Colonel Gaddafi is a dictator and totally deserves all the humiliation he’s getting right now; including the discovery of his stash of Condoleezza Rice pictures. The Libyan people have spoken and the bell has tolled for him and his cabal of supporters.

The people of Libya deserve a government that they find legitimate and they have every right to begin armed insurrection to overthrow a leader they choose not to have. The leadership in any country must be governed by the will of the electorate, and when this is lost change in government is the natural order of things. 

When the African Union (AU) met this week in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to discuss the Libya situation, it refused to recognize the NTC (National Transitional Council) as the legitimate representatives of the Libyan people.  But the AU hasn’t spoken in one voice. Rwanda has supported the NTC and so has Egypt and Tunisia.

The schism in the AU ranks is simply a symptom of the complexity of international law vis-à-vis facts on the ground. In very simplistic language, International law dictates that for a government to be recognised by other members of the global community it must be in control of its territory and able to project its power over its territory. For Gaddafi, this is no longer the case,

This brings me to my next point:

While a government might rant and rave all it likes, if it’s being forced to address its people in the dead of the night and squash rumours of the capture of its leaders, it’s in big trouble. And Gaddafi is in HUGE trouble. Here are the facts on the ground: he’s lost his own presidential compound, his ministers are like rats jumping off a sinking ship and no one expects him to survive the next few days. His troops are fighting a rearguard action and his last hope is that the tribesmen will ride in to save the day (they won’t).

The issue of what legitimacy means in international affairs is something that is close to Rwanda’s heart. If you may recall, right in the middle of the fastest genocide in history, the genocidal regime had a seat in the UN Security Council. That scandal is something that the UN hasn’t been able to get over, in my mind at least. And that’s before I even get to UNAMIR. So, obviously the international system has its flaws when it comes to recognizing ‘legitimate’ governments. It’s cumbersome and it needs a radical rethink.

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