Sirte, Bani Walid: ‘A Lost Chance?’

'High precision' weapons used to the siege of Sirte

In the sites of the last pockets of Gaddafi’s supporters the fight rages on. It is the last face of the ‘official’ war. Next, will be the invisible one, triggered by the hatred and pain of the 8 months civil war. The absence of the old regime’s soldiers n the Media narratives doesn’t assure any safety for the future peace, as they are also Libyan citizens which they have families and relatives around. For the Western supporters of the rebellion the ultimate victory on the loyalists was meant to follow the path of ‘fight till death’ doctrine. This underlines the victorious characteristic that legitimize the NTC as the sole governor of Libya. But it also seals the outcome of the conflict with the paint of a no tolerance policy for the other side underlined by the bulldozers tearing down Gaddafi’s compound in Tripoli, a gesture to write off the irreversibly written past. This is purely undemocratic.

Thus, the fractions of the Libyan society is ternal: The secularists, the Islamists and the supporters of the old regime, aka the losers. Both parties do have very strong reasons to stay inside their own conceptions. The secularists have generated all the West’s support which led to the victory by the enforcement of a no-flying zone. The Islamists where probably the best fighters as their leader drove the army inside Tripoli. The old regime’s supporters have strong memories and a lost national pride. In this picture you can add some separate militia leaders and gangs, smugglers, looters, and an extended black market.

The rebels during the war had refused negotiations that would include any of the government’s official in the new political map. This was a signal for a ‘fight till death’, and a message to the population that none of the old ideas would be allowed in the future. But Gaddafi was far more than a beast, a mad and a cruel dictator. He took over Libya’s lead when it was the poorest state in the world and in 2010 it enjoyed a higher Human Development Index than Denmark. Today’s Libya however good or bad, is totally his regime’s work. On top, it is understandable that the vast majority of the population don’t have any clue about free markets, privatization or market competition, unacquainted with this capitalistic culture.

The decision of the West powers not to effect a negotiating table even to the last bloodiest face of the civil war builds the alleged new born Libyan democratic future on a wrong, totalitarian and inhuman fanatic foundation.

This could be easily proved to be a ‘lost chance” rendering the future a lost case.