NATO’s Double Game In Libya Under UN Cover Revealed

Source: Pakistan Observer
Akhtar Jamal

Suitcase size drones played decisive role.

Islamabad: A Canadian newspaper has revealed an account of NATO’s double-game in Libya and disclosed how the NATO countries collaborated with each other to topple the Libyan regime and secretly supplied most sophisticated weapons and drones to Libyan rebels.

According to the newspaper, Ottawa Citizen, the NATO states misused the UN embargo of arms and sea-blockage and enforced one-sided sanction while allowing NATO-backed special forces and trainers to slip into Libya via sea. 

The paper also disclosed that dozens of brief-case size drones were also sent to Libya to monitor and track Gadhafi forces and hunt them down.

It said that NATO partners in the Mediterranean Sea enforcing an embargo under authority of the United Nations Security Resolution 1973 allowed weapon supplies without any interception to anti- Gadhafi forces.

The publications recalled while in May of 2011 NATO had set up a ring of 20 warships to enforce a United Nations arms embargo for all sides, while the UN embargo was clearly aimed at preventing the delivery of weapons both to Gadhafi and those fighting him.

The paper added that hundreds of tonnes of ammunition and arms breezed through the blockade, “exposing what critics say was Canada and NATO’s real motive during the Libyan war of regime change under the guise of protecting civilians.”

It recalled that Qatar, one of the two Arab nations which took part in the NATO-led mission, supplied rebels French-made Milan anti-tank missiles, with deliveries made by sea. The country also gave them a variety of trucks and communications gear, while Qatari advisers slipped into Libya to provide training. It claimed that Egypt shipped assault rifles and ammunition, with U.S. support while Poland supplied anti-tank missiles and military vehicles.

The Leader-Post has reported that Canada provided surveillance drones to rebels so that they could better attack Libyan troops, day or night. 

The report claimed that Canadians officials took an 18-hour boat ride from Malta to the NTC training facility in Misrata, sailing without problems through NATO’s blockade, to deliver drones, and showed the rebels how to fly the drone, using it to identify a Libyan military position.

It added that French aircraft, unchallenged by NATO fighters enforcing a no-fly zone, had dropped an estimated 40 tonnes of ammunition and weapons, including anti-tank missiles, to rebels fighting southwest of Tripoli.

The French, like the other nations pumping weapons into the hands of opposition forces, justified their actions in response that seemed straight from George Orwell’s novel 1984. There was indeed an arms embargo in place, they acknowledged, but there was also another UN resolution allowing for all necessary measures to protect civilians under threat of attack.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe claimed that the delivery was of “weapons of self-defence” and because of that they didn’t violate the UN resolution. 

The newspaper said that NATO’s stated goal to protect Libyan civilians was seen by critics as a one-way street, with the focus being on protecting only those allied with the rebels. “It would later emerge that rebel forces hunted down black Libyans they believed supported Gadhafi, as well as African guest workers.”

The BBC interviewed one Turkish construction contractor who told the news service that he witnessed the massacre of 70 Chadians who had been working for his company. There were also reports that the rebels ethically cleansed the town of Tawergha, south of Benghazi, as well as other locations. Tawergha originally had more than 30,000 people, most the descendants of black slaves brought to Libya in the 18th and 19th centuries, but the town, which supported Gadhafi and provided soldiers for his cause, had been emptied.

“People from Tawergha who sought safety in refugee camps were chased down by rebel groups, taken away and disappeared, warned Amnesty International. Women from the town were raped.”

The paper also accounted in detail how NATO states systematically attacked Gadhafi and his family members while maintaining officially that they were not targeting the regime because the UN had not given that mandate.

The Ottawa Citizen also pieced together information that clearly suggested that the former Libyan leader was murdered in a war crime-style execution, yet Western leaders rejoiced over his death.