World Uniting Around Insistence that Libya’s Qadhafi Must Go

12 May 2011

Senator John Kerry, at podium, meets with members of the Libyan Transitional National Council, who are visiting Washington for meetings with U.S. officials.

International cooperation has increased the pressure on Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi’s regime and made it harder for it to carry out attacks against the Libyan people, a senior State Department official says, adding that the Obama administration will continue its efforts to support the Libyan people through economic, military and political means.

Speaking to the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee May 12, Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg said that through the imposition of a no-fly zone, an arms embargo, the freezing of assets and travel bans, the international community is sending a clear message to Qadhafi and his regime that “there’s no going back to the way things were.”

“The international community is increasingly united around a shared insistence that Qadhafi must go,” Steinberg said.

Libya’s National Oil Corporation and central bank have been “blacklisted,” he said. The financial sanctions have deprived Qadhafi’s regime of funds and assets it could use to suppress the Libyan people.

Steinberg said the regime was forced to halt its oil exports and is having difficulty obtaining refined petroleum. In addition, he said there are indications that “the regime can no longer afford to pay its supporters to attend rallies and demonstrations.”

The Obama administration and other governments plan to take further unilateral steps to “tighten the squeeze on regime officials and regime-affiliated banks, businesses and satellite networks,” Steinberg said.

At the same time it is denying support to the Qadhafi regime, the United States is supporting Libya’s main opposition group, the Transitional National Council, with up to $25 million worth of nonlethal aid, including medical supplies, boots, tents, rations and personal protective gear, he said.

Steinberg also said the United States is providing more than $53 million in humanitarian assistance in Libya and is continuing to look for additional ways to support humanitarian operations in the country.

Following the Arab League’s March 12 call for a no-fly zone and arms embargo against Libya, which was endorsed by the United Nations Security Council, the United States initially took the lead in enforcing the military effort, but its role since has evolved to primarily offering support to NATO, which assumed command of the operation.

“Of the over 6,000 sorties flown in Libya, three-quarters have been flown by non-U.S. coalition partners. All 20 ships enforcing the arms embargo are European or Canadian, and the overwhelming majority of strike sorties are now being flown by our European allies,” Steinberg said.

The Senate committee chairman, Senator John Kerry, said that when the military action began against Qadhafi’s forces, the Libyan people were facing a humanitarian catastrophe, and the international effort has now given them “a fighting chance for a better future.”

He also said failure to take action would have allowed Qadhafi to demonstrate that violence is an effective means of crushing political dissent.

“I think the message across the Arab world, across North Africa and into the Middle East would have been significantly damaging to the aspirations of the Arab Spring and to other interests that we have,” Kerry said.