Author - ab_mnbr

Libya, here we are: here is the decisive date for the elections

December 16, 2021
8 min read

Alessandro Scipione & Mauro Indelicato

The elections in Libya are increasingly uncertain in less than three weeks from the date of December 24, the day in which more than 2 million Libyans will vote for the future president and (perhaps) to renew the Parliament of 2014.

Diplomatic sources confirmed to Insideover that now, in order to understand how the new Libyan descourse will go, we need to wait for 10 December. For that day, however it goes, all the candidacies must be filed and, all appeals and counter-claims, the electoral campaign lasting at least two weeks must start. Otherwise, the vote will be automatically postponed for technical reasons.

In a few hours it will therefore be understood whether Libya can really go to the vote and with whom after the “battle” of the electoral appeals, which has seen some candidates playing dirty. However, the timing for the release of the official list of candidates depends on the next moves of the president of the High Electoral Commission, Imad al Sayeh.

 At the time of writing, it is underway in Qubbah, stronghold of the Speaker of the House of Representatives Agulah Saleh , a face to face meeting that could prove decisive.

Who are the candidates

No candidate had an easy way into the election. They all roughly had to face quite a few tragicomic episodes before seeing their name on the electoral roll. Starting with the son of Gaddafi . 

When he filed his quest at the constituency, Muammar’s political heir appeared on video in a traditional suit, a long beard and three fewer fingers on his right hand. We hadn’t seen himself in public for ten years, so his candidacy represented an important turning point in the electoral race. But there was no shortage of immediate appeals against him. 

Gaddafi is officially wanted by the International Criminal Court and this could make Libya, in the event of the election of the deceased dictator’s son, a president who will be unable to visit the West like the former Sudanese president Omar al Bashir .

Not only. Saif al Gaddafi was also sentenced to death in 2015 for his alleged role in the 2011 war , but received an amnesty from the Tobruk parliament. For days his lawyers were unable to file the appeal. Not for lack of arguments, but because of some militias linked to the army of General Khalifa Haftar,

They physically blocked the wayto lawyers in the Sebha court . Only on 2 December the appeal was filed and won, with Gaddafi officially (at the moment) admitted into the race.

Haftar presented the documentation in a Benghazi militarily controlled by him. It is difficult even to think that some Cyrenaica judge could put a spoke in the wheels of the strong man of Cyrenaica. 
A very strong candidacy would be that of the outgoing premier Ddedeiba .  But even that, there was no lack of appeals and twists. When the green light was given to the government he led, the premise was that no member of the executive should then stand for election. But the prime minister has become popular especially in the Greater Tripoli area , which boasts more voters and is likely to be decisive for the vote.

And in the end, every bureaucratic quibble was overcome. In truth, Ddedeiba should not have run for both, the position he held and the dual Canadian citizenship. Someone in the Libyan capital managed to file them, but they were for some reason rejected. 

After all, Haftar also has US citizenship and yet he was admitted to the game. Unclear rules and rules deriving from under-the-table agreements are creating various situations that are far from clear. However, it was to be expected. In Libya there is no state and therefore the real rule is that of the interests of the individual parties. 

Other important candidates are those of former Interior Minister Fathi Bashaga , and former Deputy Prime Minister, Ahmed Maitig. Both are from Misrata, like the outgoing premier. 

The candidacy of Aref Al Nayed should not be underestimated . There is also his signature among the plaintiffs against Ddedeiba. A native of Benghazi but belonging to the Warfalla tribe , the largest in Libya based in the west, Al Nayed nevertheless welcomed Ddedeiba’s admission to the electoral race with reconciling phrases. In total, there could be more than 90 candidates. But before you can have a complete picture, you have to wait for the date of December 10th.

The road to elections in Libya appears, as a frenetic race full of unexpected events. There is very little time available and the electoral process has been hampered by the so-called ” spoilers “, ie the forces that intend to spoil the stability. 

With the appeals phase closed and the list of participants announced, the electoral campaign should start lasting at least two weeks. That’s why December 10 is really the last useful date to avoid a postponement of the vote. It should also be emphasized that the way in which voting will take place is still not clear. 

The International Conference on Libya in Paris last 12 November reiterated in black and white the importance of holding free, fair, inclusive, credible and above all simultaneous presidential and parliamentary elections on 24 December 2021.

Yet, according to the bizarre laws issued by the Houseof the Representatives, the vote will be “stew”, with a first round of the presidential elections on 24 December and a second round in mid-February in conjunction with the parliamentarian: a bit like playing the Champions League final in two halves, at a distance of almost two months from each other. Not exactly the best.

UN, out of the game?

All this while the United Nations no longer seems to touch the ball. UN envoy Jan Kubis  succeeded in the arduous undertaking of winning the coveted ” wooden spoon ” for worst special representative  by resigning from office on November 17. Already last August 27 on  Insideover  we predicted that the United Nations plan to bring Libya to the elections was leaking from all sides. Yet it didn’t take a glass ball. 

The mandate of Slovakian Kubis will cease completely as of 10 December and his replacement, British diplomat Nicholas Kay , has been blocked by Russia’s veto from the Security Council.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres played his last card by reinstating Stephanie Williams, a former interim UN envoy for Libya. Last night, in fact, the number one of the Glass Palace  nominated  the US diplomat as “special adviser for Libya”, a position that allows you to immediately take action and circumvent Moscow’s veto. Sources in Tripoli quoted by ” Agenzia Nova ” report that “most likely we are moving towards a postponement of elections which Williams will have to manage”.

Main sponsors behind the candidates

In a context such as the Libyan one, where international interests have been concentrated for a decade, it is reasonable to expect foreign involvement in the elections. That is, each international actor could in fact bet on its own candidate. 

Outgoing Prime Minister Ddedeiba seems to be getting many to agree. He is a moderate, he has shown government skills at least in Tripoli, he has good relations especially with Italy and Turkey , his election would not displease the US. 

There seems to be good harmony with Draghi, as demonstrated by the bilateral meeting held in the Libyan capital last April. An eventual victory for Saif Al Gaddafi would create some embarrassment in the West. US and France wouldn’t take it very well. Russia would be betting on him . When his candidacy was in doubt, it was from Moscow that urges came in his favor. Perhaps, but it is not certain, Saif would also have sponsors in the United Arab Emirates .

For its part, Paris could look favorably on the advance of Fathi Bashaga, with whom it has formed good relations especially in recent months. On the other hand, the one who seems to have run out of allies is Khalifa Haftar. 

The general has always moved autonomously, giving headaches in the past to his own sponsors, from France to Russia, passing through the Emirates. Perhaps only Egypt of  could support him, but the impression is that the creator of’ Operation Dignity is in deep trouble.

Read More
Read More

Ongoing Dysfunction of Libyan Politics Threatens Elections

December 16, 2021
10 min read

Sami Hamdi 

Washington believes that elections in Libya can establish a new unified political legitimacy that can accelerate the process towards peace. The problem, however, is that the Libyan factions on all sides are preparing to violently reject the results.

Libyan Interim Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dabaiba arrives for a conference with world leaders in Paris, Nov. 12, 2021. Dabaiba filed a request on Nov. 21 to run for president (AP Photo Francois Mori, File)

Libya is due to hold elections on December 24 in a bid to establish a new unified authority that can lead the country out of its brutal chapter of civil war into an era of political dialogue and national reconciliation. Yet, despite suggestions of hope and change that an election process might usually be associated with, the overwhelming sense is that these elections will either be delayed or spark another round of war as parties prepare to reject unfavorable results.

The reality is that Libyan parties across the spectrum, and in both the East and West of the country, do not want elections. For the factions in the East that include warlord Khalifa Haftar and the Speaker of the House of Representatives Aguila Saleh, the prospect of elections threatens to create a new legitimacy for an authority that is not under their control. Worse, they will be pressured internationally into recognizing this authority and subjugating themselves to it.

Haftar has categorically stated in televised speeches that he will not “subject [his] army to a political authority.”

Haftar has categorically stated in televised speeches that he will not “subject [his] army to a political authority.” Until now, both Saleh and Haftar have been disingenuously asserting the contested legitimacy of the House of Representatives that was elected in 2014 and then ousted by the Tripoli factions that violently rejected their defeat at an election marred by low turnout.

The House of Representatives survived the various UN-brokered agreements between the warring factions as the official parliamentary body with legislative powers. These elections, however, threaten to bring an end to this dubious legitimacy that both Saleh and Haftar have used to pass laws in their favor without accountability.

For the factions in the West, the matter is just as complex. Unlike Haftar who has been able to impose himself on swathes of territory in Libya, both in the East and South, in Tripoli the factions continue to compete and remain mired in division and infighting. Despite having come close to annihilation during Haftar’s assault on the capital in 2019, the brush with defeat, that was only averted by a Turkish military intervention, did not inspire any reconciliation that might give rise to a unified bloc capable of imposing itself.

The continued wrangling was on full display when the Presidential council led by Khaled al-Mishry announced that the Foreign Minister Najla Mangoush was to be barred from leaving the country pending an investigation. The Interim Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dabaiba (also spelled Dbeibeh) responded by defending his foreign minister and asserting that the Presidential Council had no power to make such decisions. For observers, the situation was seen as Al-Mishry seeking to check a PM that is clearly becoming stronger and more influential.

For these competing factions in the West of Libya, the elections threaten to completely upend the fragile status quo and reshuffle the political scene. Holding elections has the potential to relegate those who enjoy power to the side-lines of politics and elevate those currently on the side-lines to the highest echelons of Tripoli’s political scene.

While Libya’s factions do not want elections, they have struggled to resist the international pressure to hold them.

Yet, while Libya’s factions do not want elections, they have struggled to resist the international pressure to hold them. More specifically, they have struggled to resist Washington’s assertion that they must take place irrespective of the fragile political and security environment.

Just as the Trump administration sought a quick fix to Libya’s civil war by allowing Haftar to assault Tripoli on the basis that a decisive military victory would put an end to instability, the Biden administration is seeking a quick fix by ramming through an election process on the basis that it will end the question of legitimacy and accelerate the political process.

Biden has impressed upon the Libyan factions that any spoilers will be punished all while seeking to rein in the international competition that has exacerbated the conflict. US aid to Egypt’s military has been cut. A jittery Saudi Arabia has reconciled with Qatar. Turkey and the UAE are in a rapprochement process.

Each of the regional actors is re-adjusting its foreign policy priorities on the basis that the Biden administration will not tolerate what the Trump administration did. Biden has also sought to contain its European allies, and Vice President Kamala Harris was dispatched to the Paris conference to prevent Macron’s attempt to seize the initiative and hinder the political process.

Moreover, the Biden administration has given the impression that it does not differentiate between the Libyan factions. In other words, it does not view the conflict in terms of “good versus evil”, or “right versus wrong”. There has been no attempt by Washington to prevent Haftar from running in the election despite pending court cases and accusations of war crimes. Instead, his trial in the US has been postponed until after the elections.

Similarly, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi is under an arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court (ICC) and charged with “two counts of crimes against humanity: murder and persecution, allegedly committed in 2011 in Libya.”

