In the spring of 2011, Norway bombed Libya. At the same time, a few Norwegian diplomats worked together with Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre in secret to stop the war. Now one of them, the researcher, political scientist and former state secretary Henrik Thune, is publishing a book about the secret peace attempt: “Strictly confidential. Norway’s secret attempt to stop the war in Libya”.
– I want the public to get an insight into the politics of the great powers, and an important event in Norwegian foreign policy. It is a dark chapter where there was room for a solution. The tragedy is that France and Great Britain had decided on a different war than what they expressed in the UN, says Henrik Thune to Dagbladet Bok.
Gaddafi’s cockroaches
During the Arab Spring of 2011, millions of people in the Middle East and North Africa took to the streets to overthrow their dictators. In the rebel capital of Benghazi, in eastern Libya, the citizens demanded reform and freedom. The country’s undisputed leader for more than four decades, Muammar Gaddafi, called the rebels “cockroaches” and vowed to fight them “to the last drop of my blood”.
– Gaddafi and his family lived quite isolated and they probably thought they would survive the protests, says Thune.
He knows what he’s talking about. Thune and the secret Norwegian negotiating team were in Tripoli together with Saif al-Islam, Gaddafi’s son and powerful heir, on the evening when the UN resolution on the no-fly zone was decided.
“He looked shocked, and I remember him moaning,” writes Thune in the book. Libya’s second most powerful man tricked and asked the Norwegians:
“What does this mean?” “Does this mean we are at war now?”
“Yes, that is exactly what this decision will mean,” replied Jon Hanssen-Bauer, who led the Norwegian group.
The dictator’s daughters
The meeting came about because the Gaddafi family began to realize the seriousness of it. Muammar Gaddafi’s eldest daughter, Aisha Gaddafi, contacted Raghad Hussein, the eldest daughter of Iraq’s late dictator Saddam Hussein. The two were not close friends, but Aisha assisted the women in Saddam Hussein’s family during the trial in Baghdad before he was hanged.
– Raghad and Aisha were both very worried. Mostly for the children, I think. So they wanted to find a way out of the crisis, according to Thune.
Aisha asked Raghad who could help them. Raghad had a friend with many international contacts, and asked him for help. He contacted the Norwegian Middle East expert and children’s book author Henrik Hovland. And suddenly, little Norway was secretly involved.
– This is the story of opportunities that are not written in stone. Quite small things can make history take a different path. Here it could – and should – have gone differently. The Gaddafi family and the top leaders in Tripoli wanted a solution, says Thune.
Led behind the light
In the book, he describes the many secret meetings and negotiations. Both in Oslo, Paris and in Libya. The then foreign minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, was also invited to Libya, at the same time that Norwegian planes were involved and bombed Libya and Bab al-Azaziye, where the Gaddafi family was. Norwegian planes also bombed at the same time as Gaddafi’s regime was in a hotel in the center of Oslo where they were negotiating with the rebels they are fighting.
– But Gaddafi’s people didn’t care about that. All parties had a deep love for Libya and were looking for a way out of the conflict. But it ended tragically because the Americans and Norway were led astray, says Thune.
He starts the book with “the mysterious guest in London”. It was Saif al-Islam’s chief of staff. He was questioned by the British, who clearly emphasized the British’s absolute position: “Britain did not want any negotiations with Gaddafi. Nor did they want Ismail to have meetings with the Norwegians,” writes Thune.
– We realized that we were victims of superpower games that made a completely realistic solution impossible. The British and the French began early to plan for regime change in Tripoli. They clearly had interests far beyond protecting the civilian population. It was also about economics and politics, says Thune.
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USA cooperation
Until 2011, Libya was one of the world’s most closed countries. Neither the British, the French nor the rest of the world had enough knowledge to understand the possible consequences of removing Gaddafi’s regime by force.
– Foreign Minister Støre and the US diplomats wanted to find a solution to avoid collapse and chaos. But France and Britain’s David Cameron ran a long way in their own race, also vis-à-vis the Americans, says Thune.
After the Nato operation, Libya has been in disintegration and full civil war. Barack Obama later described the lack of a post-war plan as his “biggest mistake” during his presidency.
– Again, history shows that it never pays to act quickly and mobilize for war without having a plan for how the war will end. It often requires early negotiations with the enemy. We saw it first in Afghanistan, then Iraq and now in Libya, says Thune and continues:
– History shows how brutal great power politics can be. This is a book about Norway and the war in Libya, but also about something bigger. About what diplomacy and grand politics are when war rages. World politics is much more chaotic and dysfunctional than is often thought.
Illness and death
This is precisely why he believes that history is important.
– There is a lot of myth-making and secrecy around peace negotiations. In reality, it is much simpler. You have a kind of therapeutic role between people in crisis – and it’s about keeping channels open while the war rages, says Thune.
Another reason why he tells the story is the man who played an important role in the secret negotiations, and to whom Thune has dedicated the book: Tomas Stangeland. A career diplomat and head of a department in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which from the outside may seem like a good-natured version of the French TV series “Le Bureau”.
– Tomas became seriously ill and died of cancer. We talked about the fact that the story should be told when the time was right. This was an unusual peace process and an unusual experience both for Tomas and the rest of us. Also for Støre, I think, says Thune, who until last year worked as state secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Thune becomes quiet, but quickly recovers.
– The whole thing was painful to watch. A solution was found between the Libyans themselves, but European great power politics stood in the way. And today the Libyan population, which NATO’s operation was supposed to protect, lives in a completely destroyed country, says Thune.
He goes through his notes once more and adds:
– That Great Britain and France went in for regime change without a single plan for what would happen after the bombing. It’s absolutely mind-boggling.
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2023-05-08 17:03:17
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