Libya: Rebels in retreat
The only country where the Arab revolution became a military struggle may be one of the places where the regime stays put
The renewed clashes this weekend between Gaddafi's army and the opposition forces near Ajdabiya in eastern Libya confirm something that western powers should have realised a long time ago: the rebel army is not a fighting force. It expelled Gaddafi's officials from Benghazi and had to fight to do so, but when it comes to actual combat between two armies, all the rebels have ever done is to retreat. Territorial advances have been secured only by western air strikes and only after Gaddafi's forces turned tail. The rebels have yet to capture and hold ground on their own account. If there is a war going on, it is between Nato air power and Gaddafi's ground forces.
Nor should we kid ourselves that on-the-job training by the SAS will make a difference. Providing heavy weapons to a force with little command and control is an even worse idea. Gaddafi's forces have adapted swiftly to the shock of being blown out of the sand in the first wave of air strikes. They have hidden their tanks and turned themselves into a fast-moving force, using pickups that, from the air, are indistinguishable from those they are fighting. The rebels in the meantime have continued to charge up and down a 150km stretch of coastal road, with weapons many of them have little idea how to use. If they tried this with tanks and heavy artillery, they would soon lose them, and the coalition would only be arming the wrong side.
Nato, too, may soon reach the limits of what it can do with air power, after the second time in less than a week that its war planes struck friendly targets. Nato refused to apologise for the latest attack on a rebel convoy of tanks and troops. The British deputy commander of the operation, Rear Admiral Russell Harding, said on Friday that they had not been told that the rebels planned to deploy tanks. Air strikes may have degraded Gaddafi's forces to the point that they no longer threaten Benghazi, but that is a long way from him surrendering control of Tripoli. Libya is the only country where the Arab revolution became a military struggle, and for this very reason it may be one of the places where the regime stays put.
If all this points to a stalemate, and worse, one that partitions the country, the prospect of negotiating a ceasefire may start to look more attractive to both sides. Two elements of the peace plan put forward by the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, could appeal to the rebels: a ceasefire in the cities surrounded by Gaddafi's forces and a humanitarian corridor. Getting their cities back would allow the rebels to return to the business of organising an uprising, which is exactly why Gaddafi might oppose such a move. The third element – negotiations leading to free elections – is more troubling to the rebel leadership in Benghazi because they could be a long, drawn-out process. Determining how the Gaddafi clan will react to this, with its splits and the uncertainties over son Saif's role, is anyone's bet. If Saif is indeed working towards an exit strategy that is not insulting to his father – an interim government and a transition period that leaves him in place but without power – then the Turkish proposal is well aimed. Even if this is yet far from his father's intentions, he will be canny enough not to reject Turkish mediation out of hand. The problem is that we know so little about these court intrigues that it is impossible to make a judgment about how an end game might look. All we know is that the military option is looking less appealing and the regime, despite the defections, is not crumbling.
The air war may have secured parts of Libya, but Gaddafi has shown for the second time in his life that he is still standing on home turf. This could change, but how many in Nato are that confident that it will? All this points to an outcome with Gaddafi and his sons in place. It is messy. It lacks a redemptive conclusion. But it is the way this conflict is going.
Nor should we kid ourselves that on-the-job training by the SAS will make a difference. Providing heavy weapons to a force with little command and control is an even worse idea. Gaddafi's forces have adapted swiftly to the shock of being blown out of the sand in the first wave of air strikes. They have hidden their tanks and turned themselves into a fast-moving force, using pickups that, from the air, are indistinguishable from those they are fighting. The rebels in the meantime have continued to charge up and down a 150km stretch of coastal road, with weapons many of them have little idea how to use. If they tried this with tanks and heavy artillery, they would soon lose them, and the coalition would only be arming the wrong side.
Nato, too, may soon reach the limits of what it can do with air power, after the second time in less than a week that its war planes struck friendly targets. Nato refused to apologise for the latest attack on a rebel convoy of tanks and troops. The British deputy commander of the operation, Rear Admiral Russell Harding, said on Friday that they had not been told that the rebels planned to deploy tanks. Air strikes may have degraded Gaddafi's forces to the point that they no longer threaten Benghazi, but that is a long way from him surrendering control of Tripoli. Libya is the only country where the Arab revolution became a military struggle, and for this very reason it may be one of the places where the regime stays put.
If all this points to a stalemate, and worse, one that partitions the country, the prospect of negotiating a ceasefire may start to look more attractive to both sides. Two elements of the peace plan put forward by the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, could appeal to the rebels: a ceasefire in the cities surrounded by Gaddafi's forces and a humanitarian corridor. Getting their cities back would allow the rebels to return to the business of organising an uprising, which is exactly why Gaddafi might oppose such a move. The third element – negotiations leading to free elections – is more troubling to the rebel leadership in Benghazi because they could be a long, drawn-out process. Determining how the Gaddafi clan will react to this, with its splits and the uncertainties over son Saif's role, is anyone's bet. If Saif is indeed working towards an exit strategy that is not insulting to his father – an interim government and a transition period that leaves him in place but without power – then the Turkish proposal is well aimed. Even if this is yet far from his father's intentions, he will be canny enough not to reject Turkish mediation out of hand. The problem is that we know so little about these court intrigues that it is impossible to make a judgment about how an end game might look. All we know is that the military option is looking less appealing and the regime, despite the defections, is not crumbling.
