The West should immediately arm the Libyan rebels fighting Colonel Muammar Gaddafi or risk writing off freedom in the country for a generation or more, a former Foreign Secretary warns today.
In his most significant political intervention over the Libyan crisis, Sir Malcolm Rifkind says the controversial measure is the “most important” step the international community could take.
Writing in The Times, he says the UN should learn from errors made in its response to the Bosnian war, when a UN arms embargo blocked the supply of weaponry to those fighting the heavily-armed Bosnian Serb amy.
“Most important should be an open and urgent supply of the necessary weapons to the insurgents so that they can fight Gaddafi on equal terms,” he writes. “Otherwise, we will repeat the mistake of the Bosnian war.
“Having been Defence Secretary at that time I have, in retrospect, felt that [the arms embargo] was the most serious mistake made by the UN.”
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William Hague will meet other foreign secretaries from the world’s most powerful nations in Paris today as he continues to push for a no-fly zone to protect the rebels. The prospect moved closer at the weekend after the Arab League, comprising 22 nations, voted to back the limited military intervention after emergency talks in Cairo.
Sir Malcolm believes that any failure to safeguard the advances made by rebels could represent another Tiananmen Square, when protests in China were crushed by its communist Government. It would also send a worrying message to other oppressive regimes in Syria and Iran, he adds.
Last night, Downing Street used the growing support for a no-fly zone as proof that the Prime Minister had been right to ask officials weeks ago to look at how such a policy would work. “We are now much farther down the road because we started contingency planning at an earlier stage,” said a No 10 source.
Mr Hague will also use the G8 trip to reassert his authority after claims that he had lost his enthusiasm for the job. He dismissed accusations that he had “lost his mojo” yesterday, telling his critics they would have to “get used to” the fact that he would not be abandoning the post.