10. At Westminster he leant into the despatch box. Though his voice grates for some, on the Commons microphones it comes out as quite a forceful, if nasal, basso profundo.

Those sitting near reported that the prime minister and chancellor “sledged” Miliband as he spoke – shouting “Bring on Balls” and “Balls is better”.

But Cameron is also a chronicler of politics, clocking the highs and lows of those beneath him, and on Monday, from the press gallery, it felt as if he was studying Miliband assiduously.

In a sleepy moment, after half the chamber had drained and Miliband quipped that calling intervention in Libya part of the “Blair doctrine” wouldn’t be a title either he or Cameron would necessarily choose, the Labour leader looked to Cameron for approval. The pair eyeballed each other, and Cameron laughed. There’s no other way to put this: it was a shared moment.

Cameron may know the conventional wisdom about his opponent is now out of date, a lagging indicator. The Miliband office knows this too. “You’re standing by a river and you are throwing rocks into the river,” one adviser says.

“You keep throwing and there’s no effect, they just fall to the bottom of the river bed. But you keep hurling and eventually some rocks, piling up, pierce the surface. You lob more rocks in and soon there’s enough rocks to get you across the river. Eventually there are pillars.” And then, you guessed it, some kind of bridge formation.

While the rocks sink to the bottom of the bed, there are frustrations: the night after the budget Miliband told his office that soon, but not yet, they would be given credit for the “squeezed middle” now being common political parlance. The interviewer who skewered Miliband over the concept, John Humphrys, himself used it on air on Tuesday morning.

Miliband told his office that Osborne’s budget, with all its moves on living standards, was a vindication of their work. The plan has been for three speeches since Christmas – two done, one more to come. The squeezed middle is one of his three pillars.

Another is his theme of the “British promise”: that each generation expects the next to do as well as it did, if not better, and the possibility that this is now stalling. The speech on the horizon will be on strong communities, about Labour’s response to the “big society” – which is to know the value, not just the price, of things.

So there’s been much hard work by Miliband behind the scenes, but his pillars still need an overarching theme, a sentence that sums them up. This may be required in time for a heavy month of electioneering before the votes in May.

For the first time Labour will push in the south-west, where it says its polling has picked up a 17% swing to Labour from Liberal Democrats who last time only voted Lib Dem to keep the Tories out.

Before that Miliband must manage his appearance at the anti-cuts march on Saturday – he has sought to tread a line between aggressive anti-cuts language and sensible opposition. His team have taken steps to ensure he is not seen to be too close to the fiery union leader Mark Serwotka.

Miliband needs to learn not to relax once he’s put in a good shift: at the moment, when the light is off, it is really off. The prospect of a Miliband government in 2015 appears to be real enough for those bond traders of politics, the civil service.

I know of officials in a government department who have demanded proof that Miliband, and a Labour government, would support a particular long-term policy before they started working it up. After this week, this tendency may increase.

Allegra Stratton


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Qatar’s decision to send planes to Libya is part of a high-stakes game

Posted by Jason Burke

The tiny Gulf state is keen to gain influence out of proportion to its size through diplomacy and al-Jazeera

In an air-conditioned room down an alley in the old market of Qatar’s capital Doha, enthusiasts of “damah” gather most evenings. The ancient board game, rarely played in recent years, is now being revived by local enthusiasts. It is, afficionados say, a contest of strategy and finesse – and thus an apt metaphor for the high-stakes manoeuvring by the tiny Gulf state and its hereditary leader, 59-year-old Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, in recent weeks.

For a country the size of Belgium with a population of 1.7 million, Qatar has been playing an extraordinarily high-profile role. This weekend four Qatari fighter jets are set to join the allied forces already off the Libyan coastline. The combat deployment is the first by an Arab or Muslim-majority country and thus of critical diplomatic significance.

Then there is the key role played in the “Arab spring” by al-Jazeera, the satellite TV channel set up by the emir in 1996. Broadcasting from Doha, al-Jazeera is now the dominant Arabic-language news outlet in the region and increasingly recognised around the world. Al-Jazeera English is gaining fans.

“Al-Jazeera were the first on to the events in Tunisia. Its reports from there were watched by the Egyptians. Then its reports from Egypt were watched by everyone else. It has been a very important catalyst,” said Hugh Miles, author of Al-Jazeera: How Arab TV News Challenged the World. Others have gone further and described the successive uprisings as “fundamentally driven” by the TV channel.

Al-Jazeera’s role and Qatar’s decision to send planes are both rooted in Qatar’s size, its location on a spur of the Arabian peninsula and the emir’s efforts to ensure his country’s independence from much bigger neighbouring states such as Iran and Saudi Arabia.

As in a game of damah, the emir, who seized power from his father in 1995, has eschewed confrontation in favour of a more subtle strategy. “Any wise person would do the same”, said Faraj Almohammed, a 45-year-old economic advisor and keen damah player, in Doha’s old market last night. For despite wealth from its vast oil and gas reserves which means its inhabitants do not pay income tax or utilities bills and enjoy average incomes of £50,000, Qatar is vulnerable.

