The NTC's anti-Gaddafi bravado has not been matched by political skill when it comes to creating a new Libya, concludes Gamal Nkrumah Having a memorial to commemorate the late legendary Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel-Nasser torn asunder is indeed a rare sight in the Arab world. But the rash actions of the supporters of Libya's ruling National Transitional Council (NTC) brought about the memorial's destruction. "Down with Nasser the tyrant", they bellowed. One can sympathise with the objections raised by the NTC leadership. But the impetuous behaviour of the angry mob in Benghazi is at once grievous and unforgivable. The NTC split between rival factions -- politicised tribal and regional groupings, moderate and militant Islamists -- defies categorisation. While Libya's domestic political outlook continues to worsen, the NTC policies governing them are going from bad to worse. If Libya ever fixes its political system it may be because of the integration, rather than the exclusion, of the hitherto silenced supporters of the slain Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. On the first anniversary of the uprising that led to the overthrow and gruesome assassination of his father, 38-year-old Saadi Al-Gaddafi announced from his home in the Niger capital of Niamey that most Libyans, including members of the ruling NTC, were dissatisfied with political and economic conditions in the post-Gaddafi Libya. Angry scenes of insurrection among Gaddafi loyalists in his onetime strongholds such as Bani Walid, a city of 120,000, 200km south of the Libyan capital Tripoli, confirms Saadi's assertions. Yet until the Green Resistance, Gaddafi loyalists, renounce violence, it will be difficult, if not impossible for the NTC to accept them as power-sharing partners in Libya's development. "There is a rebellion that is going on day after day and there will be a rebellion in the entire country," Saadi said in an interview with the Pan-Arab television channel Al-Arabia. "I will return to Libya soon," Saadi declared emphatically. Unlike his brother Seif Al-Islam who is currently incarcerated by the NTC, Saadi is not wanted by the International Criminal Court based in The Hague, Netherlands. Seif Al-Islam is wanted by the ICC for committing crimes against humanity during his father's crackdown against pro-democracy protesters. The ICC issued an arrest warrant against Seif Al-Islam on 27 June. Gaddafi was killed on 20 October. Still, Libya's post-Gaddafi authorities cannot rest easy. The rebellion of the Green Resistance will take a toll on Libya's political stability and economic prosperity. Things could not be worse. Libya is fast sliding into the tragic morass of the immediate post-Saddam Hussein Iraq. Leaderless and ruled by the mob, Libya is teetering dangerously on the edge of a fearsome precipice. It is hard enough to make progress when the security situation is worsening. But it will be a losing battle without sustained efforts by the NTC to create transparent political and judicial cultures in post-Gaddafi Libya. What is even more worrying is that the turmoil within Libya threatens to spill over into neighbouring countries. The NTC has so far not taken a pragmatic step to help bridge divisions within the country and within the NTC itself that weakens its own legitimacy. A move towards reconciliation with Gaddafi loyalists is not too far-fetched a solution, and could actually encourage the Green Resistance to moderate its positions. The NTC claims that Saadi's comments were a violation of the terms of his residency in Niger that granted Saadi asylum on condition that he refrains from inciting his people to violence or indulge in political activism. The self-styled soccer player has been in exile for less than a year. But already he is starting to put his stamp on the Green Resistance, the underground movement of Gaddafi loyalists. Could this be Saadi's big political debut? The Green Resistance has intensified attacks on NTC targets in Libya in recent weeks. And for Saadi Al-Gaddafi it probably feels like a good moment to speak out. "Allah wa Muammar, Libya wa bess" (God and Gaddafi, Libya and nothing else) was the mantra chanted by the citizens of Bani Walid and Sirte. The two cities whose inhabitants feel aggrieved because their homes were ransacked after the cities were stormed by NTC allied troops and NATO drones flew over them leaving in their wake a trail of death and destruction. Human rights organisations warn of the dire consequences of the alleged torture of 7,000 Libyan