Libya, Iraq: Contrasting ways of conflict resolution Nasim Zehra

Opinion, August 2003, www.aljazeerah.info

Libya, Iraq: Contrasting ways of conflict resolution

Nasim Zehra

24-08-2003

It all occurred within 48 hours; definite movement towards U.S.-Libya rapproachment and a downturn on the Iraqi security situation. While the tragedy has to be condemned is there something else, something more fundamental than the deteriorating Iraq situation signals ? Have there been contrasting ways in which the U.S. has dealt with the Libyan and the Iraqi situations; essentially the Gaddafi and the Saddam factors?

The cloud lifted over Libya: the United States and Gaddafi are to openly co-exist. A non-bloody and sober end to the nearly two-decade-old conflict is imminent. Top guns of the United States mandated to murder Gaddafi in 1986 did not succeed. Two years later Gaddafi's violent ways facilitated terrorist killings.

The 256 innocent passengers of PanAm 103 were murdered over Lockerbie, Scotland. For over a decade mutual revulsion flowed from the hate and anger that the two governments harboured towards each other.

Recognising the limits of what military force and hate can achieve, a three-way negotiation began between the U.S.,UK and Libya. In 1999 the UN sanctions were suspended. Libya agreed to co-operate by handing two Libyan suspects over for trial in Scottish ad hoc courts in The Netherlands.

Finally, payment of a compensation package, a letter from the Libyan government to the UN Security CouncilpPresident nearly accepting responsibility for Lockerbie and reiterating its commitment to the global anti-terrorist campaign, led the two actively hostile adversaries towards détente.

Libya and the U.S., encouraged by the UK and the UN, opted for a process of protracted negotiations which were marked by mutual accommodation. They abandoned indiscriminate force as a dispute settler and moved away from the victor-vanquished paradigm of conflict resolution. Washington will support the UK-Bulgarian resolution tabled on August 18, calling for the lifting of UN sanctions.

In contrast to this upbeat Libyan situation has been the continuing tragedy of Iraq. On August 19 death reigned at the UN office in Baghdad. Twenty people, including UN top man Sergio Viera de Mello, the "outstanding servant of humanity", were killed and hundreds were wounded. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan hopes those who "perpetrated this outrage will be brought to justice".

He correctly said: "Nothing can excuse this act of unprovoked and murderous violence against men and women who went to Iraq for one purpose only : to help the Iraqi people recover their independence and sovereignty and to rebuild their country as fast as possible , under leaders of their own choosing."

Syria, currently holding the Security Council presidency said: "Such terrorist incidents cannot break the will of the international community." The UN will continue its presence in Iraq, only under greater fear. Security concerns will undoubtedly effect the UN presence, it will slow down its work. Some UN staff has already been moved out of Baghdad after the terrorist attack.

The American forces were responsible for maintaining security to the former Canal Hotel, which housed the UN Iraq office. A tall order in a foreign occupied land where the deadly combination of anger, hate, resistance and light weapons is on the increase. Two weeks ago 19 lives were lost in another terrorist attack.

Last week sabotage debilitated Iraq's northern export pipeline and Baghdad's central water system. This forebodes more death, destruction and debilitation for the Iraqis and for those forces who first invaded and now occupy Iraq in their line of duty.

The Commander-in-Chief of the American forces has called the attackers the "enemies of the civilised world". Bush, who faces increasing criticism for the continuing death of U.S. soldiers and is now confronted with unconventional warfare in Iraq, was tough as usual in his words.

"Every sign of progress in Iraq adds to the desperation of the terrorists and the remnants of Saddam's brutal regime. The civilised world will not be intimidated. And these killers will not determine the future of Iraq," Bush warned.

The American administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, has already expanded the zone for blame beyond Iraq. He has indicated that "foreigners coming from Syria" may have been behind these blasts. Maybe the U.S. will argue that Al Qaida has a Syrian presence too, that covertly the Syrians are supporting these terrorist activities or are supporting "Saddam's loyalists".

There can be no limits to listing suspects. Especially when the adversary is as elusive and as dispersed as the one coalition forces and – tragically now – the UN face in Iraq.

Iraq promises to go through extended turmoil. The desperate, divided and decadent side of the human race will surface in a context where different moralities have emerged. There is no getting away from how we arrived at this tragic and now extremely difficult situation in Iraq. Peace, law and order and calm will not come easy in Iraq as the monsters of hate and anger are devouring it so it is bound to spread its tentacles before recoiling.

This is the inevitable cycle of causation. One that many had foretold. The U.S.-UK invasion of Iraq was illegal and based on a wrong and untruthful premise. Even if slow, a UN-led process of a negotiated process of reining in the evil dictator Saddam was underway.

The global community should have stayed the course on that. Yet, buoyed by hate for Saddam, by the arrogance of military power, by the convoluted security paradigms and by a self-defeating sense of self-righteousness the United States and the UK abandoned the route of a negotiated settlement.

Granted that would not have been perfect or rapid; but how perfect and rapid is this path on which Iraq is now travelling?

The writer is Harvard Fellow, Harvard University Asia Centre

Earth, a planet hungry for peace

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).