History is written in hindsight, and Libya is no exception. This week, Libya abruptly halted gas exports to Italy from its Mellitah complex after fighting last Saturday between rival militias. The passage of months of mayhem bestows a baleful inevitability on a messy and unpredictable chain of events. Libya's National Oil Corporation (NOC) and Italy's ENI conceded that there is nothing they can do to resume the export of natural gas to Italy, Libya's most important trading partner and former colonial master until the militias are pacified and brought to book. Two questions predominate. Was the NATO aggression against the forces of the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi justified? And, what have we in Africa and the Arab world learned from its disastrous consequences? The answer to the first is a resounding no. The ouster of Gaddafi was arguably the most deleterious diplomatic blunder of the Obama administration. United States President Barack Obama is now reluctant to intervene militarily in Syria precisely because he has seen the pernicious consequences of the NATO invasion of Libya. Libya's Defence Ministry sent security personnel to secure the complex, about 100km west of the Libyan capital Tripoli, to ensure exports could resume soon, said Abdel-Fattah Shagan, chairman of Mellitah, an NOC-ENI joint venture. But, what is crystal clear is that the Libyan national army is in no position to contain the power of the rival militias. In yet another incident that occurred recently and that spotlighted the utter incompetence of the Libyan authorities, 30 war victims who lost their limbs occupied the General National Congress (GNC), Libya's parliament. Again, the Libyan authorities gave up trying to evict the amputees after passing a law to have, forcibly removed from the temporary premises of the GNC. The “amputee war heroes”, as they are referred to by the militias that supported the ouster of Gaddafi, are derisively called “limbless rats” by pro-Gaddafi Green Resistance forces. They entered the GNC premises while deliberations were underway to pass legislation concerning a 66 billion Libyan Dinar budget and local government legislation. The disabled war veterans disrupted proceedings and the Libyan MPs were forced to vacate the GNC venue. The Libyan people are the main victims of the myopic NATO adventure. They no longer control their oil and natural gas revenues. Mellitah supplies Italy with gas through Gaddafi's “Greenstream pipeline”, which at full capacity pumps at least eight billion cubic metres. Even though the geographical proximity of Libya to Italy is an advantage that Libya could have capitalised upon, the sad truth of the matter is that Italy gets most of its gas from Algeria, Russia and Norway, with Libya providing about 10 per cent. Italy can easily find other African suppliers of oil and natural gas. The post-Gaddafi Libyan authorities have to bear full responsibility for the longer-term security of the resource-rich North African country. “Gas exports have been completely halted,” a frantic NOC Deputy Chairman Mustafa Sunallah explained. He added that last Saturday's firefight began after an argument between former rebel fighters from nearby Zuwara and others from Zintan over who should guard Mellitah, and that the clashes were now over. Deputy Libyan Oil Minister Omar Shakmak told a news conference in Tripoli that one person was killed and several injured. Khaled Bukrayat, a member of Zuwara Media centre conceded that seven people were seriously injured. Lawlessness and political instability in the post-Gaddafi era are crippling the Libyan economy. The Mellitah incident was the latest violent disruption to the energy industry in Libya where protests have shut down oil-export terminals in recent months and in the North African region following January's ensanguined hostage-taking terrorist at In Amenas, an Algerian gas plant. Britain's BP had suspended its $569 million exploration and production agreement with Libya's NOC, signed when Gaddafi was still in power, in 2011 after his ouster. In response to the In Amenas incident, Britain now announced a resumption of exploration and drilling due to commence in September. The security situation, nevertheless is chaotic. Thousands of former armed opposition forces who fought to overthrow Gaddafi have been deployed to guard Libyan oil and gas installations. Yet, they are also the main instigators of violence in the country. Escalating tensions between rival militias complicate the picture. In recent months disgruntled activists and frustrated militiamen have disrupted operations in Libya's main industry, pursuing goals such as better living conditions or more regional autonomy. In July they forced the closure of three major oil terminals in the sprawling North African country which has so far failed to produce the pre-civil war levels of 1.6 million barrels per day (bpd). Libyan oil officials also admitted that production at both Wafa and Sabratha oilfields had been affected by the Mellitah shut down. A wave of public discontent disrupts oil and gas production in post-Gaddafi Libya and there is nothing the authorities can do about this calamitous situation that is leading to economic ruin of potentially one of Africa's and the Arab world's most prosperous nations. In December, protesters seeking jobs and better living conditions shut down the Zueitina terminal for around two months, halting around 60,000-70,000 bpd of oil exports. It is against this deplorable backdrop that Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan is lobbying for the lifting of an arms embargo against Libya at the United Nations this week. The UN Security Council imposed the arms embargo on Libya in 2011. However, most of the 15 member states of the UN Security Council are reluctant to lift the ban on the sale of weapons to Libya because they argue that the North African country is awash with weapons and the proliferation of additional weapons will only strengthen the militias and foment more trouble in the country. Moreover, the proliferation of weapons in Libya is spilling over to neighbouring countries such as Algeria, Egypt, Sudan and Tunisia as well as countries south of the Sahara such as Chad, Mali, Nigeria and Niger. If the arms embargo is lifted many observers believe that Western powers might just be making yet another mistake as serious as the decision to invade Libya, and further aggravating the grave security situation in the country and the region at large. That would be a costly blunder that only the arms exporters in Western countries will benefit from, to the detriment of the interests of the Libyan people, neighbouring states and the West itself.
