Libya: Russia Accuses NATO of Violating UN Security Council Resolutions

By Staff Writer

TRIPOLI---According to NATO Secretary General Anders Rasmussen, the operation in Libya codenamed United Defender was one of the most successful in the history of NATO. “We fully complied with a UN Security Council mandate to protect civilians in Libya, to ensure a no-fly zone and the arms embargo,” said Rasmussen. 

However, Russia’s permanent representative to NATO Dmitry Rogozin does not share Rasmussen’s optimistic tone. In his view, NATO actually “assumed the right to choose the future for Libya, which was eventually reduced to a choice between a “tyrant” and “Islamism”. He also did not quite agree with the statement of NATO Secretary General, according to which the alliance “fully complied with a mandate of the UN Security Council.”

“NATO has shown a tendency to overly flexible interpretation of Security Council resolutions,” said the Russian permanent representative to the alliance. According to him, at a meeting of the NATO-Russia Council on December 8 at the level of foreign ministers, they will have to make a “difficult analysis of lessons from Libya.”

Violation of UN resolutions has already been recognized by some of the coalition countries that conducted the Joint Defender operation. For example, the President of the Sudan, Omar al-Bashir said that his country was supplying weapons to Libyan rebels, despite the UN ban, and the government of Qatar spoke about participation of hundreds of its soldiers in combat operations on the side of paramilitary groups of the Transitional National Council of Libya. It is obvious that the actions of Sudan and Qatar were agreed with other members of the coalition. 

Earlier, the Russian MFA has repeatedly said of violations of UN resolutions by members of the coalition. According to Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s Foreign Affairs minister, the authority of the UN Security Council has suffered considerable damage, since “previously no one would have dared to grossly and openly violate clear resolutions.”

The military operation of the West in Libya began following the adoption of the UN resolution 1973 for protecting civilians. Its main goal was to ensure a no-fly zone in the skies above Libya, but the Allied states considered the introduction of a no-fly zone as sufficient justification for operations of the alliance in Libya. During all seven months of combat operations, NATO aircraft carried out in Libya more than 26000 sorties, including 9600 strike sorties. 

The culmination of operations in Libya was the brutal murder without trial or investigation of the former leader of Libya, Muammar Gaddafi and the humiliation of the corpse of the colonel, whose body was displayed in a refrigerated meat locker in the city of Misurata.

“The barbarism and savagery of soldiers of the Transitional National Council have demonstrated the real essence of those who had been brought to power by members of the Alliance under the banner of “fighting for democracy”, said Rogozin.