Oil-rich Libya's predicament is a precursor to self-serving Western meddling which fuels fratricide, says Gamal Nkrumah The maverick Libyan leader cannot help but make his mark, with comic dashing confidence of style and panache. The question is whether this is his last stand. As an illustration of where power lies in Libya, several cities overrun by anti-Muammar Gaddafi protesters in the west of the country, Tripolitania, during the course of last week have reverted to Gaddafi's iron-fisted rule. As Al-Ahram Weekly went to press, pro- Gaddafi forces spearheaded by the dreaded Khamis Brigade, Libya's best-equipped force according to CIA reports, reclaimed the strategic city of Zawiya less than 30km west of the Libyan capital Tripoli. The regaining of Zawiya by the Khamis Brigade, named after one of Gaddafi's sons, was instructive in more ways than one. This was the latest lesson in how brutal force might yet quell the Libyan popular uprising that has secured the greater part of eastern Libya, Cyrenaica. Misrata, too, Libya's third largest city in terms of population and also in Tripolitania, also fell under pro-Gaddafi control -- or at least the air base on its outskirts -- even though control of the city centre is still disputed between pro- Gaddafi and anti-Gaddafi forces. He is digging his heels in. All now depends on the willingness of anti- Gaddafi forces to fight the military might of Gaddafi. The best bet on what action will be taken on the political future of Libya is therefore full-force action on the military front by local anti-Gaddafi forces. They have made it crystal clear that any interference, military or otherwise, by Western powers will compromise their cause. However, what is not quite so clear is whether they will do so in a fog of uncertainty. This incertitude suggests that the future of the country is liable to be shaped increasingly by the Libyan armed forces and especially by the battalions headed by Gaddafi's sons and close confidants. The militarisation of the conflict is exacerbated by officers surrendering to protest in pockets across the country. In this context, the declining enthusiasm in public opinion in western and southern Libya in particular where most of Gaddafi's supporters are based is troubling. Senior Libyan diplomats are defecting in droves. The most high-profile being the UN Ambassador Abdel-Rahman Shalgam, who delivered an impassioned plea for the international community to come to the rescue. Gaddafi has already announced that wages and unemployment benefits are to be hiked by a walloping 150 per cent. Libyans will be all the more tempted to surrender to the seductive largesse of the Libyan leader. Gaddafi is anything but the world's most entertaining zombie. If he had his wits about him, he could have done so much more instead of squandering the country's riches on arms. In spite of Libya's fabulous oil wealth and Gaddafi's advocacy of socialism, a third of Libya's population live below the poverty line. He urged his supporters to chase away the "rats, gangsters, mercenaries and vermin". He declared that since he holds no official title he cannot be ousted from office. "I am not a president and therefore cannot step down. I am the Revolution," he thundered. In one of his most theatrical performances he confessed that if "my people do not love me, then I deserve to die." "Chase the rats and the agents provocateurs. Get the traitors and try them for treachery and betrayal," he bellowed from above the Great Fort in the heart of Tripoli in the Green Square that his opponents call Martyrs Square. The chaos exploded around him as he took to his rickshaw wrapped in sackcloth and donning a black turban, sporting a white umbrella and a grimace that warned of a harrowing death to his detractors. His speeches were ominous. The composition of his harangue, too, brings little good news. He admonished the protesters as drug-crazed and spaced-out. He drew attention to the threat of Al-Qaeda and forewarned that Libya would disintegrate into militant Islamist emirates if his regime were to be toppled. This last prophecy was obviously aimed at striking terror in the hearts of his Western allies who were quick to desert their new-found "ally". His son and heir apparent Seif Al-Islam evidently failed to do a better job of explaining to the Libyan public and the world at large the economic and geopolitical benefits of the Gaddafi regime hanging on to power. Both father and son relinquished any desire of being a beacon of Western-style democracy at the heart of a free, politically stable and prosperous North Africa. "We refuse to be governed by the henchmen of Osama Bin Laden and the lackeys of Western imperialists," Gaddafi thundered. Minister of Interior Abdel-Fattah Younis was assassinated in Benghazi, traditionally the hotbed of revolution in Libya and the city from which the anti- Gaddafi popular uprising was sparked. The former minister of justice Mustafa Abdel-Jalil was named as head of the interim government of what the anti-Gaddafi forces have pronounced the "liberated" areas of the country. The self-proclaimed liberated areas are largely restricted to the east of the country, Cyrenaica. The tribal factor is of