There also appears to be no real effort to affirm the rules of the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum which stipulated that the interim PM Dabaiba would not be able to run for office. Dabaiba has in fact confirmed his candidacy.

There is a continuation of a pragmatic US policy to work with individual factions across the spectrum.

There is a continuation of a pragmatic US policy to work with individual factions across the spectrum. In 2016, Washington worked with the militias of Misrata in the West on issues related to terrorism. And, Haftar was praised in 2019 by Donald Trump for his efforts against terrorism.

Issues related to the horrific mass graves discovered in Tarhuna that suggest evidence of war crimes appear not to have moved Washington which appears prepared to recognize the results of contested elections even if it delivers those accused of war crimes. For Washington, it does not matter who wins. What matters is the establishment of a new political legitimacy in order to unify the political field.

Washington’s insistence on elections has meant that until recently, none of the Libyan parties wanted to be seen as the “spoiler”. The parties instead have sought to bide their time in the hope that a rival will blink first, derail the process, and force a delay in the elections. But months passed and no one blinked.

Yet, while one might consider this a positive development, the reality is quite the opposite. The reason none of the parties “blinked” is because there is an implicit consensus that the elections are destined to fail, even if they take place on time.

Herein lies the crux of the problem. The issue in Libya is not elections. Libya has had elections in the past in 2012 and in 2014. In 2014, the problem was not elections. Rather, it was the refusal of the Libyan parties to recognize the results of the elections that were tarnished by low turnout and held following an attempt by the incumbent parliament to unilaterally extend its mandate.

The parties that lost proceeded to launch an armed takeover of the capital. And Haftar had already begun his military campaign in the East prior to the elections on the pretext that the General National Congress (GNC) had transgressed by unilaterally extending its mandate.

The situation in Libya today resembles that of 2014. The environment is tense. Factions are armed. There is no political consensus on the legitimacy of elections, nor even on the constitutional framework that should govern the process. The only difference this time is that there is a more open assertion by Libyan factions that they are preparing to reject unfavorable results.

“The factions of the West will take up arms and resist [if Haftar wins the elections].”

In an interview with Aljazeera, the head of the Presidential Council Khaled al-Mishry, who was also one of the architects of the overthrow of the results of the 2014 elections, said that “the factions of the West will take up arms and resist [if Haftar wins the elections]”.

Ironically, the loudest advocates for elections in Libya today are those associated with autocracy and authoritarianism. Khalifa Haftar, Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi, and others are all apparently keen to see the election process through, not because they suddenly support the democratic transition, but because they believe that irrespective of what happens in the election process, they will continue to play a significant role in the next chapter.

For Haftar, elections are a win-win situation. If he wins, he is President. If he does not, he has the military strength to resist all attempts at enforcing the results. Saif al-Islam believes that the nostalgia for the security of the past, as well as the increasing international prioritization of stability over democracy, means he stands a good chance of winning the popular vote and securing international recognition.

Meanwhile, it is clear that the environment in Libya is not conducive to free and fair elections. Candidates from the West are highly unlikely to be afforded the freedom by Haftar to campaign in the East. Likewise, Aguila Saleh, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, and Khalifa Haftar are hardly likely to be permitted to campaign in the West.

There are concerns that election results will be determined by the barrel of the gun; not a free exercise of the right to vote.

Kidnappings, forced disappearances, coercion, and arbitrary use of force remain prevalent across Libya, raising concerns that the results of any elections will be determined by the barrel of the gun; not a free exercise of the right to vote.

But then, perhaps that is no longer the priority for the international community which is more interested in stability and security as economic and political crises fuel nationalist tendencies and social polarization.

In reality, the problem is that these elections may not even achieve the stability and security that is being sought and appear more likely instead to ignite another war, one that promises to be even more bitter than the last. Yet, it may well be that the elections are delayed, or that only the parliamentary elections are conducted (instead of the presidential). Despite the December 24 date fast approaching, there is a real possibility that they will not go ahead.

Meanwhile, there is an unusual phenomenon emerging in Libya that bodes ill for the aspirations of those Libyans who were inspired by the Arab Spring wave. The perceived frontrunners of the elections from both the East and West of the country are all political figures from the Gaddafi era: Khalifa Haftar, Saif-al Islam Gaddafi, and the Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Al-Dabaiba. This in itself is a damning indictment of the democratic transition, but also a failure of the NATO-backed opposition that no longer inspires a healthy alternative vision as it once did.

***

________________

Read More

Read More

Libya’s Elections and Stability

December 13, 2021
7 min read
Nada Ahmed
With Libya preparing to hold elections in December this year, concerns related to their legal framework threaten the whole process and raise questions about the effectiveness of ensuring Libya’s stability in the short and long term.

Read More

Read More

The post-Haftar stage

December 13, 2021
5 min read

Abdullah Al-Kabir

The horizon has become blocked in front of Khalifa Haftar, and his political future is dependent on the developments of the American position on the Libyan crisis and the entire region, and judging by previous experiences, his fate, as well as the fate of his dynasty and his partners, is almost becoming clearer.

The Libya Stability Law, which was approved by the US House of Representatives, and is awaiting the approval of the Senate, will be a sword shed on many of the leading figures in the scene, led by Haftar. And because his sons were at the center of his bloody project after he granted them military ranks and assigned them to the highest positions in his militia, their fate will not differ from the fate of those who preceded them in crime from the sons of murderous leaders, as Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi are not the last of them.

There is an American insistence on holding the Libyan elections on time, and in the face of this slowdown in taking the necessary steps leading to them, America and Western countries are activating their diplomatic arsenal in parallel with the threat of sanctions, which may be disrupted by the Russian veto and the supportive Chinese position if they are discussed in the Security Council. Therefore, a special law was introduced in the Libyan situation that gives American institutions at all levels the space required to move and confront the Russian incursion into Libya and the Sahel region, which threatens their interests and the interests of its allies, and confuses the calculations of its upcoming conflict with China.

A few weeks before the House of Representatives voted on the law, Haftar’s agents concluded a contract with two lobbying group to promote Haftar in American political circles, and arrange meetings for him with officials in the White House, for the purpose of propaganda and showing American support for him in the Libyan presidential elections, but the contract was annulled after voting on the law, as lobbying group and public relations companies will not find an official who will accept to meet Haftar, who seems to have some chapters of the law completely tailored to him.

The trial before which Haftar is being tried in absentia now in Virginia, USA, in several cases, will be just a prelude to other cases that will be brought against him for committing war crimes against humanity during the years he ignited wars in Libya under the pretext of fighting terrorism, culminating in the attack on Tripoli in April 2019, before defeating his forces and mercenaries and their fleeing, dragging the tails of defeat after more than a year, leaving behind ruins, mines and mass graves.

His defense team did not present any pleadings to refute the charges against him, because he does not have any counter-arguments to stand up to the strength of the evidence presented by the victims’ lawyers, contenting himself with trying to immunize him from prosecution with allegations that he bears presidential responsibilities, claiming that Libyan laws punish those who provide information containing secrets belonging to the Libyan state with the death penalty, and the court rejected this alleged immunity, and gave Haftar two weeks to appear before it and be questioned before the verdict is issued.

Some news refers to an offer made by some of the major powers to provide a safe exit for Haftar, stability in the Emirates, and to stop obstructing the path of transformation in Libya. I am certain that the offer is correct, or at least it was presented as an option with a number of other options that America is studying with its allies, to make the political settlement successful in Libya, but it is necessary first to stabilize the situation in his areas of influence and prevent the spread of chaos. And if this news is true or become the best options. Will Haftar accept and obediently go into safe exile, abandoning the dream that has been imagining for decades in ruling Libya in the manner of Gaddafi?

Given the extent of the crimes committed by his forces and their documentation in several international reports, and the availability of the conditions for filing cases against him in Libyan and international courts, it is likely that he will not accept the offer, which will not protect him from prosecution for the remainder of his life.

There is a precedent for this: The former Chilean tyrant Pinochet remained immune from the judiciary even after his departure from power, but as soon as he traveled outside Chile, the international judiciary began to prosecute him for crimes and violations during his rule in Chile. He was held under house arrest for a year and a half in London, and his illness or advanced age did not prevent him from being pursued, but his inability to appear in court because of his severe illness prompted the Spanish judiciary to stop prosecuting him, and Britain allowed him to return to Chile to complete his days in isolation in one of its remote villages.

It is known that Pinochet turned against the elected Chilean President Salvador Allende in the seventies of the last century with the support of American intelligence, as he was one of its prominent agents in Latin America to confront the communist expansion, then it abandoned him after his expiration, as it usually does with its clients when they expire.

It seems that Haftar’s validity for American interests is nearing its end, and the issuance of the Libya Stability Law, and the termination of the contracts promoted by America to win the presidency of Libya in the upcoming elections, and the frequency of talk about a safe exit are only strong indications of the approaching phase of post-Haftar, which may be delayed if he chooses to escalate and not surrender to his inevitable fate. Does he still have some cards to continue playing and his popular credit has almost run out?

_____________

Read More

Read More

The Summit for Democracy Skips the Arab World

December 10, 2021
8 min read

Ben Fishman

To address the region’s democracy gap, Washington needs to develop consistent messaging on reform objectives and help its partners focus on achievable goals such as protecting free speech, dissidents, and civil society.

On December 9-10, the Biden administration will host a virtual Summit for Democracy as an opportunity to showcase how governments can still deliver for citizens amid a global rise in autocracy and populism. Toward that end, participating nations will be asked to make commitments on combatting corruption, defending against authoritarianism, and promoting human rights, with a focus on initial measures that can be implemented ahead of an in-person summit in 2022 or 2023.

Notably, of the 110 countries invited from every region of the globe, only one was chosen from the Arab world. More than a decade after the Arab Spring, the summit is an indictment of that movement’s failures and an acknowledgement of authoritarian resurgence and vitality in the Middle East. Israel is one of only two countries scheduled to attend from that region. The lone Arab invitee—Iraq—remains torn by constant civil conflict, while Tunisia was dropped from the list after President Kais Saied’s July power grab shook up the region’s best prospect for a healthy Arab constitutional democracy. Even so, the summit provides an opportunity for Washington and its democratic partners to recommit to fostering reform, good governance, individual freedoms, and human rights in the Middle East.

Quantifying a Poor Track Record

The shortcomings of Arab democratization have been well documented over the past twenty years. The landmark 2002 Arab Human Development Report cited limited political freedoms, a lack of female empowerment, and a knowledge deficit as core obstacles to the region’s advancement. Two years later, Arab foreign ministers issued a joint statement committing to expand participation and decision making in the political and public spheres, uphold justice and equality among all citizens, respect human rights and freedom of expression, ensure judiciary independence, and advance the role of women in society. In doing so, they essentially acknowledged that external factors such as the Iraq war or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were not the source of the region’s troubles. Despite their ambitious agenda, very limited progress occurred in the years leading up to the 2011 uprisings.

After the initial enthusiasm of the Arab Spring protests, many governments responded with measures that were wholly or partly aimed at avoiding deep change, including further repression (Bahrain, Egypt), limited reform (Jordan, Morocco), or, worse, the outbreak of civil war (Libya, Syria, Yemen). In the past decade, only Tunisia took steps that improved its Freedom House score, with the exception of some early electoral events in Egypt and Libya shortly after the mass protest movements of 2011. Other countries have stagnated or even regressed—for instance, Egypt now ranks lower than it did during the last year of Hosni Mubarak’s rule.

