WHAT LIES AHEAD FOR LIBYA?

• by Johan Galtung
• Tuesday, September 06, 2011
• Inter Press Service

After destroying the symbols of Gaddafi, there will be a ceremony celebrating the NATO victory. Will there be an aircraft carrier with Sarkozy, Cameron, Berlusconi, Obama declaring 'Mission Accomplished' and lining up for promised oil contracts? Hardly. Instead, the ceremony will be more European-style, like the meeting of top representatives from over 60 countries in Paris on 2 September, pledging to release frozen Libyan assets to the National Transition Council. Other meetings, like Petersburg I for Afghanistan, will draft a new constitution and set dates for free elections. Then, if he is captured alive, there will be the West's International Criminal Court routine for Gaddafi.

So is this war against Gaddafi a lost cause? If the goal is 'stable secular democracy', yes: war will only mobilise Islamists and clans and tribes and spark violence. But if the key goal is a private, not state, central bank -already achieved by the Benghazi clan- and killing an African Investment Bank in Syrte, Libya, an African Monetary Fund in Nigeria, an African federation, and an African currency in gold dinars, there is cause for celebration. And if the goal was to prevent Libya from being the first African country to succeed in fulfilling the Millennium Development Goals, then start the fireworks.

The author recommends a decentralised Libya, promoting African unity, focusing more on its 500 sub-states than it 54 states, with rule by consensus for the many parts rather than the Western 'winner takes all' model.

(*) Johan Galtung, Rector of the TRANSCEND Peace University, is author of 'The Fall of the US Empire--And Then What?' ( www.transcend.org/tup).

© Inter Press Service (2011) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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