How's that "Responsibility to Protect" thingee working out, Obama?

The Independent:

Thousands of people, including women and children, are being illegally detained by rebel militias in Libya, according to a report by the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Many of the prisoners are suffering torture and systematic mistreatment while being held in private jails outside the control of the country's new government.

The document, seen by The Independent, states that while political prisoners being held by the Gaddafi regime have been released, their places have been taken by up to 7,000 new "enemies of the state", "disappeared" in a dysfunctional system, with no recourse to the law.

The report will come as uncomfortable reading for the Western governments, including Britain, which backed the campaign to oust Gaddafi. A UN resolution was secured in March in order to protect civilians from abuses by the regime, which was at the time mercilessly suppressing the uprising against the Gaddafi regime.

There was evidence, says the report by Ban Ki-moon, due to be presented to the Security Council, that both sides committed acts amounting war crimes in the bitter battle for Colonel Gaddafi's hometown, Sirte. The Secretary-General who recently visited Libya, echoes the concern expressed by many world leaders over the killing of the former dictator by rebel fighters pointing out that Gaddafi was captured alive before being put to death.

The report also stresses that it is a matter of great praise that the country has been liberated after 42 years of totalitarian rule. The victorious opposition - which formed a new interim government this week - fully intends to follow a democratic path and introduce a functioning legal system, he says. The report is due to be circulated among members of the UN Security Council, and discussed next week.

I hope you will forgive Ban Ki Moon his unearthly naivete. If Libya is anything we would recognize as a "democracy" in a year, I will very surprised.

Not mentioned, but probably in the report, is the targeting of black Libyans and black foreign workers for death and detainment. The racial aspect of the aftermath in Libya is appalling and the government has failed so far in dealing with the issue.

So is this an improvement over Gaddafi? It is certainly less weird in the sense that you never knew what looniness the deceased Libyan dictator would show us next. But as far as any other measurement of human rights, post-Gaddafi Libya is an epic fail.