Qaddafi Exile Options Span Uganda to Venezuela as Libyan Defections Worse
While Western powers say it’s inconceivable for Muammar Qaddafi to stay in Libya, he has vowed he’d rather die in his homeland “as a martyr” than leave. Photographer: Mahmud Turkia/AFP/Getty Images
Tunisia’s Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia after 28 days of protests. Demonstrators in Egypt needed 18 days to get Hosni Mubarak to retire to Sharm el- Sheikh. After almost seven weeks of war, Muammar Qaddafi’s exile options are more limited.
Uganda said on March 30 it would consider a request for political asylum, while Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez still calls the North African dictator a “friend.” The self- proclaimed “king of kings” may also find refuge in about a dozen African states, such as Zimbabwe, where he has ample investments and protection from prosecution for war crimes, diplomats and analysts say.
The defection to London of Libyan Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa, Qaddafi’s closest collaborator, highlights the dictator’s growing isolation and raises the prospect he may be amenable to a graceful exit. While Western powers say it’s inconceivable for Qaddafi to stay, he has vowed he’d rather die in his homeland “as a martyr” than leave.
“Exile is feasible, though it’s difficult to read into the psyche of a dictator who has ruled for 42 years and made some irrational decisions,” said Shashank Joshi, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London. “He has to be careful not to enter a country under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.”
‘Moral Suasion’
While Qaddafi has so far managed to stay in power after 14 days of allied bombing and is pushing the rebels back to the central city of Ajdabiya, the combined forces of the U.S., U.K. and France will probably force him out eventually, said Alessandro Politi, a former adviser to the Italian Defense Ministry.
“Over the decades, he has developed a taste for the finer things in the life” and faced with a military stalemate, he is unlikely to agree “to go to an armpit of a country,” Politi said. “One of his considerations will be a country that is reasonably pleasant.”
With all diplomatic ties with the Tripoli regime severed, leaders of the anti-Qaddafi coalition are counting on the 53- member African Union and its Commission Chairman Jean Ping, a Gabonese diplomat, to exercise heavy “moral suasion” on the Libyan leader to quit and accept asylum in one of their countries, according to an Italian diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity.
African Hosts
Qaddafi said on March 29 he is willing to adhere to any settlement for the crisis recommended by the African Union.
“I hope there will be a certain number of states ready to host him, maybe under the auspices of the African Union, which can have a leverage over him,” Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said on March 30.
Several African nations could take Qaddafi, the diplomat said, citing Ethiopia or Mauritania as examples. The likeliest countries to let him in are those that aren’t parties to the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the International Criminal Court, a tribunal based in The Hague that seeks to try despots charged with genocide and crimes against humanity.
“All you need is one country to take him,” Shadi Hamid, director of research at the Brookings Doha Center in Qatar, said in a telephone interview. “Uganda sounds like a good option. We are most likely talking about Africa.”
Under Investigation
So far, the ICC has six open investigations, all of which are in Africa: Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Sudan, Kenya and Libya. Notable non-ICC African countries include Angola, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Mozambique, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, Swaziland, Togo, and Zimbabwe.
“It’s easier for a leader to leave a country even on sweet terms that would be considered distasteful and horrible and immoral by much of the world, but it’s just a trade off,” said Steven Clemons, founder of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation. He has visited the White House in the past two weeks to advise the administration on Libya.
Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Hamad Bin Jabr Al Thani, said on March 28 that Qaddafi should quit now before an offer to let him go into exile -- which he didn’t detail -- is taken off the table “in a few days.”
No doubt, the chance of Qaddafi settling down in any of these countries is unsavory. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on March 1 in Geneva that the idea of Qaddafi and Robert Mugabe together rendered her “almost speechless.”
Bitter Pill
“We are working to find a solution,” AU Peace and Security Director el-Ghassim Wane said in a phone interview today from Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital. “The African Union has not had any discussions with the Libyan authorities over potential safe havens for Qaddafi.”
Still, it’s a bitter pill the coalition may be more than willing to swallow, especially when their borders are closed, according to Rusi’s Joshi.
Asked if Italy would consider taking him, Frattini grimaced visibly and told the BBC it was out of the question. When pressed why Italy, Libya’s biggest trading partner, would not welcome its former ally, he said: “We don’t want to have a dictator.”
U.K. Foreign Secretary William Hague said on March 20 that the coalition forces pressing Qaddafi to leave do not have any say in where he goes. “I’m not going to choose Colonel Qaddafi’s retirement home,” Hague said.
No Plan to Leave
Qaddafi was welcomed in Venezuela as a guest of honor when Chavez hosted a summit in September 2009 aimed at forging links between Africa and South America. During his visit to the tourist island of Margarita, Chavez gave Qaddafi a replica of Venezuelan liberator Simon Bolivar’s sword. On Feb. 28, he refused to condemn Qaddafi’s use of force, saying: “I’d be a coward to condemn someone who has been my friend.”
Chavez, when asked on March 31 whether Venezuela would offer the Libyan leader asylum, said Qaddafi told him he isn’t leaving Libya and that his exile is “not foreseen.”
That raises the specter of Qaddafi defying odds and prolonging an armed conflict that President Barack Obama had hoped would last days, not weeks.
Former Libyan Interior Minister Abdel Fattah Younes al Abidi said last month when he defected to the opposition that Qaddafi “is stubborn” and could “commit suicide” in the form of dying on the battlefield.
“It’s difficult to tell” if he would rather die in Libya than accept an offer of exile, said Guma El-Gamati, the U.K. representative for the Libyan Transitional Council. “The practical solution is that he leaves, or he dies there.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Flavia Krause-Jackson in Rome at fjackson@bloomberg.net; Caroline Alexander in London at calexander1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: James Hertling at jhertling@bloomberg.net; Andrew J. Barden at barden@bloomberg.net
Rate These Stories
Rate this Page