“The [Sandhurst-trained] emir is a military man and knows that Qatar is basically indefensible,” said Blake Hounshell, the Doha-based managing editor of Foreign Policy magazine. “He has thought laterally about ways of making Qatar more secure.” The emir’s main two strategic assets are al-Jazeera and diplomacy, said Mustafa Alani, analyst at the Gulf Research Centre in Dubai. “The aim is to give Qatar an importance out of proportion to its size. Al-Jazeera gives it a loud voice and the emir has made a huge effort to make Qatar the local mediator of choice too.”

Al-Jazeera broke with the stultifying broadcasting style of government-run channels in the region and rapidly became an integral part of the Arab world’s cultural landscape and immensely popular. “Al-Jazeera pitches itself at its viewership. It is Arab-owned, Arab-financed, based in an Arab city and … gives people what they want to hear in a language they understand,” said Miles, the author. For protesters across the region, the presence of al-Jazeera cameras means more than news. Exposure brings a measure of security. In Syria this week, demonstrators chanted: “We want al-Jazeera.” In Sana’a in Yemen, a handwritten sign read: “Al-Jazeera is part of our revolution.”

Such influence has inevitably caused problems for Qatar. Last year al-Jazeera, which means “the peninsula” in Arabic, was banned in Morocco, suspended in Bahrain and caused a diplomatic incident with Jordan. A camera crew was arrested by Nato-led troops in Afghanistan for “making propaganda”.

The channel has been restricted or targeted by almost every Arab state and many others, including the US. But it has also given the emir huge credibility and prestige among ordinary people.

Al Anstey, managing director of al-Jazeera’s English-language channel, said any challenge to governments was not deliberate but simply came from reporters covering “the facts on the ground”.

For analyst Alani, “like Qatar’s role as a mediator, al-Jazeera makes enemies but is a net gain in terms of influence.”

Qatari diplomacy is wide-ranging. Successfully bidding for the 2022 World Cup attracted global attention, as it was meant to. Qatar has good relations with the US, hosting its vast airbase at al-Udeid, and, relative to the rest of the region, with Israel too. It also maintains contacts with Hamas and Hezbollah, shares an oilfield with Iran and is careful to be friendly to Riyadh. Angering the latter is “not an option”, said one western diplomat based in the region, a factor in what some claim is al-Jazeera’s “systematic downplaying” of news of its neighbour. Anstey denied any bias. “We are financed by the state of Qatar but editorially entirely independent. We cover every story on its merits,” he said.

Qatar is seen as moderate, at least compared to its neighbours. Alcohol is not illegal, though it is an offence to drink or be drunk in public. Homosexuality is illegal, even if the laws are applied pragmatically. Political parties are banned and, according to Amnesty International, the founder of a human rights organisation was detained this month. To the surprise of some, al-Jazeera reported the arrest.

The effects of the channel on the region may be greater than the autocratic, if relatively moderate, emir of Qatar bargained for.

“Over the last decade, al-Jazeera has done more to educate Arabs about human rights, civil rights, democracy and the world than anyone else,” said Miles, the author. “Now anywhere in the Arab world you can have an informed discussion about what’s happening in the world … That is a huge change.”

The “Arab spring” appears likely to remain foreign news for al-Jazeera, however. “Qatar is unique in that there are really very few local tensions and no major threat to stability,” said Dr Jennifer Heeg, a Doha-based human rights specialist. “The biggest split is between locals and the migrant labourers. A day of rage was called recently and absolutely no one turned up.”

This means that, unlike other local rulers, the emir does not have to watch the sentiment of a restive “street”.

There is certainly little discontent among students in Education City, a vast complex of colleges set up by the emir on the outskirts of Doha. Students gathered for a snack after classes in the open-air cafeteria of the private Carnegie Mellon University said that, though relations between Qatar and Libya had been poor for a long time, it was the killing of an al-Jazeera cameraman near Benghazi two weeks ago, probably by Gaddafi’s henchmen, that justified Qatar’s military commitment to operation Odyssey Dawn. “I think [Qataris] … have the right to go and [avenge] their loss. I think all Arab countries should do the same. We are all Arab and we all should help each other,” said Muhammad Hadi, a 20-year-old business administration student. “I think Qatar wants to have more influence on the world [and] I am proud to live in this country.”

With additional reporting from Omar Chatriwalla and Shabina Khatri in Doha.

Jason Burke


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Libya: the morality of intervention | Bernard Kouchner

Posted by Bernard Kouchner

The Libyan crisis has shown how a united Europe can be used as a force for common good

Could we leave Colonel Gaddafi’s victims to die in full view of our TV cameras? I think not. It is quite understandable that the UN‘s courageous decision to resort to force in Libya should upset our pacifist conscience. Instigated by the UK and France, and backed by the US and other countries, this decision, though necessary, raises major moral and political questions about European integration.

The moral issues relate to the use of violence by states. The question of a just war, which has bothered us since antiquity, may well be addressed with theoretical discourse and historical references, but it remains a source of hesitation and uncertainty that we cannot simply dismiss. These moral uncertainties obviously have a political impact. This is perhaps because European integration is far from complete. The Libyan crisis highlights the need for the EU to grow stronger and gain greater coherence, in keeping with the promise of the Lisbon treaty.

Cultural and economic co-operation between European countries has become commonplace. Indeed much has been achieved in these fields, as the people of Europe can judge for themselves. Though such co-operation clearly needs to go further, we may easily grasp its meaning and its method. But in matters of defence, our understanding of the European project is confused, even contradictory. This is, of course, due to the difficulty of convincing states with divergent traditions, historic wounds and ambitions to move forward together. But above all, I think, it is due to the European project itself.

