Beyond the mayhem: debating key dilemmas in Libya's statebuilding

Abstract

The paper argues that the causes of Libya's current chaos are rooted in its having failed to establish a modern state. Yet it points out that the policies developed under Qadhafi should not prevent Libyans from developing and implementing a consensual and inclusive statebuilding approach. This is particularly true if informal actors such as tribal structures and quasi-autonomous actors including armed groups are brought into the political scene through institutional arrangements. The conflicts of post-Qadhafi era are motivated more by the intensified struggle over access and control of the country's resources – including its financial assets and its illicit cross-border trafficking – than the ideological values per se; though this dimension cannot be overlooked as it prompted localised violent conflicts across the country. The battle for legitimacy between the major coalitions – each internally divided by various identities and conflicting interests – should not undermine the potential for a negotiated settlement mediated by the United Nations between Libyan stakeholders. Such settlement has the possibility to reinvent politics by peaceful means, acknowledge the country's socio-political diversity, and preserve its territorial integrity.

Keywords:

• statebuilding
• tribes
• Islamists
• Libya political dialogue
• government of national accord

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Samantha Brotman (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign), and two anonymous reviewers from The Journal of North African Studies for their invaluable comments on earlier drafts of this paper. All remaining errors are mine.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Libya Body Count. Available at www.libyabodycount.org.

2. There is no common definition of fragile states or situations and the term fragility has been often conflated with failure. Widely criticised within academia for its imprecision, the 2015-OECD report shifted from considering fragility as a category, to addressing it as a concept. Framing countries within specific categories fuels the tendency to default to predetermined approaches of statebuilding and peacemaking. Fragility is best considered as spectrum of conditions that could help inform more targeted and contextualised external support in the future process of statebuilding.

3. The author argues that the analytical framework of periphery versus centre as well as tribes versus cities is very simplistic in analysing the growing of tribal politics in post-Jamahiriyya era. He states,

Libyan tribalism never has been a ‘peripheral phenomenon'. Since Qadhadhafi and some of his ‘free officers’ belonged minor tribes, their rise to power in 1969 could be read as an ascendancy of peripheral tribes against most influential tribal groups, but even this reading would be partial. Today many social scientists prefer to adopt a multi-centred approach rather than a strict dichotomy of centre/periphery. This approach takes into account the fact that the narrative of ‘centre’ and ‘periphery’ often is designed according to the specific point of view of power-holders and does not necessarily reflect reality in all its complexities.

4. In mid-October 2014, Misrata's Shura Council made up of mediators from Qadhadhfa tribal elders and Awlad Suleiman leaders played a critical role in broking peace deal between Qadhadhfa and Awlad Suleiman tribes following violent clashes opposing the two tribes in the city of Sebha (Adel 2014c).

5. Available at http://gnc.gov.ly/legislation_files/635636472052404523.pdf (accessed 3 April 2015).

6. The IPL targeted specifically any person who served under Qadhafi's regime as members of the Revolutionary Command Council, the Free Unionist Officers and Forum of the Companions of the Leader; coordinators of the People's Committees at the basic, local, regional and national levels; secretaries and under-secretaries and members of the national General People's Congress and affiliated institutions; heads and members of the government; ambassadors, chiefs of mission, minister-counselors, permanent representatives; heads of internal, external, military intelligence and security battalions and directors of their branches including those in charge of political sections as well as ‘civilian collaborators’; directors and members of the Green Book-promoting agency and the Mathaba-World Center for the Struggle Against Reaction, Racism, and Imperialism; heads and members of revolutionary guard and revolutionary committees; people's committees heads; university deans, university department heads; chiefs of general staff of the armed forces, chiefs of staff of the army, navy, air force, and military region commanders; military district and unit commanders; heads and members of students’ union; heads and members of special court; members of associations connected to Qadhafi's family; heads and members of the media who glorified and promoted Qadhafi's regime and Green Book ideology; and any person who conspired against and resisted to the 17^th February Revolution.

7. Hifter's military campaign cannot be understood without highlighting the political context in which the General rose. A relic of the old authoritarian order, Hifter led Qadhafi's useless war on Chad, where he was defeated in what came to be known as the Toyota War in 1987. After spending several years as a war prisoner in Chad, he was relocated by the CIA with some of his men to Zaire (Democratic Republic of Congo) in the aftermath of the ouster of Hissene Habre by Qadhafi's ally Idriss Déby in 1990. Hifter then fled to the US state of Virginia where he spent more than 20 years flirting with the CIA and conspiring against his former protector until the eruption of the uprising in February 2011. Upon his return from the USA to join the uprising, he vied to claim a leadership role over the rebels at the detriment of the former Qadhafi interior minister General Younis, but he failed to assert his authority. In early December 2011, Hifter surfaced as a self-proclaimed commander of the New Libyan Army. Trying to capture by force Tripoli's airport from Zintan rebels was likely to be the first step to take over the Libyan capital from the Tripoli Military Council, then led by a former member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) Abd al-Hakim Belhaj.

