What Will Happen when Gaddafi's Mercenaries Realize that Gaddafi Can't Pay Them?, page 1

With Gaddafi's international assets being frozen, Gaddafi is going to have a lot of trouble paying the soldiers who fight for him.

Muammar owes money to a lot of armed men, described as mercenaries from Chad. It's clear that he owes them money because Gaddafi wouldn't have paid his mercenaries up front... If he did pay up front, those soldiers would have no reason to continue risking their lives for him, because they would have already gotten their cash.

It's reasonable to conclude that Gaddafi is promising to pay his mercenaries later on. My question is, HOW?

Brits Seize Libyan '£100m' Cash Ship

There is a military blockade of Libya's ports, preventing money from being brought in by ship from the North. Algeria is unfriendly to Gaddafi, and won't allow money to be brought in from the West. It is impossible for Gaddafi to bring money from the East as well, because that territory is controlled by the Libyan rebels. There is a huge desert to the South of Libya that is nearly impassible.

Basically, the only money Gaddafi has, is the money that is already in Libya.

But the dictator needs more funds as he offers his citizens cash inducements to stay loyal to his regime and allegedly hires mercenaries at £18,000 a man.

His allies last week tried to grab £900million in Libyan currency from a warehouse in the North East where they are printed.

But the government employed a series of delaying tactics as they drew up a legal order banning the export of the notes.

Gaddafi is not allowing any money to leave his country, and the mercenaries that he hired are currently being paid a small fraction of the daily wages that they have been promised.

What will happen when these mercenaries realize that Gaddafi is not going to pay them?

reply to post by Albastion

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They will loot and rob what and who they can, then they will run. That's the quality of his mercenaries, I'd bet the farm on it.

There are a couple of possibilities;

a) these are mercenaries in the accepted, western sense as in militia prepared to fight, kill and die for the highest bidder, in which case the most likely outcome of them not being paid, would be to bite the hand that did not feed them

OR

b) these are regular army from Chad or any of the other African republics that Qaddaffi has international relations with and the 'mercenaries' are merely acting under a Treaty or trade agreement.

Qaddaffi is known to have part funded insurrection in the former French colonies, only the extent and full nature of the relationships are unclear.

Progress (toward full independence from France) came to a grinding halt in August 1971, when an attempted coup d'état with links to Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi was uncovered. Tombalbaye immediately severed relations with his northern neighbor and even allowed anti-Qadhafi forces to operate from his territory. In return, Qadhafi granted formal recognition and aid to what remained of the FROLINAT ( 'National Liberation Front of Chad', based in Sudan) opposition to Tombalbaye. Meanwhile, in the south, where Tombalbaye had his greatest support, he responded to a strike by students by replacing the popular Chief of Staff Jacques Doumro with then-Colonel Félix Malloum, who later became the Chadian Head of State. Chad was in the grip of a crippling drought, and Tombalbaye rescinded his amnesty to political prisoners. By the end of 1972, over 1,000 political prisoners had been arrested. At the same time, he also made overtures to the Arab world, reducing Libyan support for, and fomenting infighting in, FROLINAT.
en.wikipedia.org...

Originally posted by teapot
b) these are regular army from Chad or any of the other African republics that Qaddaffi has international relations with and the 'mercenaries' are merely acting under a Treaty or trade agreement.

Qaddaffi is known to have part funded insurrection in the former French colonies, only the extent and full nature of the relationships are unclear.

Originally posted by mydarkpassenger
reply to post by Albastion

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They will loot and rob what and who they can, then they will run. That's the quality of his mercenaries, I'd bet the farm on it.

If this is the case, does the West or the interim Libyan government have a mechanism to forgive the mercenaries who turn themselves in and transport them home, to prevent them from ransacking an already war-torn Libya?

The country is already in bad enough shape without a bunch of armed soldiers rampaging around because they have no other alternative. The soldiers really would have no way to get back home to their homeland without crossing a huge desert, not to mention all the rebels who want vengeance.

www.guardian.co.uk...

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