Initiated in response to two world wars, this project derives its legitimacy from its guarantee of peace. How then can it be allowed to lend itself to an outbreak of violence? I see these theoretical difficulties as a good sign, provided they can be overcome and do not lead to deadlock: we all know there could be nothing worse than a warmongering Europe … except perhaps a powerless Europe. So our difficult but necessary task is to steer a middle course.

French doctors found a solution to this conflict. They started venturing across forbidden borders to treat the injured and sick of all communities, and from this eventually sprang Médecins Sans Frontières. It was a major political gesture which gave rise first to the duty and then to the right of interference, in order to avoid – or better still prevent – mass slaughter.

But how can we reconcile this duty with European integration? We must confront the need for debate and develop more efficient and responsive tools. Above all, Europe must define a doctrine to guide us through the contrary currents of European diplomacy, which are torn between universalism and isolation.

After several UN resolutions authorising the use of force to protect civilian populations – which at the time I defined as the international community’s right of interference in the domestic affairs of a state – the UN approved, with a unanimous vote by all its members in 2005, the responsibility to protect civilians, over and above borders and sovereignty. After Sarajevo, Kosovo and the conflicts in the Balkans, after Sierra Leone and Guinea, this framework allowed us to intervene over Libya. We should see the Franco-British initiative, subsequently backed by the US, and leading to resolution 1973, as part of this framework.

Fortunately, the UN, the African Union and the Arab League are here to provide us with a legal framework so that this momentary violence – under resolution 1973 – may serve to achieve real peace, surely preferable to a pacifism that would allow civilians to be slaughtered.

Working on this basis in international law, Europe must now engage in a thorough debate on its future and what it wants to achieve. In these times of doubt and adversity this may seem superfluous or misplaced, but I am sure it is more necessary than ever. Europe needs this to find a way out of the uncertainty that plagues its organisation. Is it a regional power with a corresponding reach, as is the case for the Arab League or the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or on the contrary? Does it seek to offer the world a multilateral model in the service of the common good?

I am pleased to see that France and the UK have together mapped out a preliminary response to this essential question.

• Translated by Harry Forster

Bernard Kouchner


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Libya: Military coalition continues attacks on Gaddafi – in pictures

Posted by World news: Libya | guardian.co.uk

Latest scenes from Benghazi and Tripoli as rebels take advantage of the continued bombing campaign



Germans voice disquiet over absence from Libya military action

Posted by Helen Pidd

Commentators warn Germany ‘lost credibility’ by abstaining from UN security council resolution but opinion poll backs decision

Germany’s decision to join Russia and China in abstaining from the UN security council resolution authorising military action against Libya has led to widespread soul searching from commentators and journalists.

Earlier this week, a veteran war reporter for the German state broadcaster ZDF said he was ashamed to be congratulated by Gaddafi’s henchmen for Germany’s stance. “It’s embarrassing to get a pat on the back from Gaddafi’s supporters saying ‘Germany good’”, said Dietmar Ossenberg, according to the tabloid Bild.

Another reporter from the state-owned ARD said the Egyptians had been reluctant to let him across the border from Libya when they realised he was German, saying: “We’re disappointed in you” and “We don’t need you”. Former German foreign minister Joschka Fischer dismissed his country’s foreign policy as “a farce”.

“Germany has lost its credibility in the United Nations and in the Middle East,” wrote Fischer in the Süddeutsche Zeitung. “German hopes for a permanent seat on the security council have been permanently dashed and one is now fearful of Europe’s future.”

Germany’s abstention was a “scandalous mistake” he said, adding that Germany’s politics were becoming ever more “provincial” – a reference to the widely held view that the coalition government’s current decisions are coloured by two key regional elections to be held on Sunday in Baden-Württemberg and Rheinland Pfalz. The former in particular is seen as a referendum on the chancellor Angela Merkel, as it has been governed by her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party for almost 58 years.

On Thursday, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), Germany’s conservative broadsheet, said the consequences of Germany’s abstention were: “estrangement from its allies, who ultimately came to different conclusions and decisions; [de facto] praise for Gaddafi; friction in Nato; and conflict at home among the coalition.”

The FAZ claimed Germany’s foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, had wanted to vote against the UN resolution rather than merely abstain, but was persuaded against doing so by Merkel.

But it would seem the German abstention is in step with the wishes of German people. Results of a poll by Emnid showed 66% of Germans were against German participation in international military action in Libya.

Helen Pidd


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Turkey and France clash over Libya air campaign

Posted by Ian Traynor

Tension mounts over military action as Ankara accuses Sarkozy of pursuing French interests over liberation of Libyan people

Turkey has launched a bitter attack on French president Nicolas Sarkozy’s and France’s leadership of the military campaign against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, accusing the French of lacking a conscience in their conduct in the Libyan operations.

The vitriolic criticism, from both the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the president, Abdullah Gül followed attacks from the Turkish government earlier this week and signalled an orchestrated attempt by Ankara to wreck Sarkozy’s plans to lead the air campaign against Gaddafi.

With France insisting that Nato should not be put in political charge of the UN-mandated air campaign, Turkey has come out emphatically behind sole Nato control of the operations.

