European
values are fairly clear: they want oil to travel northward, not
people. Haftar, at the cost of the Libyans themselves, will make that
happen.
by
Vijay Prashad
You can
well imagine the tension when Libya’s beleaguered Prime Minister
Fayez al-Serraj met with the UN envoy Ghassan Salamé in his office
in Tripoli on Monday morning. Not far away, in the south of Libya’s
capital, the troops of the Libyan National Army led by General
Khalifa Haftar had made rapid advances. They had taken the shell of
Tripoli International Airport and had made a dash toward the road
that links Libya to Tunisia. Haftar’s troops, well-armed and
well-disciplined, had moved northward toward the Ain-Zara
neighborhood. On Monday, Haftar’s air force bombed the only working
airport in Tripoli—at Mitiga. The United Nations wanted to let
al-Serraj know that it would not abandon him.
Part
2 - UN Government
NATO
destroyed Libya, but the UN was forced to pick up the pieces. This
has become such a familiar sight. The West bombs a country, then
withdraws; the UN, often with peacekeepers from the Global South, has
to do triage.
A few
days ago, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres came to Libya. He had
hoped to broker a peace. Nothing seemed possible. “I leave Libya
with a heavy heart and deeply concerned,” Guterres said.
Guterres had been accompanied in his trips to see al-Serraj, the
UN-backed prime minister, and Haftar. Guterres, whose UN has sent in
a succession of five envoys since 2011, was perhaps aware that the
work the UN did to unite the country’s factions that led to the
government of al-Serraj was soon to unravel.
Al-Serraj,
who comes from a wealthy and well-connected family, was always the
UN’s prime minister. It has long been said in Libya that
al-Serraj’s government is more interested in “international”
(meaning Western) support than in Libyan support.
Basic
needs of the population have not been met, with power and water being
a challenge and security non-existent in parts of the country.
Al-Serraj’s government has been bolstered by certain militias that
came into their own during the NATO war. Disagreements over the role
of political Islam tore apart Libya’s institutions, with a House of
Representatives in the eastern city of Tobruk refusing to recognize
the government in Tripoli.
Haftar
and al-Serraj had several meetings. The United States, the Gulf
Arabs, France, Egypt and Russia have been eager to see progress
between the two sides. The prime minister and the general met in
Cairo (February 2017), in Abu Dhabi (April–May 2017) and in Paris
(May 2018). At each meeting, they substantially agreed on basic
principles—a peaceful solution, for instance—but did not agree on
specifics. Officials in al-Serraj’s government said that they hoped
to bring in Haftar as the head of the army of the Government of
National Accord.
But
Haftar had other dreams. He saw that there was unrest in Tripoli
about the inefficiency and inconsiderateness of the government. There
was even a protest against Salamé. Haftar is the kind of man who has
great ambition but no real agenda. He will take all of Libya, but he
has not said what he would do with it.
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