Mauritania receives Libyan rebel delegation

Representatives of Libya's transitional government travel to Mauritania for meetings with President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz.

By Hamdi Ould Cheikh for Magharebia in Nouakchott – 05/08/11

Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz met with envoys from Libya's National Transitional Council (TNC) this week in Nouakchott to discuss the African Union plan to bring an end to violence between the rebels and troops loyal to Moamer Kadhafi.

The delegation, led by Abdelmajid Seif Nasr, delivered a written message from TNC chairman Mustapha Abdel Jalil on Tuesday (August 2nd).

"We are here as members of the TNC coming to meet [Abdel Aziz] in his capacity as president of the [African Union's] ad hoc High-Level Committee on Libya," said Seif Nasr in a statement on Mauritanian television, adding that the goal of the visit was to "talk and work together on the issue of the Libyan people".

He said that the Libyan people would agree to the African initiative if it required Kadhafi and his sons to step down. "We are a peace-loving and unarmed people, and Kadhafi has attacked us with weapons and destruction," Seif Nasr said. "We have come to Mauritania to thank the President for the laudable position he has taken – that Kadhafi is no longer fit and must leave Libya."

Reactions to the visit varied. Mauritanian website El Badil wrote that Kadhafi could not simply be "brushed aside". "Actions by the rebels and NATO have failed to topple Kadhafi, and our role does not allow us to do it on your behalf."

Support for Kadhafi is not uncommon. These groups, close to Libya's Popular Committees, challenge Mauritania's official position in the crisis. Demonstrators burned a Qatari flag outside the Embassy of Qatar in Nouakchott, placing strain on relations between the two nations. Some Mauritanians also viewed the Libyan dictator's long "resistance" in the face of Western strikes as a sign of heroism.

Others questioned the motives of foreign powers in the region. Teacher Mohamed Ahmed told Magharebia: "Where Libya is concerned, it's France and Italy who want to get their hands on the oil. We've seen a certain reticence from the United States, Russia and China regarding NATO strikes; everyone knows that if the United States had really been committed, then in military terms Kadhafi couldn't have held out more than a few weeks."

Ibrahim Ould Dahi, a shopkeeper, was pleased to hear the calls for Kadhafi to leave power. "He is a dictator who has caused chaos throughout the whole of Africa," he said. "There's not a single African country where he hasn't caused rebellions, divisions and so on. I'm happy the Mauritanian president, who like other heads of state has received support from Kadhafi in the past, has changed his mind and called for him to go."

IT worker Aminetou Diarra was concerned about the proposed solutions to the crisis. "The problem of Libya seems to be a complex one; there's talk of the rebels being infiltrated by AQIM and heavy weapons filtering out into the Sahel region. If that's true, then the whole region is under threat. This kind of situation can only be tackled with perfect agreement between the powers of the international community."

Khalidou, N'Diaye, a lawyer, offered the following interpretation: "Whereas in Tunisia and Egypt there were genuine popular revolutions which swept away the Ben Ali and Mubarak regimes, this hasn't been the case in Libya, where there has been armed warfare, with aerial bombardments and so on. Kadhafi has no chance of remaining in power, now that everyone has called for him to go, even including his African counterparts who were close to him."

Source: Magharebia.
Link: http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/features/2011/08/05/feature-02.