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| Libya is in north Africa Recently Libya has been the centre of public attention, again because spurred on by the success of the people in Egypt they started a rebellion which has wrestled power from colonel Gaddafi in many parts of the country. Gaddafi has met these protests increasingly violently using helicopters, tanks and even anti aircraft guns on his own people. (Which there is plenty of evidence for online but most of it is not appropriate for human viewing search at your own risk) In the past few weeks NATO forces have entered Libya to “protect civilians”. The NATO forces bombed and destroyed large numbers of tanks and vehicles as well as enforcing the no fly zone. But recently the NATO forces has been hampered by the fact many civilians armed by Gaddafi have been fighting against the rebels. This means that NATO cannot interfere despite the fact these “fighters” are still using tanks and heavy artillery. |
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| Current map of control in Libya This situation is not as clear cut as it sounds though. The west has to be very careful with the rebel fighters that they are supporting. This is because it would be very easy for some groups of the rebels to be militants supporting al Qaeda. This might sound like the colonels scaremongering but lots of there fighters come from the terrorist group,even a rebel commander has admitted that he has previously fought in Afghanistan. [telegraph, rebel commander admits al Qaeda links]. I Personally think this is a very challenging political situation, and it should make the western countries ask very hard questions about there foreign policy's. Especially on hard-line dictators where they have been prepared to make concessions and ignore certain situations to set up trade. Whats your view? should we support the rebels? is our relationship with dictators in the Middle East and Africa ok? what would you do if you where a leader of a country with the power to intervene? |