The Freedom House numbers for the Middle East are even more stark when compared to the rest of the world. The organization scores countries on a scale of 100, awarding 1 to 40 points for performance on political rights and 1 to 60 points for civil liberties. For the period 2011-2021, the average score for Arab countries is just 27—and that number decreases to 25 without Tunisia’s outlier performance. Iraq, the Arab world’s sole representative to the Summit for Democracy, scored 29 this year, which the organization considers “Not Free.” In contrast, the global average score for 2021 was 56.

Scholars have attributed the authoritarian resurgence since the Arab Spring to many factors: the specific traits of the region’s governments; their relationships with the security forces that protect them; the leaderless nature of many opposition movements; the fact that authorities were able to recapture much of the digital space used to organize the 2011 protests; the intervention of anti-democratic actors; and in some cases the breakdown into civil war. According to Freedom House, such factors have made the region as a whole 6 points less free than it was in 2013.

What Can Washington Do?

U.S. foreign policy will always face contradictions between interests and values, particularly in the Middle East, where many of the states that routinely violate human rights are the same ones that Washington relies on as partners for security, energy, and peace initiatives. The United States has two fundamental tools for mitigating these contradictions and pushing its values of reform, democracy, and human rights: (1) diplomacy, including public and private messaging; and (2) assistance programs to aid reformers, activists, and receptive governments.

Reengage diplomatically. Just before the Arab Spring, Washington sought to emphasize the need for reform across the Middle East in order to address the bubbling demands of the region’s citizens. As President Obama wrote in his memoir, “Under the emerging plan, U.S. officials across agencies would be expected to deliver a consistent and coordinated message on the need for reform; they would develop specific recommendations for liberalizing political and civic life in various countries and offer a range of new incentives to encourage their adoption.” The key concept was consistency of messaging from all parts of the government, including the Defense Department and intelligence agencies, which are generally the least inclined to focus on reform issues because of the nature of their relationships with foreign actors. Yet these channels are often the most important because regional military and intelligence officials tend to be far more influential than diplomats. In any case, Obama’s draft plan was soon superseded by crisis management, and a long-term focus on reform became implausible.

For the upcoming summit and its proposed “year of action,” the United States should reengage on these issues by focusing on the most achievable goals. These include improving freedom of speech and protecting journalists and activists in partner countries—especially Egypt, Jordan, and Morocco, whose crackdowns have increased of late. Such improvements will require frequent, high-level messaging to senior regional officials noting that the administration cares about these issues.

A vocal contingent in Congress and the human rights community has called for using arms sales as leverage to compel progress on such matters. Yet there is little evidence that this approach translates into more freedoms, and it directly contradicts the Biden administration’s overriding security objectives in the region—especially that of countering Iran’s military encroachments, weapons proliferation, and other destabilizing activities. In the short timeframe before the next summit, a more effective and achievable approach would be to maintain consistency of messaging on country-specific goals related to free speech, civil society, and governance.

Reevaluate and increase assistance funding. Democracy assistance comprises a tiny fraction of U.S. foreign assistance, especially in the Middle East, where the majority of funding goes to the militaries of Egypt, Israel, and, to a lesser extent, Jordan and Iraq. In 2019, programs aimed at encouraging partners to “govern justly and democratically” comprised less than 3.5 percent of total U.S. assistance to the region—a ratio consistent with the 3.9 percent average seen from fiscal years 2003 to 2019. Over the same period, around 25 percent of non-security-related assistance was dedicated to democracy programs.

In total, the United States provided $5.37 billion in democracy assistance to the region in 2003-2019, and $1.9 billion after the Arab Spring. These programs were limited to ten recipients over the past decade: Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia, and Yemen, along with Libya, Syria, and the West Bank/Gaza during certain periods. The remaining countries in the Middle East either refuse to accept such assistance or are too wealthy to legally receive it.

A future Washington Institute study will closely examine U.S. programs that support civil society organizations, elections, institutions such as legislatures and municipalities, and more. Yet for the purposes of this week’s summit, and in light of the region’s track record, it is quite clear that the contents of these programs need to be reevaluated. Moreover, the actual overlap between good governance, economic reforms, and democracy in the Middle East should be scrutinized. The administration wants to demonstrate that democracies can deliver by emphasizing the importance of anti-corruption efforts. Yet the United Arab Emirates and Qatar have the highest scores in the Middle East—and among the highest globally—on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, even though they remain two of the region’s least free countries.

To address these contradictions and the Middle East’s general democracy gap, the United States should develop consistent messages on reform objectives over the next year, helping its regional partners focus initially on protecting free speech, dissidents, and civil society. Washington should also evaluate democracy assistance programs and expand them appropriately. And when the second Summit for Democracy convenes, the goal should be to include more than one Arab state.

***

Ben Fishman is a senior fellow in The Washington Institute’s Geduld Program on Arab Politics.

_________________

Read More

Read More

Can Libya Become A Global Oil And Gas Power Once Again?

December 10, 2021
5 min read

Simon Watkins 

  • The decision last week by Libya’s Government of National Unity to approve the sale of Hess Corporation’s stake in the Waha oil concessions could reignite Libya’s oil boom.
  • While there may be a short-term drop off in output from Waha, in the long-term it will likely return to their previous impressive levels.
  • Ongoing political struggles could hurt the countries oil industry, but recent proposals from the oil and gas ministry on revenue sharing could help reduce those tensions.

Read More

Read More

The fall of Agilah

December 10, 2021
8 min read

Abdullah Al-Kabir, a Libyan writer 

What happened during the past week constituted a practical rehearsal for the milestones of the upcoming elections. The shell fired by the Speaker of House of Representatives (HoR) to withdraw confidence from the National Unity Government rebounded on him, revealing his low popularity while he was preparing to contest the elections.

The broad popular movement, which rejected it, forced him to go out to justify it via satellite channels twice, which reflects the state of shock he suffered, due to a folly that was not calculated with accuracy that suits the accuracy and sensitivity of the stage a few meters away from the election exam.

In his second appearance, he opened the door to retracting the decision to withdraw confidence from the government, trying to exonerate himself by placing the matter on the deputies. He indicated that consultations with the Highest Council of State (HCS) were continuing, after he had long denied the HCS’s partnership in drafting some laws in accordance with the political agreement.

Before his second appearance, Saleh waited for the scene of the demonstrations supporting him in Cyrenaica, hoping that thousands would gather, in order to confront the Government of National Unity in a new stadium that shook off the dust and returned to its effectiveness, but the meager few that came out in Benghazi, in parallel with the stops and statements in other cities in the east in support of the government, melted the ice Illusions revealed the truth in favor, He rushed to appear on a popular program giving a speech of retreat.

As usual, he repeated the reasons for withdrawing confidence from the government by focusing on the contracts it concluded with abroad, in line with the reasons for people’s support for the government, by reiterating his call to the government to continue supporting the youth, improving people’s conditions, and providing them with all services.

He rushed to appear on a popular program giving a speech of retreat. As usual, he repeated the reasons for withdrawing confidence from the government by focusing on the contracts it concluded with abroad, in line with the reasons for people’s support for the government, by reiterating his call to the government to continue supporting the youth, improving people’s conditions, and providing them with all services.

Saleh wants people to believe his concern for the Libyans’ money, due to the debts that foreign contracts may cause to the Libyan state. Immediately, social media and media sites retrieved the talk of some representatives about the corruption and waste of money, and published the bills of his boss Saleh’s extravagant expenses in luxury hotels. Outside the country, memories of his support for bloodshed returned, giving legitimacy and support to Haftar’s war on the capital, spreading destruction, devastation and mass graves.

Saleh wants people to believe his concern for the Libyans’ money, due to the debts that foreign contracts may cause to the Libyan state. Immediately, social media and media sites retrieved the talk of some MPs about the HoR corruption and waste of money, and published the bills of its speaker Saleh’s extravagant expenses in luxury hotels outside the country, and the memories of his support for bloodshed returned, giving legitimacy and support to Haftar’s war on the capital, spreading destruction, devastation and mass graves. Whoever claims to be keen on preserving money must first be keen to save blood, for it is first and more important than money and construction.

The Libyans describe the fortunate that the wind collects firewood for him, and this is what happened with the Prime Minister of the National Unity Government, Abdel Hamid Dbeibah, and the wind here is the stupidity of Saleh, who thought that he was playing politics with unparalleled skill, a veteran journalist who left the country for more than a quarter of a century, but remained captive to his regionalism, did not hesitate to describe Saleh as a shrewd fox.

While the truth is neither cunning nor political capabilities, but rather an exploitation of the contradictions of international interests around Libya, and the desire of active countries to calm the conflict prompted them to overlook its transgressions and intransigence. Just as the referee of a football match avoids the offenses of an arrogant and reckless player with influence in a backward country in order to bring the match to safety.

The development of the fabricated crisis by the Speaker of Parliament and some political parties, and the appropriate climate for escalation by the Prime Minister, prompted the international parties to intervene by calling on the parties to calm down and not escalate, and the message from the ministerial conference held in New York, on the sidelines of the annual meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, was clear.

There is no retreat from the December elections, and all parties must agree on the constitutional basis and election laws. For the first time with the new UN envoy Kubis, the UN mission issued a firm statement that downplays the importance of Saleh’s parliament’s decision, stressing that the government will continue its duties until the formation of a new government after the elections.

Exciting developments in a short time will prompt all parties to review their positions, and search for all possible options to remain on the scene, after the emergence of two variables that were not taken into account.

The return of the movement to the street, the rise of the prime minister’s star by his approach to the people, and his endeavor to meet their needs such as providing a grant to young people who are about to marry, implementing Parliament’s decisions to increase salaries, and initiating maintenance work for some facilities and roads, as well as his distinguished personal qualities.

His simplicity, and his uniqueness among all the passing personalities in the political scene, in addressing people in an informal language, sitting, talking and joking with them in cafes and other public spaces without pretension, and not showing the lavish manifestations of power. It had a profound impact on this change in the political scene.

The Libyans, like all Arab peoples, show loyalty to the king or ruler, and chant for his life and the perpetuation of his power, but deep down they hate him. Their muffled anger provokes manifestations of the domination that surrounds him. And their submission to him is only due to his power, his possession of the tools of oppression, and his ability to kill. While they voluntarily accept submission to the non-authoritarian ruler who avoids provoking them with extravagant appearances, is not superior to them, and lives on a level equal to their middle.

The apparent reason for killing Kulaib bin Rabia, the first king of the Arabs, was his killing of the she-camel of Al-Basous, so war broke out between Bakr and Taghlib for forty years. But the hidden reason is his exaggeration in vanity and arrogance and his contempt for others, a behavior that ignited feelings of hatred and resentment in the hearts of the contagious tribes, because it is an abhorrent approach that is unpalatable to the Arabs.

