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The Intention Of Nato In Libya Was Regime Change, Charges Mbeki
29 August 2011
The NATO nations’ claim that they intervened with a ferocious six-month military campaign to defend "civilians," was exposed as a fraud by former South African President Thabo Mbeki on Aug. 26. Mbeki, presently AU mediator in Sudan, was addressing students in South Africa. He said that the NATO nations "were and are bent on regime change," and revealed that a week before the UN Security Council voted for the no-fly zone over Libya, the African Union Peace and Security Council had met and taken a resolution on the Libyan issue which it conveyed to the UN. "They [the NATO nations] decided to ignore that and advised their own solutions, which is why we are in the mess we’re in." He pointed out that the African Union resolution had been conveyed to and accepted by the Libyan government, but when the time came for a team of peacemakers from five countries to travel to Libya, they couldn’t. "The no-fly zone was already imposed and the peacemakers couldn’t fly to Libya." Mbeki stated that the situation in Ivory Coast early this year had been similar. In that case, Mbeki said, [President] Gbagbo had accepted the AU’s decisions and had agreed to resign, but when the African Union alerted the UN to the fact that a team would be travelling to the country to implement the resolutions, they too were stopped. Mbeki pointed out that the International Crisis Group (ICG), which could hardly be "justly accused of being sympathetic to (Muammar) Gaddafi," had found that the Libyan protest movement had exhibited a "violent aspect" from early on, and that the view that Gaddafi would massacre thousands of unarmed protesters was the result of one-sided Western media reports. Qaddafi has again offered to have talks with the rebels, but the rebels rejected the offer. NATO has pounded Sirte, a Qaddafi stronghold, for three days. But attempts by the rebels to negotiate with local leaders have so far been rebuffed. |
