The recent political event in Libya raised a question about accountability. Ms. Hillary Clinton made an official statement that Libya is the single side to hold responsible for this political outcome.
However Libyan leader was slaughtered before having referendum about the parliamentary democracy and legitimacy of his political system - Jamahiriya. Why such referendum, that should normally be the first respond when ever political legitimacy is denied on massive scale to any government, never happened in Libya, is something to seriously think about. It seems that such referendum was never even an option clearly laid out in front of Gaddafi by his political opponents, who had all rights to oppose his autocracy. Instead, he was required by his political opponents to step out and be prosecuted for his cited crimes. This raises a question - did Gaddafi realistically have an option for any political maneuver other than to respond with military action against his opponents, which resulted in humanitarian disaster in Libya because of his superior position and use of available weapons that were not accessible to his opponents.
United States opted to help the rebels with the military force to help defeating Gaddafi after he was denied his political credibility by the UN for causing humanitarian disaster. What came after the intervention, was possibly even bigger humanitarian disaster, than the one that would be caused, if Gaddafi was left alone to handle revolt of rebels, and then, by political means and international pressures – drove to referendum about new political system and free elections. Hundreds of dead as a direct result of foreign military intervention in Sirta and the entire Libya are witnessed by Libyans. Many of them are asking themselves and publicly expressing their concerns through Internet forums – would it be less blood if the foreign military forces did not intervene.
Gaddafi political opponents admitted publicly that Gaddafi, according to their estimate had at last 25% of support among Libyans. If the transitional government admitted 25% without having a referendum, that means that Gaddafi’s political power at the moment of his slaughter might be significantly higher. At least 25% or more of Libyans became over night political hostages of Gaddafi’s opponents, who seemed to never asked or cared for referendum more than they cared for elimination and public prosecution of their political enemy Gaddafi. If the new transitional government of Libya didn’t want to include political representatives of all Libyans, including Gaddafi’s 25% or more supporters , into new democratic process, then foreign military forces including US on the first place, had helped their betting horse, but not the Libyan democracy itself.
Replacing authoritative Jamahiriya with the new neo fundamentalism, at the first glance does not sound as an unfair trade. However, just as a reminder, Gaddafi’s Jamahiriya through out these 40 years of existence use to score very high among the Third Word countries in 70es, for its tolerant Islamic approach, equality among sexes, promoting women emancipation, having very developed social welfare system, economic prosperity, open passport policy for citizens, and it scored very low among western capitalistic countries because of absence of democracy and possibly supporting political organizations that are opposing established capitalistic governments, and could be consider extreme because of the chosen methods of fight (IRA…). Motives to give a military support to Gaddafi’s opponents might expand further to include the dilemmas what will Gaddafi’s herein policy look like? But legitimacy for this military move is lost with his death. The prosecution of Gaddafi will never be held, his cited crimes will never be brought in front of the face of justice, and therefore his guilt will always remain a one sided truth, or simply said an unproven claim. As far as the legitimacy of his death, I am afraid that the situations isn’t looking as simple. Gaddafi is illegally slaughtered during the official military action, that was broadcasted and followed up several months by all media through out the world. Leading role of the US in military support of the rebels cannot be denied. So does accountability for the political events in Libya.
J. T. Clemente