The clash between Turkey and France over Libya is underpinned by acute frictions between Erdogan and Sarkozy, both impetuous and mercurial leaders who revel in the limelight, by fundamental disputes over Ankara’s EU ambitions, and by economic interests in north Africa.

The confrontation is shaping up to be decisive in determining the outcome of the bitter infighting over who should inherit command of the Libyan air campaign from the Americans and could come to a head at a major conference in London next week of the parties involved.

Using incendiary language directed at France in a speech in Istanbul, Erdogan said: “I wish that those who only see oil, gold mines and underground treasures when they look in [Libya's] direction, would see the region through glasses of conscience from now on.”

President Gül reinforced the Turkish view that France and others were being driven primarily by economic interests. “The aim [of the air campaign] is not the liberation of the Libyan people,” he said. “There are hidden agendas and different interests.”

Earlier this week, Claude Guéant, the French interior minister who was previously Sarkozy’s chief adviser, outraged the Muslim world by stating that the French president was “leading a crusade” to stop Gaddafi massacring Libyans.

Erdogan denounced the use of the word crusade yesterday, blaming those, France chief among them, who are opposed to Turkey joining the EU.

Senior Nato officials are meeting in Brussels for the fourth day in a row to try to hammer out an agreement on who should assume command of the no-fly zone over Libya from the Americans who are determined to relinquish command within days.

Sarkozy has agreed to give Nato military planners operational command of the campaign, but refused to grant the alliance political and strategic control, insisting this should be vested in the broader “coalition of the willing” taking part.

Turkey has responded by blocking Nato planning operations for Libya while stressing that Nato should be given “sole command”, senior Nato diplomats said.

Turkey, Nato’s second biggest army after the US and its only Muslim member, appears bent on winning the argument. It is already taking part in Nato patrols in the Mediterranean to police an arms embargo on Libya. It wants to limit and shorten the air campaign and proscribe ground attacks on Libya by Nato aircraft. If Nato is given political command of the air effort, Turkey would be able to exercise a veto in a system run on consensus.

The US’s top military officer in Europe, Admiral James Stavridis, Nato’s supreme commander Europe, has gone to Ankara to try to mediate a deal.

The Turks are incensed at repeated snubs by Sarkozy. The French failed to invite Turkey to last Saturday’s summit in Paris which presaged the air strikes. French fighters taking off from Corsica struck the first blows. The Turkish government accused Sarkozy of launching not only the no-fly zone, but his presidential re-election campaign.

While the dispute over Libya is substantive and political, it also appears highly personal, revealing the bad blood simmering between the French president and the Turkish prime minister.

Sarkozy went to Turkey last month for the first time in four years as president. But the visit was repeatedly delayed and then downgraded from a state presidential event. He stayed in Turkey for five hours.

“Relations between Turkey and France deserve more than this,” complained Erdogan. “I will speak with frankness. We wish to host him as president of France. But he is coming as president of the G20, not as that of France.”

While the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, is also opposed to Turkey joining the EU, she has voiced her objections moderately. Sarkozy has declared loudly that culturally Turkey does not belong in Europe, but in the Middle East.

France has blocked tranches of Ankara’s EU negotiations on the grounds that it should not be seen as ever-fit for membership.

Ian Traynor


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Libyan plane shot down after Hague tells MPs no-fly zone established

Posted by Nicholas Watt

Statement to MPs comes shortly before ABC News report that French fighter jet had shot down Libyan aircraft

William Hague faced mild embarrassment when he told MPs Libyan military aircraft were unable to take to the air as news emerged that French fighter jets had shot down an aircraft.

In a statement to MPs on the military campaign against Muammar Gaddafi’s regime, the foreign secretary said coalition forces had successfully established a no-fly zone after “comprehensively” degrading Libya’s air defence system.

Hague added: “There are no Libyan military aircraft flying.”

But shortly after he spoke to MPs, ABC News reported that a French fighter jet had shot down a single-engine Libyan Galeb plane.

The Associated Press later quoted a US official as confirming that a French jet had attacked and destroyed a Libyan plane.

The news emerged after Hague had updated MPs on the progress of the military campaign against Gaddafi’s regime. The foreign secretary said the allied action was saving lives and protecting hundreds of thousands of civilians in Benghazi and Mistrata.

Hague told the Commons: “UK forces have undertaken a total of 59 aerial missions over Libya in addition to air and missile strikes.

“Last night, our forces again participated in a co-ordinated strike against Libyan air defence systems. A no-fly zone has now been established and the regime’s integrated air defence system has been comprehensively degraded. There are no Libyan military aircraft flying.

“Over 150 coalition planes have been involved in military operations, including Typhoon and Tornado aircraft from the Royal Air Force.

“Thirteen nations have currently deployed aircraft to the region. A number of additional nations have made offers of aircraft and other military support, which are in the process of being agreed. Royal Navy vessels are in the region supporting the arms embargo.”

The foreign secretary expressed confidence that agreement would be met on running the military campaign after the US gives up its command.

Nato ambassadors are meeting in Brussels to reach agreement after Barack Obama, David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy agreed on Tuesday night the campaign should be run by a two-tier structure. This would see Nato running the military command with a separate political structure – including members of the coalition outside Nato – to provide political oversight.

