http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/international/news/20110809p2g00m0in022000c.html
(Japan Web site)
So following the murder of the “Rebel” miligary commander by other Rebels, the “Government” of Free Libya has dissolved itself.
Another article in the New York Times goes into great detail about the resurgance of the Berber culture in the mountains SW of Tripoli, the current “Hot spot” that NATO is bombing the crap out of (and killing the people fighting Qadaffi “by accident”)
Perhaps based on our own experience, people tend to think “Civil war” as being a 2 sided conflict. Libya is probably now beyond the point of any reconciliation. The Berbers have nothing in common with the Arabs from Bhengazi – other than the both want Qadaffi out of the way. If that happens, then all of the various tribes will resume fighting with each other.
I see a lot of similarity between Qadaffi and Tito in Yugloslavia. Tito had the challenge of keeping a country together with people with long standing ethnic and religious differences. Both worked to create national unity by suppression religion and trying to establish a national identity. (Libya did not exist as a country until 1951, and didn’t really become one country until Qaddafi took power in 1969)
After Tito died, Yugoslavia returned to resuming its conflicts between the Orthodox Serbs, Catholic Croats and the muslim Albanians. The IMF and western banks rushed in to lend money to the country to try to hold it together knowing they would not be able to repay the loans (anyone still own a Yugo?)… ulitimately the economic collapse fighting among the factions resulted in NATO taking sides and bombing the Serbs into submission and holding “War Crimes trials”… but few people think that isn’t going to be an ongoing conflict for generations. Afghanistan is much the same situation – with the Pashtuns, Taziks, Uzbeks and others forced into a country of European creation when they have nothing in common with each other. Again, a key part of the Soviet Union’s strategy was to suppress religion and create a secular country ignored ethnic differences in the name of national unity.
It’s much easier to break a country apart than to build one.