All polls and opinion processes indicate the overwhelming superiority of Dbeibah over all potential contenders in the presidential battle if presidential elections are held, and if his government’s good performance and its bias towards the people by working to improve their living conditions and mitigating the effects of the crisis on them, are the most important reasons for people to come out in support of him against Agilah Saleh’s decision and his party, and then the rise of his political star, the most important reason is his closeness to people, his humble behavior with them, his patience, and his simple and unpretentious speech, as he removed the stereotyped image of the ruler and the sultan, and active in the collective memory pictures of revered examples in history of the humble ruler who seeks to serve the people and not dominate them.

The last chapter in the parliament’s dispute with the government changed many of the rules of the political game, and then the scene of last Friday will redraw the map of political alliances, as much as Dbeibah will be ecstatic with this amazing success in polarizing the street, Saleh and his staunch ally Haftar will suffer from the effects of the shock, and they will not have much time to maneuver and shuffle the cards over the international insistence on implementing the elections on time.

________________

Read More

Read More

Libya — adrift in a fragmented world

December 7, 2021
6 min read

HAFED AL-GHWELL

The world’s dizzying array of crises, from COVID-19 to climate change, intensifying great power rivalry, and even the US “rationalizing” its presence in the Middle East, may seem a disjointed assemblage of unfortunate coincidences. However, these seemingly endless woes are a symptom of a conspicuous interregnum in global geopolitics. Read More

Read More

Protesting Against Inhumane Treatment in Libya, Refugees Call Out UNHCR

December 7, 2021
8 min read

Alessandra Bajec

For more than two months, thousands of refugees stranded in Libya have been protesting on UNHCR’s doorstep in Tripoli, demanding respect for their human rights and basic dignity.

A migrant who was aboard a precarious rubber boat with others jumps to the water as they are rescued by a team of the Sea Watch-3, around 35 miles away from Libya, in Libyan SAR zone, Oct. 18, 2021 (AP Photo Valeria Mongelli)

Some 3,000 migrants and refugees have spent the last couple of months camped out on the streets of Libya’s capital, Tripoli, staging an open-ended protest outside the offices of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to denounce the inhumane conditions they face in Libya, and claim protection and safety.

The sit-in kicked off at the beginning of October after the Libyan authorities conducted a brutal crackdown on migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees in the western neighborhood of Gargaresh, near Tripoli. Security forces arrested more than 5,000 people, including many recognized as refugees by the UN refugee agency, in what the Libyan administration described as a large-scale security campaign against illegal migration and drug trafficking.

The sit-in kicked off at the beginning of October after the Libyan authorities conducted a brutal crackdown on migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees.

Unarmed migrants were harassed in their homes, beaten, and shot during the operation. They were then rounded up over several days and sent to detention centers in Tripoli and surrounding towns.

Among the demonstrators are many of those who survived the October raids. Others are survivors of violent pushbacks to Libya while attempting to cross the Mediterranean, and those who suffered torture, arbitrary detention, persecution, and extortion before fleeing detention centers.

Such a demonstration is unprecedented. After seeing no change in spite of all advocacy efforts by human rights activists and international humanitarian organizations, the gathered migrants— who are of different nationalities from Sub-Saharan Africa, mainly Eritreans, Somalis, Ethiopians, and Sudanese— formed a self-organized assembly.

They nominated their own spokespeople to advocate for all of them and inform the public through social media by posting photos and videos, explaining the dire situation of men, women and children refugees in the North African country.

Through the Twitter account “Refugees in Libya,” the group has spoken up about their unacceptable living conditions.

Sleeping in a makeshift encampment, the protesters are in a poor, degrading state. In many cases, these are people with bodies scared with injuries endured under torture from traffickers. They are affected by severe malnutrition with no proper food. And although they raise money among themselves, it is not enough.

They are also sick with tuberculosis and other diseases that spread in the overcrowded, unsanitary detention camps they were held in. There are no public toilets available to them. And many of the refugees are in desperate need of medical aid. Pregnant women and girls have been giving birth at the encampment since public hospitals almost systematically deny migrants access to healthcare.

They are also sick with tuberculosis and other diseases that spread in the overcrowded, unsanitary detention camps they were held in.

“People are going hungry and freezing. They are forced to urinate and s**t wherever they can in the open air,” David Yambio, from South Sudan, one of the coordinators of the Refugees in Libya group and among the people who have been staying outside the UNHCR center, told Inside Arabia. He said there have been routine incidents of harm and abuse towards migrants from the local community as a result of the sit-in camp in the area.

“We feel like we’ve been abandoned, we’re not recognized as humans, our rights aren’t respected nor protected,” the refugee activist complained. “We created this group [Refugees in Libya] to raise our voices because we knew we had no other weapon to use.”

The protesters are demanding an end to the violence and immediate evacuation to safe countries. They are also calling on the Italian authorities and EU member states who are directing funds to Libya to make sure the forcible deportation to Libyan migrant detention facilities stops and to press for the closure of these facilities and the release of detainees.

By camping in front of a community center run by UNHCR, the migrants are hoping to be protected from further raids as they fear ending up in detention. Several of them have papers from the UN agency proving they have refugee status.

But as days and weeks have gone by, the scores of refugees demanding their legitimate rights have found closed doors from the UNHCR’s side. They are losing trust in the very people who are responsible for protecting them across borders.

The refugee agency temporarily suspended the community center’s aid operations for security reasons following the October crackdown. Although, it provides some limited aid to migrants elsewhere in the capital. The UNHCR is caught between restrictions imposed on it by Libyan authorities and the lack of will from Europe to find real solutions. Moreover, the agency has not engaged cooperatively with the people camped out in front of its premises to work towards possible resolutions or alternatives.

Violence erupted outside the agency’s head office in Tripoli on November 7 amid tensions with migrants demanding urgent aid and a quick departure from Libya. The group of refugee activists blamed the UNHCR staff and its security guards for the confrontations and slammed them for discriminating against African refugees, who were stopped from accessing the registration center, even as they allowed refugees of Syrian nationality to enter.

The mission chief of the Libyan agency, Jean-Paul Cavalier, said on Channel 4 in early October that his organization is not in the position to evacuate the refugees encamped near the UNHCR’s center— who are desperately seeking to leave the country— since Libyan authorities suspended humanitarian flights in recent months. Yet, despite the flights recently resuming, they are still infrequent and will benefit a very limited number of people.

The atrocities that migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees in Libya are exposed to have been known for a long time to the international public as well as to EU member states and institutions. Torture, sexual abuse, extortion, and serious ill treatment are commonplace in Libya’s overcrowded detention facilities, as rights groups have widely documented.

Human rights NGO Lawyers for Justice in Libya (LFJL) published a joint report, “No way out” in late November, providing first-hand accounts of survivors that detail the systematic abuse of refugees and migrants, namely arbitrary detention, slavery, murder, rape, and other inhumane deeds.

This report argues that these cruel acts may amount to crimes against humanity and, as such, the International Criminal Court (ICC) should investigate.

This report argues that these cruel acts may amount to crimes against humanity and, as such, the International Criminal Court (ICC) should investigate and prosecute armed groups, militias, and Libyan state actors involved. It also questions the role that the EU and its member states have in enabling these crimes.

In collaboration with survivors, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), and the Lawyers for Justice in Libya (LFJL) also filed a statement on grave crimes against refugees and migrants at the ICC, requestioning the opening of an investigation.

Europe’s migration policy infamously contributes to these crimes through its policy of supporting Libya intercepting asylum seekers and migrants at sea.

In the first nine months of 2021, the EU-trained and equipped Libyan coastguard captured more than 25,000 people and returned them to the war-torn country, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). Over 1,100 migrants were reported dead or presumed dead off Libya’s shores.

Back in Tripoli, the crowds of African protestors continue to make their struggle heard around the world. They feel let down and forgotten, but they have no one else to turn to for help.

“Things are very, very tough, but we keep pressing our demands. We don’t have another option, we have nowhere to go,” David uttered while alluding to the refugees’ precarious conditions in front of the shuttered UN facility. Concluding: “We don’t want to die here. This is why we’re appealing to the international community to step in.”

***

Read More

Read More

Haftar Sought Israel’s Blessings Before Announcing his Bid for Libya’s Presidency

December 4, 2021
7 min read

Israel’s support for anti-democratic movements and authoritarian regimes in foreign lands should not surprise anyone, given it’s anything but a democracy at home. Warlord and ex-General Khalifa Haftar is only the latest aspiring dictator seeking Israel’s support in his just-announced bid for Libya’s presidency.

CJ Werleman

While profoundly anti-Palestinian and ham-fisted in nature, the Trump administration’s Abraham Accords were essentially a continuation of President Obama’s “Pivot to Asia” national strategy, which depends largely on extricating the United States from the Middle East, both militarily and diplomatically.

The logic is that if Israel’s security is assured, and its Arab Gulf partners are aligned behind it, then the US can shift its focus and concentrate its resources against a rising and expansionist China in the South China Sea, disregarding the Palestinians, democracy, and human rights.

When the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain became the first signatories of the US-brokered Arab Pact to “normalize” Israel’s apartheid regime, regional analysts hailed the Abraham Accords as a “triumph for authoritarianism.”

The deal was a “reminder of why Israel, one of the region’s few democracies, prefers that its Arab neighbors not be democratic,” noted Shadi Hamid, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute.

Certainly, “prefers” is one way to describe Israel’s fondness for autocrats and dictators over democracies, but preference doesn’t fully contextualize how the Israeli state is proactively supporting anti-democratic forces and undermining burgeoning democratic movements throughout the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

Israel is a force multiplier for the latest crop of wannabe dictators.

In fact, one could describe Israel as a force multiplier for the latest crop of wannabe dictators.

On November 1, a private jet owned by the Libyan warlord General Khalifa Haftar, who leads what human rights groups view as among Africa’s most violent militia groups,  otherwise known as the Libyan National Army, departed from Dubai and landed at Tel Aviv’s Ben-Gurion Airport. On board was the ex-general’s son, Saddam Haftar, who was appointed by his father to serve as his right-hand man.

Saddam’s mission was clear: Seek military and diplomatic support from Israel by promising to establish diplomatic ties with Tel Aviv, should his father be successful in his bid to head the national unity and reconciliation government in Libya after the December 24 elections, as reported by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

According to The Times of Israel, “The son of Libyan warlord Khalifa Haftar reportedly visited Israel last week for a secret meeting with Israeli officials in which he offered to establish diplomatic relations between the two countries in return for Israeli support.”

Indeed, on November 16, Khalifa Haftar, the blood-thirsty commander and former CIA asset, officially announced in a television address that he would run for the presidency of Libya in December.

To be clear, Haftar has put himself in a position to contest the North African country’s leadership only after waging a more than five-year-long terrorist campaign against the internationally recognized Libyan government in Tripoli and pro-democracy and anti-dictator Libyans.

Not only does Haftar face charges of war crimes in three separate lawsuits filed in the United States, but the International Criminal Court (ICC) has also accused him of carrying out a “pattern of violence that involves the indiscriminate air strikes and shelling of civilian areas, arbitrary abduction, detention and torture of civilians, extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances and pillaging of civilian property.”