Hague said: “On the question of command and control, we are still working some of that out. The simplest and most effective solution is for all of these operations to come under the North Atlantic Council [Nato's main political decision-making body] and for other countries to plug into that, to work with that.

“We have made a great deal of progress. We should understand this is a new coalition, put together very quickly for obvious reasons last week, and so there are bound to be issues to sort out in its management.

“But we are getting through those pretty well. I will be discussing the remaining issues with Secretary [Hillary] Clinton and with my French and Turkish counterparts later this afternoon to try to iron out the remaining difficulties on future Nato command and control.

“The nations involved in this operation – their representatives are able to meet in Brussels on a regular basis.”

Nicholas Watt


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Sub-Saharan Africa is not Egypt, Hague | Blessing-Miles Tendi

Posted by Blessing-Miles Tendi

In suggesting Zimbabwe and others are ripe for an Egypt-style revolution, William Hague overlooks realities unpalatable to him

William Hague, Britain’s foreign secretary, declared this week that “we are only in the early stages of what is happening in north Africa and the Middle East”. Addressing a London conference of African politicians and businessmen, Hague said that the political tumult “will not stop at the borders of the Arab world”, suggesting that sub-Saharan countries ruled by undemocratic leaders are also ripe for popular uprisings. Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe and Ivory Coast strongman Laurent Gbagbo, currently in a stalemate with Alassane Ouattara over who is the country’s rightful president, were singled out as at risk of being consumed by popular uprisings if they do not “heed” the democratic will. The west’s response must be “generous, bold and ambitious”, Hague concluded.

But western boldness and ambition has already resulted in a number of African countries condemning air strikes on Libya, arguing that America, the UK and France are using UN resolution 1973, which authorised the enforcement of a no-fly zone, to effect regime change.

“Muammar Gaddafi, whatever his faults, is a true nationalist. I prefer nationalists to puppets of foreign interests. Therefore, if the Libyan opposition groups are patriots, they should fight their war by themselves and conduct their affairs by themselves. After all, they easily captured so much equipment from the Libyan army, why do they need foreign military support?” Were these the words of Mugabe? No, they came from Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni, widely respected as part of a new generation of modernising African leaders, and one of a number who believe the boldness and ambition that Hague extols have undermined the Libyan democratic cause.

Many concerned Zimbabweans, myself included, are of the opinion that Britain cannot play a positive role in our own nation’s domestic political affairs because of its colonial record and racially biased application of human rights principles since our independence in 1980. Our message is simple and consistent: lift targeted sanctions on Mugabe and members of his Zanu-PF party because they are undermining our progress to democracy, and stay out of Zimbabwean politics. The message has fallen on deaf ears, as Hague’s comments show.

UK immigration minister Damian Green announced this month that Britain will resume deporting failed Zimbabwean asylum seekers because there is significantly less politically motivated violence and conditions have improved in the country. But if Mugabe’s security forces are acting “with impunity, ramping up intimidation in order to instil fear in its opponents and to prevent the people of Zimbabwe from expressing their democratic voice”, as Hague claimed in his speech, what makes Zimbabwe safe enough to return failed asylum seekers? If, as Green maintains, violence is diminished in Zimbabwe and conditions are much better, why then is Mugabe ripe for toppling? The policy inconsistencies on Zimbabwe cannot be starker.

Mugabe may be unfavourable to Britain but his party retains significant support in Zimbabwe – three years ago his party defeated the opposition MDC in a parliamentary poll widely recognised as the most free and fair since 2000. Similarly Gbagbo has considerable support in Ivory Coast, as seen in the country’s north-south split in the ongoing political crisis. These realities may be unpalatable for the UK Foreign Office but they warrant close consideration.

In celebrating the recent popular uprisings, Hague does not stop to ask if the governments that arise are inevitably democratic. Uprisings may scupper democracy by sparking full-scale civil conflict in deeply divided countries. Moreover the instability may give militaries – historically the nemesis of democracy in sub-Saharan Africa – an excuse to resurrect armed rule.

And some undemocratic leaders in sub-Saharan Africa are far too entrenched to be overthrown despite their unpopularity – Angola president José Eduardo dos Santos and Equatorial Guinea leader Teodoro Obiang Mbasogo are only a couple of examples. Hague forgot that the respective contexts of sub-Saharan countries matter. Freedom is universal but Libya, Tunisia and Egypt have more in common with the politics of the Arab League countries than the political dynamics of nations south of the Sahara.

Blessing-Miles Tendi


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Sacked ambassador stokes Russian tension over Libya

Posted by Tom Parfitt

Returning diplomat revives clash between Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medevedev over likening of UN intervention to Crusades

Russia’s former ambassador to Libya has stoked new tension between President Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin, the prime minister, after calling the Kremlin’s acquiescence to air strikes targeting Muammar Gaddafi’s regime a “betrayal of Russia’s interests”.

Putin and Medvedev, who are close political allies, appeared to clash on Monday after the former condemned support for the bombing as “a medieval call for the Crusades”.

Medvedev, who is responsible for setting the country’s foreign policy, responded by saying it was “inadmissible to use expressions like ‘the Crusades’ that, in essence, can lead to a clash of civilizations”.

Aides to the two men have moved quickly to downplay the disagreement, but Vladimir Chamov has reignited it after flying home to Russia on Wednesday night. Chamov, who was sacked as ambassador to Tripoli by Medvedev earlier this month, told waiting reporters that Moscow’s failure to oppose the bombing raids would lose Russian companies huge sums of money in arms and other contracts.

