by Wayne White
In Libya, which is bordering on failed state status with minimal central government control, many Libyans have made the transitional General National Congress (GNC) the latest target for blame. This followed the GNC’s decision to extend its mandate until the completion of a constitution and the sitting [...]]]>
by Wayne White
In Libya, which is bordering on failed state status with minimal central government control, many Libyans have made the transitional General National Congress (GNC) the latest target for blame. This followed the GNC’s decision to extend its mandate until the completion of a constitution and the sitting of a new parliament later this year. Militias clearly remain the main source of instability across the country, but only as the most obvious manifestation of a maze of regional, political, economic, and Islamist-secular rivalries and grievances. It’s questionable whether yesterday’s election for a constitutional committee will resolve such issues, so robust international engagement is still sorely needed.
The GNC recently extended its mandate to provide continuity between the expiration of its original mandate on February 7 and the work of a commission elected on the 20th with 120 days to draft a constitution along with the subsequent election of a permanent parliament. Upon the mandate’s expiration thousands of Libyans took to the streets characterizing the extension as a power grab and blaming the GNC’s paralysis for the country’s myriad problems.
In fact, even had the GNC mustered enough consensus to enact meaningful legislation, its laws would have been implemented only in a very spotty manner with militias picking and choosing in their respective areas what to enforce and what to ignore. This has been the leading problem confronting Prime Minister Ali Zeidan all along: precious little national authority. And the reason why the GNC has been so ineffective is an ongoing split between its secular National Forces Alliance and a bloc comprised of two Islamist parties. Worse still, each side is backed respectively by one of Libya’s most formidable militias.
At the beginning of the week powerful militias in government service from Zintan, which is southwest of the capital, threw down a gauntlet, demanding that the GNC turn power over to the Supreme Court by February 18, blaming its Muslim Brotherhood members for the gridlock. The GNC immediately promised early elections for a new parliament. Nonetheless, the militias (backing the GNC’s secular block) demanded that the GNC step down within 5 hours, and closed the Tripoli airport road in a show of force (generating a counter threat from the powerful pro-Islamist militia brigades from Libya’s 3rd largest city, Misrata).
In response to this crisis, both UN envoy in Tripoli Tarek Mitri and Ali Zeidan stepped in to address the face-off. Additionally, the US, UK, Italy, France and the European Union issued a joint statement declaring support for “the legitimacy of the transitional democratic process.” Based on Zeidan’s intercession especially, the deadline was pushed back 72 hours until late on the 21st, following national elections for a constitutional commission. It is doubtful, however, that the militia threat will be carried out because the GNC has terminated the Zintani militias’ government writ, ordered the arrest of those behind the attempted rebellion, and has the support of other armed elements.
In a reasonably normal national context the GNC mess would be enough to place a country in crisis. Parallel to it, however, has been a host of other more familiar challenges. In Libya’s restive east, security personnel closed the Benghazi Airport on the 18th over the non-payment of wages, with an armed unit charged with defending the airport blocking the runways. This is the latest outburst of trouble in the east where a shadow regional government remains in tentative control of many areas, joining angry oil workers to stop eastern exports of oil months ago, but with no means of its own to pay workers under its sway.
At the other end of the country, west of Tripoli, oil workers and local militia elements closed pipelines on the 18th, dropping Libyan oil exports to a mere 375,000 barrels per day (bpd) out of a maximum export capacity of about 1.3 million bpd. The latest closure is a discouraging reverse for Zeidan’s government after the Prime Minister worked so hard to reopen western pipelines earlier this year, restoring exports to 600,000 bpd. So, while workers in various locales protest unpaid wages, they have reduced markedly Tripoli’s ability to pay those wages — a capability that continues to decline as government financial shortfalls mount up.
Under the circumstances, less than 500,000 voted for a constitutional body (less than 1/3 of those who participated in thr 2012 parliamentary elections). Events since 2012 understandably bred widespread cynicism regarding all manners of governance. In addition, much of western Libya’s Berber minority boycotted the vote, while polls stayed closed in Derna in eastern Libya following militant attacks against five polling stations. Thus the legitimacy of the drafting process doubtless will suffer from the lack of a wide-ranging mandate.
Ironically, the latest crisis revolving around the GNC came to a head as Libyans should have been celebrating the 3rd anniversary of Muammar Qadhafi’s fall on February 17. The very next day, the human rights arm of the UN issued a statement expressing concerns about Libya’s continued violence and shortfalls in protecting its citizens’ rights. Even far less developed Niger recently appealed to the international community to assist in reducing the threat Libyan instability poses to regional security. Nonetheless, on February 16, in a bid to bolster Libya’s beleaguered central government, Niger extradited senior Qadahfi-era intelligence official Abdullah Mansour to Tripoli for interrogation and trial.
The international community played a small role in defusing the crisis by pitting the powerful Zintani militias against the GNC. Without a far more ambitious effort, however, the transitional process that is just getting underway so shakily could easily founder. The pattern in which Libya continues staggering along the brink of wholesale state failure must be broken.
Securing a common domestic understanding of the costs for all concerned of continued chaos may be a proverbial mission impossible unless all parties can be brought together at a relatively neutral venue. This must include Libya’s large, quarrelsome militias. The biggest militias are not just thugs, but armed units from the “liberation war” against Qadhafi with their own claims to legitimacy and who refuse to disarm in the absence of what they regard as proper governance. An attempt at jumpstarting a thoroughgoing national dialogue must be made to avoid the potential worst case scenario: a sort of “North African Somalia” with instability as its leading export.
