Qatar: Arab inaction in Libya led to West strikes

 

AFP , Thursday 31 Mar 2011

Qatar's emir calls on Arab League to meet its responsibility in protecting civilians in Libya

                                       
The West intervened in Libya after the Arab League, many of whose members also face revolts, failed to live up to its duty to protect civilians, Qatar's emir said in an interview broadcast Thursday.
Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani told Aljazeera television, based in Doha, that he hoped the 22-member organisation would now step up and meet its responsibility "amidst the ongoing changes" sweeping the region.
His country has joined the Western-led air strikes on Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's forces under a UN Security Council resolution after the Arab League backed a no-fly zone over the country.
"The suffering of civilians in Libya led the international community to intervene because of the inaction of the Arab League, which was supposed to assume the role," said Sheikh Hamad.
In London at an international conference on the Libya conflict, Qatari Foreign Minister Hamad Bin Jassem Al-Thani said Tuesday that the crisis was an Arab affair in which the region's states should play much more of a role.
Several Arab states stayed away from the conference which set up a Libya Contact Group, with its first meeting to take place in Qatar. They included Egypt, where pro-democracy protesters forced Hosni Mubarak from power in February, and Algeria, where President Abdelaziz Bouteflika is confronted by a wave of pro-reform protests.
Arab League chief Amr Moussa was represented by an ambassador after declining to take up his invitation. Qatar, meanwhile, apart from being the first Arab state to take part in the air strikes, has scored another regional first by officially recognising the transitional council of Libya's battling rebels.