The endgame is not in sight, but the Libyan fight is shifting southwards and westwards, postulates Gamal Nkrumah The infatuation of Africans with the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is more about the continent's weaknesses than strengths, more about uncertainties than certitudes. There are reports that the forces of the opposition National Transitional Council (NTC) headquartered in the eastern Cyrenaican metropolis of Benghazi have now moved south and are besieging strongholds of the Gaddafi regime in southern Libya and in particular the desert bastion of Sebha. Yet it makes no sense for the African nations' close links with Gaddafi to hinge on military calculations in Washington or Benghazi. An African rollover deal with the NTC in Benghazi or with the NTC's benefactors in Washington would not necessarily make the Libyan political impasse more tractable. Africa's helping hand in easing the Libyan crisis also lightens a burden Washington might otherwise bear. Sebha, a spectacular fairy-tale historic city, is Libya's gateway to Africa south of the Sahara. The warren of traditional shops and souks in the maze of the market town were until recently patrolled by Gaddafi stalwarts. The inhabitants of the city, now being castigated by the Pan-Arab satellite television channels as being traitors to the Gaddafi cause are obviously pawns in a hazardous game. They sit astride considerable uranium deposits and such a trick, depicting them as double-crossers and mutineers, would have bad taste. The strategic importance of the largest city in southern Libya, the heart of the province of Fezzan, is paramount. Round-the-clock rolling news channels, both Western and Pan-Arab, are making the most of Gaddafi's military setbacks. Qatari-based Al-Jazeera, for instance, has a muscular international newsgathering organisation with unlimited beneficence granted by a tiny Arab Gulf state that possesses the world's largest reserves of natural gas and considerable stocks of oil. Al-Arabiya, its sister organisation based in equally prosperous Dubai, and funded by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that harbours a particularly acrimonious abhorrence of the Gaddafi regime, plays a similar card to ensure that the Libyan leader appears as the joker of Arab politics. Africans, on the other hand, are being urged by the United States to forgo their traditionally strong ties with Gaddafi. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at a speech in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa at the African Union headquarters pleaded with African leaders to sever ties with Gaddafi. "Your words and your actions could make the difference in bringing this [Libyan] situation to a close," Clinton told delegates at the AU headquarters. This is hardly surprising. Gaddafi's Libya has in the past two decades invested heavily in several African countries. The US is keen to upstage Gaddafi in Africa. Non-oil US-African trade has quadrupled to $4 billion since former US president Bill Clinton, Hillary's husband, signed the notorious African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) with a considerable number of Sub-Saharan African states 11 years ago. The curious characteristic of AGOA is that Bill Clinton excluded Arab and North African nations, including Libya, when he signed the act in 2000. It is ironic, therefore, that Washington as articulated by Clinton's spouse, now solicits the assistance of African nations to speed up Gaddafi's demise. "Gaddafi must leave power," Secretary of State Clinton categorically stated in Addis Ababa, making clear that she needs Africa's help. So who will halt Clinton's manipulation and machinations? Former US Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney makes a good case for defending Gaddafi. She was recently in Libya for a fact-finding mission. "Coming here and seeing for yourself is particularly important since everything that you know about Libya from the Western media is a lie," McKinney bitterly complained. The same apparent contradictions underpin African attitudes to Gaddafi. I suspect that as real political decisions concerning the future of Libya have to be made, we will see African euphoria with Gaddafi fade as they begin to see him more as an Arab autocrat and less like themselves. As the make-it-up-as-you-go-it-along plan for unseating Gaddafi navigates over narrower and more perilous desert tracks of Fezzan and southern Libya between the politically suicidal �ê" as far as Gaddafi is concerned �ê" and the ideologically intolerable �ê" Africans towing the American line. Last week, Senegalese President Abdullah Wade became the first African leader to be received by the NTC headquarters in Benghazi. Americans will judge as they like and the past four months have demonstrated. One common trait in Africans is that they respond better to explicitness than to being brushed off with a "trust us". Of all the Arab uprisings, Libya's was the only one that necessitated direct Western intervention, as far as the West could see. Neither Yemen nor Syria warranted Western military intervention. The question of double standards is one that puzzles many Africans who would like a forthright answer that explains why. It is not just a question of Libya's oil wealth or its geographical proximity to Europe. Rather, it is a question of Gaddafi's networks in Africa. That much was clear in Clinton's plea with her African counterparts at the AU summit in Addis Ababa. Once the southern reaches of Libya's sprawling Saharan region is firmly in the hands of forces loyal to the West, and by proxy, the NTC, then the road to Tripoli is paved as another obstacle will be cleared out of the way. The West clearly thinks that with the help of Africa, Gaddafi will blink first. Control of Sebha and Fezzan also entails the securing of the trans-Saharan route to African countries south of the Sahara. The motives compelling the forces loyal to the NTC to push southwards into the depths of the Sahara aren't sufficiently explored by the international media. The southern tribes of Libya have long supported Gaddafi because they perceive him as the champion of those who have been dealt a bad hand in life, and especially in the empty expanses of the Saharan wastelands. The case for capturing Gaddafi could not be overstated as far as Washington and its Western allies are concerned. But Sebha and its desolate surroundings could emerge as the hideaway of a runaway Gaddafi. Perhaps that is why the NTC is keen to capture the strategic desert stronghold. They do not want this Saharan sanctuary to become his Bora Bora. Pious and cowering by turns, the leaders of the NTC advocating high-mindedness and the head of Gaddafi, keep the world guessing as to their next move. Their generals steer a steady course between sassiness and sanctity. At the heart of this new focus on the south is the NTC's conviction that NATO secured several key military successes in Libya's Mediterranean littoral. They now need to safeguard the Sahara through the good offices of the African states south of the Sahara and by cajoling the southern tribes of Libya into joining the anti-Gaddafi cause. The account of their closing in on Tripoli rolls along with snappy anecdotes about winning over tribes that were once fiercely loyal to Gaddafi. But whatever accomplishments they might have achieved, they are far from fulfilling a monumental sense of mission, driven as they are by NATO's directives. Gaddafi is the sort of man that makes good use of his greater freedom among loyal tribesmen in impregnable mountain terrain. If he becomes a fugitive in his own land, it is likely that he would head a maze like Murzuk or Sebha. And in Sebha, he will not slumber. The local Tuaregs, traditionally deft in their judgment of character, will vouch for the man in the tent.