Photo: Residents from Libya’s north-eastern town of Shahat joined in on national protests against extending the congressional mandate on February 7. Credit: Magharebia/Flickr
]]>by Wayne White
Nearly a year after the Benghazi attack and almost two since Muammar al-Qadhafi’s fall, Libya remains a governmental basket case. Political assassinations and militia violence are commonplace amidst the continued absence of effective central governance across much of the country. Recent labor unrest threatens what had been Libya’s one [...]]]>
by Wayne White
Nearly a year after the Benghazi attack and almost two since Muammar al-Qadhafi’s fall, Libya remains a governmental basket case. Political assassinations and militia violence are commonplace amidst the continued absence of effective central governance across much of the country. Recent labor unrest threatens what had been Libya’s one area of notable recovery: oil exports. As an experiment in post-authoritarian nationhood, the Libyan situation may be more troubling than at any time since the end of the struggle against the Qadhafi regime.
The central government recently has been in a state of flux. Beleaguered Prime Minister Ali Zeidan announced at the end of July he will decrease the number of cabinet positions or try to govern more effectively by meeting with a smaller group of core ministers. So far, however, the only notable result has been Deputy Prime Minister Awad al-Barasi’s resignation on August 3, blaming “a dysfunctional government where my powers are lost.” Meanwhile, despite the passage of time since the former regime’s demise, central authority has stagnated and instability has been on the rise.
Symptomatic of this problem is the continuation of various autonomous local governing entities centered on armed groups left over from the struggle against Qadhafi. They dominate various regions, one major city, many urban neighborhoods and frequently defy or hound portions of the central government even in the capital of Tripoli.
One salient ongoing dispute revolves around the status of literally thousands of political prisoners often languishing in miserable, improvised local holding pens outside government control. The most notorious case is that of Saif al-Qadhafi, the deceased dictator’s most important son and senior lieutenant. Despite repeated demands for custody on the part of the central government and the International Criminal Court (ICC), Saif remains in Zintan in Libya’s arid central mountains, a prisoner of the local Berber militia that originally captured him. The only outside contact he has had was a meeting last year with his Australian ICC-appointed defense attorney, who was then also detained for three weeks. Since then, new charges have been brought against Saif by authorities in Zintan: allegedly giving his ICC attorney “national security information.”
Justice Minister Salah al-Marghani recently declared that the central government would not allow “Mickey Mouse trials.” However, militias holding the real power in many locales claim the national judiciary remains dominated by officials from the former regime; they have stormed Marghani’s office in anger over delays and enforced their own justice in areas they control. To wit, the autonomous militia controlling Libya’s third largest city, Misrata, sentenced Qadhafi’s former Education Minister, Ahmad Ibrahim, to death on July 31. Technically, the Libyan Supreme Court must confirm such a sentence before he faces a firing squad, but whether that will happen is questionable.
It seems encouraging to many Americans that Washington finally handed down an indictment against some of those responsible for the Benghazi consulate attack last year, most notably local Benghazi militia chief Ahmad Abu Khattala. Yet, US authorities involved in the investigation such as the FBI have been hampered seriously by the woeful law enforcement situation across Libya — also the reason it took this long to bring charges against at least some of those involved in that infamous assault.
Such difficulties should come as no surprise. In a country flush with competing local and regional identities as well as all manner of weaponry in the hands of various armed groups, Benghazi alone has been hit with a wave of political killings over the past couple of weeks. Those murdered include judicial officials, lawyers, political activists, a senior police official and other members of the Libyan security services. Most recently, on August 9, the anchor of a popular Benghazi TV show was assassinated. Many of the victims spoke out against or sought to curb the power of local militias. At the end of July, there also were two bombings — one near a courthouse and the other close to a Justice Ministry office. Some of these incidents have triggered demonstrations or attacks by angry mobs against sites associated with Benghazi-based armed groups presumed responsible, in one case, the Muslim Brotherhood.
Another glaring example of central government weakness came shortly after the attack on the offices of the Muslim Brotherhood: a riot inside and around Benghazi’s al-Kwafiya Prison that resulted in the breakout of roughly 1,200 prisoners. Most escaped inmates were accused of serious crimes or had been associated with the Qadhafi Regime; intervention to contain the situation by government special forces apparently had relatively little effect. The mass escape most likely reinforced the determination of autonomous local authorities and militias not to turn over their prisoners to the government.
Despite the unrest, the unexpectedly rapid rebound of Libya’s oil export capabilities had been one major success. Yet, since July, a wave of protests and strikes by oil workers and guards has shut down two key oil export terminals, Libya’s largest refinery, and threatened to reduce production at inland oil fields. Oil exports for July were down 20 percent; so far August exports are down a staggering 50 percent. Workers are reacting to management and pay issues.
A resolution to this crisis does not yet seem imminent, in part because Oil Minister Abelbari al-Arusa initially took a defiant stance. Now, however, Prime Minister Zeidan has warned that Libya’s national budget is imperiled, and there are talks. In fact, the two terminals re-opened over the weekend, only to close only hours later today without any oil being lifted. Meanwhile, foreign investors already reluctant to inject money into an unstable Libya have been further shaken.
The overriding question at this point may not be how a way out of this maelstrom can be charted, but whether any truly game-changing progress can be made in the near-term. Most all Libya’s challenges today are deeply enmeshed in the complex fractured politics of a country with the least developed sense of national identity and civil society among the five key Arab North African states. So the ability of the international community to help is limited (compounded by drawdowns in diplomatic personnel and curtailed travel inside Libya in view of the dangers now posed by serving there).
Consequently, there is the very real possibility Libya could remain unstable for quite a while. Such a situation would, of course, continue to provide havens for extremist elements both foreign and domestic stemming from exceedingly weak, insufficiently coherent and geographically constrained national governance (as with the recent al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb intrusions into southeast Libya and last year’s Benghazi consulate assault).
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