Talks between representatives of the Gaddafi regime and the opposition forces are welcome but should not be rushed considering the bloodshed, counsels Gamal Nkrumah It looks as though an angry National Transitional Council (NTC), Libya's opposition based in the eastern city of Benghazi is about to exact its revenge, giving Muammar Gaddafi a painful kicking in his stronghold, the Libyan capital Tripoli. The NTC stalwarts announced that they are about to dispatch a special team of seasoned assassins to eliminate high-profile political close associates of Gaddafi including his son Seif Al-Islam, the acting prime minister Al-Baghdadi Al-Mahmoudi and the Libyan leader's intelligence chief Abdallah Al-Senousi. Also on the NTC hit list is the man responsible for Gaddafi's personal security Mansour Dhou Al-Qahsi. A spokesman for the NTC told the London-based Pan-Arab daily Asharq Al-Awsat that the NTC infiltrators aimed a missile on Al-Andalus Hotel where Seif Al-Islam was meeting with top officials in his father's regime. The NTC spokesman also disclosed that NATO was working closely in conjunction with the NTC during the assassination attempt providing the NTC with invaluable intelligence information. Be that as it may, the assassination plot failed. The key figures in the Gaddafi regime targeted by his enemies escaped unscathed but the would-be assassins were not caught red-handed. The likeliest outcome is that security measures will be intensified in the Libyan capital and especially around government facilities. It takes an effort these days to recall the thrill that surged through the country among Gaddafi's opponents when NATO announced it was to stage air strikes against Libyan government forces. The NATO military intervention was supposed to be launched in defence of the civilian population of the country. The claim by the NTC that they are close to storming Tripoli gave the impression that they had got some big things right. Libya is now an uncharacteristically uncertain place. Libyans like people the world over do not like uncertainty. Yet the rage that is directed against the Libyan leader by his people is most certainly overdone. Four months after the NATO aggression against Libya, the magnitude of the let-down is palpable throughout the vast country. Key oil installations and above all the so far impregnable capital are firmly in Gaddafi's iron grip. The NTC seem curiously unable to perceive, let alone respond to, the tactical advantage that NATO air superiority provides them. Had the NTC forces had greater support among the Libyan masses they would have claimed even more territory than the land they now claim to have liberated. Which ought not to be hard. Cities such as Misrata in western Libya have resisted Gaddafi forces. The inhabitants of the besieged city who once saw Gaddafi's 1969 Fateh Revolution as a promising revolutionary start-up now see the Libyan leader as a sore disappointment. The silver tongue that once charmed and galvanised the Libyan masses has now by and large been replaced by a tin ear as far as his opponents are concerned. However, Gaddafi still has his admirers. Despite Libya's current political problems, the oil- rich country has far more going for it than the present mood suggests. The resource-rich country is still Africa's richest country per capita, even though judging by the grim images the international and pan-Arab media portrays one would be hard pressed to believe so. Libya's youthful demography is hugely favourable. With a high birth rate and limitless space into which to expand, even in the endless desert wastes, enterprising entrepreneurs -- intrepid investors from countries as far afield as China, Korea, Europe and the Americas -- clamour to come to Libya. The economic prospects of Libya look bright in spite of the present political impasse and devastating civil war. It is against this jumbled backdrop that the United States is masterminding a plan to stop the fighting in Libya. Washington is also trying to find a power- sharing formula that will appease the NTC and placate Gaddafi and his supporters. The US move will no doubt startle many advocates of the war against forces loyal to Gaddafi. This is good news. Gaddafi is frantically making overtures to his foreign foes and their lackeys, the NTC. The charge that Gaddafi's foes most often cite is that he instinctively used his power for shoddy political ends. Strangely for a leader who seemed ill at ease outside his tribal tent, let alone his sprawling desert nation, Gaddafi's political demise if actually executed by NATO and the NTC, will be felt across Africa and the Arab world. The Libyan leader sought but failed to secure the establishment of the United States of Africa. His political demise will undoubtedly be yet another disaster in a string of setbacks for the Pan-African cause. It is heartening, therefore, that several European leaders have hinted that the Libyan political impasse can only be ended by negotiation and not force-of-arms. NATO now knows for sure that Gaddafi's forces may have taken a battering but few Western analysts believe that his loyalists can be easily defeated, if at all. So the West now reasons, and rightly so, that the Gaddafi loyalists must be somehow co-opted. And as far as the Gaddafi regime is concerned, a negotiated settlement is not as unattractive an option as it once seemed. All the same, the timing of the US- sponsored "secret" talks may seem odd. The leaders of Italy and other energy-starved European powers, longtime meddlers in Libyan affairs, are worried sick of the possibility of losing energy supplies. Libyan oil is favoured because of its proximity to Europe. However, a shrewd and seasoned statesman such as Gaddafi understands all too well that if they are to succeed, these fledgling negotiations with his adversaries must be carefully managed. Some political problems need a crude fix and Libya now seems destined for one. In stalemated wars such as the battle for Libya, preliminary talks often provoke fiercer fighting initially in order to improve negotiating positions. Both Gaddafi and the NTC understand the logic of such a strategy. After all, the Libyan peace talks are at best tentative and constrained by uncertainty. Gaddafi insists that he is not about to step down and relinquish office. His opponents demand that he does precisely so. Signals indicate that Western leaders realise that the negotiations must not be a fast-track NATO exit strategy. The outcome of the battles in Misrata and Brega in particular will help define the Libyan endgame. Again, both Gaddafi and the NTC fully understand the implications of their performance or lack of it in these two crucial cities that must determine the course of war in Libya. Most of Libya's oil revenues are still in the hands of the Gaddafi regime. However, Gaddafi's adversaries at home and abroad protest that the oil revenues which should be paying for public goods and services sorely needed in an underdeveloped country like Libya end up instead in the pockets of Gaddafi and his immediate family and closest political associates.