When I spoke with Ahmed Sewehli, a British Libyan pro-democracy activist who co-founded the Misrata Psychiatry Department in Libya, he said it’s become “quite fashionable” for wannabe despots to seek military and diplomatic assistance from Israel.

“If you want to become the dictator of an African or Arab country, go and seek support from Israel.”

“If you want to become the dictator of an African or Arab country, go and seek support from Israel. Especially when you’re on the back foot, like Haftar has been since his one-year assault on Tripoli came to nothing,” Sewehli told Inside Arabia.

There are also credible claims Israel conspired with the Sudanese military to overthrow Sudan’s democratic transitional council last month, putting in place a military dictatorship that has left the capital Khartoum soaked in the blood of pro-democracy protesters.

“I was shot along with nine people,” a protester told BBC News. “There were no warning shots, they just started to fire. The military…they’re like animals. Maybe animals are better.”

Not only did Sudanese military officials secretly visit Israel in the weeks leading up to the coup, but an Israeli delegation, which included defense and intelligence officials, also traveled to Khartoum in the days after the overthrow of the democratic transitional council,  according to the Times of Israel.

Unsurprisingly, Israel’s closest Arab allies, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, have also been accused of backing the coup, having always been “uncomfortable with the democratic transition,” and promising the military junta they will deliver infrastructure projects over the medium term.

The Biden administration is publicly urging Israel to “utilize its ties” in Sudan to restore the civilian-led transnational government. This demonstrates a willingness by Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett to exert Israeli force and influence far beyond its borders without the go-ahead from its number one benefactor – the United States.

This conduct, according to Yonatan Touval, a senior foreign policy analyst at Mitvim: The Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies, “betrays misguided diplomatic and strategic thinking.”

“Western powers are unlikely to accept the counter-revolutionary putsch in Khartoum. It is one thing to overthrow an Islamist leadership, even if it was democratically elected; it is another thing altogether to derail a political process that holds out the promise of a Western-oriented democracy,” Touval says.

Then, of course, there’s the way in which Israel derives huge profits from the sale of its repression management technologies and strategies to authoritarian regimes, as revealed by The Guardian.

NSO Group Technologies sold its Pegasus spyware with the “encouragement and official mediation of the Israeli government.”

Haaretz also uncovered that NSO Group Technologies sold its Pegasus spyware for hundreds of millions of dollars to the UAE and other Arab Gulf states to monitor pro-democracy and anti-regime activists, with the “encouragement and official mediation of the Israeli government.”

Ultimately, of course, Israel’s support for anti-democratic movements and autocratic regimes in foreign lands should not surprise anyone, given it’s anything but a democracy at home.

The Jewish state is well aware that the overwhelming majority of the Arab populations are against its repression and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank. And in fact, popular sentiment globally is increasingly shifting against Israel as both US-based Human Rights Watch and Israel-based B’Tselem accuse the self-proclaimed Jewish state of operating a system of apartheid.

It seems that a change in Israel’s unofficial motto as “the only democracy in the Middle East” may be long overdue. Israel today belongs to the same club of tyrants as the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and other military putschists and aspiring tyrants in the MENA region.

Read More

Read More

Elections or a parallel government in the East?

December 1, 2021
5 min read

Abdullah Al-Kabir, a Libyan writer 

After the failure of the plan to withdraw confidence from the Government of National Unity due to the popular protests and the massive demonstrations and the positions of municipal councils from all over Libya rejecting this step, with a decisive position from the Western countries and the United Nations represented in its mission to Libya supporting the government, the alliance of Haftar and Aqilah Saleh is taking another path to obstruct the elections scheduled for December, and to hold the government and other political parties responsible, by trying to weaken the government by withdrawing ministers and agents of the eastern region from it.

The statement of the Deputy Prime Minister, Hussein Al-Qatrani, in which he criticized the performance of the Prime Minister, accusing him of unilateralism in the decision, was the first step in this direction, the reaction of the government and international positions will determine the next steps, either towards an escalation with the collective resignation of the ministers and agents of the East in the government, thus forfeiting the status of the national unity government, or the prime minister and the parties supporting him will succeed in taming this rebellion through dialogue, by implementing some of the demands contained in the Al-Qatrani statement, the international positions, especially the American one, will have a decisive impact on the type of next steps.

Some of the reasons mentioned in the statement of protest against the Prime Minister are valid and require treatment, but not to the extent that ministers, agents and some municipal councils mobilize and protest. It was possible to address these reasons within the meetings of the Council of Ministers, or in a special meeting between the Prime Minister and the government members from the eastern region.

If equitable solutions cannot be reached, then Al-Qatrani has the right to escalate and threaten to resign, but the truth is completely different, and the argument of marginalization, and the demands of some social groups for their rights were only a pretext and a front for the undeclared political goal of this escalation, which is behind the ruling family in the East, Haftar and his sons.

The deputy prime minister or ministers have no right to demand the nomination of a minister of defense, as long as the prime minister bears this responsibility along with his other responsibilities, and it is an unimportant ministry at the current stage, Libya is not exposed to external aggression or threat until the government focuses its efforts in the confrontation through the Ministry of Defense, there are issues and files that are more urgent and need to be addressed urgently.

If the goal of activating the ministry is to unify the military forces, then all these forces must first recognize the government and submit to its decisions, and the roadmap for a political solution, and this did not happen by Haftar and his militias.

Rather, what happened is the exact opposite, and the government was prevented from holding its meeting in Benghazi because it did not offer the obligations of loyalty and obedience to Haftar, and its president did not go to Haftar to seek his love and satisfaction, as others did in previous governments, with the exception of the Salvation Government.

The scene of escalation against the government and the threat of the resignation of members of the Cyrenaica region is not new. Ali Al-Qatrani, Deputy Prime Minister of the Government of National Accord, Fayez Al-Sarraj, suspended his membership in the government several times and then left it, then the other deputy, Fathi Al-Majbri, followed him.

Haftar’s ambitions to rule by undermining the government and obstructing any project for it to gather the country’s diaspora were the main reason for provoking problems and putting obstacles in the way of any reconciliation that marginalizes Haftar, and paves the way towards a real reconciliation that would bring the country to stability and face all challenges, and between the first and the second Al-Qatrani, the scene did not change much, despite all the international efforts.

In parallel with Al-Qatrani’s protest statement, one of Haftar’s representatives in the House of Representatives issued a statement threatening to close the oil sector, the other card that Haftar threatens to use whenever his situation worsens, or he feels that the noose is tightening against him.

The conclusion is that we are facing a new chapter identical to previous chapters in which Haftar and his family move their papers according to the developments in the political situation, although the international situation bears a fair amount of difference this time, due to the growing American involvement in the Libyan crisis.

In light of this position and the international and regional reactions to these developments, we will know whether the elections will be held on time! This is the farthest possibility, given the continued lack of consensus on the legislative base and election laws. Or will a parallel government be formed in the east after the end of December 24 without elections? Which is the closest possibility.

________________

The promise and pitfalls of Libya’s high-stakes elections

November 28, 2021
11 min read
Alessandra Bajec
The list of controversial candidates reflects the chaotic climate surrounding the polls, amid disputes over the rules underpinning the vote, its legal basis, and whether free and fair elections are possible at all.
***

At the Paris conference for Libya on 12 November, participating leaders gave a final push for a plan to hold elections in December, reinstating their backing for the long-awaited presidential and legislative polls, a key step in the UN-backed peace process to end 10 years of violent chaos since an uprising toppled long-time ruler Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

The polls, slated for 24 December, were set through a UN roadmap adopted last year, which also established an interim unity government, led by Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, to take over from rival administrations in the country’s warring east and west.

Power will be at stake in the long-awaited election, starting with who will become the president and take the lead on Libya’s multiple problems.

But the twin electoral appointment is in doubt, with only four weeks to go and several thorny issues yet to be resolved.

Libya is still divided over how to hold the elections in December, as there is no agreement yet on the constitutional basis for the vote.

“The present conditions on the ground don’t guarantee credible elections. In a critical moment like now, there’s a danger of regional fracture between east and west with a cold war style scenario”

In early July, the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum (LPDF), a UN-appointed body of 75 Libyan representatives, failed to agree on a legal framework that would establish political checks, institutional balances, and organise power between the parliament, presidency, and military ahead of elections.

Consequently, Aguila Saleh, speaker of the House of Representatives (HoR) in eastern Libya, unilaterally enacted a draft electoral law in September, without a vote or a constitutional basis, that would govern presidential elections, sparking criticism from parliamentarians.

The legislation controversially allows military officials to put forward their candidacy on the condition that they withdraw from their roles three months beforehand, a move that critics say is intended to favour his ally, the eastern-based military strongman Khalifa Haftar.

But without an election law, the upcoming polls could be a difficult undertaking.

Umberto Profazio, a Maghreb analyst at the NATO Defense College Foundation and associate fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), considers “the absence of a clear, shared constitutional framework” to be one crucial matter endangering the course of the planned vote.

“The inability of the various political bodies and factions to agree on this legal framework poses a risk in that it may lead to new institutional chaos which could, in turn, create prerequisites for a return to armed violence,” the North Africa specialist told The New Arab.

“The electoral law is more important than anything else. Libyan factions have to find an agreement on this issue,” Karim Mezran, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, told The New Arab, warning against possible “legal challenges” from those contenders who do not succeed in the election.

In his view, the two-round presidential polls should be run over a brief span (of one month maximum) and not overlap with the parliamentary ones, so as not to give time for the losers to get organised, as, he says, they may be “tempted to undermine the validity of the electoral process”.

The scholar, with expertise on Libya, maintained that holding an election, far from bringing a solution, “will provide hope for a solution” in that a balance can be built and the country may move toward the creation of a more pluralistic governing body.

But if the polls do not materialise, he continued, some will feel betrayed by the international community, and there will be a temptation on the part of the conflicting sides, each backed by different foreign powers and militias, to remobilise on the ground.

The presence of foreign forces on Libyan soil is a complicating factor too. There has been no progress in forcing their departure, as envisaged in the ceasefire agreement of October 2020 that ended fighting between the country’s rival factions, which demanded that all foreign fighters and mercenaries leave Libya within 90 days.

The UN estimates that at least 20,000 foreign fighters remain in the war-torn country, including Russian Wagner Group mercenaries, Syrians, Chadian and Sudanese fighters, and Turkish troops.

World powers in Paris called for the withdrawal of mercenaries and foreign forces, and threatened to sanction those who attempt to disrupt or prevent the vote and the political transition.

At the request of France, which hosted the recent international conference, some 300 foreign fighters loyal to Haftar’s eastern forces – a rather symbolic number – are expected to initiate the pull-out from areas they control. Pro-Haftar forces remain in control of much of eastern and southern Libya.

The first batch in the mercenary withdrawal plan is required to be followed by Russia and Turkey pulling out fighters too. However, Turkey has shown little willingness to order its troops to leave having successfully pushed back along with Qatar, in June 2020, general Haftar’s self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA), supported by the United Arab Emirates, Russia, and Egypt, which had been attacking the UN-recognised GNA in Tripoli since April 2019.

Turkey has long specified a difference between the presence of its troops in Libya that were invited by the internationally recognised government and those imported by other factions. It is unlikely to act before forces in the east depart.

