Thu, Nov 21, 2019
Another conference, another incomplete solution for Libya
MENASource
by
Karim Mezran and Federica Saini Fasanotti
People queue to sign up at a bank for a $500 annual allowance that provides a lifeline for many Libyan families struggling to make ends meet in Tripoli, Libya October 17, 2019. Picture taken October 17, 2019. REUTERS/Ismail Zitouny
Key Points
- Libya should be created by and for Libyans without external interventions or conferences that do not include all Libyans.
- Municipalities in most of Libya have resisted the ongoing violence over the years and proved to be key institutions of the country.
- There is another path. Around 107 local leaders attended meetings in January and March to discuss how to end the ongoing violence in their country.
On September 11, 2019, Germany’s
ambassador to Tripoli announced
that in October or November, Berlin would host a conference on Libya to try to
stabilize the situation in the country and bring relief to a population deeply affected
by the military action of field marshal Khalifa Haftar.
This past spring, Haftar, launched
an attack on the capital Tripoli with the Libyan National Army (LNA) under the
pretext of freeing it from terrorists. This conference would be organized in
collaboration with the United Nations Special Envoy for Libya, Ghassan Salamé.
He seems to believe that Germany could represent a neutral actor among the foreign
actors’ intervention; who are seeking resources and international prestige on
Libyan soil for years. But looking at recent history, there are several
criticisms that this is not the best approach. In recent years, conferences on
Libya held in other countries with extremely limited local representation have
done nothing but exacerbate tensions and make the situation worse.
French President
Emmanuel Macron has tried to create a new order in Libya, sponsoring many
diplomatic—unofficial and official—engagements. He hosted two conferences in
Paris, the first
on July 25, 2017 between Prime Minister Fayez
al-Sarraj and Marshal Khalifa Haftar. A ceasefire was agreed upon, and
elections were promised to be held as soon as possible. A second event
took place in Paris on May 29, 2018, with the proposal of scheduling election day
on December 10 of that year.
In response, Italy—under
the initiative of Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte—organized another conference
in Palermo on November 13-14, 2018. Then, in February 2019, another conference
held in Abu Dhabi produced an agreement to hold elections. None of these agreements
or proposals were realized. Instead, everyone in Libya seemed to be completely
unsatisfied: the militia leaders excluded from the negotiating table fought in
the capital between August and September 2018; Haftar started a new war in
April 2019 against the same militias in Tripoli; Sarraj felt profoundly
disappointed by his antagonist refusing to sit at the same table. Those most
impacted by the failed negotiations are the Libyan people who cannot find the necessary
stability to begin to rebuild their country. These international conferences did
not bring about any effective resolutions of the conflict, creating only
disappointment among the citizens.
There is however, a different type of
meeting that is much more productive. On December 6-8, 2017 the Swiss Center
for Humanitarian Dialogue (HD) succeeded in organizing a meeting
of Libyan mayors in Tunisia. For the first
time since the conflict began, almost all Libyan municipalities and local
authorities gathered to discuss how to end the ongoing violence in their
country. This important event
saw the active presence of the UN representative Ghassan Salamé. The meeting was
a success and built an important foundation for a potential National Conference,
which should have included the main representatives of Libya’s three regions:
Tripolitania, Cyrenaica, and Fezzan.
Municipalities continued
to walk on this path, with a series
of gatherings at the beginning of 2018 not only in Tunis, but also in
Shahat in January and Tripoli
in March. Around 107 local leaders, including those coming from Libya’s east
attended the meetings. Local leaders asked to be left alone in trying to
rebuild their own country.
Local leaders asked to be left alone in trying to rebuild their own country.
Municipalities in most of Libya—except for
those in the eastern province where mayors and city councils have been replaced
by military governments per Haftar’s orders—have resisted the ongoing violence over
the years and proved to be key institutions of the country. For this reason, they must be reinforced.
Given the success of the
HD initiative, Mr. Salamé, at the beginning of 2018, asked HD to manage the
preparatory process for the National Conference, one of the foundations of the
UN Action Plan for Libya. With that target, the HD opened up consultations,
which were attended in forty-three locations by more than 7,000 Libyans.
It is important to
remember the basis for Germany’s proposal for a new international conference,
lies in the strong relationship Berlin has with Turkey and Egypt that must not
be undervalued, given the fact that these two nations are each supporting Sarraj
and Haftar respectively.
In the meantime, a Libya
Local Governance Forum was held on September 14-16 in Tunis in order to improve
a strategic approach to localism. The event was supported by USAID, the World Bank,
and UNDP Libya. The media did not talk extensively about it, but it would be
interesting to understand how many local administrators were present and from
which region of Libya.
As many scholars and
specialists on Libya agreed a few months ago in a Brookings
report on Libya, the model implemented in the country should be created by
and for Libyans, building the “state from the grassroots up, rather than
top down.” In this context, there is no place for external intrusion nor
for conferences that do not have the full participation of the Libyans of
Tripolitania, Cyrenaica, and Fezzan. Mr. Salamé remains
optimistic about the forthcoming Berlin conference despite an escalation in
aerial fighting in Libya, but it is necessary to
remember that conferences cannot be held without those who actually have a role
and a stake at the local level. A simple theorem, but evidently very difficult
to put into practice.
Karim Mezran is a resident senior
fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Middle East programs.
Federica
Saini Fasanotti is a nonresident senior
fellow in the Center for 21st Century
Security and Intelligence, of the Foreign Policy program
at The Brookings Institution.
Related Content
Thu, Sep 19, 2019
One of the unfortunate consequences of Libya’s crisis is that the main players with decision-making power in Libya’s conflict are the regional and international powers involved in the crisis.
MENASource
by
Karim Mezran
Mon, May 7, 2018
In the ongoing effort by international and domestic actors to solve the political deadlock in Libya, the spotlight is on UN Special Envoy Ghassan Salame. Since the second anniversary of the signing of the Libyan Political Agreement (LPA) in the Moroccan city of Skhirat in December 2015, Salame’s well-thought and defined Action Plan for Libya […]
MENASource
by
Karim Mezran & Erin A. Neale
Thu, May 9, 2019
If the international community continues to stay on the sidelines, watching and allowing Haftar’s international allies to continue providing him with support, this war will continue with no foreseeable end and at a heavy price
MENASource
by
Mustafa A.G. Abushagur
Libya should be created by and for Libyans. There is no place for external interventions or conferences without full participation of all Libyans.
|