While events in Ivory Coast drove the Libyan conflict off newspaper front pages this week, pressure is growing to find a solution to the crisis, writes David Tresilian in Paris The dramatic intervention of French and UN forces in support of soldiers loyal to president-elect Alassane Ouattara in Ivory Coast this week temporarily drove the Libyan conflict off the front pages of European newspapers, allowing the continent's politicians much-needed breathing space in efforts to find a solution to the crisis. While the news coming out of Libya has not been all bad, with NATO-led coalition forces now policing what has apparently become a stalemate between pro-Gaddafi and rebel forces, there has been enough bad news for questions to be asked about how much longer the present bombing missions will continue and what could be a satisfactory resolution to the crisis. Attempts by an African Union (AU) mission to mediate earlier this week came to nothing when members of the rebel Interim Transitional Council in the eastern city of Benghazi rejected proposals agreed on with the Gaddafi regime in the capital Tripoli that would have included an immediate ceasefire, the suspension of NATO-led airstrikes and talks towards a political settlement. The AU mission, led by South African president Jacob Zuma and including high-level delegations from Uganda, Mauritania, Congo-Brazzaville and Mali, had apparently agreed on proposals that would have left Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in power while negotiations took place, a solution immediately rejected by the rebels. With efforts by the African Union to mediate having come to nothing, attention turned to the first meeting of the Contact Group on Libya that was due to meet in the Qatari capital Doha on Wednesday, the group having been set up at the London conference on 29 March to provide political coordination of coalition actions in Libya. As international efforts continued to try to find ways out of the stalemate in Libya, NATO-led forces were forced into a public apology at the end of last week when it transpired that air-strikes on forces outside the town of Brega had hit rebel forces rather than those loyal to Gaddafi, killing at least five people. The incident was subsequently described as "very unfortunate" by the organisation's secretary- general Anders Fogh Rasmussen. Meanwhile, pro-Gaddafi forces have successfully kept up the pressure on the rebels, denying them opportunities to break out of eastern Libya and attacking rebel-held oil installations in Waha and Misla, linked by a 500km pipeline to the rebel-held terminal of Marsa Al-Hariga, in a bid to prevent the rebels from benefiting from oil sales. Only a few days previously, a Greek-owned tanker had docked in Marsa Al-Hariga, taking on what was believed to be up to one million barrels of oil. Brought to market through an agreement with Qatar, this could bring the rebel-controlled Arabian Gulf Oil Company a windfall of some $125 million, much needed if the nascent rebel administration is to continue to pay its bills and finance the conflict with better-equipped and trained pro-Gaddafi forces. Thus far, public opinion in France and the United Kingdom, the two European countries that have taken the lead in the NATO-led intervention, has been broadly supportive of the military action in Libya, with opinion polls in both countries suggesting at least lukewarm support. But with last week's withdrawal of the United States from active participation in the NATO-led airstrikes, US president Barack Obama saying in a speech on 28 March that the US intended henceforth to play only a "supportive role" and withdrawing US aircraft from policing both the no-fly zone over the country and carrying out coalition airstrikes, France and the UK are likely to have to ramp up their participation, testing both their capabilities and staying power. According to reports in the British press at the weekend, the UK is worried about having to shoulder additional responsibilities in Libya as a result of the US withdrawal, particularly if France also starts to have second thoughts about the extent and duration of its intervention. Should the Libyan crisis continue without prospect of resolution with France and Britain struggling to continue the enforcement of the no-fly zone over the country in the absence of superior US forces, then tensions within the NATO-led coalition may also increase, with other European countries being pushed to take on part of the burden. The no-fly zone over Libya, together with the associated airstrikes on pro-Gaddafi military installations and forces, is mandated under UN Security Council Resolution 1973, which was strongly supported by France and Britain in the face of initial reluctance from the United States and other European countries, notably Germany. According to the text of the Resolution, coalition military intervention in Libya is authorised to take "all necessary measures to protect civilians and civilian-populated areas under threat of attack in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, while excluding a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of the Libyan territory." Over recent weeks, there has been discussion over how far this authorisation in fact extends, with debate continuing over whether to arm the rebels, and therefore intervene more directly against the Gaddafi regime, and reports emerging that US and British special forces are already operating in Libya in order to support the rebels and at least indirectly help bring down the Gaddafi regime. For the moment, public opinion in France is apparently behind the NATO-led intervention, with 66 percent of those questioned in an opinion poll at the beginning of this month approving the country's military strikes against the forces of the Libyan regime. A further opinion poll, reported in the French newspaper Le Monde on Tuesday and conducted simultaneously in France, Britain, Italy and the US, found that while British and US opinion was more or less evenly divided over the current military intervention in Libya, 50 percent of Britons questioned being against the intervention and 50 percent for, the figures were more sharply divided for Italy and France. 60 per cent of those questioned in Italy were against the NATO-led intervention in Libya, and 63 per cent of French people asked were for, making France the only country showing a clear majority in favour of the coalition actions. However, should the present stalemate continue without prospect of resolution, or should the situation develop in unpredictable ways with the possibility of further Libyan rebel or even coalition casualties, then even this support is likely to evaporate, leaving French President Nicolas Sarkozy, his personal approval ratings already at historic lows, suffering politically as a result. Under France's constitution, which gives enormous power to the executive branch of government and little to the legislature, the president does not need to consult parliament before engaging French forces overseas. While he is supposed to inform French MPs of military actions undertaken in the country's name, he is not obliged either to seek or gain their approval. As a result, while some members of the French parliament criticised what they described as a "parody of democratic consultation" in the case of Sarkozy's decision to engage French forces in Libya and a policy of " fait accompli... in which we are only offered the possibility of commenting on events" in the case of French actions in Ivory Coast, for the time being at least Sarkozy does not need to worry about parliamentary reactions to his policies. Nevertheless, at a time when France is supposed to be engaged in controlling public expenditure, including expenditure on the country's armed forces, the costs associated with Sarkozy's foreign policy have been increasing, from an estimated 530 million euros in 2005 to 870 million in 2010 and rising. In the British case, news that the country is now engaged in an open-ended conflict in Libya from which the US has done its best to extricate itself will not be welcome news to many British citizens already concerned at the country's exposure to another apparently open-ended conflict in Afghanistan. Many Britons may also be war-weary after the UK's significant supporting role in the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq, and they may be wondering why the country is engaged in another conflict overseas at a time of widely advertised fiscal stringency. According to the Le Monde poll, of those questioned only six per cent of Britons considered that the objectives of the NATO-led action in Libya were completely clear, with 51 per cent saying they did not consider the objectives to have been properly thought through. With both British and French governments consistently saying that any acceptable outcome to the crisis would have to see the immediate departure of Gaddafi from power, recently reiterated in statements issued at the London conference, it is hard to see much room for negotiation between the NATO-led coalition and the Gaddafi regime. Under the provisions of UN Security Council Resolution 1970, which imposed an arms embargo and asset freeze on Libya, the situation in Libya was referred by the Security Council to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for investigation, opening up the possibility that Gaddafi and his associates may eventually be tried for human rights and other violations. While British foreign secretary William Hague told the British parliament recently that any Libyan officials wishing to break with the regime in Tripoli would be "treated with respect" should they defect to Britain, as was apparently done by former Libyan foreign minister Moussa Koussa some days ago, such assurances would not necessarily affect an ICC investigation, which is mandated by the UN Security Council.