8. The Morning Glory episode was the dramatic outcome of the crisis that started in July 2013. At that time, al-Jadhran was in charge of securing the oil installations in Libya's Oil Crescent defied Tripoli's authorities by decreeing a blockade on oil terminals. He did so as a way to require more transparency in the oil sector and a fair share of its revenues with the East province. Meanwhile, oil exports dropped from 1.5 million barrels a day to less than 500,000 (see, e.g. Stephen 2014a; “Partition of Libya Looms as Fight for Oil Sparks Vicious New Divide 2014; Cockburn 2014b).

9. In the 2012 GNC elections, Islamists struggled to mobilise constituencies as local and regional identities with their conservative tribal strands superseded ideology and Libyan voters casted their votes in accordance with tribal affinities rather than along ideological lines (see Jebnoun 2012).

10. On 2 February 2015, the new House of Representatives (HoR) based in Tobruk repealed IPL. However, it would have been more relevant if such revocation had taken place within a mediated national settlement involving most important rival actors (Middle East Eye 2015c; HoR shelves Political Isolation Law 2015).

11. Since their establishment in Derna, IS and SCIY have been engaged in fighting with SCMD as the latter refused to pledge allegiance to al-Baghdadi's IS. Both have been operating as wilayat (province) Barqa of IS in North Africa under Yemeni leadership. Despite the numerous media reports on the emergence of Derna as a stronghold of IS, it is very difficult to assess how much support its fighters enjoy in Derna since this city has a long historic tradition of Islamist armed militancy. It goes back to the resistance of Umar al-Mukhtar, a charismatic warrior leader who led the Sanusiyya insurgency against Italian domination in the beginning of the twentieth century. In the mid-1990s, the city and its surrounded areas served as the hotbed of the Islamist insurgency led by LIFG against Qadhafi's regime. In October 2007, Sinjar records captured by the U.S. Marines in Iraq showed that among the 112 Libyans listed, 52 came from Derna with 85% involved in suicide attacks.

12. At the end of April 2015, it has been reported that UAE has allegedly delivered to Dignity four Russian made Mi-35 helicopters gunships. This delivery happened in less than one week after Hifter's visit to the UAE on 22 April 2015. See (“New Helicopters Delivered to LNA” 2015).

13. On 17 June 2015, one year after Hifter has launched Dignity, Saqr al-Jarushi interviewed by Libya First portrayed soldiers who refuse to serve within Dignity as ‘cowards and traitors who must be slaughtered' (see Middle East Eye 2015a).

14. See, for example, Zaptia (2014b); Mohamed El-Ghirani, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Tripoli-based government further explains the grievances of his government towards HoR:

We don't recognize HoR decisions [as legitimate] because it never completed the handover with the GNC. Moreover, the HoR has taken illogical decisions such as calling for an international intervention that no normal people can accept. [ … ] they chose Tobruk because the town is under Egyptian influence. (Dumas 2014)

15. Dignity air force is made up of limited numbers of MiG-21, MiG-23, and MiG-25, all facing maintenance problems due to the high level of attrition and lack of logistical support (see “Air Power Becomes Relevant in Libyan Conflict” 2 015).

16. These supplies would be vital to keep and ultimately defending Zintanis positions in Nafusa mountains. Dawn's airstrikes are likely unsustainable as Dignity's rival faces logistical challenges in terms of refurbishing and keeping operational some of the jets inherited from Qadhafi's air force, able to perform CAS missions.

17. At the end of 2014, the state budget deficit was estimated at $15 billion (November 2014) and the country's foreign currency reserves had fallen from $170 billion (2011) to $109 billion (June 2014) (see, e.g. Middle East Eye 2015b; “Questions Arise over Libya's Finances” 2015; Reuters 2015a).

18. On 27 January, IS-affiliated gunmen attacked Corinthia hotel in Tripoli, killing five foreigners and five Libyan security personnel. On 15 February, 21 Egyptian citizens have been beheaded in Sirte by IS. On 20 February, IS claimed responsibility for a series of suicide bombings killing 42 people in the eastern town of al-Qubbah as retaliations to Egyptian airstrikes. On 24 March, IS posted pictures on social media of the suicide car bomb attack that targeted an army checkpoint in the eastern city of Benghazi and killed 7 soldiers. On 5 April, IS claimed responsibility of an attack by an explosive-packed vehicle that killed six people and wounded 21 on a security checkpoint east of the city of Misrata. On 19 April, IS released a video showing 30 Ethiopians being shot and beheaded by its militants.

19. The entire version of the draft proposal of ‘The Libyan Political Agreement' is available at http://www.libyaschannel.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Draft-Agreement-27-April-ENGmarked.pdf (accessed 28 April 2015)

20. The third draft has been preceded by two other draft proposals, which are the ‘Proposal on General Conception for Comprehensive Political Solution to the Libyan Crisis' issued in Skhirat on 7 March, followed by the ‘Draft on the Political Transition in Libya' issued on 25 March in Skhirat too.

21. Article 8-e lists ‘sovereign position', including the ‘Governor of the Central Bank of Libya, Head of the Audit Bureau, Head of the Administrative Oversight Authority, Head of the Anti-Corruption Authority, Head of the High National Electoral Commission, and the Public Prosecutor.'