time to explain. to the. markets why no. one know what's really happening to the global economy because the report. itself in most cases since the taliban take out another target home i may take operations less than a store and chooks begin withdrawing while leaving a questionable local force in charge. named for having numerous drug addicts and links to the south of the city. one bows out while another is bailed the muddle medium is comes out seems britain's most senior policeman quit over connections to journalists suspected of bribery and byrne hunk a while x. news international chief or record brooks was arrested. a major terror attack on

moscow's transport is going to buy russian security services for people from the north caucasus have been arrested president it is ordering and urgent investigation . looks at whether libya will ever be back in the hands of the libyan people. can. follow in welcome to cross talk on peter all about libya's stalemate in the sand and nato bombing campaign and aid kit and take it out the rebels have only hardened

political facts on the ground western intervention was intended to last a few weeks now is open ended instead of dislodging khadafi nato allies are left to bicker among themselves. can. start. to cross the nato mission in libya i'm joined by io johnson in london he's the founder and director of viewpoint africa also in london we have marco grass like he is a political analyst an expert on south east european affairs and in barcelona we caught crossed to omar asher he is a lecturer in politics of the modern arab world at the university of exit are all right gentlemen this is cross talk that means you can jump in anytime you want omar i'd like to go to you first in barcelona how would you assess nato's operations in libya to date because if any on the new source you want to read it stalemate it's quagmire. we've come across reports of rebels committing our human rights.

violations they're not looking so pretty anymore and it's just basically a civil war that has come to a stalemate so how would you assess nato's operations today. well it's that's a civil resistance campaign to a dictatorship that somehow turned into an on conflict because that was the choice of defeat or logically needed intervention came out of necessity calls from the. opposition fighters nineteenth of march the situation was quite bad there was a defense forces were. given what given the history of deficit a lot of pressure and given what happened. there was the likelihood of so i mean with all the let me ask the question you think if you think playing a positive role right now. it's hard the whole situation is not positive the whole situation is obviously that far from ideal but speaking there is

some advancement on the ground given that with this started in march. whether this will yield a military victory for the. sea the international council and the need to or whether it will end up in a political compromise by which gets out or some of its clans and some of its regime figures will be part of the future of libya this is what's that's the question that is. put forward now ok the other thing also is how many negative consequences can happen in any on campaign we can talk about you know what can happen in the post got there as well whether he stays in power or partly in power or whether. some of it is or whether he goes away in both cases there will be some negative consequences in the aftermath of meetings intervention ok mark what do you think of our nato intervention in libya to date. later in the program won't you

quote some of the new figures within nato or bickering among themselves and pointing fingers i guess they didn't think about it too far ahead when they started this campaign go ahead. well nato always goes into places as i know very well from from previous experience related interventions for his own reasons there's no concern there for any opposition however marginal or have a morally justified they may or may not be nato is. aggressive alliance which operates on the basis of that it wants to place its military in key areas of the world command and control resources and territory that's what it's there for it's not some kind of moral creature it's a beast really and when the nato powers can't make money and propaganda work for them and undermine governments abroad then they move on to the military machine and the propaganda the false stories the indictment by tame calls we should know better

and all of these things have been done in many other countries and they've been done to leave you now and the expense of all the libyan people as well i think we would have had a short conflict here perhaps there was a case for pressuring colonel gadhafi to listen to the demands for change within his own society but there's no case to launch a major war and an open ended one a new iraq. on the people of libya this will not lead to anything good it's not leading to anything good now but it was never designed to be designed to lead to occupation and division of libya by the nato pact that's what it's there for that's what it's going to do i you know you and london also i mean the nato didn't plan for this very well i mean and it certainly looks like they're bombing campaign is not only moving anything forward gadhafi still there are just killing civilians now as well i mean is there is this public bombing campaign can it be yield any final result can you bomb this country to peace. well every day that goes by levy has been caught into bits and pieces the infrastructure is being damaged not to mention

that the people are being displaced from their homes and people are living in abject fear but of course the longer it goes on the more likely the was meant to go bad against nato because it's very much about hearts and minds how can you maintain the status quo how can you ensure you keep the coalition in the fashion it is currently with nato together and how are you going to be able to build on consensus internationally as you know currently the chinese the the indians russians and a few other countries are expressed reservations about nato bombing and the longer it's going to take it's going to cost a lot more money a lot of these countries are not in the mood for spending money and from a from a from an imagery perspective is damaging every second because more than likely you can make more mistakes you can get the coalition to get the wrong in front of his bombings and become paintable bits of the wrong against them so i think the long way to go the more likely nato is to find itself in hot water as we've been seeing over a period of time and the longer it does go gadhafi could think that he's been able