Russia, for its part, has denied sending any soldiers or mercenaries to Libya.

“If the polls do not materialise some will feel betrayed by the international community and there will be a temptation on the part of the conflicting sides, each backed by different foreign powers and militias, to remobilise on the ground”

Both Ankara and Moscow sent only lower-level representatives to the Paris summit, and they seem to have little incentive for pulling out their fighters ahead of an uncertain electoral scenario.

“Until there’s a new government that tells those powers to retreat from Libyan territory, they won’t leave,” Mezran said.

Mercenaries remain entrenched along frontlines despite last year’s ceasefire, as major external actors – Qatar, UAE, France, Italy, Turkey, Egypt, Russia, and the US – continue to use Libya as a proxy for their own ambitions, albeit in a less military way, and to preserve their interests in the oil-rich nation.

In the event of a disputed election or seizure of power, rival powers in the region could re-escalate their involvement towards a more direct conflict.

The still existing rift between the country’s east and west is another obstacle, even as the wider peace process strives to unify long-divided state institutions.

Deep divisions present in the fragile transitional environment have been marked by ongoing tensions between the HoR, the High Council of State (HCS) and Dbeibah’s government, which took office earlier this year. Tensions escalated in September after Libya’s parliament passed a questionable no-confidence vote in the newly established unity government.

The vote overseen by Saleh came less than two weeks after he ratified the contentious presidential election law seen as bypassing due process.

The division of state institutions, including the military, risks undermining the roadmap and plans for the forthcoming elections.

The candidacies of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, son of the former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, and eastern military commander Khalifa Haftar for the presidential election are problematic, to say the least.

Saif al-Islam, who appeared for nearly the first time in a decade to register as a presidential candidate, sided with his father in the 2011 uprising and threatened Libyans with killing and chaos. He was sentenced in absentia for his supporting role in a brutal crackdown on protesters during the revolution. He is still wanted on war crimes charges by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Haftar is accused of war crimes and waged war on factions in the west after the country split in 2014, including a 14-month offensive to seize Tripoli which was repelled by the GNA last year. He has also been accused of seeking to establish a military dictatorship in the country. Members of the LNA who are said to be under his command have been indicted for war crimes by the ICC.

The announcement of his presidential bid came two days after Gaddafi’s son announced that he was standing. He temporarily stepped down from his position as head of the LNA in line with the electoral law to allow him to run.

“In the event of a disputed election or seizure of power, rival powers in the region could re-escalate their involvement towards a more direct conflict”

Both candidates will be hoping to draw from the same pool of voters in the east. Gaddafi is likely to tap into nostalgia for the stability of his father’s rule. As for Haftar, he appears to be betting on the ballot box to win after failing to succeed through a more than year-long military campaign.

Residents across several western cities including Zawiya and Misrata quickly opposed Gaddafi and Haftar’s candidacies, and civil society members published statements of rejection of the two men’s participation in the election warning that their return to power would take the country back to square one.

The controversial candidates reflect the chaotic climate surrounding the polls amid disputes over the rules underpinning the vote, its legal basis, qualifications of those seeking to stand, and whether free and fair elections are doable.

Former Libyan interior minister Fathi Bashagha and parliament speaker Aguila Saleh joined a growing list of candidates for the presidential election set. Saleh was sanctioned by both the US and European Union after he refused to recognise the UN-supported GNA though the sanctions were removed early this year as the peace process evolved.

Dbeibah, whose main mandate is to prepare the country for December elections, registered his bid for the presidency despite previously vowing not to run for office as a condition of taking his current position.

IISS’ Profazio argued for the need for a “reset” in today’s Libya and anticipated with concern that, given the line-up of key figures from the past decade, the forthcoming vote will restore faces from the old regime instead of bringing about a generational turnover.

According to the Atlantic Council’s Mezran, virtually any of the Libyan actors and foreign powers involved in Libya could prove to be spoilers. In particular, he raised alarm over possible violent reactions from groups in Zawiya and Misrata. “Those people who don’t feel represented won’t vote, and losing candidates may go as far as unleashing their military power,” the Libya expert predicted.

Profazio pointed to the circles close to the Libyan Muslim Brotherhood and Tripoli-based HCS, which is headed by Khalid al-Mishri, as likely spoilers who fear that Haftar, a potential frontrunner, may be elected president.

Mishri recently called for a boycott of the vote after previously claiming that electoral laws had been written by Haftar’s foreign backers, and even threatened to resort to violence to stop the eastern commander from taking office if he is elected. Politicians and warlords in western Libya issued statements opposing holding the elections according to the laws ratified by the eastern-based parliament.

The North Africa analyst underlined the risk of election manipulation and voter fraud, and the fact that the results of the presidential election will not be accepted as legitimate by all parties.

“Mercenaries remain entrenched along frontlines despite last year’s ceasefire, as major external actors continue to use Libya as a proxy for their own ambition”

“The present conditions on the ground don’t guarantee credible elections. In a critical moment like now, there’s a danger of regional fracture between east and west with a cold war styled scenario,” he hinted.

There are early signs that some factions in Libya may be positioning themselves to dispute the vote if it is held.

Human rights groups have also questioned whether Libya can hold free and inclusive elections.

“Can Libyan authorities ensure an environment free of coercion, discrimination, and intimidation of voters, candidates, and political parties? Is the judiciary able to deal promptly and fairly with elections-related disputes?”, Hanan Salah, senior Libya researcher at Human Rights Watch (HRW), asked.

Notwithstanding the political wrangling over the rules of the contest and contenders viewed in some regions as unacceptable, the forthcoming election is seen by most Libyan factions and foreign powers as the only option to bring stability.

Mezran is adamant that the main international actors should be monitoring and supporting the process, but not interfering. “It’s important that they stay on a watching position, but they need to keep out”.

***
Alessandra Bajec is a freelance journalist specialising in the Middle East and North Africa. Previously living in Palestine, then in Cairo, she is currently based in Tunis.

___________

Read More

Read More

Moscow builds ties with Tripoli government before December vote

November 24, 2021
6 min read

Kirill Semenov

A delegation of the Russian General Staff visited Tripoli on Nov. 10. The Russian military was received by the chief of staff of the Libyan army controlled by the Presidential Council, Lieutenant General Mohammed al-Haddad, and other leaders of the armed forces operating in western Libya.

Col. Gen. Alexei Kim, deputy commander-in-chief of the Russian Ground Forces and head of the Russian delegation, said that he arrived in Tripoli “to renew and continue to develop relations,” as well as “to reaffirm his readiness to work and support the Libyan army.”

Haddad, in turn, emphasized “the depth of relations between the two countries” and “the role of the Russian military establishment in the restoration of the Libyan army.”

“We hope that Russia will play an important role in uniting the Libyan armed forces,” said the head of the Libyan General Staff.

Libyan armed forces are still divided. Despite the fact that the leadership of the armed forces should be in the hands of the chairman of the Presidential Council of Libya, Muhammad Menfi, his command applies only to the armed formations in the west of the country. These forces fought against the commander of the so-called Libyan Arab Armed Forces (LAAF), Khalifa Hifter, and repelled his offensive in Tripoli in 2019-2020. Hifter himself refuses to obey the orders of the chairman of the Presidential Council and his chief of staff, Haddad, who was the head of the central military zone during the battles for Tripoli.

At the moment, the LAAF is an independent army in the east and south of the country, while the west of Libya is controlled by the military forces of the Presidential Council. Despite statements about the need for their integration, no practical steps have been taken. Also, according to the UN, Russian private military contractors that support the LAAF are still in Libya.

At the same time, Moscow has no doubts about the legitimacy of the new composition of the Presidential Council, headed by Menfi, and the Interim Government of National Unity (GNU), chaired by Abdulhamid Dbeibah. The GNU was approved by the House of Representatives on March 10, 2021. Dbeibah visited Russia in April, where he held talks with the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Mikhail Mishustin.

Nevertheless, a new moment in relations between Moscow and Tripoli was the recognition by Russia of those military formations that operate under the auspices of the Presidential Council in western Libya. It was these forces that fought against LAAF under Hifter. Earlier, Moscow, although it was in contact with the Government of National Accord (GNA) of Faiz Sarraj, the predecessor of Dbeibah, avoided any official relations with these military structures, and many Russian media and pro-Kremlin activists called these armed groups “terrorists.”

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has repeatedly received Hifter in Moscow, and all Russian-Libyan ties in the security sphere were conducted through Hifter. But Hifter is now forced to share his role in the field of defense and security with Haddad.

Hifter and Seif al-Islam Gadhafi (the son of late Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi), who were considered Russian favorites, have both applied as candidates in the presidential elections set for Dec. 24. However, Moscow is in no hurry to express its open support to either candidate.

In fact, there is skepticism in Russia about the support for the younger Gadhafi among the Libyans. In particular, according to Mikhail Bogdanov, special envoy of the President of the Russian Federation for the Middle East, Gadhafi is supported only by “certain tribes in certain regions of the country.” Nevertheless, Russia is likely to continue to maintain contacts with him, hoping he can act as an important re-balancer or spoiler in the elections and in the future can also play in the interests of Moscow.

Many other possible presidential candidates are acceptable to Russia, including Agila Saleh, chairman of the House of Representatives, as well as former deputy prime minister in the government of Sarraj Ahmed Maiteeq, with whom the Russian side has developed a constructive dialogue. This also applies to the current interim leaders of the country — Menfi and Dbeibah. Thus, Russia seeks to put its eggs in different baskets.

Probably the most uncomfortable figure for Russia is Fathi Bashagha, the former Minister of Internal Affairs of the GNA. However, Bashagha was looking for opportunities to establish closer contacts with Russian officials, according to sources familiar with the mediation between Russia and Libyan politicians.

Moscow also likely realizes that it will have to continue to work with the current Presidential Council and  GNA for some time, possibly much longer than one or two months, if the elections in December are postponed. Therefore, Russia is actively cooperating with the current interim Libyan authorities.

In particular, at the end of October it was decided to create a “joint Libyan-Russian committee”, which will deal with trade and economic cooperation between the two countries. From Libya, Minister of Oil and Gas Mohammed Aoun was appointed as co-chairman, while from Russia, Minister of Energy Nikolai Shulginov was placed on the committee. 

In turn, the Russian oil production company Tatneft resumed geological exploration in Libya, according to a report by the Russian TASS agency on Oct. 15. “Currently, the company is starting to complete work on the wells of one of the contract blocks, the drilling of which was suspended due to the situation on the ground,” Tatneft said.

Now, according to Nail Maganov, General Director of Tatneft, the company is ready to fully resume oil production in Libya, and for this Tatneft plans to create a joint venture with the National Oil Company.

Also, the Russian Gazprom EP International resumed oil production in Libya as part of a joint project with Wintershall Dea in the fall of 2020.

Thus the activity of Russian oil companies in Libya may lead to the legalization of the activities of Russian private military contractors, which will be concentrated on protecting Russian concessions or training Libyan security guards.

