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SCMP Reporter

The war in Libya has renewed debate on whether a foreign country should intervene in another country's affairs.
The successful uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia that overthrew the countries' rulers last month inspired thousands of anti-government protesters in Libya to take to the streets. They want the country's longtime leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi to step down.
Gaddafi has been in power for more than 40 years. He has mobilised his security forces to crack down on protesters. His army has used warplanes and snipers, killing hundreds of people, many of them civilians. 
The United Nations Security Council authorised a US-led military campaign - which also includes Britain, France and Canada - to cripple Gaddafi's air defences and enforce a no-fly zone over Libya.
People worldwide have been debating the legality of foreign intervention in Libya.
Steve Chung Lok-wai, a research co-ordinator at the Chinese University's Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, said events in the former in Yugoslavia in the 1990s changed the way countries deal with other countries' affairs.
Yugoslavia's Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic became engaged in what many foreigners saw as the cleansing of ethnic Albanians in the disputed territory of Kosovo. The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato), led by the US, launched an attack on Serbia. About 1,800 people were killed and 6,000 people wounded.
Ever since, countries have felt more inclined to intervene in civil wars to curb bloodshed. 
'Humanitarian issues [are seen to] override the autonomy of a country,' Chung said.
Yet even some anti-Gaddafi rebels have said they did not want the West to intervene as they only needed God on their side. Many foreign observers, too, have disputed the wisdom of using foreign military power against Libya's ruling regime. 
Chung, however, pointed out that the rebels would have no chance of winning without help from the Western coalition. Gaddafi's army was on the verge of overpowering rebel strongholds when US-led forces began intervening. '[The rebels] need help if the Gaddafi regime is to be overthrown,' he said. 
Gaddafi has fighter planes, tanks and heavy artillery while the  band of rebels tend to be armed lightly. A few days after the coalition attack on Libya, the US handed over command to Nato  forces. 
Chung said the US did not want to get too involved in attacking the Gaddafi government, which has recently gone out of its way to mend  relations with the West. 
The US decided to help launch an attack because of growing international pressure in the wake of Gaddafi's brutal crackdown on anti-government protesters. 
Chung said there were also fears that Libya's tumultuous internal affairs would send waves of instability to other North African and Middle Eastern countries.
The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Chung said,  have put a strain on US military resources. 
'The US does not [want] to get tied down in yet another war,' he said.
Libya is composed of three tribal areas: Cyrenaica in the east and Tripolitania and Fezzan in the west. The king of Cyrenaica once ruled both Cyrenaica and Tripolitania, before Gaddafi, who is from Tripolitania, overthrew him in a coup in 1969. People in Cyrenaica have been  unhappy ever since.
Chung explained that Libya has been plagued by internal strife for a long time. Gaddafi has been using resources from the more affluent east to develop the less developed west, his power base. Many people in the east have resented Gaddafi for this. A major force in the anti-Gaddafi movement comes from the eastern part of the country. 
Gaddafi has a chequered record in power. According to The New York Times, Gaddafi came to power before the oil boom and has tapped Libya's new wealth to provide schools, hospitals and other benefits for Libya's desperately poor, semi-nomadic population. 
During his long reign Libya gradually became overwhelmingly urbanised. Today about 85 per cent of the country's population lives in clusters around two main urban centres, Tripoli and Benghazi. New York Times  quoted Libyan officials saying that some 12,000 Libyans study abroad each year on government scholarships. Chung said Gaddafi's rule has brought noticeable benefits to Libya's people. 
Gaddafi has been seen by the  West as a major sponsor of international terrorism. Yet even though his foreign policies have been controversial in the West, they have done much to improve the country's standing in parts of the developing world.
'Gaddafi does have political charisma in the international arena,' Chung said. Yet Gaddafi's failure to win over people living in Libya's eastern part may now have led to his downfall. 'He does not enjoy a lot of support in large parts of his own country,' Chung added.



Trying to unseat Gaddafi from afar