Speculation has peaked again over the role of UN Special Envoy to Libya Ghassan Salame in the aftermath of the recent terrorist attack against the Foreign Ministry building in Tripoli and the discovery of more illicit Turkish arms shipments. Salame, in a press conference, estimated that some 15 million weapons are in the hands of militias in Libya. Paradoxically, he has depended on four of the largest militia groups for security arrangements in western Libya. In another development, Amazigh and Toubou representatives reiterated their intention to boycott the constitutional referendum on the grounds that the draft constitution approved by the Constituent Assembly is exclusionary. Some observers believe that this stance is one of the consequences of the UN drive in Libya. Questions surrounding the UN role extend to recent meetings organised by the Swiss-based Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (CHD) in the framework of preparations for the comprehensive National Conference, one of the main components of the UN action plan for Libya and which is now envisaged to be held in January 2019. What is the nature of the National Conference? To what extent do the current conditions in Libya resemble conditions in Iraq as it was being readied for the Interim Governing Council, a process overseen by Ghassan Salame along with US civil administrator Paul Bremer? Many analysts compare the current situation in Libya with that of Iraq in the aftermath of the US occupation. Both countries are strategically located, sit atop vast petroleum resources, and share a predominantly tribal social organisation. Salame told reporters that the Libyan National Conference would be unlike any international conference before it. It would be a forum for Libyans in Libya, and its purpose would be to pinpoint impasses and structural differences between Libyans, and to devise compromise solutions to problems. He described Libya as shattered and fragmented in ways that were greater and deeper than the conventional east-west divide. This was “good”, he said, because it meant that there was a political plurality that could express itself peacefully in the National Conference. Speaking at a joint press conference with Tunisian Foreign Minister Khemaies Jhinaoui, 18 December, the UN envoy to Libya said that the UN would work to make the conference succeed and have the greatest positive impact. He stressed that it was essential for all political and social forces to reach a consensus on the array of political, security and economic decisions needed to steer the country out of deadlock. He simultaneously stressed that the security situation in Libya was better than it had been during his previous visits, especially given that the UN-brokered ceasefire in Tripoli has held. In addition, economic circumstances have improved thanks to measures vigorously backed by UNSMIL. Some observers see the National Conference as a means to advance a new roadmap for Libya that would secure a place for radical militia groups. They maintain that another purpose of the conference is to delegitimise existing political bodies the House of Representatives above all as a step to forestall the development of a national army and facilitate the establishment of a Muslim Brotherhood regime to make up for the failure to install such a regime in Egypt. Should such designs fail, the strategy will be to secure the continued presence of Islamist forces in Libya until the time is ripe to empower them fully. Observers believe that part of this strategy entails encoding partition and fragmentation in an international document that will serve as the basis for a constitution “boobytrapped” with rubric about rights to political participation, and about the representational rights of the Amazigh, Toubou and ethnic groups, in order to secure the presence of the Muslim Brotherhood and entrench ethnic, regional and other types of quota systems. CENTRE FOR HUMANITARIAN DIALOGUE MEETINGS: Observers believe that the CDH, which UNSMIL charged with the task of conducting intra-Libyan dialogues preparatory to the National Conference, sowed and nurtured the seeds for the “boobytraps” in the course of 77 meetings with various ethnic, regional, political and other components of Libyan society, including representatives of Gaddafi era entities and 17 February forces. Attracting such figures to the dialogue was a means to legitimise them and prime them for yielding the desired results, as had occurred in the Iraqi case. Some of these observers see a link between Qatari donations — money, they claim, that has a growing influence on the High Commission for Human Rights and other UN bodies in Geneva — and the CHD. The Geneva-based centre has praised Doha's role in resolving armed disputes at a time when the US and other Western countries as well as some Arab countries have condemned Qatar as a promoter of conflict and violence through its support for terrorist movements in the region and in Libya in particular. Libyan political analyst Jamal Shalouf, in interview with Al-Ahram Weekly, described UNSMIL's work as a process of “recycling chaos”. He sees a continuum that began with former UNSMIL chief Tarek Mitri who called for recognising the militias as a political partner of equal value to the outputs of the 2013 elections. Mitri's successor, Bernardino Leon, put the legitimate parliament, the popularly elected House of Representatives which superseded the General National Congress (GNC), on par with “a handful of former GNC members who were brought together by the Libyan Dawn militias in order to resurrect the GNC,” as Shalouf described developments at the time. “He then engineered the Libyan Political Accord between representatives of the House and the resurrected GNC. Then Martin Kobler rushed in to introduce the ‘ambulance' theory in order to circumvent the Libyan accord, which requires a parliamentary vote of confidence in the government, after which he set the historic precedent of bringing into power a cabinet of plenipotentiaries without parliamentary approval or oversight.” Shalouf believes that Salame surpassed his predecessors in his bid to create “a new entity and a new output” in the form of the National Conference. Salame “has provided no details about how this entity is to be created, who its