to survive this long he could go go it's alone to the end but it's very very difficult to see how we can come out of this one simply because the the overwhelming power is just way too much for him and but the thing is he's not we can enough to defeat the rebels and the rebels are clearly not strong enough to b.p. to defeat him so we have this stalemate situation which is not really anything anyone and i think i'll hold the libyan people are suffering oh my if. i'm partial and there's been some news reports that france is in direct talks with members of the could die if you regime though just prior to that france condemned italy for calling for a cease fire and then simultaneously have county spokespeople say there should be a cease fire should be approved prerequisite for some kind of negotiations so it looks like there is there elements there that people want to talk what's wrong with the libyan proposal a cease fire to talk no more bombing and see where we go what do we have to lose. the main issue is that you have

a very serious credibility problem and credibility problem comes from forty three years. when he was ruling but also a credibility problem long ago or more of a long long ago the west is race mr gadhafi remember remember all the pictures with tony blair with you know obama with you know. the west i mean so there is a credibility issue but i mean it goes back and forth right. yeah because of course here i mean. i think one of our colleagues just mentioned the west operates on raises of interests and when interests intersects then you know a lot of the human rights violations are looked not looked at but when the interests do not intersect then those human rights violations are highlighted and that's the case with that will be obviously oil interests and other interests around the moral outrage i mean we were talking now about the violations that has

done throughout its rule is rule but if you if you want to speak about an i.c.c. indictment or correct one that could have happened in july in june one thousand nine hundred six when a deficit forces committed and i separate a crime against humanity and obviously in prison in tripoli you were twelve hundred thirty political prisoners were gunned down with mass graves and i visited the area later on in two thousand and ten and you would have stories from the outside as people outside the prison and stories from x. detainees witnessed a lot of this mess that is so it's not like something that was nobody knew about but you had actual witnesses that heard and know some of the e.g.o.'s of what's happening but this did not happen this was postponed until two thousand and eleven where you know the interests were not pulling together although it's a legally expedient politically expedient markel fine go to you i mean you know why can't you be negotiations if their own both sides of the conflict are talking about it why can't it be the champ to talk in stop fighting i mean you don't have to like

each other any green. well the basic reason is four letters it's not not a talking organization you could say because basically if it was it would listen to the mandate it's been given the mandate security council resolution one thousand nine hundred three demands it's very first clause the immediate establishment of a cease fire so what part of that doesn't and nato not understanding cease fire and if nato ceases pyar the rebels it supporting will cease fire could our people also be forced to cease fire then you may before things get much worse have a chance of dialogue which the resolution also calls for and then you may have a chance ultimately for reconciliation between the peoples within libya before too much murder too much death has occurred and before too much foreign occupation and puppet governments have been installed so the best chance for libya is that this war stops very quickly indeed but of course that isn't what nato wants because nato

wants that the usual suspects within nato i should say the ones who attack everywhere i do is use the same excuses want to do the same thing they did elsewhere here they want to occupy libya they want to get their compliant puppet government in to give them cheap feels good contracts they want they've got it all planned out and the libyan people will be the victims if they allow this water continue and that will include the rebel side of the year it sounds really interesting to me is it with iraq they didn't plan for after the invasion it seems like in this case with live you have everything planned except for winning the war what do you think of that. well yes if there's one thing is that the americans and some of its allies have got to learn from the experiences that they saw in somalia not to mention afghanistan and iraq it's failed miserably in those areas and if it continues in the fashion it is with libya we are likely to go down that same route i think the concern all around is how do you ensure that you maintain that was the mandate the u.n. mandate clearly calls for which is not regime change it's protection of civilians

and property so i think it's going back to the blueprint how can we get nato to start complying to international regulations in terms of maintaining the status quo rather than choosing and for me it's all its own opinion as to whether you want to get rid of gadhafi or not mark or you want to jump in there. yeah it's not just international regulations it's international law and nato does believe that it cannot just manipulate its way to nor will deceive the security council once it's in there on any basis it's going to act on its own basis is this is just arrogance by the western powers i believe it's about our colonial. background these this is the new imperialism that we're faced with i think it's the biggest danger to a stable world that simon both russia and iran did you know here in the region and here we go to a break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on libya stay with r.t. . if you. want

to. if. misha disciplinary punishment. should. the worst split the penitentiary system transform a criminal into a law abiding citizen. shouldn't presume it's life behind bars on r.g.p. . limits . listening. this.

