The Criminal Role of Saudi Arabia and UAE

Mahmoud Refaat

War crimes and crimes against humanity have been perpetrated by the belligerents in Libya and continue to make victims. It is necessary to conduct thorough investigations into the actions of Haftar and his seconds, who participated in massacres of civilians, such as in Tarhunah. These individuals must be prosecuted and convicted.

PART (IX)

4.11 Responsibilities of International criminal court

On 15 February 2011, the capture of a Libyan basic liberties extremist in Benghazi started regular citizen conflicts with security powers, which quickly turned into an enemy of tyrant uprising against the Gaddafi system.

Many were murdered and harmed as the public authority strongly attempted to stifle the revolt.

In August 2011, the primary resistance bunch National Transitional Council (NTC), which was perceived by some Western countries as the authentic administration of Libya, entered Tripoli.

Muammar Gaddafi had to remain in isolation prior to being caught and murdered on 20 October 2011. The NTC assumed responsibility for the nation and, in August 2012, gave over capacity to Libya’s recently chosen parliament, the General National Congress, which was confirmed in November 2012.

Numerous denials of basic liberties, for instance torment and authorized vanishings, and infringement of global helpful law, for example, focusing on regular folks or clinical units, were accounted for.

On 25 February 2011, the Human Rights Council set up the International Commission of Inquiry to examine all supposed infringement of global common liberties law in Libya.

The Commission arrived at the resolution that worldwide violations, explicitly wrongdoings against mankind and atrocities have been carried out in Libya by both the public authority and the radical powers.

4.11.1 ICC circumstances

The examination concerning the circumstance in Libya was opened by the ICC investigator in March 2011. The investigator’s declaration came a month after the UN Security Council consistently alluded the circumstance in non-ICC part Libya to the Court.

4.11.2 First consistent UN Security Council reference to ICC

The ICC circumstance in Libya concerns claims of a 2011 state-level approach to suppress, including by utilization of deadly power, regular citizen exhibits against Muammar Gaddafi’s administration.

This was the primary ICC circumstance to be collectively alluded by the UN Security Council, which focused on the need to consider responsible those liable for assaults on regular people after the uprisings in 2011.

The Security Council set out in its reference by “censuring the viciousness and utilization of power against regular folks, despising the gross and orderly infringement of basic liberties, including the suppression of tranquil demonstrators, communicating profound worry at the passings of regular folks, and dismissing unequivocally the induction to antagonism and savagery against the non military personnel populace produced using the most elevated level of the Libyan government.

4.11.3 ICC asserts wrongdoings against saw nonconformists

As indicated by the ICC capture warrants gave in the Libya circumstance from 15 to at any rate 28 February 2011, the Libyan Security Forces, enveloping both military and security units, launched an assault against regular folks participating in exhibitions against Gaddafi’s system or those apparent to be nonconformists, and by this way slaughtering and harming just as capturing and detaining many civilians.

The supposed government strategy was completed all through Libya, yet specifically in Tripoli, Misrata, Benghazi, and urban communities close to Benghazi, like Al-Bayda, Derna, Tobruk, and Ajdabiya.

4.11.4 Capture warrants for Muammar Gaddafi and internal circle

The ICC gave capture warrants against Libyan pioneer Muammar Gaddafi and his son Saif Al-Gaddafi, who headed the Gaddafi International Foundation for Charity Associations – and was viewed as accepted leader at the hour of the supposed wrongdoings – alongside Abdullah Al-Senussi, overseer of Military Intelligence in Libya.

The warrants affirm that the above-perpetrated violations against humankind (murder and mistreatment) submitted in Libya from 15 February until in any event 28 February 2011 by this accused. The argument against Muammar Gaddafi was naturally ended in November 2011 after his demise.

In November 2011, Saif Gaddafi was captured by Libyan specialists. On 5 June 2018, Saif Al-Gaddafi (“Mr Gaddafi”) documented a tolerability challenge to the Court contending that he had effectively been attempted in Libya for a similar lead as affirmed by the Prosecutor.

On 5 April 2019, PTC I, by greater part, dismissed Mr Gaddafi’s acceptability challenge, which implies the case stays allowable under the steady gaze of the Court.

In March 2012, Al-Senussi was captured in Mauritania and was removed to Libya in September 2012. As a result of his homegrown indictment, the case was announced forbidden under the watchful eye of the Court, yet so the case has not progressed under the watchful eye of Libya’s Supreme Court.

