Political India: Engaging America

From The Hindu

Revealing the persistence of cracks in the Western alliance that is bombing targets in Libya, United States Defence Secretary Robert Gates, currently in Moscow, struggled to convince his Russian interlocutors that military operations in Libya were not resulting in civilian casualties.

At a joint press conference with Mr. Gates and Defence Minister Anatoliy Serdyukov, Mr. Serdyukov said that recent developments in Libya demonstrated that the imposition and enforcement of the no-fly-zone, under a United Nations resolution, was experiencing real difficulties which resulted in “destroying civilian facilities and killing civilians”.

He added that this should not have been allowed to happen, and Russia had “informed our U.S. counterparts of our opposition, and we urge all belligerent parties to do their best to stop the violence, and we believe that an immediate ceasefire and a dialogue between the belligerent parties is the surest way to reliable security of civilians.”

Responding to this remark Mr. Gates said, “The coalition is going through great lengths to avoid civilian casualties and most of the targets are air defence targets isolated from populated areas... The significant military fighting that has been going on should recede in the next few days.”

Further Mr. Gates later said to reporters, “I am a little curious, frankly, about the tone that has been taken. It is perfectly evident that the vast majority, if not nearly all, civilian casualties have been inflicted by [Libyan leader Muammar] Qadhafi.”

Arguing that most of the Western alliance’s targets were in isolated non-populated areas, including air defence sites he struck back at the comments by Mr. Serdyukov saying, “It is almost as though some people here are taking at face value Qadhafi‘s claims about the number of civilian casualties, which as far as I am concerned, are just outright lies.”

Earlier reports noted that the Russian Parliament had called for an immediate halt to foreign armed strikes in Libya and warned the Western states that their “indiscriminate” use of force could spur more countries to acquire nuclear arms.

While the U.S., United Kingdom and France have led the Western alliance’s military operations in Libya, entailing more than four days of aerial bombing to date, other United Nations Security Council members including India, China, Russia and Germany abstained from the vote passing the resolution that authorised the imposition of a no-fly zone over Libya.

The U.S. has also hinted that its involvement in the operations might wind down over time yielding leadership to European nations, with President Barack Obama saying at a press conference in El Salvador earlier this week, “I have absolutely no doubt that we will be able to transfer control of this operation to an international coalition. I had discussions with Prime Minister Cameron and President Sarkozy [and] NATO is meeting today as we speak to work out some of the mechanisms for command and control.”

He further noted that there was already a “significant reduction in the number of U.S. planes that are involved in operations over Libya, because, as I said initially, our job was to take our unique capabilities and create a space to shape the environment so that the operation of a no-fly zone could operate effectively, and to make sure that our immediate humanitarian goals could be met.”

According to reports, the International Energy Agency says that more than 70 per cent of Libya's oil is exported to European nations, many of which “have spent years investing in Libya's oil industry”. In particular, it was noted that by the end of October 2010, the number of French companies in Libya had nearly doubled from 2008 and most of them were in the energy sector.