is. just some. can. welcome back across our computer all about the true mind you were talking about the protracted conflict in libya. the case. i want to find back to you in barcelona isn't this kind of. attitude that absolute

surrender total surrender of the khadafi and his his regime isn't that this shortsighted he doesn't that just keep the conflict going because what reason has he if he's going to be put on trial by western powers. for war crimes or what what interest does he have even duty to get any room at all i mean he is human nature would say you have to then you have to stand and fight to the death which is continuous this civil war this protracted war in libya. yeah i partly agree because but this is a pro conflict process you know or didn't start by an i.c.c. indictment or a started by you know putting him in the police associates of his regime on international wanted this didn't start like that it started with again it's a bit of distance campaign mainly organized by local libyan people whether in benghazi or in tripoli or in zawiya and other places in libya and then their plight was a vicious oppression campaign there to you that seldon's of this an organized armed

campaign by the. demonstrators who was oh not an intervention mark but the question. i just ask you if it if it was just a civil resistance campaign how were they able to take a city like bin garfield say something seventy thousand people with a repressive regime and the organs of the relations are very much a result isn't this at seventeen yes you're sure that seventeenth of february the the armed conflict actually erupted the by the end of february mainly because there was defections within the regime of but that the you know they did minister the head of this special forces. the justice minister multiple diplomats throughout the world all of them saw the level off a question and they were amazed that level then you saw a series of defections which is. what led the situation to be armed because then you have been a pretty personnel saying that enough is enough we're not going to shoot on our own

people and they were siding with people like what we saw similar situations in egypt in tunisia except that the army in egypt think uneasy acted as one unit so they decided. a point there was no deal if i could go to you i mean if he is that the west has chosen the side ok i didn't do good comparisons to other situations don't really work because the united states and it's not needed well it's choose a certain group of people rebels that actually human rights watch now so you're committing atrocities against their own people here is this just opportunism on the part of some people in libya and western powers. well i think well exactly yes because one little letter go ahead i am going i think to an extent yes because the rebels i've never really been able to show that they can control that country that never really truly been able to show that they have the government skills to be able to control that country and i think that the west are going to show who seriously bringing all the various factions within libya as one under one control

post gadhafi than it is weather wise through gadhafi so i think it's a lack of foresight lack of understanding of the issues on the ground i'm not going to look for haste to get into a conflict a confrontation that you know very little about and i think what's happening now with nato is that they realize that they've jumped in too quickly or conscious of taking sides too quickly when they should have stayed back and what's the situation and i know awfully over time they could have done so but i think it just shows that the the west so eager to occupy that land to control the oil and. it would appear in this particular instance that's supporting the rebels who are clearly ill disciplined poorly equipped who do not have the mandate to control the country is a poor decision because we can see now that it is not going to achieve anything marco fine go to you maybe just a few extra player we just heard it is nato looking in nato just think this is going to be a quick easy war i mean it can redeem itself after its c.e.o. but humiliation i would say in afghanistan i mean or is it just domestically driven

you know sarkozy has to show that he's somebody you know that can stand up to take caters which though he in braces embraces dictators all of the time critically before the arab spring i mean what is the main motivation in your in your opinion. i think the problem is. for nato that gadhafi is an independent ruler who would like to have an independent country and if possible an independent confidence colonel gadhafi has come up with the idea of an african development bank and african goldstein are those moves which could hugely lessen the poverty in africa and the debt in debt to this old african nations to the i.m.f. it's a problem also because he plans to have that as a rival to the dollar and the euro that was a mistake saddam hussein tried a similar thing in two thousand and he was invaded as well so it's not a clever idea for a medium right country with oil in it so actually planning your own currency because the big that the world powers on the west on too keen on that scenario so really he was a threat to them or reserves were very attractive to them very close to them and

very high quality so really he takes all the boxes for a good invasion plus they had old historical stalls to settle the bills gadhafi came to power on the basis of removing a pretty pocket ruler in the first place so i would say if they want to get rid of him let's i mean elections in libya let's let the people decide let's have the risk respect for the losers in those elections but let's hold elections and if mr gadhafi is so unpopular let the people tell us and if he's not let's find out. if we talk now to that is going to be telling you that if gadhafi clearly shown that he said that he will live and die in libya he's there not said that several times and because he is now being squeezed to the wall these are no means of carrots come out of the situation he can negotiate his way out of trouble i think that the future is very very own kind for libya and we could see a rogue state developing over time especially something similar to what we've seen in somalia so it's a very difficult time for everyone concerned i agree with this very interesting

