Operation Pegasus (2011)

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The operation Pegasus was an evacuation operation (EvakOp) German and British forces during the riots in Libya . The operation lasted from February 26 to March 3, 2011. A total of 262 people were evacuated, including 125 Germans. The highlight was the transport of 132 men and women in two Bundeswehr aircraft from the eastern Libyan desert town of Nafurah to Crete. The BASF subsidiary Wintershall operates oil production facilities nearby . The evacuees were workers and engineers from over 30 countries who were waiting for a flight at the runway operated by Wintershall. The operation proceeded without incident. The Libyan authorities had been informed of this in advance through diplomatic channels. Because the Libyan air defense systems may have fallen into the hands of insurgents at the time of the operation, the Transall aircraft were equipped with a surface-to-air missile defense system.

course

After the unrest in Libya on February 15, 2011 had turned into an open popular uprising against the government of Muammar al-Gaddafi , various states organized the evacuation of their citizens from the North African country. The Bundeswehr flew in cooperation with Lufthansa on May 22nd / 23rd. February officially 130 EU citizens (including 103 Germans) from Tripoli . After that, however, the situation in Libya became more critical, so that Federal Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg decided on February 25, 2011 to leave the evacuation tasks to armed sections of the armed forces. But some German citizens could not reach the coastal city and fled to an oil refinery near Nafurah (also Al-Nafoura), where other western citizens (mostly British) were also located.

Shortly afterwards, the Bundeswehr began to move transport aircraft from Lufttransportgeschwader 62 as well as soldiers from Parachute Battalion 373 from Seedorf (Lower Saxony) and Feldjäger Battalion 252 from Hilden to the island of Crete , in strictest secrecy . In addition, an operational unit of the Navy consisting of the frigates Brandenburg and Rhineland-Palatinate and the task force provider Berlin crossed to support the Great Syrte . Operations plans for evacuations from Libya were drawn up in cooperation with the British armed forces under the direction of General Inspector General Volker Wieker . Defense Minister zu Guttenberg then informed the most important members of the government of the plans and received the green light to carry out the company. Since this was a foreign posting, the group leaders were Bundestag informed, but - as the press - asked not to report on the operation until their closure for security reasons.

Since an alternative evacuation route for the Europeans could not be found and the government troops feared that the country's oil refineries would be bombed, it was decided to carry out the risky military operation without further detailed information to the Libyan government or the insurgents. From Souda Air Base (south Chania Airport ) the Greek Air Force in Crete from launched on 26 February 2011, two machines of the type Transall C-160 of the German Air Force and two transport aircraft Hercules C-130 of the Royal Air Force soldiers Backup Job on board to Libya. The entire operation was in the hands of Brigadier General Volker Bescht , the deputy commander of the Special Operations Division , while it was monitored by the operational command (commander: Lieutenant General Rainer Glatz ) in Potsdam . After entering Libyan airspace, they reached Nafurah airfield in eastern Libya at around 6:00 p.m. local time. On the ground, 25 men from tribal militias secured the runway that a former soldier from the British Special Forces unit SAS employed for Wintershall . After the German and British security forces had secured the landing site, the planes took 132 civilians (22 of them German citizens) on board. Then the return flight to Crete was started. The airfield was ideal for the operation, as it was located in the middle of the desert and easily monitored by satellites and possible threats could be detected quickly.

Since there are other German citizens (around 100 suspected) in Libya, the evacuation forces were held ready for further missions. The British armed forces flew another 150 citizens on February 28. On March 5, 2011, the German forces deployed returned from Crete to Wunstorf in Lower Saxony with six Transall machines . The Bundeswehr evacuated a total of 262 people, including 125 German citizens. Around 1,000 Bundeswehr soldiers from the air force , army , navy and the armed forces base were deployed.

criticism

The operation was successful. Nevertheless, the action was criticized from a legal point of view. The background to this is the constitutional principle, which is regulated in detail in the Parliamentary Participation Act, that any deployment of armed forces requires the consent of the German Bundestag. Members of the opposition parties in the German Bundestag accused the federal government of inadmissibly bypassing parliament during the action. In the case of imminent danger (GiV), a subsequent approval is required according to Section 5 of the Act on Parliamentary Participation in the decision on the deployment of armed forces abroad , but this must be obtained immediately .

In retrospect, however, the Federal Foreign Office did not see Operation Pegasus as an armed mission, but as a "secured evacuation mission with humanitarian objectives" for which subsequent approval was not necessary.

One result of the unclear classification of the mission is, among other things, the refusal to award the German emergency services. According to lawyers from the Federal Ministry of Defense, the certificates for the services shown in action are invalid. In addition, the deployment participants were originally not paid a foreign use surcharge and the deployment was not counted towards deployment days. According to the state chairman of the German Federal Armed Forces Association , Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Sohst, the soldiers subsequently received allowances for “service at inconvenient times plus overtime pay ” and a reduced rate of the foreign employment allowance.

By decision of the Constitutional Court of 23 September 2015 to 2 BvE 6/11 was constitutional challenge of the Greens rejected due to the lack of participation of the Bundestag against the federal government. The court classified the deployment as “deployment of armed forces”. Subsequent approval of the Bundestag would therefore have been necessary. In amending its previous case law, the judges also decided that a subsequent approval can be waived if the foreign deployment of the Bundeswehr had been decided by the Federal Government due to "imminent danger" and had already ended before the Bundestag dealt with the deployment for the first time can. However, the government is then obliged to “inform the Bundestag immediately and in a qualified manner about the completed deployment of the armed forces”.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ German Bundestag Printed Matter 17/5359, April 4, 2011 Page 7
  2. ↑ a b Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, March 12, 2011, p. 4
  3. ↑ a b Operation Pegasus - Bundeswehr helps German citizens leave Libya , in Bundeswehr.de , February 26, 2011
  4. ↑ a b c Helmut Michelis: General Bescht: “Order carried out” ( Memento of the original from March 14, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on rp-online.de @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.rp-online.de
  5. ↑ a b c d e f Matthias Gebauer: Risky rescue mission behind enemy lines , in Spiegel.de , February 28, 2011
  6. ^ Matthias Gebauer: Transall machines fly out of 133 Europeans , in Spiegel.de , February 26, 2011
  7. ↑ German Bundestag Printed Matter 17/5359, April 4th 2011, ibid.
  8. ↑ German Transall machines fly out of EU citizens , on: eu-info.de
  9. ^ "Pegasus" back in Germany , on: bundeswehr.de
  10. ^ Bundeswehr channel on YouTube - evacuation ended
  11. ↑ Fischer / Ladiges, in: Neue Zeitschrift für Wehrrecht 2011, p. 221 ff.
  12. ^ Daniel Brössler : Evil aftermath in the Bundestag. In: sueddeutsche.de. March 11, 2011, accessed June 6, 2011 .
  13. ^ "Foreign business trip" to Libya on rp-online.de

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