In addition, the Russian military’s contacts both with the structures of Hifter and with representatives of the general staff in Tripoli may allow Moscow to create its own military facilities. This will initially have the goal of facilitating the training and education of the Libyan military and integration of all armed groups operating in Libya into a single army. Also, one cannot exclude the possible coordination of Russia and Turkey in this direction to maintain their own military presence in this country, despite international pressure.

Read More

Read More

The surreal scene in Libya

November 24, 2021
6 min read

Dr Amira Abo el-Fetouh

There is no doubt that the appearance of Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi, wearing his father’s cloak while presenting his candidacy papers for the presidency, provoked the wrath and anger of millions of Libyans, who revolted against his criminal tyrant father in a great revolution that he could not confront. Read More

Read More

Will the Libyan elections lead to calm or chaos?

November 19, 2021
7 min read
Motasem A Dalloul

International leaders and diplomats met in Paris on Friday, discussed the situation in Libya, and decided that the oil-rich North African country should stick to the UN plan to hold presidential and parliamentary elections next month. “We stress the importance for all Libyan stakeholders to mobilise resolutely in favour of the organisation of free, fair, inclusive and credible presidential and legislative elections on 24 December,” the official statement released after the meeting confirmed.
The rival powers in Libya — the UN-backed government and the forces run by renegade Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, who was backed by France, Egypt and the UAE, among others — agreed a ceasefire in October last year. The deal included the date for the elections.
The ceasefire ended a decade of violence which erupted following the popular uprising that removed Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. International powers, including France and Russia, were involved in the chaos, either through their own forces and mercenaries fighting alongside Haftar, or through sending weapons and military equipment to him.
In a video message to the Paris Conference, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said: “Libya today is closer than it has been for many years to solving its internal crisis and breaking the cycle of political transitions. We cannot miss this opportunity.” He reiterated that the elections are an “essential next step on the road to peace and stability which has to be built on a strong foundation of inclusive and credible frameworks that can guarantee its success.”
There is an apparent desire locally, regionally and internationally to complete the transitional period in the war-torn country. However, the timetable and the controversy over the candidates are likely to plunge the country into chaos and armed conflict yet again.
During his address to the UN General Assembly, the President of Libya’s Presidency Council of the Government of National Unity, Mohamed Younis Menfi, said: “Libya is at a critical juncture – indeed a defining moment… Either we succeed in our democratic transition through free, fair and transparent elections, the results of which are acceptable to all… or we fail and relapse into division and armed conflict.”
Paris Conference on Libya: dodging the hard questions while ignoring the easy ones
One of the obstacles that could lead to chaos is the insistence on foreign forces leaving the country, which was a condition of the ceasefire agreement. According to French President Emmanuel Macron, a new commitment by Haftar’s forces in the east to remove 300 foreign mercenaries from the country “must” be followed by Turkey and Russia pulling out “their mercenaries”.
Russia’s Wagner Group has mercenaries in Libya, although it is denied that they are there under Moscow’s control. They are in Libya to support Haftar, and entered the country illegally and in violation of international law. Turkey’s troops, however, are in Libya at the invitation of the internationally-recognised government. Equating the two, as Macron appears to be doing, is unjust. “The mercenary withdrawal plan must be implemented. Russia and Turkey must withdraw their mercenaries without delay,” Macron said after Paris conference. Turkey replied that “France has no right” to make such a call.
Indeed, Turkey suspected that there was a hidden agenda for the Paris conference, so it sent a lower-level delegation. Russia also knew that its presence in Libya was being targeted, so it also sent a lower-level envoy to Paris.
France is part of an international mobilisation against Turkey. Macron knows very well that the Turkish presence in Libya does not violate international law, but still said that, “Individuals or entities, inside or outside of Libya, who might attempt to obstruct, undermine, manipulate or falsify the electoral process and the political transition” could face sanctions.
The French are not alone is seeking to get a share of post-Gaddafi Libya’s oil wealth. That is why global powers want to install a pliable dictator on the country who they can control, as they have in other countries. Such a person will care little about the people of Libya.
Gaddafi son to run for president - Cartoon [Sabaaneh/Middle East Monitor]

Gaddafi son to run for president – Cartoon [Sabaaneh/Middle East Monitor]

There are two possible candidates for this role: Haftar — who has dual Libyan and US citizenship — and Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi, the son of the late dictator. Both can serve the interests of external powers at the expense of the blood and wealth of the Libyans.
This is why those who met in Paris last week stressed the term “inclusive” when discussing the Libyan elections. They insist that there should be no veto against anyone regardless of who they are and what they have done.
Haftar is not popular in Libya due to his hostility to the legitimate governments and the fact that he has Libyan blood on his hands. The same is true of Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi, who was active in his father’s oppressive regime. Their popularity ratings are falling even more given their renewed links to the Israeli occupation regime.
Al Jazeera said of Gaddafi: “He remains something of a cypher to many Libyans, having spent the past decade out of public sight since his capture in 2011 by fighters from the mountain region of Zintan… Complicating his presidential ambitions, Gaddafi was tried in absentia in 2015 by a Tripoli court at which he appeared via videolink from Zintan. He was sentenced to death for war crimes, including the killing of protesters… but was later pardoned.”
Despite this, and despite being wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes, Gaddafi, a graduate of the London School of Economics, is still seen as a friend by the West.
Moreover, Al Jazeera pointed out: “Backed by Russia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, Haftar, a former CIA asset, is a controversial figure, despised by many in western Libya for last year’s devastating Tripoli offensive. He has also been accused of seeking to establish a military dictatorship in the country. His decision to run [as a presidential candidate] will anger many in the capital city and western regions who claim that no vote in areas he holds can be fair and who accuse him of war crimes during the assault, something he denies.”
According to the UN-backed reconciliation agreement, the main duty of the interim government of Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh is to prepare Libya for the presidential and parliamentary elections. Dbeibeh has expressed his concerns on several occasions that the country is not ready for the elections on 24 December and has proposed delaying them. He is not alone in thinking this; many popular and revolutionary groups and officials in Libya say the same. Local councils across the country are adamant that “war criminals” should not be allowed to stand as candidates.
It seems, though, that the world powers are ready to interfere in the election process. Hence, their insistence that they should go ahead on schedule. This is going to be problematical.
“The danger lies in bypassing the referendum on the draft constitution with numerous excuses given. The fatal danger is presidential elections without approval of the constitution by the people,” mused a member of the High Council of State in Libya, Abdurrahman Shater. He believes that the country needs additional time to finalise the election process and the law because “There is an international plot for the installation of a new dictator.”
February TV reported the Head of the Defence and National Security Committee in the Libyan Parliament, Kamal Al-Jamal, as saying that, “We reject everything that allows people wanted to face justice running in the elections.”
Many in Libya believe that the election results will not be respected if they go ahead in the absence of the constitution and amidst the ongoing divisions in the country. Real reconciliation that would end the chaos, violence, divisions and conflicts in the country completely should be based on elections that need a constitution and clear laws if they are to be free, fair and transparent.
“We all know that the road to reconciliation is long and arduous and to get to the end, applying transitional justice, truth, openness, acknowledging past wrongs, reparations and identifying the missing are all necessary,” concluded Mohamed Younis Menfi. “Only with these steps can we move toward a successful genuine national reconciliation.”
***
Motasem A Dalloul – The author is MEMO’s correspondent in the Gaza Strip.
_______________

Conclusions of Paris Conference on Libya

November 15, 2021
18 min read

Sami Zaptia.

On 12 November 2021, the President of the French Republic, the Federal Chancellor of Germany, the President of the Italian Council of Ministers, the Prime Minister of the interim Government of National Unity of Libya, and the Secretary-General of the United Nations, co-convened a conference of Heads of State and Government on Libya, in Paris, in support of the implementation of a Libyan-led and owned political process facilitated by the United Nations leading to a political solution to the Libyan crisis.

Read More

Read More

Libya needs 5G and 5G is ready for Libya

November 11, 2021
4 min read

Sami Zaptia

.

Speaking today exclusively to Libya Herald at the Taqnya ICT 2021 exhibition (Tripoli, 9-12 November), Ericsson Libya Country Manager, Andrea Missori said Libya has an important need to close the gap on fixed broadband and fiber deployment and mobile technology can work as an accelerator. Read More

Read More

Libya’s migrants and crimes against humanity

November 11, 2021
7 min read

Omer Karasaan

The U.N.-brokered process in Libya focused on the withdrawal of foreign mercenaries and parliamentary and presidential elections in December 2021 remains fragile. Still, the High National Elections Committee said that nominations for the presidency would start in November with voting cards distributed within weeks. Much is uncertain, including the powers of the presidency. 

Aside from token moves, those who remain include mercenaries brought in by Russia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and others to support General Haftar’s eastern-based Libyan National Army (LNA) and those brought in by Turkey, the main supporter of the Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli. Reconciliation appears far off but there has at least been a respite of over a year from fighting.

These developments must have been welcomed by the over 600,000 migrants in Libya, a destination and transit country for migrants hit hard by the conflict and worsened economic conditions exacerbated by the pandemic. But the situation appears to be worsening for those seeking asylum in Europe through the Mediterranean, and especially sub-Saharan Africans who the U.N. says are uniquely vulnerable, pointing to racism.

Many are brutally detained in centers managed by the GNA’s Department for Combating Illegal Immigration (DCIM) and secured by militias. Often it is Frontex, the EU border and coast guard agency, who guides the Libyan Coast Guard in illegally pushing back and detaining those seeking asylum in Europe. That cooperation increased after Italy signed a memorandum of understanding in 2017 with the GNA in Tripoli. Conditions in detention centers were already well known; German diplomats compared them to concentration camps.

A recent Amnesty International report speaks of the “hellscape of detention.” Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) withdrew from two official government detention centers because of violence and inhumane treatment last June. Yet, despite the Geneva Convention and EU legislation prohibiting returning asylum-seekers to unsafe territories and a European Court of Human Rights ruling citing torture and death in Libya, the practice continues.

On October 1, 2021, Ministry of Interior militias ostensibly moved against drug and human traffickers. No such arrests were announced, but over 5,000 migrants, including 540 women—some pregnant—and 215 children were violently detained. According to MSF, “Entire families of migrants and refugees … have been captured, handcuffed and transported to detentions centers … people have been hurt and even killed; families split up, homes reduced to piles of rubble.”

Taken to miserably overcrowded detention centers in Tripoli already holding 7,000 people, they face extreme physical violence, including sexual violence and torture. There have been numerous attempts at escape with many shot dead, others rearrested to return to brutal detention and starvation rations. The U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR), which had assisted and registered most of the detained closed its day center in Tripoli when hundreds overwhelmed the facility asking for protection.

Why was the operation mounted? The answer likely lies in a cruel if lucrative business model around migrant exploitation in parts of Libya, with aspects of it increasingly in other Maghreb countries, even victimizing vulnerable locals. The Clingendael Institute says it is now more profitable to detain and further exploit migrants than get them to Europe. Detainees are beaten, tortured, and starved to get funds from their families and friends.

They are subject to forced labor and forced prostitution, many are enslaved and sold, often from detention centers. In an October 2021 report by its Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Libya, the U.N. noted the commission of crimes against humanity, including in its section on migrants. Furthermore, EU border protection at any cost and pandemic closures mean that routes used by human smugglers and those for drugs, guns, and human trafficking now overlap, further endangering migrants.

