Not Yet Time for Celebration in Libya
Following the death of Libya’s long-time ruler Muammar Gaddafi last month, it is not yet time to celebrate in Libya. The major immediate challenge for the country is to ensure that law and order is established.
Solomon A. Dersso, Senior Researcher, African Conflict Prevention Programme, Addis Ababa Office
After eight
months of bloody fighting, supported by a UN-sanctioned NATO aerial campaign,
the war in Libya culminated in the demise of the country’s long time leader Muammar
Gaddafi. Many people inside and outside Libya think that it is now time for
celebration. Indeed, those involved, including NATO and the National
Transitional Council (NTC) they have congratulated themselves for a job well done.
A closer look at the situation in post-Gaddafi Libya reveals that it is too
soon to start celebrating.
As in similar
other conflict situations such as Iraq, the military victory of the NTC and
NATO over Gaddafi simply marks the beginning of the more arduous task of
achieving political stability. Despite the defeat of Gaddafi’s regime, the new
Libya is in uncertain political and security terrain. It faces both immediate
and longer-term challenges.
Although the
war in Libya ended with the fall of Gaddafi’s hometown of Sirte, Gaddafi loyalists
were not totally dislodged from Libya. It is feared that pockets of resistance are present in the
southern desert of Libya around Sebha, the Traghan oasis, the Wadi al-Ajal,
Oubari, Ghat and perhaps elsewhere in Libya. Consequently, the risk of insurgency
emerging from these areas should not be discounted.
The major
immediate challenge is to ensure that law and
order is established. This entails, among other concerns, ensuring that
security forces are brought under unified control, security institutions are
established within a unified administration, and the criminal justice system is
made fully functional. The security
sector in the country is in disarray. The armed groups that fought against
Gaddafi are diverse and lack unified command and control.
Apart from the huge security sector reform task
these situations entail, incidents of blood vendettas, lootings and similar
criminal acts present an urgent threat. Most notably, apart from the suspected
summary execution of Gaddafi in the hands of rebel forces in Sirte, perceived
Gaddafi loyalists also detained Gaddafi fighters and African migrants whom they
regarded as mercenaries.. Last month Human Rights Watch (HRW) called for an
investigation into the deaths of 53 people suspected of being killed by rebel
forces as part of on-going revenge attacks. HRW also said that it had found the
remains of at least 95 people who apparently died the day rebel forces captured
Gaddafi.
Another
immediate challenge comes from the proliferation of weapons in the country and
the region. In the course of the eight month long civil war, large amounts of
weapons in different parts of the country ended up in the hands non-government
entities. As a result, the country is currently awash with weapons and arms,
including missiles, taken from various Gaddafi army bases, thereby putting the
security of the country in serious danger. HRW reported that vast amounts of
unsecured explosive weapons, including surface-to-air missiles, remain
unguarded in the area around Sirte. Andrew Shapiro, the U.S. assistant
secretary of state for political-military affairs, said on 14 October that he
believed that Libya had about 20,000 shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles in
its arsenal before civil war began in March. Some reports indicate that the
level of proliferation in Libya is far greater than in stateless Somalia. The
country as a result faces the daunting task of locating and collecting arms,
securing arms depots in the country and disarming the rebel groups.
While securing law and order is the immediate challenge facing Libya
under the NTC leadership, the country also faces other longer term and more
structural challenges. The first of these challenges is for the transitional
government established on 22 November to successfully lead the country to
democratic elections.
Another longer
term and more structural challenge is to achieve national cohesion and
reconciliation. While the Libyan people are almost entirely Muslim and
predominately Arab, Libya has historic ethnic, tribal and regional divisions.
In the course of the armed rebellion of the past eight months, these divisions
have acquired particular political salience. The rebellion, as well as the fall
of Gaddafi, created the conditions for the emergence of divisions on the basis
of religious ideologies between Islamists and secularists. The jihadist groups,
such as the Libyan Islamic Fighting Groupand Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb may also attempt to take advantage of
the prevailing political and security atmosphere dawning in post-Gaddafi Libya.
In the weeks
and months to come, the most challenging division is the one between the NTC
and its supporters and those who were part of the Gaddafi regime and supporting
Gaddafi. Unless adequate care is taken to ensure that the right balance is
created between accountability and justice and avoiding the total exclusion of
members of the Gaddafi regime from the future politics of the country, the
possibility of achieving national cohesion and reconciliation will be less
certain.
Yet
another major challenge for post-Gaddafi Libya is the protracted task of
transforming the state from its autocratic past to democracy based on the rule
of law and human rights for Libyans. This task is rendered more onerous by the
nature of the system of governance institutionalised and practiced by Gaddafi.
Upon coming to power in 1969, he introduced his so called ‘Third Universal
Theory’ which advanced the idea that people should directly run the state’s
day-to-day activities and exercise the powers of government. Accordingly, it
limited governmental structure and authority to ‘peoples committees’. The
result of these practices over the years has been that there was very little
regard paid to the development of state bureaucracy or any form of
institutionalised structure of government. The justice and security sectors
were also fragmented. The country has had no constitution. If one can speak of
anything that comes close to a constitution, it is the green book that Gaddafi
authored as the blue print for his ongoing experiment in governance in Libya.
As a result, the country has had no tradition of party politics, independent
media and press or organized civil society. Consequently, state institutions
need to be built from the ground up and conditions must be created for enabling
members of society to acquire tools that will enable them to participate in
public affairs and hold their leaders accountable.
Finally, the destruction that the nine-months of
fighting caused to the material and physical infrastructure of the country
presents a major challenge in terms of reconstruction. On 26 August 2011, the
head of the NTC’s Libyan Stabilisation Team, Ahmed Jehani, stated that it would
take at least ten years to rebuild the country’s infrastructure. He suggested
that Libya’s plan to give the most damaged parts of the country priority during
reconstruction. According to the NTC, the cost of reconstruction could reach
USD 5 billion. Since Jahani made these estimates, the fighting in Bani Walid
and Sirte resulted in further damage to the material and physical
infrastructure of these cities. Indubitably, the resultant destruction of
large parts of these two cities will add tremendously to the cost of rebuilding
the country.
No doubt that
the demise of Gaddafi marks the end of an era. Notwithstanding that Libya is
now in uncertain security and political environment. To use Henry Kissinger’s,
the military victory over Gaddafi has yet to be translated into political coin.
The celebration should thus be saved for another time.