members will be and how they will be chosen, how it will operate and what will become of its outputs. Yet, he describes it as the magical solution to the Libyan crisis.” According to Shalouf, the similarities between the Libyan and Iraqi situations are too many to ignore. “In both cases, a rich oil-producing nation was reduced to political anarchy that produced record levels of corruption and systematic plundering against a backdrop of civil strife, furnishing an environment conducive to the rise and spread of terrorism. In both cases, too, support for legitimising the transformation of militias into official forces was followed by support for a government that was unprecedentedly and flagrantly corrupt and that espoused policies that discriminated between regions thereby fuelling regional tensions. At the same time, professional institutions such as the army and police were sidelined as the country was steered towards a referendum on a constitution that established the dominance of a particular region at the expense of others that felt marginalised.” In the Iraqi case, the sense of marginalisation led the “Sunni triangle” to support Abu Musaab Al-Zarqawi following the referendum on the Iraqi constitution in 2005. Shalouf foresees a similar development in Libya in the event of a referendum on the constitution drafted by the Constituent Assembly. “This text, which emerged after three years of work and still failed to obtain a consensus among the members of the constitutional drafting committee, cannot serve as a constitution for a country that has been gripped by civil war, division and strife. Yet, certain political forces are pushing for a referendum on a constitutional bill that a number of ethnic and regional components believe will marginalise them and deprive them of their rights.” In Shalouf's opinion, the draft constitution is one that lays the foundations for an overly centralised system of government and that fails to vest sufficient powers in local government. He fears that the Amazigh and Toubou decisions to boycott the constitutional referendum augur a repetition of the experience of the Sunni Arabs in Iraq following the constitutional referendum there. Faraj Al-Mabri, former mayor of Tobruk and a participant in the Libyan dialogues in Geneva and in Brussels in 2015, sees the planned National Conference as a step in the drive, backed by some Western powers and other governments, to empower the Muslim Brotherhood, “which climbed aboard and hijacked the revolution in 2011”, in Libya in order to compensate for their failure in Egypt. It was this end, he told the Weekly, that made former US ambassador to Libya Deborah Jones call for the creation of a balance of forces between the government, as represented in the Ministry of Defense, and the Islamist militias which would be given the Ministry of Interior. “In the end, the Muslim Brotherhood did, indeed, obtain the Interior Ministry in the person of Fathi Bashagha, while the Economy Ministry was handed to Ali Al-Isawi. The ministerial appointments of these two prominent Muslim Brotherhood members in the cabinet reinforced the composition of the Presidency Council, which is mostly made up of Muslim Brotherhood figures, and created a political facade for Islamist forces in Libya.” Al-Mabri has submitted memoranda to international agencies accusing the UN and Western stakeholders in Libya of promoting division and fragmentation by insisting on including in the political process “illegitimate” entities that contained individuals known to be affiliated with the militant Islamist movement. “While the US administration insists on sustaining the arms embargo against the Libyan army, it turns a blind eye to the influx of arms to the High Council of State, the Presidency Council and all the militia brigades outside the official establishment,” he said, adding: “Any serious and energetic intervention on the part of UNSMIL always follows a setback for the Islamist forces and is intended to give them the kiss that brings them back to life. The latest instance of this phenomenon was UNSMIL's support for the Fayez Al-Sarraj government in Tripoli, against the will of the Libyan parliament and despite the provisions of the Skhirat Agreement.” First Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives Fawzi Al-Nuwairi does not see a resemblance between the National Conference in Libya and the Governing Council that was created following the invasion of Iraq. In interview with the Weekly, Al-Nuwairi described the conference as organisationally closer to the Lebanese Taif Accord. “In all events, the purpose of the conference is to accelerate momentum towards the establishment of the state in accordance with a comprehensive vision shaped by all components of society.” As to whether UNSMIL intervention in Libya has been positive or negative, Al-Nuwairi said, “UNSMIL may have managed the crisis in Libya but did not treat it seriously enough. Libyans, right now, have to restructure, reunify and renew the legitimacy of government institutions. This is the most pressing need in order to establish the state. Yet, UNSMIL has ignored this need and focused instead on interim security solutions, economic reforms and some questions related to public services and humanitarian concerns.” According to Ahmed Al-Taher Hamouma, a member of the High Council of State in Tripoli, the National Conference and its aims are “shrouded in fog”. “Everything about it is unclear, from who will be invited to who will compel the key Libyan players to carry out its recommendations. Without clear answers to such questions, the conference risks ending up a passing event with no consequence of note, like so many preceding conferences and meetings sponsored by UNSMIL or some countries involved in Libyan affairs.” On the similarity between the planned conference and the Iraqi Governing Council, he said: “I don't think that the UN or the great powers will make the same mistake and repeat a failed experiment on a society that is similar to Iraqi society in its sociological make-up and culture. In other words, conducting Bremer's experiment in Libya would only augment division and fragmentation among the Libyan people which will aggravate the Libyan people's tragedy and their pains. Also, such an experiment could have detrimental