omar continue on the point that i mean we really creating a rogue state particularly if the country is partitions i mean that is also a possible option here where you have a partition is it was pointed out early in the program nato bombs fell on a country they didn't really know very much about. ok i'll give you the positive scenarios and the negatives ones obviously that's an intriguing national council right and two of the ashes under interim because it didn't it to not say that it will take over power after cut their fee it says that it will be there then just on the transitional period after that there will be a constitution please elections least c.d.'s democratization process takes over in libya to transfer from almost a fiefdom to a modern democratic country with with constitutions so that's the whole but obviously in any society there are too many variables going on and too many actors fleeing and you can have. negative consequences one of them is obviously viewed me

as a tribal i society what happened and there was again a look at their histories and we should not avoid the transition of a situation where there was peaceful demonstrations to the situation was an armed conflict. force armed conflict throughout vendettas and those are tribal society with arms around this is one of the problems obviously and especially if they're for himself the choice of staying is actually dangerous for him if he lost power if you lost control of the country because it now he has been there was almost every tribe whether in the east or in the west whether from isn't going on the. book so that's one of the issues the tribal war that and that are politics the other issue is their offices and some of the issue of divisions marketing manager there if i will just say this isn't something colonel gadhafi has brought about deliberately on himself he clearly like most rulers including repressive one throughout the

middle east wanted a quiet life the fact is this problem has been visited on him by somebody else's agenda and it's a western colonial power agenda which has been to occupy his country and i i know lots of examples throughout the world that repressive regimes will gradually open themselves up to democratization and it's happening it didn't need a wall it didn't need a nato attack you need to die. even before any of this happened and that's what we haven't got and it's all very well blaming mr garfield fall for the situation less remember he was in power for forty two years and pretty much it was stable and getting better he managed to create a man made river project which was going to keep michael i'm so behind him for north africa east he's done a great deal for his people subsidized housing market cheap free education i mean maybe he's a socialist leaning agenda didn't suit the us but i don't see too many things but he could have done differently and certainly i think now he was very much in favor of a peaceful transition to a better system and not the wall on which nato proposes ok omar look like you want

to disagree or is. quite disagree. but that became in one nine hundred sixty nine by a cool remove the border stayed there ousted most of the plotters with him jailed some of them most of them wanted to and then you had this u.t.s. of extremely repressive campaigns throughout the seventy's from the get seventy's started during the eighty's and throughout the ninety's being the opposition after the opposition was sacked out including by the way the socialists and the leftists many of them that wanted it he of reform and institutionalize it sounds standard for the middle east were ousted and including for folks what nationalists like the national. front all ideological colors most of them were all state and this is how he stayed in power there was no elections there was no attempt to reinstitute institutionalize the country we're talking about economical option this is a country that is ruled by a very small clique that benefits from it is like

a saudi arabia through the messiah was always our water source for many reasons and you had your grand would create the just been through this region since in the original ideas i hated polish in the middle east at the end of the tripoli. but i was a father of the only so surely gentle and gentle rather central. maya go ahead if you have the common sense the common sense approach is the fact that it's people power we've seen we've seen a movement across the north africa across the middle east where people are taking ownership and asking for change this is just an example of that gadhafi had been in power for forty two years he's time was not nonetheless the people said they wanted change the question is not about people wanting change itself it's where the change can happen without foreign intervention is for the libyan people to determine their own course to determine their own country and that's not what's happening currently ok mark i'll give you last word you had what brought the feeling for values like this especially for the libyan people are against him as omar suggests that how is it that he's managed on the entire city of tripoli how is it that they clearly are

on his side in a mass demonstrations going on over there we don't look at falsified they look as genuine as anything else i've seen coming out of libya he clearly has a huge amount of popular support as well let's not blind ourselves so that omar. i didn't say the all the injection all the vivian's that gets caught there for you i didn't say that i said the overwhelming majority want to change mostly want to see their country gentlemen we've run out of time it doesn't look like this to be treated just like the war in libya is going to end many thanks to my guest today in london and in barcelona and thanks to our viewers for watching us here r.t. see you next time and remember rostock rules. became the story. for the full story we've got it for. the biggest issues get

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