West Has Taken Sides in Libyan ‘Civil War,’ Says Annan

18 May 2011

interview

Former United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan believes the Western coalition fighting Libya’s Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi has “crossed a line” and is now “fighting on one side of [a] civil war.”

During the course of two extensive interviews recently, Annan told Alec Russell of London’s Financial Times that calls by presidents Barack Obama of the United States and Nicolas Sarkozy of France that “Gaddafi must go” were “not very helpful.” He advocated a political solution to the Libyan crisis, saying that although “a future Libya without Gaddafi” should be part of negotiations, events were currently headed for a “messy” stalemate, with military victory an unlikely prospect.

During the interviews, which lasted over a period of five hours, Annan also discussed Kenya, the “Arab Spring,” peacekeeping in the Democratic Republic of Congo, his role during the Rwandan genocide, the need for young African men and women to go into politics and his current passion for promoting agriculture in Africa. The following excerpts from the interviews are published by permission of the Financial Times. The full text of the interview, in which Annan also discusses issues including the Iraq war and the Bush administration, Bosnia, his legacy, and the future of and reforms to the United Nations, can be found here.

Mediation and Libya

Alec Russell: Do you sometimes turn down overtures to mediate?

Kofi Annan: You need to be careful not to over-reach and also assess the capacity you have to work with. In Kenya, initially, I started by advising… and then I went in and, as you know, couldn’t leave for six weeks, which really wreaked havoc with my programme for the whole year. But at least I was able to make some contribution.

Sometimes I offer advice or suggest who else can deal with it and, in some situations, deal directly with it. And in Cote d’Ivoire, we [the Elders] had hoped to go in early before things exploded. We were going to go in and talk to the two young men and remind them, the two leaders, that Ivory Coast is bigger than them.

AR: Would you consider getting involved in Libya?

KA: It depends. There are lots of questions which have to be answered. Sometimes when people approach you and say, do this, there are lots of questions. I have been in touch with some of the governments engaged, both western and Middle Eastern governments, to really make an assessment of how they see the situation and what will be required because first of all the coalition itself has to decide how it wants to proceed, which direction it wants to go, because you have several possibilities.

Some may seek a victory. Victory in this situation would mean you have to really win completely, the sort of situation which led to Saddam being found in a hole. And I’m not sure that’s likely to be the situation in Libya. Therefore you have to seek a political way out because you are working yourself to a stalemate that could last for a long time and be messy.

So which way do you go? Are they prepared to talk, to find a way out for Gaddafi? And then, of course, you have the council, the Libyan opposition council whose approach, I’m sure, would be, he has to go. And in fact, their approach would be to try and put pressure on the coalition that you can’t come and bomb and do all this – you know the kind of man he is – and leave us here with him. So you’re going to have rather difficult negotiation discussions with the transitional council itself.

And so the coalition and the transitional council have to get their act together or get into the same place before they can take on Gaddafi. I’m sure Gaddafi has difficulties on his side.

AR: You negotiated with Gaddafi over the years. How would you assess him now?

KA: He came out of the cold and probably felt he had managed a difficult situation very well. He went to European capitals. European heads of government and heads of state flew down to see him. He probably felt he’d re-established and reinstated himself as a member of the international community. And then, of course, this happens. He’ll probably wonder if indeed there has been that much progress in his relations with them. My sense is that he’ll become much more suspicious today and, unless he’s really backed into a corner, will be extremely difficult to negotiate with.

AR: What about the bigger issue of the intervention? There are all sorts of historical parallels one can come up with. One analogy is, of course, 1991 after Iraqis had been pushed out of Kuwait and then the world’s policymakers decided not to intervene to stop Saddam putting down the Shiite uprising. Should the policymakers have done the same thing, should they have hardened their hearts this time?

KA: I think the world has moved on. You’re right to start with 1991 but one would also need to look at Srebrenica and Rwanda and the repetition of the phrase “never again,” or “we will defend the helpless”. And there was a situation where Gaddafi himself, he brought it on himself with some of the statements he was making about being “merciless” and “blood will flow” and all that. When a leader makes that sort of statement and you see him approaching populated areas with tanks and military gear and equipment, an international community that had been talking tough and talking of a no-fly zone and rushing to establish a no-fly zone would have had a lot to answer for if they had not intervened to protect the population.

The question is where you draw the line. Was every action taken by the coalition designed to protect helpless civilians or, in some cases, to support the weak, rebellious army? And how far do you go? And does it fit with the [UN] Security Council resolution and the mandate? And we should remember that it wasn’t a unanimous decision and some pretty important countries abstained. So you start with a divided Council, which makes it even more important that those in action respect the mandate otherwise the divisions widen. And the Council can get paralysed on future decisions on Libya.

AR: Is there implicit hypocrisy that there is intervention in Libya but not Ivory Coast where an awful conflict is raging?

KA: Yes. The timing of this [Libyan] initiative is very difficult and awkward. Even before you go to Ivory Coast, questions are going to be put as to whether, if there were to be a similar situation where civilians are at risk in some of the other countries, whether Syria or Yemen, what should the international community do? Should they consider going in? And then, of course, you have Ivory Coast where you have, in a way, international presence already on the ground, you have UN forces on the ground. They don’t have the adequate numbers to do what they probably would like to do.

AR: So we have to weigh up each situation separately and coolly?

KA: Coolly, and be coldly realistic as to whether the action or the initiative we are contemplating would help or make matters worse.

AR: You seemed to imply, from your earlier remarks, though, that you were in favour of the Libyan intervention.

KA: I’m in favour of the efforts that were made to protect the people. You see, the problem, the argument the Libyan intervention will lead to, is they quoted the “responsibility to protect” but it’s a graduation. You sort of go through a whole series of events and as a last resort you use force; political pressure, sanctions and others.

Of course, one could claim that we were beyond that, that the way events were moving so fast, you couldn’t influence a situation by applying political or diplomatic pressure, imposing sanctions, and that more effective measures had to be used, and this is the argument that has been made.

And I think the whole world saw that time was on the move with the people in Benghazi and they felt that action was taken to stop the tanks before they got to Benghazi and did lots of damage. I’m sure everyone will support that, or most people will support it. I can say most people will support that.

The following remarks on Libya were made in an interview conducted in Geneva during the last week of April 2011.

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