He denied rumours that he wrote a telegram to Medvedev calling him a traitor, but said: “I wrote a telegram in which I underlined that I represent the interests of Russia in Libya. Recently, our countries have been aimed at close co-operation, and it is not in the interests of Russia to lose such a partner.”

He added: “Russian companies have signed very advantageous contracts for billions of euros for several years ahead that could be lost or have already been lost. In a certain way, that can be considered a betrayal of Russia’s interests.”

Russia abstained last week during the UN security council vote which approved military intervention in Libya in order to protect civilians.

Chamov, who was reportedly greeted at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport by Russian nationalists bearing bunches of flowers, declined to comment on Medvedev personally.

However, he said Gaddafi was “a very adequate person” and when asked to comment on Putin’s Crusades comment, he replied: “Vladimir Vladimirovich, and this is something I particularly like about him, gave a very precise, short and profound definition. And here, I think, he is not far from the truth.”

Analysts said Putin’s comments reflected his desire to please patriotic voters, while Medvedev had acted shrewdly to preserve respect in the west while bolstering Russian interests.

“Russia took a pragmatic decision by abstaining in the security council vote,” said Alexei Fenenko, an international security expert at the Russian Academy of Sciences. “If the United States wants a third war, let them have it. There was already fighting in Libya even without the intervention so our companies will lose out, bombing or not. Plus Russia’s past experience shows that the US is ready to act without UN support – a veto doesn’t stop them.”

Medvedev and Putin have both said they will agree together who contests the Russian presidency next March. Some observers think any disagreements between the two are cosmetic.

However, Gleb Pavlovsky, an analyst with close ties to the Kremlin, said discord in the ruling tandem had “become a generator of nervousness” in the political elite. “We need to enter a regime of certainty, when we know exactly who will run in the presidential elections,” he told the daily newspaper, Moskovsky Komsomolets.

Tom Parfitt


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Libya frees news agency journalists

Posted by Roy Greenslade

Two Agence France-Presse journalists and a Getty Images photographer who were arrested in Libya on Saturday have been released.

As the above video shows, they walked into a Tripoli hotel to greet other journalists after being freed by the Libyan government.

Reporter Dave Clark and photographer Roberto Schmidt, along with Getty photographer Joe Raedle were arrested by pro-Gaddafi forces after being stopped by a military convoy near the eastern town of Ajdabiya.

“All those who at every moment of their lives think that freedom is not just a word are deeply rejoicing now,” said AFP chairman and chief executive Emmanuel Hoog.

“This liberation is the fruit of the mobilisation of the entire AFP editorial staff and the agency as a whole.” He praised the French government for its help.

Paris-based Clark, who is British, was a former Baghdad bureau chief. Schmidt normally works out of AFP’s Nairobi bureau. Raedle is a US citizen.

Sources: AP/Canadian Press

Roy Greenslade


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Arabic, phlegm and the battle of Tarf al-Ghar | David Shariatmadari

Posted by David Shariatmadari

Western commentators struggling with Arabic pronunciation might find a solution in their own language

Az Zawiyah. Sana’a. Benghazi. Over the last few months, western commentators have had to get to grips with an array of confusing new words. We can assume that pronunciation units have been working through the night to help nervous anchors avoid sounding like they’re recovering from dental anaesthetic. Their efforts have met with varying levels of success.

Why all the trouble? Well, Arabic presents unique difficulties for the Indo-European tongue. How to get your mouth around Sfax? Do you say Manama like “Banana” or “Panama”? Does the rain in Bahrain fall mainly on the last syllable? There are consonants, vowels and patterns of stress we just don’t have north of the Mediterranean, and the difficulty in mastering them is understandable. The combination “hr”, without a helpful vowel in the middle, doesn’t exist in English. So a dividing line has emerged between those who carry on with plain old Baa-rain, and the ones who’ve learnt that Arabs slide effortlessly from h to r with no gap.

But now the crucial question. Is it pretentious to attempt an authentic-sounding Arabic place name? An element of competitiveness has seeped into discussions of events in the Middle East. Every day we read and hear more about historic developments in places that were unfamiliar to most of us until recently. Those who are really in the know wouldn’t trip over Tahrir, would they? And a lot of people want to sound like they’re in the know. So “correct” pronunciation becomes a totem, a way of proving your expertise. The greater the level of phlegm, so the thinking goes, the more you sound like you have some idea of what you’re talking about.

I suppose it’s marginally better than having people say “Eye-raq” or “A-rab”, a lack of concern for native speakers’ pronunciation that seems to go hand in hand with lack of concern for their welfare. But we should maintain a healthy scepticism: just because someone sounds like they know Arabic, it doesn’t mean they know what’s right for the Arabs. Don’t let’s be blinded by phonemes, or the strategic use of “Inshallah”.

In any case, it’s perfectly natural to adapt the sounds of a foreign language to fit those of our own. That’s how al-Qahirah becomes Cairo, or Libnan, Lebanon. No one would expect an English speaker to attempt the “Ain” in Sana’a, a sound that is the bane of Arabic learners’ lives and that even our alphabet quails at (it’s represented by an apostrophe most of the time, a typographical afterthought that doesn’t do it justice). What’s more irritating is when the spelling of a word rather than the sound becomes the basis for a mistaken pronunciation – that’s where “Eye-raq” and “Eye-ran” come from, “Ab-dool-ah” and other enormities.

