Mbeki lashes out at UN, Nato over Libya attacks

The UN gave free rein to the US, France and the UK, known as the P3, to intervene in Libya without any evidence of war, former president Thabo Mbeki said in Cape Town last night.

"The naked reality is that the relevant organs of the UN - the Security Council and the Office of the Secretary-General - elected to betray their binding obligations in terms of international law, especially as prescribed by the UN Charter," Mbeki said at the annual Dullar Omar memorial lecture at the University of the Western Cape.

"In this context, I would like to state that there is absolutely no evidence that the [Muammar] Gaddafi regime either committed or had any intention to commit any genocide or wage a war against civilians, justifying the evocation by the UN, the P3 and Nato of the so-called 'right to protect'," Mbeki said.

He pointed out that military actions in Libya were purportedly performed to make peace, bring people out of a dictatorship and protect the people from criminal abuse by the government, especially if war crimes, ethnic cleansing and genocide occurred.

"Together with everything I have said, we must nevertheless accept that various concrete realities in Libya provided the excuse for the Western powers to intervene in the manner they did," he said.

"Through its actions, it had earned the wrath of major Western powers, partly informed by the conviction that Libya had carried out terrorist actions that had claimed many lives of citizens of these powers," Mbeki lashed out.

Libya had not been a democratic country.

Mbeki said it was young military officers, led by Gaddafi, that originally overthrew a feudal regime to assert the rights of African people. Gaddafi was slain after he was ousted.

Last month, Mbeki told the International Knowledge Conference in Cape Town that "false knowledge" controlled by Western interests was advanced to foster regime change in the oil-rich country.

At the time, he told his audience that "[a] false knowledge was advanced that Gaddafi's regime was about to slaughter civilians".

"This was used to justify the imposition of a 'no-fly zone' over Libya, which served as a cover to overthrow the Libyan government and impose a regime approved by Western powers, in their interests," Mbeki said.