THE WRITING ON THE WALL

Mar 01, 2011 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

The writing is on the wall for the Libyan leader. The United Nations has instituted travel and other soft sanctions against the Libyan leader and his relatives. Other countries have also begun to freeze Libyan assets as a way of signaling to the Libyan leader that his time is up; that he should demit office.
The Libyan leader however remains defiant. This is not the first time that his administration has been subject to international isolation. He survived years of sanctions after his government was allegedly linked to the bombing of an aircraft but he was forced to eventually forced to hand over suspects in the Lockerbie bombing. This took place some eleven years after the incident occurred.
The two men were put on trial and one of them convicted to life imprisonment and the other freed. Years later in a surprise development which was described by some as a political deal, the convicted prisoner was released on compassionate grounds, a move seen as part of a deal that would have allowed foreign companies to gain access into Libya’s oil industry.
Sanctions, travel bans, freezing of assets and other forms of international pressure are not new to the Libyan leader. He has survived it before. This time, however, the situation looks irredeemable with his country on the brink of civil war with a large part of the country already in the hands of rebels.
The Libyan leader remains defiant, claiming that he has the support of the people. He also denies that disproportionate force has been used against his people.
Unlike what has happened in Tunisia and Egypt and what was unfolding in Yemen and Bahrain, what is taking place in Libya is not peaceful agitation against the government. What has developed is a full-scale civil war with the insurgents being armed after they stormed arms depot. As such, the Libyan leader may well feel that the use of force by the guardsmen is justified as a means of stopping an insurgency.
The international community is not convinced. China and Russia have joined the chorus of those who are calling on him to go. But their calls may be based on economic interests
The international community is now more united than it has ever been against the Libyan leader. There are those who want as a pariah and therefore wish to see him depart. They see Libya as being ripe for change. There are those nations who feel that a removal of the Libyan leader would bring greater stability to the region.
But many others who wish to see the back of the Libyan leader have an eye on oil prices. Already oil prices are climbing because of the crises in the region and extended unrest in Libya can see oil prices rise to around $200 a barrel.
Many of those who are calling for the Libyan leader to go are therefore doing so out of concerns about their own future because soaring oil prices in Europe a few years ago created a great deal of unrest.
Libya at the moment remains isolated, quite a turn around from a few years ago when the world with open arms welcomed Libya back from international isolation. Libya at the time hosted a number of top leaders of the world and there seemed a genuine attempt by the free world to heal relations with that country.
All of that has changed because of developments in the region. Libya is now poised on the brink of civil war. The Libyan leader will therefore have to decide whether he will go and allow the rebels to take control or will stay and defend his revolution.
The world concerned about oil and the spread of revolution in the Middle East are tightening the noose around the Libyan leader. It may be too late for the Libyan leader. The writing is on his wall.
This is one crisis that the Libyan leader cannot wait out. The rebels are marching on his strongholds and he therefore faces the choice of allowing his country to be torn apart or stepping down and placing his country in the hands of rebels whose only cause is the seizure of power.