Libya and Ivory Coast: Humanitarian or Stakeholder intervention?

By African Bulletin on April 15, 2011

Paralyzed during the Cold War by the US-Soviet antagonism, the Security Council has changed its nature after the collapse of the USSR.

Its five permanent members, enjoying the veto power, have begun to cooperate, sending peacekeepers to the Balkans, Africa and elsewhere. These peacekeeping operations have faced serious failures in Somalia, in Bosnia and especially in Rwanda, ending with genocide of hundreds of thousands of Tutsis and moderate Hutus. While the UN engagement in Ivory Coast and Libya is somehow surprising, but diplomats have suggested to seek the reasons for the change in attitude observed on the importance of these two countries in some markets: Ivory Coast is the largest producer of cocoa and a major player on coffee, and Libya is crucial for the market supply of oil and natural gas. Other diplomat members think that the role of the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, was very decisive and at the forefront of the development of resolution 1973; while the U.S. administration was struggling with internal contradictions on how to respond to the Libyan crisis. These diplomats have added that the French diplomatic activism is dictated by France as a desire to preserve its status as a major player in the Maghreb and other Francophone African countries.  Other experts have concluded that Paris was not alone, and are wondering if the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon,  is not changing his own image from a bureaucratic person to an operation decision maker,  as his first term of five years is looming to end. As they are also wondering if, without the support of the Arab League that  prevented Russia and China to use their veto, the Security Council would probably not have acted in Libya, or if Nigeria has not helped to counter the reluctance of South Africa to the    U N intervention in ivory Coast, which had publicly expressed its concerns, wondering if the UNOCI Force and the French Force (Licorne)  have not overstepped their mandate.    However and up today, the situation in Libya looks like freezing, with Nicolas Sarkozy, Barack Obama and David Cameron who have stated in a joint forum that it is “impossible to imagine that Libya has a future with Gaddafi”. Gaddafi must leave and that “is now the avowed objective of NATO allies”. But Europeans are dragging their feet to provide aircrafts; while the Arab League, the United Nations, the European Union, the African Union and the Organization of Islamic Conference, in Cairo on Thursday, urged for a political solution to the Libyan crisis by deciding a cease-fire immediately. And here again we might end into another dragging situation of “No war, No peace”, because of the Hawks sticking to their stakeholders and the Doves to the humanitarian considerations.