Libya’s tragedy: How the West fishes in Africa’s troubled waters

With time you sober up. The story of what Libya has turned into nearly seven years after the overthrow and eventual murder of longtime dictator Col Muammar Gadaffi, is indeed sobering.
In the days of the autocrat, most of which it endured sanctions, Libya had no external debt and its reserves stood at more than $150 billion – most of which were frozen globally. The north African country once reportedly boasted of free education, housing and healthcare. It was home of the world’s largest irrigation project in the treacherous Sahara Desert.

Then came Britain and its allies with the dubious quest to free the people of Libya and deliver unto them ‘Western style democracy.’ Since the so-called liberation of 2011, Libya has never been the same. The country is divided among rival governments, various armed groups, ethnic militias, headed by murderous war lords and a renegade Gen Khalifa Haftar.
Last week, Jim Armitage writing in The Independent of London, painted a picture of a country in utter chaos where nearly a third of the people are desperately living in abject poverty.

The war lords (to whom the West bequeathed the country after helping to liberate it,) on the other hand, are fighting bloody wars to control its oil reserves, the largest in Africa, and the 10th largest in the world. This they export and stash the proceeds into foreign bank accounts.
The eye catching title of his article ‘Libya sinks into poverty as the oil money disappears into foreign bank accounts’, says it all. He writes, ‘...hand in hand with the armed conflict goes corruption on a grand scale. Corruption was endemic in the country under Gadaffi, but now, amid the chaos of military struggle, it overwhelms the whole fabric of the country.’

The West that spear headed the ‘liberation’ of the so-called suffering people of Libya has now all but gone silent. The Western media, which made very slanting reports about the situation in Libya in 2011 to justify the intervention of Britain and its allies, is not keeping quiet. They are now reporting the story in a condescending manner as the usual expected state failure of African countries when left to themselves.
The Libyan tragedy makes a very important statement about the way the West relates or would wish to relate to especially African States. To maintain the current power relation, they seem to be more comfortable with weak countries that are mired in chaos.

It is better if these countries have equally weak leaders who are beholden to the West from which they derive military and financial assistance. For this assistance, the leaders on the continent liberally put to the disposal, the natural resources of their countries to the rich countries for a pittance. With that goes the independence for the country. That is one of the safest ways a leader can rule for life in peace.

It follows the script of John Perkins wonderful book, The Confessions Of An Economic Hit Man. If the developed countries fail to get a hold of the resources of a developing country, they find an excuse like Britain and her allies did in Libya to use military might. They do this either directly by aerial bombardment or by sponsoring an uprising or a revolution of oppressed citizens to destabilise the country. This leads to the decimation of strong centralised leadership and order and near total destruction of the country like Libya and Syria.

After the ‘liberation’, the country is left in the hands of unstable governments and weak leaders. The country is bankrupted and the State disappears in the process. By now, the West has created a client for badly needed foreign aid. But this does not come cheap because donors are not the legendary mother goose that fends for its young ones. They lend to exploit by demanding exorbitant interest on their money.

For instance, African governments received $32b in loans in 2015, but paid more than half of that – $18b – in debt interest. Now just imagine how the situation will be in future with the level of debt increasing as many countries now borrow for day to day expenditures to run governments. It is not rare to hear of a government borrowing to pay salaries and wages.

These weak governments derive patronage and legitimacy by allowing powerful people to feather their own nests through corruption, which bleeds the resources of the country. This presents an added advantage to the rich countries because the money stolen, including donor funds, is kept in banks in the developed world.

That is why the rich countries don’t seem to be bothered - despite headline condemnation of corruption- by donor money being stolen. They simply keep lending to subjugate the recipients further. Many years after holding onto the corruption money deposited in those countries and, of course, lending it for an interest, they will return it in a ‘gesture of goodwill, governance and transparency’ like they did in the case of Sani Abacha of Nigeria.

Libya is a classic example of a country sinking with tacit approval of the West. It also shows that for a corrupt African government to thrive it needs the convenient support of the West.

Mr Sengoba is a commentator on political
and social issues. [email protected].
Twitter:@nsengoba