Eye On The World – Gaddafi's Family Sneaks Into Algeria

Glenn Williams hosts Eye On The World, a weekly look at foreign affairs with Scoop's Selwyn Manning. This week: Gaddafi's Family Sneaks Into Algeria.

While the hunt for former Libya dictator Muammar Gaddafi continues, news broke this week that members of his family have travelled to Algeria where they are being given refuge.

You may remember that we touched on this in last week's bulletin.

The location of the deposed Gaddafi remains unknown.

And Algeria is now likely to come under intense pressure to cough up information on Gaddafi and two of his sons are hiding. The trio are wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.

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If any state knows where Gaddafi is, it would be Algeria. It's secret service, the DRS, is notorious in the region and throughout Europe. The DRS' reach is deep and its tactics sinister. Algeria, like Gaddafi's Libya is secular and has been at war with politicised elements of its own Islamic communities.

Links between Gaddafi and Algeria's president Bouteflika stretch back decades.

Many say Bouteflika has long been a puppet president whose strings are pulled by the DRS, Algeria's military intelligence.

Indeed, in recent times, Algeria's refugees who had escaped across the Mediterranean landing in Italy, found themselves caught in a three-way deal between Italy's leader Berlusconi, Libya's Gaddafi and Algeria's Bouteflika.

Such dirty deals do not come cheap.

The deal saw Berlusconi receive the refugees only then to ship them off to Gaddafi's Libya. Gaddafi was paid EU money in the deal. On landing in Libya the refugees disappeared. They are suspected as having perished in Gaddafi's desert concentration camps.

But back to post Gaddafi Libya.

Security and law and order inside Libya is now a major concern. Currently, inside Libya, the Transitional National Council or TNC is positioning as the interim governing body of post-Gaddafi Libya.

On the ground however, the Rebel Forces are still attempting to destroy any remaining pro-Gaddafi forces in the country. The hunt is also on for those suspected of orchestrating war crimes against Libyans that did not support Gaddafi.

Reports of attrocities have been emerging over the last week. The degree of cruelty and murder is reminiscent of Serbian attrocities in the Balkan conflict.

See this report from the BBC:
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It is understandable that the Rebel fighters want to hunt down the perpetrators of such crimes.

The country remains in chaos with machine-gun touting Rebels scattered far and wide. The loose cell-structure of the uprising makes it particularly difficult to establish centralised control in this post-Gaddafi period.

Here is an Al Jazeera report showing how Rebel checkpoints make travelling dangerous
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Where to from here?

Voice Of America reports that in Libya, Islam is undergoing a resurgence. The question now being asked is how much it will influence the next government.

There are also concerns that while there is a political vaccum in Libya, that vaccum will be filled with destabilising groups that will unleash violence as we have seen in Iraq.

But the Muslem factions rising inside Libya appear more moderate than their former secular leader.

Gaddafi was a muslem, but he was secular. In the last days he manipulated his propaganda to assert that the Muslem community inside Libya was trecherous. These people want a new way. It is a given tat the new Libya will have strong Muslem ties, but that does not mean they want division:

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The most tangiable news on what will become of Libya in the next six months has emerged from the United Nations, via a leaked report.

Al Jazeera reports the plan in this clip:

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The journalist who published this leaked report is Matthew Russell Lee, who has long made a career as a respected journalist based at the United Nations in New York.

Now as you can see the report is designed to establish a Libya that is aligned to the international community. If the UN pulls off this plan, then it does create a new North Africa multi-ethnic, multi-religious, and less sectarian.

Is this possible? Well, that is the hope, and in such times we all need hope.

Eye On The World broadcasts on KiwiFM and Radio Wammo at 7:40am on Tuesdays. Video on demand episodes also webcast on Scoop.co.nz.

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