There is likewise a remarkable capture warrant against Al-Tuhamy Mohamed Khaled (“Mr. Al-Tuhamy”) for charges of war wrongdoings, purportedly carried out from March 2011 to August 2011.

In 2017, the Prosecutor of the ICC gave the main capture warrants against Al-Werfalli, Commander in the Al Saiqa Brigade, for charges of homicide in as an atrocity, supposedly slaughtering 33 individuals in seven occurrences.

Regardless of an authority explanation by the Libyan National Army attesting Mr Al-Werfalli had been captured and was being scrutinized. Meanwhile, he purportedly slaughtered 10 additional individuals in an eighth execution which was shot and coursed via web-based media.

After these occasions, the Prosecutor gave a subsequent capture warrant on 4 July 2018. The ICC approaches General Khalifa Haftar, administrator of the Libyan National Army (LNA), to work with Mr. Al-Werfalli’s quick acquiescence to the ICC.

4.11.5 ICC staff kept

On 7 June 2012, four ICC staff individuals were kept in Zintan, Libya, while undertaking a mission approved by ICC judges and endorsed by the break Libyan government to visit Saif Gaddafi. The four were delivered on 2 July 2012.

4.12 The responsibility of the UN Security Council

The UN Security Council Responds from New York that the UN Secretariat saw advancements in Libya with grave concern.

On 20 February the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, had spoken with Muammar Gaddafi on the telephone, revealing to him that the savagery against regular people “should stop right away.”

Gaddafi didn’t regard the direction, yet various senior Libyan representatives, including the initiative of the Permanent Mission of Libya to the UN, surrendered. One representative saw that, declaring that “the more Gaddafi slaughters individuals, the more individuals go into the roads.”

Libya’s representatives to Indonesia, India and a few different nations surrendered. On 22 February the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, required a prompt suspension of the “grave common liberties infringement submitted by the Libyan specialists.” Pillay portrayed the savagery as perhaps comprising “wrongdoings against mankind.”

These slants were repeated in a joint proclamation by the UN SecretaryGeneral’s Special Advisers on the Prevention of Genocide and the Responsibility to Protect.

The Special Advisers likewise helped Libya to remember its vow at the 2005 UN World Summit to ensure populaces “by forestalling slaughter, atrocities, ethnic purifying and wrongdoings against mankind, just as their affectation.”

Around the same time, the League of Arab States (Arab League) restricted Libya from going to its gatherings. EkmeleddinĪhsanoğlu, Secretary-General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, censured the Libyan government’s utilization of exorbitant power against regular people.

The UN Security Council also “censured the savagery and utilization of power against regular people, condemned the restraint against tranquil demonstrators, and communicated profound lament at the passings of many regular citizens.”

The African Union (AU) followed with Jean Ping, Chair of the AU Commission, requiring a quick finish to “constraint and brutality” in Libya.

On 25 February Ban Ki-moon voiced his developing worries about the violences in Libya to the UN Security Council. In the interim, in Geneva, Navi Pillay helped individuals to remember the Human Rights Council about their individual duty to ensure their populaces and their aggregate obligation to act in a convenient and definitive way when a state is obviously neglecting to secure its population.

Soon after, composed activity by the Human Rights Council and the General Assembly made ready for Libya’s suspension from the gathering.

The Responsibility to Protect centered the global reaction. Goal 1970, collectively received by the Security Council on 26 February, expressly conjured the “Libyan specialists’ duty to ensure its populace.” The goal incorporated an extensive bundle of coercive measures like an arms ban, resources freeze, travels boycott and reference of the circumstance to the ICC – pointed toward convincing the Qaddafi system to stop executing its kin.

During the weeks between Resolution 1970 and the selection of Resolution 1973 on 17 March, heightening brutality incited local and worldwide associations to again ask the Qaddafi system to stop the slaughtering and resolve the emergency through “serene methods and genuine discourse.”

On 10 March the AU’s Peace and Security Council set up a specially appointed High Level Committee on Libya, and on 12 March the Arab League required a “restricted air space” over Libya.

Conclusion

The worst humanitarian crisis in Yemen and Libya is currently raging. Yemen and Libya are the poorest country on the coast of the Arabian Peninsula. The war in Yemen and Libya will only make the situation worse.

