The Libyan warring factions must sit together and accept the deal put forward by the United Nations to end the country’s murderous, chaotic and degenerative civil war since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. They simply must do that to rescue the country and lift it from being increasingly regarded as a failed state, only judged to be ruled by a strong dictator.
Of course this is easier said than done because of the different actors at play and the complexity of the unfolding situation. The United Nations has been trying to get the parties together since August 2014, when meetings and negotiations took place regularly over the last 12 months, but failed to unite the country. Just when a deal is being thought to be within a striking distance, one of the parties, or all in total, just shies away as if they don’t have anything to do with it. Such missed-out deals such as the latest on September 21, and before that, in June, April, March and January, have become an embarrassment for the UN, which sung praises of documents and blue-prints only to be dashed in the last minute.
The country’s politicians, parties, groups and military officers and even armed rebels, most of whom are controlled by different factions, have to go beyond their political, ideological, nationalistic and religious differences. They must sit together and think development, think national. They have to move out of their parochial, religious, tribalistic and factional mindsets where guns and tanks dominate. The nature of the militaristic society that developed in Libya, where an array of arms can now simply be bought from roadside stalls, has to be changed. The society of intense ferment and ferocity must give way to rule of law to create a stable community rather than one marked by mayhem, chaos and terror. Today, Libya is a fictional reminder of the Wild West.
The politicians, prime ministers, two parliaments, two governments and the “pseudo bureaucracy” that have come to exist in the west of the country, in Tripoli and in the east, in Tobruk, which left the country in a limbo since August 2014, must give way to a more unified leadership and a political form to re-guarantee a functional society and economic system that Libya so desperately needs and should have.
It’s just no good to have two governments, with one officially recognised by the world and the other imposing itself on the country’s political scene in spite of the elections of 2014. This government straddled in Tripoli refused to accept the results and stayed put by sheer force against all political conventions and norms by the writ of the bullet and not the ballot. Liberals, nationalists, independents and Islamists must come together and turn swords into ploughshares and get the country back on its own two feet.
The oil resources are plenty, and plenty can be made of them if they are once again under the control of one government, rather than being controlled by vested interests, rebels and political backers, who sell for their own myopic benefits — which has largely been the case after the overthrow of Gaddafi.
Today, the situation is abysmal, oil production is down to 160,000 barrels per day instead of the peak of 1.5 million bpd, Libya now imports 75 per cent of its fuel for domestic use, there are unpaid salaries for government employees, electricity cuts and soaring prices are rife. In addition, there is internal displacement. Since the election troubles of last year, 435,000 people left their homes — not to mention the 100,000 living in camps and those trying to be smuggled into Europe.
Libya, a unitary state — constantly undermined and in a state of fluidity — needs safe neighbourhoods and functional institutions that can carry authority for one country. Libya needs to re-establish its public administration away from the quaintly, laughable, sad set up of “authorities” relating to the two governments that presently exist in the country. It presently has two central banks, two national oil companies, three anti-corruption commissions and two Libyan investment chairmen, completing the country’s Alice in Wonderland scenario! The duality has put countries such as Britain and South Africa at a loss as to whom to deal with, which government is the legitimate authority and what sovereign investments belong to whom, for instance.
Unfortunately, Libya has become a sad reminder of the failing abilities of the Arab Spring, where stability has given way to unfathomable chaos and where a functional society has been reduced to the whims of those who are too inexperienced to rule, but insist on leading the way.
Both the United Nations and countries like the United States and the European states continue to insist on having a stable country against all odds. The push for October 20 to try to secure another unity deal is on the agenda. They are hoping for such a deal before the end of the mandate of Libya’s House of Representatives in Tobruk. More importantly however, they want a power-sharing arrangement with the other Islamist government in Tripoli to check the growth of Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant). Many in the West, including the UN, have become increasingly worried that Daesh is taking advantage of the chaos in Libya and establishing itself in different towns and cities, including Derna and Sirte — Gaddafi’s hometown in the Benghazi area.
These are the complexities and intricacies in the midst of the dialogue held in Morocco last month. Rather strange is the fact that while dialogue was continuing, heavy fighting was going on in Benghazi between the military of the Tobruk government under General Khalifa Haftar and the Islamist forces linked to the Tripoli government.
This is the context in which dialogue for peace is being held and given the tense, violent and bloody situation that exists in the country right now, one wonders whether this dialogue will lead to anywhere at all.
However, diplomats will be diplomats — especially those at the United Nations — and talks are set to continue regardless of the consequences.
Marwan Asmar is a commentator based in Amman. He has long worked in journalism and has a Phd in Political Science from Leeds University in the United Kingdom.