But rather than worrying about our lack of ability to say Arabic words properly, we’d do well to remember the Arabic we already all know and use fluently. In the middle ages, mainly because they were world leaders in science and technology, Arabs donated hundreds of words to European languages: alchemy, alkali, alcove, admiral, alcohol, and so on. Spain is sprinkled with Arabic place names. And one of these has given us our very own Tahrir, right here in London. Trafalgar, named after Cabo Trafalgar near Cadiz, derives from an Arabic name: either Tarf al-Gharb (Cape of the West) or Tarf al-Ghar (Cape of the Cave). The etymologists, as in most of these cases, aren’t quite sure.

So the anti-cuts protests in London on Saturday will be linked to the Arab spring, linguistically, at least. Just make sure you get the pronunciation right. “Anti-government protests climaxed this weekend in Tarf al-Ghar Square”. I can already hear CNN mangling the pronunciation.

David Shariatmadari


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Tripoli ‘military base hit’ as allied air strikes pound Libya – video

Posted by World news: Libya | guardian.co.uk

Libyan television footage shows a serious fire after allied air attacks on what the TV report said was a military base in the capital, Tripoli, badly damaging military vehicles



Was intervention in Libya right?

Posted by Deborah Orr

More people in authority should be willing to admit that there is no certainty in war

Is it the Arab spring, like the Prague spring of 1968? Is it the Middle East’s Year of Revolutions, like Europe’s Year of Revolutions in 1848? Are these the sort of academic questions that tidy-minded crypto-Panglossians ask, as they offer partial readings of the past that fleetingly make the future seem simple and bright? No. No. And, sadly, yes.

It has been about 14 weeks since the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi inspired protests in Tunisia, and then across the Middle East. This has not proved long enough for the Tunisians to find out when, or even if, they might get the chance to take part in a general election. But it has proved long enough for the world to become mired in further bloody, oily controversy in the region. Peace comes dropping slow. War erupts.

Was intervention in Libya right? Was it wrong? Was it briefly right, now wrong? There are plenty of people who will line up, with passionate certainty, behind one moral stance or the other, citing Kosovo, citing Iraq, looking for templates, seeking out rules, taking positions, sounding fantastically sure. But there is no great clarity, and there can’t be. Nothing is certain, except uncertainty.

Certainty, anyway, can be an ugly, terrible thing; the tool of the strongman, the dictator, the person who isn’t listening to anybody else any more, if he ever did. The world would be a better place, perhaps, if many more people in authority had the confidence to say: “I just don’t know,” and be respected for it.

Deborah Orr


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Libya crisis: live updates

Posted by Adam Gabbatt

• Fifth night of air strikes on Libya as Gaddafi clings on
• Air strikes break siege of Misrata but battle continues
• Stalemate continues in Ajdabiya despite attacks
Follow live updates

Good morning, welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the continuing crisis in Libya.

• Western air strikes hit targets in Libya again on Wednesday night, after the commander of British aircraft operating over the country said that Muammar Gaddafi’s air force “no longer exists as a fighting force”.
However attempts at a Nato show of unity in policing a UN arms embargo was undermined by a third day of squabbling over who should be in charge of the air campaign. Amid arguments over the scope and command of the air campaaign against Tripoli, Turkey both blocked Nato planning on the no-fly zone and insisted that Nato be put in control of it, in order to be granted a veto over its operations, senior Nato officials said.

• Nearly 12 hours of allied air strikes yesterday finally broke the Libyan regime’s five-day bloody assault on the key rebel-held town of Misrata. Residents said the aerial bombardment destroyed tanks and artillery and sent many of Muammar Gaddafi’s forces fleeing from Misrata, ending a siege and attack by the regime that cost nearly 100 lives from random shelling, snipers and bitter street fighting.

• Despite the strikes, stalemate is reportedly continuing outside Ajdabiya, while fears are growing that more of Gaddafi’s forces are heading for Zintan, south west of Tripoli. The Libyan government denies its army is conducting any offensive operations and says troops are only defending themselves when they come under attack, but a resident in Zintan said Gaddafi forces were bringing up more troops and tanks to bombard the rebel-held town. Rebels forces in the east meanwhile are still pinned down outside Ajdabiya after more than three days of trying to recapture it.

• The US chief of staff for the mission in Libya has said there have been no reports of civilian casualties as a result of the coalition’s action, the BBC reported. Gaddafi’s government has repeatedly claimed civilians have been killed by what it calls “crusader, colonial” attacks.

Adam Gabbatt


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France plays hawk, Germany demurs. Libya has exposed Europe’s fault lines | Timothy Garton Ash

Posted by Timothy Garton Ash

With the west at sixes and sevens, Gaddafi may yet get away with murder. And this in the year of EU unity

So Europeans are from Mars and Americans are from Venus. Those “cheese-eating surrender monkeys” – the French – have led the military charge into Libya. The hamburger-munching crusader eagles have dithered in the rear.