The air war may have secured parts of Libya, but Gaddafi has shown for the second time in his life that he is still standing on home turf. This could change, but how many in Nato are that confident that it will? All this points to an outcome with Gaddafi and his sons in place. It is messy. It lacks a redemptive conclusion. But it is the way this conflict is going.
In praise of … maize
One of the world's most successful food crops, maize could also prevent greenhouse emissions from flatulent cows
It has a ring to it, but that is the only sound the world will hope to hear from the latest use for one of the world's most successful staple foods. Research at Reading University has found that increasing maize silage in the diet of cattle reduces the flatulence which accompanies their gentle rumination of the cud. Farming is responsible for 9% of the greenhouse gas emissions; half of this comes from the overworked stomachs of cows, sheep and goats. The Reading experiments, with input from scientists at Aberystwyth, therefore promise a small but not insignificant footnote to the struggle to stem climate change. Alas, the findings do not extend to humanity, via bingeing on corn-on-the-cob or finding some virtue in the popcorn scoopings at cinemas where "small" is the size of a bucket or baby-bath. They also require that some praise be given to higher-sugar grasses and naked oats, the latter stripped of the indigestible husks which would actually increase windiness. Both are part of Reading's recommended diet for cattle and so deserve honour, but in the way of an Olympic runner-up or third place. Maize takes the crown, as a plant first cultivated in prehistoric Mesoamerica and still the most widely grown crop in the United States, yet capable of producing these surprises. Perhaps time will bring it a second Nobel prize, on top of the 1983 award to Barbara McClintock who described her genetic work memorably as "asking the maize plant to solve specific problems and then watching its responses".
Mau Mau abuse case: Time to say sorry
There are some who would like empire to be on trial, but what matters now is that the British government accepts responsibility
Three frail, elderly men and one woman will this morning continue their high court fight for compensation for the pain and suffering they suffered in detention camps during the Mau Mau uprising. They should be allowed to return home before the week is out with the heartfelt apologies of the government ringing in their ears. For the past 60 years Westminster has tried to evade its responsibility for the events of the Kenya emergency. It is time to stop wriggling and come clean.
So much easier said than done, of course. For there is something peculiarly chilling about the way colonial officials behaved, most notoriously but not only in Kenya, within a decade of the liberation of the concentration camps and the return of thousands of emaciated British prisoners of war from the Pacific. One courageous judge in Nairobi explicitly drew the parallel: Kenya's Belsen, he called one camp.
The uprising by a secret sect, the Mau Mau – impoverished Kikuyu demanding the return of their fertile lands – led to the deaths of maybe 20,000 men and women, many after torture and internment. Thousands more died in the violence that tore apart Kikuyu families on opposing sides of the dispute.
With the tacit consent of ministers at Westminster, a British administration in colonial Kenya chose to behave as if Africans had no human rights. Rattled by a handful of murderous attacks on planters, they tried to face down the rebels using the empire's default setting of brutality. Castration, sodomy, rape and beatings were everyday weapons in its unremitting defence of the rights of the white settlers. So much, so sadly familiar. But what is clear from the cursory scrutiny that historians, led by Oxford's David Anderson, have so far made of literally thousands of documents whose existence has only just been revealed, is that there was no doubt in the perpetrators' minds of how their actions would appear to posterity: among the itemised beatings and torture are repeated references to the risk of being caught. They knew their actions were indefensible. The government is not challenging the claims. Rather, it is seeking to find a legal pretext to avoid responsibility.
There are some who would like the empire itself to be on trial. But what matters most now is that the British government accepts responsibility. Without an apology, there is an enduring sense of complicity in the immoral actions of a racist administration that wantonly trashed a fundamental code. It reads across to other wars, in other countries and other continents. It legitimises the actions of other governments. And the longer its lawyers wrangle in the courts, the more shame it brings.
So much easier said than done, of course. For there is something peculiarly chilling about the way colonial officials behaved, most notoriously but not only in Kenya, within a decade of the liberation of the concentration camps and the return of thousands of emaciated British prisoners of war from the Pacific. One courageous judge in Nairobi explicitly drew the parallel: Kenya's Belsen, he called one camp.
The uprising by a secret sect, the Mau Mau – impoverished Kikuyu demanding the return of their fertile lands – led to the deaths of maybe 20,000 men and women, many after torture and internment. Thousands more died in the violence that tore apart Kikuyu families on opposing sides of the dispute.
With the tacit consent of ministers at Westminster, a British administration in colonial Kenya chose to behave as if Africans had no human rights. Rattled by a handful of murderous attacks on planters, they tried to face down the rebels using the empire's default setting of brutality. Castration, sodomy, rape and beatings were everyday weapons in its unremitting defence of the rights of the white settlers. So much, so sadly familiar. But what is clear from the cursory scrutiny that historians, led by Oxford's David Anderson, have so far made of literally thousands of documents whose existence has only just been revealed, is that there was no doubt in the perpetrators' minds of how their actions would appear to posterity: among the itemised beatings and torture are repeated references to the risk of being caught. They knew their actions were indefensible. The government is not challenging the claims. Rather, it is seeking to find a legal pretext to avoid responsibility.
There are some who would like the empire itself to be on trial. But what matters most now is that the British government accepts responsibility. Without an apology, there is an enduring sense of complicity in the immoral actions of a racist administration that wantonly trashed a fundamental code. It reads across to other wars, in other countries and other continents. It legitimises the actions of other governments. And the longer its lawyers wrangle in the courts, the more shame it brings.
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