The timing of the operation may lie in the pandemic’s impact on the economy and migration patterns in sub-Saharan Africa. A World Bank phone survey in 41 countries of the region underlined that the pandemic has seriously hurt livelihoods, food security, and human capital. Many, especially women, have lost employment, mostly in cities and towns.

Closures and mobility restrictions have hurt all. Agricultural income too has declined as markets closed and prices fell. Tellingly, remittances from migrants proved surprisingly resilient and, excluding Nigeria, increased by 2.3 percent in 2020 with a 2.6 percent increase expected in 2021.

The Mixed Migration Center sees the pandemic as “a threat-multiplier, compounding existing risks and vulnerabilities for refugees and migrants.” While COVID-19 may have increased the desire to migrate, it also brought decreasing resources to do so and additional fears. Thus, sea departures to Europe of sub-Saharan Africans declined even as sea departures of North Africans increased. With the flow of sub-Saharan Africans diminished—the main victims of the detention centers and enslavement—the  thousands detained in Gargaresh will allow militias to extort more funds, forced labor, and forced prostitution. For many, this would not be the first time they had to pay their way out. According to the U.N., some migrants have endured this horrific loop over 10 times.

Aside from the over 12,000 detainees, thousands of migrants remain in hiding and 4,000 are encamped at the UNHCR center, desperately seeking evacuation. One Gambia-bound evacuation flight was allowed, after a suspension of flights by the Ministry of Interior in August. Yet the EU continues to cooperate with the Libyan Coast Guard and other government agencies, having sent $455 million since 2015.

And while investigations into the role of Frontex have been launched by the EU parliament, the European Ombudsman, the European Court of Auditors and other agencies, little has changed. The impunity with which Frontex and EU border and coast guard national agencies operate continues undiminished. EU agreements and legislation on human rights, including the right to apply for asylum are breached daily, including violent pushbacks along the Aegean route to Greece from Turkey and in the Balkans.

Amnesty International noted in July 2021, “Violations documented against refugees and migrants are not an accident but rather the clear and anticipated outcomes of an EU-supported system of interception, disembarkation and return to detention centers notorious for abuse, built with the aim of keeping refugees and migrants out of Europe at all costs.”

 Yet, in a political environment in which France’s far right leader, Le Pen, is being outflanked on her right by a Trump-inspired outsider, Eric Zemmour, and even Denmark’s social democrats articulate a vision of a country with no asylum-seekers, the growth and persistence of anti-immigrant policies comes as no surprise.

Yet over the past year, there have been growing countervailing voices and actions. It was two 2020 investigative articles by a consortium of newspapers and the investigative media organizations Bellingcat and Lighthouse Reports on Libya and the Aegean route that prompted EU’s Frontex probes.

Furthermore, on May 25, 2021, three NGOs, Front-Lex, the Progress lawyers Network, and the Greek Helsinki Monitor, took Frontex to the European Court of Justice. In a first, on January 2021 Frontex ceased operations in Hungary after the European Court of Justice ruled that Budapest violated EU rules when it pushed back asylum-seekers to Serbia.

Currently, Matteo Salvini, former interior minister and head of Italy’s right-wing League party, is in court on kidnapping charges for his 2019 denial of entry to a ship carrying migrants and asylum-seekers abandoned at sea. These are harbingers of hopefully a more humane approach to dealing with the reality of migration. All the EU has to do is follow its own values, laws, and regulations and insist on meaningful sanctions on its Libyan counterparts; and cease assisting lawless groups.

_________________

The FBI is investigating the role of Erik Prince in the Libyan mercenary plan

November 3, 2021
8 min read

The FBI is It is investigating a failed mercenary plan related to the Libyan civil war in 2019 and has tried to find out what role private military contractor Erik Prince, if any, played a role, according to six people aware of the investigation. Prince has not been charged with a crime.

Federal researchers began investigating Prince’s involvement in Jordan’s military helicopter and arms sales company last summer as part of a 2019 plan to help Libya’s declared leader Khalifa Hifter defeat the country’s UN-backed government, according to four experts. research.

The FBI declined to comment.

In February, a UN investigation found that Prince and others had violated the arms embargo on Libya and described in detail parts of a secret attempt to get a team of mercenaries and planes for an assassination unit to support Hifter. Prince has denied involvement in a project called Project Opus, and told the New York Times that he had never met or talked to Hifter.

Prince’s attorney Matthew Schwartz said his client had nothing to do with the mercenary plan. “As Mr Prince has repeatedly said, he had no involvement in the alleged military operations in Libya in 2019, and the report, which suggested otherwise, was based on an incomplete investigation and was based on biased sources.”

In particular, FBI agents from the Washington Field Office have inquired about Prince’s role in creating modified vacuum cleaners and trying to market it as a military aircraft for use in conflicts around the world. The planes were to be used in a broader effort to help the apostate Libyan army commander take control of the Libyan capital, Tripoli.

Intercept described Prince’s repeated efforts to help move planes and other material from Jordan to Libya, including arranging meetings with then-President Donald Trump, a member of the National Security Council, but Jordanian government officials suspended the agreement. Prince worked with Royal Feisal ibn al-Hussein of Jordan to arrange for the sale and transfer of arms, according to three individuals aware of the arrangement. This summer, FBI agents tried to interview Feisal and several others working with him, according to two people who know about the FBI’s activities in Jordan. Feisal, through the Jordanian embassy in Washington, previously denied that he had any share in the plot or relationship with Prince.

Related

The UN report traced the rapid sale and transfer of three aircraft owned or controlled by Prince to a close partner for use in the Libyan plot. The machines included a modified harvesting machine created by Prince when he was CEO of Frontier Services Group, a Chinese security and logistics company he founded. According to a UN report, only Prince “was able to approve the sale and / or transfer of all three aircraft to support the operation in such a short time.”

The UN also tracked the transfer of aircraft from Prince’s controlling companies, including Frontier Services Group, to a mercenary company based in the United Arab Emirates and affiliated with Prince. “One rapid transfer could be explained,” the UN report said, “but not three different companies, all under the effective control or influence of one person.” The UN is cooperating with the FBI investigation.

In April, two months after the UN documented a change of ownership of Frontier Services Group aircraft, the FSG announced Prince resigned from the company “because of its other business arrangements.” Schwartz, Prince’s attorney, said in an email that his client resigned “from a disagreement with the performance and direction of the company’s management. Any suggestions that his resignation had anything to do with the UN panel report are false.

With plans to move the plane to Libya and major mercenary efforts disintegrated, one of the planes was transferred to Cyprus. Earlier this month, FBI agents traveled to a Mediterranean island to inspect a dustpan on a converted American crop, a person familiar with the sensor said. Cyprus-based news organization Kathimerini reported on an FBI inspection of the aircraft earlier. Intercept had previously reported on Prince’s secret attempts to develop harvesting equipment into military aircraft and market it for use in several wars.

Prince, the founder of Blackwater, is the brother of Trump’s Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and was one of the former president’s most ardent supporters. Prince, a descendant of a wealthy and politically connected family, has been involved in controversy since the Iraq war, when Blackwater won major contracts to support the U.S. occupation.

Blackwater was banned from Iraq in 2007 following the Nisour Square massacre, in which its contractors killed 17 Iraqis and wounded 20 others. The prince later sold Blackwater and moved to the United Arab Emirates, where he built a secret mercenary force on the de facto ruler of the seven Gulf Arab Federation, Mohammed bin Zayed, known as the MBZ.

An Iraqi rides a bicycle, passing the remains of a car in Baghdad on September 20, 2007. The car caught fire during an incident when Blackwater guards who escorted U.S. embassy officials opened fire in the Baghdad neighborhood on September 16, 2007, killing 10 people and injuring. 13. Iraq and the United States agreed to set up a joint commission to investigate the safety of U.S. government civilians in Iraq following the deadly shooting of a private security company, Blackwater, State Department spokesman Tom Casey said. AFP PHOTO / ALI YUSSEF (photo should be read via ALI YUSSEF / AFP Getty Images)

The man rides a bicycle past the massacre of Nisour Square by private contractors in Blackwater in Baghdad, Iraq on September 20, 2007. Photo: Ali Yussef / AFP via Getty Images

During the Trump administration, Prince lobbied at the White House for the privatization of the war in Afghanistan and the establishment of a secret intelligence unit for the president. Both proposals were rejected. Prince has denied advising the White House, but three people familiar with his role said Prince worked closely with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and the MBA in recent years as the two negotiated policy in the Middle East and Africa. Kushner has denied his cooperation with Prince.

The FBI has been investigating Prince’s global network of businesses and operations since at least 2020, according to three individuals familiar with the investigation. During Trump’s presidency, FBI agents searched for witnesses and documents to help them understand Prince’s role in the Libyan arms trade, which involved extra military aircraft and weapons for the Jordanian military, according to three sources familiar with the investigation.

Recently, the FBI asked the British government for permission to interview a British Army general who, while working as an adviser to the King of Jordan, investigated and eventually helped stop arms sales and deliveries to Libya, a person familiar with the case said. FBI investigation. It is unclear whether the UK accepted the request or whether the FBI conducted the interview. The Intercept revealed the role of British General Alex MacIntosh in February.

“The Department of Defense will cooperate fully with law enforcement when they are committed,” a ministry spokesman told The Intercept via email. “Brigadier Macintosh is a respected officer in the British Army who served deservedly alongside the Jordanian Armed Forces during his tenure.”

The latest FBI investigation is one of several government Prince investigations since he led Blackwater. As part of the sale of the company, Prince negotiated a deferred prosecution agreement for gun and export violations committed by Blackwater while Prince was the sole director overseeing the company. Blackwater paid nearly $ 50 million to reconcile payments as part of the deal, but Prince was never personally charged with the crime.

When Prince founded his Chinese company, the FSG, the FBI was investigating several mercenary proposals for countries in Africa and the Middle East. In 2015, the FBI launched a counterintelligence investigation after Prince met with a Chinese intelligence service to try to open a bank account in China. That same year, after Prince secretly modified two dust brushes from the Thrush plant and tried to sell them, American FSG leaders reported a possible export violation to the Department of Justice.

During Trump’s first year in government, Prince once again faced federal control, this time Special Lawyer Robert Mueller, who tried to understand Prince’s role in a January 2017 meeting in Seychelles with a Russian banker and the Kremlin’s top ambassador. According to FBI documents, Prince’s mercenary business in Libya and the Middle East was discussed at a meeting hosted by an MBZ assistant.

Prince also testified under oath to the Congress Committee on the Seychelles meeting. Interview notes from the FBI of Prince and MBZ’s assistant show that Prince used his trip to try to bring out the Crown Prince of the United Arab Emirates both his mercenary objectives in Libya and the use of his modified harvesting equipment as military aircraft.

Following the publication of Mueller’s report in 2019, both House of Representatives and Senate intelligence committees indicted Prince for a possible false or misleading witness statement as they investigated Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election. None of the federal investigations have led to prosecutions.

Ali Younes participated in the reporting.

_____________

Read More

Read More