Before hundreds of international media outlets, I expressed one single demand: that all hostilities cease under the direct supervision of the UN and that the African Union installs an international fact-finding mission to determine who committed what act, paving the way for a national conference of all Libyan parties to the conflict. In the weeks that led up to this aggression, I spoke officially for the Libyan Government in countless international press conferences, media appearances and diplomatic appeals. As we witnessed time and time again in Iraq, Serbia, Afghanistan and Syria, NATO justified these attacks by claiming they were seeking out fighters and weaponry housed in civilian facilities. The number of women and children killed was especially high, as they sought refuge in civilian buildings deliberately targeted by the mighty NATO: including houses, apartment blocks, schools and community centers. Among the victims were a terrifying number of civilians from all walks of life. Tens of thousands more Libyans would later perish under more than 26,000 air raids, 100 cruise missile attacks and a naval blockade conducted by NATO’s 30-member coalition. More than 400 resting Libyan officers, soldiers, medical and media personnel were massacred without the chance to fight back against an unjustified and undeclared foreign air attack. They had already pulled out of the city of Benghazi, a protest hotbed, in a show of goodwill and peaceful intent. The French Air Force, however, had already initiated a major raid on immobile Libyan Army units. NATO’s justification for the aggressive and bloody attack was the now-infamous “protection of civilians” doctrine, formalized under UN Security Council Decree No. On the 19th of March 2011, the NATO bloc began a violent 8-month long military onslaught of Libya, a sovereign African-Union founding member state, which had enjoyed four decades of stability, prosperity and one of the highest Human Development Index (HDI) scores in all of Africa. The Western war machine only served its own interests in destroying a nation that could liberate Africa.
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