Humans are also in awe of the atrocities that occurred here. One talked a lot about human progress, and on the other hand talked about people’s cruelty and barbarism. People are opposed to people. Because of the bloody war in Yemen, human life is worse than that of animals.

Even when animals saw atrocities against people, they cried. However, the world is not affected by these atrocities, and humans continue to trample them cruelly.

So far, in Libya and Yemen, the UAE has shown similar characteristics and differences, which proves Abu Dhabi’s tactics and purposeful pragmatism. From the perspective of the UAE network, maritime dynamics are very important.

In Yemen, the UAE has operations in the southern coastal areas, southern Red Sea, Bab el Mandeb and Socotra Island. Actors related to Abu Dhabi.

In Libya, the United Arab Emirates is concentrated in Cyrenaica and Sirte. The eastern region of Libya provides the strategic depth of the Sahel and opens up a geo-strategic highway to West and East Africa (such as Niger, Mali and Mauritania; Sudan and Eritrea). Cyrenaica must also deal with the Mediterranean and southern regions.

To sum up, the UAE firmly supports Haftar’s political power in Libya and supports the civil war in consequence. The UAE’s support for Haftar is crucial to winning cities such as Benghazi and Derna.

The air base was established in 2017 in eastern Libya. In order to recruit mercenaries in Sudan, the UAE also provides direct military support to Haftar’s armed forces.

UAE spokesperson Haftar has been killing civilians since April 2019, hurting Libyan citizens, not NTC troops. As of January 2020, more than 100 weapons have been shipped from the UAE to Libya and Egypt, the UAE’s main regional allies.

During the strike, the United Nations also described a “terrorism” incident involving a multinational company that recently discovered the Talqa mass grave.

Some governments have justified exports and the new agreement. Considering the benefits they will bring to their economy, especially their military industry.

This phenomenon is inherent in the global arms trade: under the pretext of promoting economic and national security to promote regional security, countries often justify exporting weapons to target countries involved in regional conflicts.

In general, funds flowing into the United Arab Emirates and the Middle East will affect regional stability innear future.

Recommendations

In order to reduce the damages to civilians in the conflicts in Yemen, Libya and other countries in the Middle East and North Africa, the following recommendations are formulated:

The UAE should end its military intervention in Yemen & Libya and seek a peaceful solution through the United Nations to achieve diplomacy.

The support to Haftar must stop, because it encourages the continuation of violence in the country. Supporting Haftar can only lead in the best case to the return of a partial dictatorship marked by violence, and in this sense, the International Community must put in place sanctions against UAE to dissuade it from hoping for the advent of its “strong providential man”.

The UAE must stop violating the UN resolution prohibiting the delivery of weapons and providing military support to embargoed countries. More broadly, each country must actually withdraw its troops, and private armies must leave the territory, otherwise the pressure on the peace process will never end.

At the same time, a dialogue must be built with local political entities to raise awareness of the issues at stake in the December elections, as well as to ease relations between east and west: mayors’ forums or democratic awareness campaigns are both good examples for the United Nations to implement.

This must be organized in cooperation with the NGOs and international organizations present in the territory, which help the population and are aware of the issues at stake.

The United Nations should work to strengthen the ban of weapons in the UAE by criminalizing violations, but also in Libya where the presence of foreign powers, public as private, are the principled cause of the fights continuation.

This can be done by strengthening the diplomatic protocol of the Berlin conference where the participants made clear commitments that must be respected (such as the withdrawal of troops from the territory).

But the support to the new internationally recognized government should be more unambiguous, with for example the local help by specialized agencies to ensure that the vote is prepared and held properly.

In addition, the UN must work to a better cooperation with the signatory countries of the Arms Trade Treaty to assure a better traceability and transparency of the transactions of military gears.

The International Criminal Court must continue its investigations in Libya to struggle against violence and force used against civilian. War crimes and crimes against humanity have been perpetrated by the belligerents in Libya and continue to make victims.

It is necessary to conduct thorough investigations into the actions of Haftar and his seconds, who participated in massacres of civilians, such as in Tarhunah. These individuals must be prosecuted and convicted.

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Mahmoud Refaat is an expert in international law, politician and writer. Refaat is the president of the European Institute for International Law and International Relations in Brussels, Belgium.

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