Solution to Libyan crisis held hostage by multiple initiatives

15 Juin 2020

Tripoli, Libya, June 15 (Infosplusgabon) – The unending delay in the resolution of the political and security crises in Libya after more than nine months, despite many initiatives, has again raised questions on when the North African country will see peace.

The Libyan belligerents themselves no longer know where to turn after the loads of mediation efforts have yielded no positive results. They have lost guidelines, resulting from new demands or returning to a point of contention that had been overcome during previous talks.

It has been said many times over that the only resolution of the Libyan crises is of a political nature not war. So the actors, particularly foreign countries involved in the search for the exit solution, should know that the multiplication of initiatives will not but sap the efforts to reach peaceful resolution and is pure waste of time.

Indeed, those initiatives are not, according to several observers of the Libyan political scene, as innocent as they appear, since every proposal is motivated by a clear objective for their authors for advantage.

Abdessalem al-Mabrouk, a Libyan political analyst, told Infoisplusgabon that there exists at least four mediation initiatives at present.

These are the Algerian mediation, who on Saturday received the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aguila Saleh; the Tunisian initiative which includes a plan to be presented to the UN Security Council; the Cairo Declaration proposed by president Abdel Fattah al-Sissi; and the military talks of the joint 5+5 commission supervised by the United Nations.

According to him, the Algerian president Abelmajid Tabboune said that the Libyan belligerents have announced the acceptance of his mediation, adding that he will associate with the Libyan tribes and coordinate with Libya’s neighbours, especially Egypt and Tunisia.

Mr al-Mabrouk said that although Algeria always exhibited the ambition to serve as mediator, these new initiatives are motivated by the desire to counter Egypt, the main competitor in the region, whose mediation itself has difficulties to materialise after its rejection by the Government of National Accord (GNA) and Turkey.

He said that the Algiers mediation was countered by the AU high level committee on Libya, which refused the proposal to host the Libyan reconciliation conference by preferring the seat of the African Union in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.

al-Mabrouk underlined that the initiative of Tunisia is motivated by the will to honour it on the international scene by profiting from its appearance before the Security Council as non-permanent member.

This is to give a new impulse to its diplomacy which depends on president Kaïs Saïed, with the Speaker of Parliament, Rached Ghannouchi, chief of the Islamist party Ennahdha, as his competitor.

About the mediation of the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), Mr al-Mabrouk said that it focuses on the talks of the military commission, which is part of the three-path dialogue established by the Berlin Conference.

The resumption of this component is being exploited by the acting Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General, American Stephanie William, who wants to occupy the position of substantive UN Representative.

"This ambition of Stephanie William is behind the current blockade of the nomination of a new Representative of the UN Secretary-General," al-Mabrouk said.

This is because Washington's opposition to the candidature of Algerian Ramatan Lamamra, who was not unanimous within the Security Council, and its objections against former Ghana foreign minister Hanna Tetteh, who had wide acceptance, are very suspect.

He said some members of the Security Council, particularly France and Germany, have denounced the demand of the United States to divide the post of Special envoy into two: one political mediator and one chief of mission. "This is a redistribution of roles which favours Stephaie Willam but not the interests of Libya, which is relegated to the second zone at the detriment of personal ambitions."

al-Maborouk noted that the Cairo Declaration of president al-Sissi could not be approved because of doubts over his neutrality and the fact that it comes just to save Khalifa Haftar, the warlord and leader of the Libyan National Army (LNA), after the defeat of his army in the western region and the loss of the Tripoli war.

Farj Salem al-Mreimi, a Libyan university professor underlined that the mediation initiatives should should take into consideration the latest military developments on the ground.

"Ignoring the evolution on the ground and the defeat of Haftar's forces compromise all attempts for fair resolution of the crisis," he said.

"Haftar is cornered in his last entrenchments and that he placed his bet on his foreign allies on an offensive to seize Tripoli and power and as they have lost, they must assume the consequences and give up their ambitions as they are in a position of weakness and cannot impose their conditions."

According to al-Mreimi, seeking to extend the war in Libya by sticking to Haftar's his guns to make civilians suffer cannot give Libya any advantage and the camp of the internationally-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) and their allies are ready to go until the end to liberate the country.

FIN/ INFOSPLUSGABON/GBJ/GABON2020

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