paramount importance in Libyan domestic politics and Gaddafi has managed over the past four decades to manipulate tribal politics in the country. He has persistently adopted a divide and rule policy with lucrative enticements for those who cooperate with the regime and repressive retribution for those who oppose his leadership. An estimated 15 per cent of the Libyan population have no tribal affiliations and they are predominantly urbanites in Tripoli and Benghazi, respectively the largest and second largest urban centres in the country. Gaddafi has threatened to arm the tribes, even though his opponents claim that he is relying primarily on African mercenaries, a claim disputed by Gaddafi and his son Seif Al-Islam who dismissed the idea they would stoop so low since "half of the Libyan population is black". Yet tribal politics is a prickly question in Libya. First, the tribes do not have universally acknowledged chieftains. Second, even as Gaddafi pledged to open up the arsenals, the youths of the tribes are unlikely to blindly follow their tribal elders. Even the Gaddafa, a relatively small tribe of mixed Arab and Amazigh heritage, is not assured. Gaddafi's own first cousin Ahmed Gaddaf Al-Dam has abandoned his mentor's cause and defected to the anti-Gaddafi camp renouncing his cousin and decrying his "excesses and outrages". It is suspected, however, that the real motive for Gaddaf Al-Dam's defection is his fear of losing control over his extensive business interests in Egypt and other Arab countries. The Gaddafa trace their roots to Sidi Gaddaf Al-Dam, a renowned saintly figure buried in Al-Gharyan south of Tripoli. They were, like most of Libya's other major tribes, essentially nomadic until recently. The Gaddafa inhabit an extensive arid area centred around Sirte, Gaddafi's own birthplace. Sirte has been declared the administrative capital of Libya and is considered a Gaddafi stronghold. The Gaddafa consider themselves Murabitin, saintly, and Ashraf, of the lineage of the Prophet Mohamed, attributes that have long been manipulated by Gaddafi and his fellow Gaddafa to form a ruling clique. One of the country's largest and most influential tribes, Al-Warfelli, seem to have turned against Gaddafi. Akram Al-Warfelli, leading figure of Al-Warfella and in control of Libya's security forces personnel, called on Gaddafi to stand down. A complicating factor is that Libya's tribes are subdivided into clans and leading families with conflicting interests. The Saadi confederation is led by the numerous and influential Baraasa tribe of Al-Bayda. Gaddafi's second wife Safeya Farkash Al-Baraasa and Seif Al-Islam, in his famous apologetic televised address to prop up his father's regime referred to his "uncles of Al-Bayda" in a vain attempt to woo his maternal familial connections. Another powerful tribal grouping is the Maghara many of whom are loyal to Gaddafi because he secured the release of Abdel-Baset Al-Megrahi from a Scottish jail in 2009 for his role in the downing of the American Pan-Am airliner over the village of Lockerbie, Scotland. Al-Megrahi, a prominent member of the Maghara, was head of Libyan intelligence, and members of the Maghara tribe predominate in the Libyan state security apparatus. The southern tribes of Libya are not as numerically predominant as the northern tribes, but tribal loyalties are generally stronger among southerners. Being mainly black, they might suffer in a post-Gaddafi regime because of the backlash of lighter skinned Libyans against local and foreign blacks seen as favoured by Gaddafi. The Tebu inhabit Kufra oasis in the southeast of the country and the adjacent highlands of eastern Fezzan and the deserts near the Sudanese and Chadian frontiers. The Tebu people are a distinct Black African ethnic group and speak a Nilo- Saharan language similar to the Nubian languages of southern Egypt and Sudan. The Tuareg are Amazigh, the indigenous non- Arab peoples of North Africa pejoratively referred to as Berbers, and inhabit a vast swathe of territory stretching from the oasis of Ghadames located on the Libyan side of the southern tip of the Tunisian border to Ghat in the far south near the borders of Algeria and Niger. Both the Tuareg and the Tebu are inclined to sympathise with the Gaddafi regime. The Amazigh of the Jebal Nefusa and the western city of Zwara as well as those of the eastern Jalo and Aujilia oases are less tolerant of the Gaddafi regime and so are mixed Arab and Amazigh tribe of the Zuwaya who control the oil- rich southern and central desert zone. The leader of the Zuwaya, Sheikh Faraj Al-Zuwai, threatened to cut off Libyan oil exports if Gaddafi did not end his clampdown against the protesters. The tragedy of Libya today is the curse of oil, which stains both Gaddafi's supporters and the popular uprising against his 42-year dictatorship, effacing the subtle and vital tribal elements of Libya's culture, fuelled by a Facebook coup d'état. The flip side of pious Western plans to subvert the remnants of Gaddafi's regime is that such precious remnants of ancient Africa are held hostage to the steamroller of capitalist monoculture, sure to leave a trail of oil wells spouting their poison into the clear desert air.