detainees in the controversial NTC-run detention centres. Libyans, admittedly Gaddafi loyalists, fiercely protested the NTC's Defence Minister Osama Juili's visit to Bani Walid last week. The vexing question of questionable, disreputable characters such as Sufian Ibrahim Gammu, a Guantanamo Bay Al-Qaeda detainee, who now holds high political office within the NTC in Benghazi, leads many Libyans to conclude that their new government is not deserving of public trust. Restoring Libyans' faith in their new leaders will take more than changing a few faces such as Gammu and his fellow Gitmo detainee Abdel-Hakim Belhaj. Tribal elders met to prepare a draft plan for reconciliation. Citizens, and tribesmen whose homes and properties have been demolished and looted and whose kith and kin have suffered death at the hands of NTC stalwarts are demanding compensation. The Kufra oasis, deep in Libya's Sahara Desert, is up in arms. The Tuareg tribesmen who had been among Gaddafi's most loyal supporters have drifted southwards into Mali and Niger, Algeria and beyond. Such movements have caused turmoil in neighbouring countries where possession of arms and ammunition in quantities hitherto unknown have had catastrophic effects. The tribes are in motion across the Sahara and have created a new context for the politics of this vast segment of the African continent. The shadow of Islamist insurgency lurks on the desert's horizon. There is a more pernicious force at work fuelling the disturbances in northern Mali that may soon engulf the entire Saharan region if not contained. This week an estimated 15,000 refugees, including members of Mali's military personnel, fled the northern reaches of the sprawling West African country to neighbouring Niger, Mauritania and Algeria. A deal between the Mali government and the insurgents to end the simmering war could strengthen the Green Resistance's cause by rekindling Gaddafi's support for the disgruntled tribes, lost in the neocolonial nation states. The prospect of an independent political entity, or at least autonomy, for these beleaguered Saharan peoples is no longer remote. As with the Tuareg, so with other Saharan tribes. They all look to Gaddafi's era as a Golden Age. This post-Gaddafi paranoia among the Tuareg and other Saharan ethnic groups that fought alongside the slain Libyan leader is fed by a political elite struggling to maintain its own credibility amid growing uncertainty over their controversial alliance with Gaddafi. The tribes of the Sahara were among Gaddafi's last significant poles of influence in the African continent. So what now? Heavily armed former fighters from Gaddafi's army have joined up in northern Mali. And Saadi ruminates over the ruin of Gaddafi's Libya in neighbouring Niger. The authorities in that impoverished West African nation have so far refused to hand Saadi over to the NTC. "We will study that question according to our laws and our international commitments," Niger's President Mahamadou Issoufou told France 24 over the weekend. Across the border in Mali, the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad, better known by its French acronym MNLA is fighting for national self-determination for the Tuareg people. The Malian authorities assert that the MNLA joined forces with Al-Qaeda, a claim vehemently denied by the MNLA itself. Mali's concerns about the Tuareg who have refused to renounce violence are not unjustified. In another contradictory statement the Malian government declared that the Tuareg who fought alongside Muammar Gaddafi attacked six Malian towns this week. Tuareg is a derogatory term denoting a people "abandoned by God". The Tuareg call themselves Imohag, or "Free People" and they speak the Tamachek language which is closely related to other languages of the Amazigh indigenous population of North Africa. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) warned of the dangers the nomadic hordes face as they traverse the Sahara. The Malian authorities are trying to show that the nation must make a distinction between local and Libyan Tuareg. "Those who attacked certain military bases and towns in the north should not be confused with our Tuareg, Arab, Fulani and Songhai compatriots who live with us," stressed Malian President Amadou Toumani Touré in a televised nationwide address. The Malian authorities are also attempting to demonstrate that more can be achieved by democratisation than by tribal or Islamist insurrection. That could make Mali an even better example for the rest of Africa, including Libya, to follow.