repercussions on Libya's neighbours and Europe.” “I believe that the proposal to hold an all-embracing National Conference was necessitated by the closure of political horizons, institutional bifurcation and military realignments due to the failure of the institutions emanating from the Libyan Political Agreement that was signed in Skhirat, in Morocco,” second Deputy Head of the High Council of State Fawzi Al-Aqab told the Weekly. The longer the crisis persisted the more it became necessary to search for a national approach to reaching a consensual formula, he said. Abdullah Abdel-Amir, an Iraqi scholar at Al-Bayan Centre for Planning and Studies in Baghdad, sees in Libya a “polarisation over the legitimacy of the mandate to govern” created by stakeholders determined to “capitalise on political and social divides”. As the conflict in Libya persists, it is heading more and more towards the Iraqi model. “The conflicts are taking place along regional, tribal, ethnic, national and religious divides, and they are moving in accordance with the rivalries between foreign influences in Libya which have begun to assume more dangerous forms than ever in the ways they feed Libyan strife.” On the nature of the Interim Governing Council introduced in Iraq by Bremer and Salame, Mustafa Kamel, an Iraqi writer, said that the composition of the council was forced on the Iraqi people and rejected by many. Yet, “it set a dangerous precedent that could not be undone, especially after it was internationally adopted in any measures that sought to pave the way to a degree of stability and permanence. Certainly, none of the political organisations or sectarian or ethnic groups that abound in Iraq will relinquish their quota, which they regard as their sacred right for which they had fought hard, when it comes time for general elections that will form a government.” Mohamed Ali Al-Mabrouk, a Libyan writer, likened the dismissal of the Iraqi army to the immobilisation of the Libyan army and the attempt to replace it with sectarian brigades whose only allegiance is to sectarian affiliations. The result, in both countries, was a security breakdown that “awakened latent villainy in all its diversity and multiplicity, giving rise to criminal, religious and political mafias and the prevalence of crime and physical annihilation”. Al-Mabrouk also saw a similarity between the uprooting of the Baath Party in Iraq and the political isolation law in Libya that banned anyone affiliated with Gaddafi era institutions from holding office. The consequence, in both cases, was the disruption of government administration and law enforcement after all government agencies were deprived of existing managerial and academic skills and expertise. Abdallah Seyid Ould Abah, a university professor in Mauritania, maintains that realities on the ground “leave no alternative but to rethink the political architecture of two crisis-plagued entities. It has become clear that the modern state project in both Iraq and Libya needs to be re-conceived and re-planned in order to salvage it from ultimate breakdown.” In Iraq, domestic strife and waves of violence and terrorism led to the effective partition of the country on sectarian and ethnic bases, and this was exploited by extremist militant religious movements that now threaten the whole world. The same, he said, applies to Libya which has fallen under the control of tribal and religious extremist militias that hijacked government and undermined the unity of the country. Seyid Ould Abah added: “Naturally, the new political architecture must be entrusted to effective patriotic political forces so that they can design the new rules for the political process with the support of moderate Arab forces and in the framework of an alternative Arab order that restores significance, credibility and strategic horizons to Arab national security.” 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UN envoys to Libya and UNSMIL heads since the outset of the Libyan crisis: Al-Khatib Abdelilah Al-Khatib (11 March 2011-11 September 2011): Jordanian diplomat and former minister of foreign affairs, Al-Khatib was appointed UN envoy to Libya during the Libyan Revolution and tasked with persuading Gaddafi to step down and make way for a peaceful transition to a national unity government. He resigned when faced with Gaddafi's persistent refusals. Martin Ian Martin (11 September 2011-17 October 2012): A British human rights activist, Martin graduated from Cambridge and Harvard. After working with the Ford Foundation in the Indian subcontinent, he became active in social work in the UK with a special focus on immigrant welfare. Later he joined Amnesty International (AI), rising to secretary-general. After leaving AI, he became a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, which is closely linked to Qatari intelligence. Mitri Tarek Mitri (12 September 2012-13 August 2014): A Lebanese politician and academic born in Tripoli, Lebanon, Mitri graduated from the American University in Beirut (AUB) and the University of Paris X. He was appointed minister of environment and administrative development in 2005. He then became minister of information in the governments of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora in 2008 and Saad Al-Hariri in 2009. Kobler Martin Kobler (4 November 2015-22 June 2017): A German career diplomat with several degrees in law, he served as UN special representative in Iraq and the Democratic Republic of the Congo before becoming head of UNSMIL. He also held senior posts in the German Foreign Ministry including director general for culture and communication, chief of cabinet of the foreign minister, and German ambassador to Iraq and Egypt. Salame Ghassan Salame (22 June 2017 to the present): A Lebanese academic, he served as minister of culture under Prime Minister Rafik Al-Hariri from 2000 to 2003. During this period, he was charged with organising the Arab Summit in Beirut, which adopted the Arab Peace Initiative. Following the US occupation of Iraq in 2003, he served as political adviser to UN special representative for Afghanistan and Iraq, Lakhdar Brahimi. Salame had fielded himself for the post of director-general of UNESCO, to succeed Irina Bokova, but withdrew when Lebanon refused to endorse his nomination.