Except that such crude stereotypes are as misleading today as they were at the time of the Iraq war. Now as then, Americans are divided – and Europeans even more so. France and Britain have led the campaign for a no-fly zone and for “all necessary measures” to protect civilians in Libya. Germany has demonstratively dissociated itself from them. The Obama administration initially showed almost German levels of reluctance to get involved with any form of military intervention, but shifted its position in response to Gaddafi’s brutal campaign to restore his own power, the remarkable pro-intervention stance of the Arab League, and pressures from many Americans. Among the American voices pressing for action was Robert Kagan, the neocon who popularised the original bon mot: “Americans are from Mars, Europeans are from Venus.”

So far as France is concerned, we need have no illusions about the personal motives of Nicolas Sarkozy. He surely hopes that cutting a dash on the international scene will boost his ratings and give him a better chance of being re-elected next year. Decisive action in defence of Arab human rights is supposed to cover up his administration’s appalling record in cosying up to Arab leaders who trampled on those rights, including Hosni Mubarak, until recently Sarkozy’s co-chair of the Union for the Mediterranean, Tunisia’s Zine El Abidine ben-Ali and, yes, Muammar Gaddafi.

The British prime minister David Cameron is in a quite different political position; yet he came to a similar conclusion. People’s motives are always mixed. What matters is the rights and wrongs of the case, and the realities on the ground.

It is not Sarkozy’s illusions of grandeur that persuaded the Arab League to support, let alone the UN security council to sanction, such action. Gaddafi killing his own people, and threatening to eliminate many more – that changed minds. Dr Saif al-Islam Gaddafi (PhD, LSE) ranting on a tank – that changed minds. Benghazi seemingly about to fall to Gaddafi’s forces – that changed minds. The decision to intervene, made soberly and without illusions, rests on a single proposition: it would very soon have been worse, fatally worse for many, if we had not intervened.

That was the logic that convinced a majority of the UN security council to vote for resolution 1973 (and, incidentally, led the president of Rwanda to support it). But not Russia, China, Brazil and India; and not Germany. For me, one of the defining pictures of this crisis was that of Germany’s ambassador to the UN, Peter Wittig, sitting with folded hands and a pained expression on his face, while next to him, the ambassador of Gabon, Emmanuel Issoze-Ngondet, raised his arm to vote for a resolution to save innocent civilians from a marauding dictator. I wonder what Wittig, a thoroughly decent man, felt at that moment. Mere awkwardness? Or something a little closer to shame?

So much for France and Germany as the inseparable couple at the heart of Europe. Instead, the French and German foreign ministers, Alain Juppé and Guido Westerwelle, are in open disagreement. “I say what I think and he says what he thinks,” Juppé snapped after sharp exchanges between them in Brussels this Monday. And Le Monde reports Juppé passing this devastating judgment: “The common security and defence policy of Europe? It is dead.” The issue here is not direct German military participation. Everyone would have understood if that was not possible. But how could Germany not support a UN resolution backed by its principal European partners, the United States and the Arab League? Worse still, Westerwelle recently cited doubts expressed about the extent of the military action by the Arab League to defend the German abstention: “We calculated the risk. If we see that three days after this intervention began, the Arab League already criticises [it], I think we had good reasons.” While French and British pilots risk their lives in action, the German foreign minister is virtually encouraging the Arab League to make further criticism. A word that springs unbidden to my mind is Dolchstoss (stab in the back).

There are several reasons for this German attitude. Westerwelle is one of the weakest foreign ministers Germany has had for a long time. As the leader of the Free Democrats (Germany’s Lib Dems), he is running scared of some important provincial elections – as is Angela Merkel. Like so many contemporary European politicians, they follow rather than lead public opinion. Having gingerly advanced in the 1990s towards taking broader international responsibilities, including military ones, German opinion seems to have sunk back into an attitude of “leave us alone”. Let Germany be a Greater Switzerland! And the dynamism of its extraordinary export growth is increasingly outside the old west, in trade with countries like Brazil, Russia, India and China – the very Brics with which it sided at the UN.

Even if you think the German approach to the specific question of the no-fly zone was right, and France’s wrong, you must acknowledge that these divisions make a mockery of Europe’s pretensions to have a foreign policy. And remember this was supposed to be the year in which the EU finally got its foreign policy act together. “Today’s meeting,” Catherine Ashton, the EU’s high representative for foreign and security policy, said after Monday’s punch-up, “showed the EU’s determination to react quickly and decisively and with one voice to the events in Libya.” She deserves a prize for managing to say that with a straight face.

Don’t get me wrong: my criticism of the German stance does not mean I have no doubts about this operation. I have grave doubts about it, like almost everyone I know. I am persuaded that the almost certain result of continued inaction would have been terrible for those civilians being attacked by Gaddafi’s forces. Things would have got worse had we not acted. But now we have to prove that things will get better because we have.

Here we are caught in the gap between the clear limits of the UN mandate – to protect civilians – and the necessary condition for securing that end with any confidence: the fall of Gaddafi. The only good outcome is for carefully targeted, limited, UN-sanctioned military action to allow the Libyans to get rid of Gaddafi. For that, the operational compromise towards which this coalition of the willing seems to be edging – Nato command-and-control expertise in a broader political wrapping – is probably the best way forward. Then everything will depend on the people on the ground.

However, many worse outcomes are entirely possible, including an ugly, protracted partition of the country. A divided Europe increases the likelihood of a divided Libya.

Timothy Garton Ash


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