As Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi celebrated 40 years in power, problems at home and abroad are besetting the Libyan regime, writes Atiya Essawi While the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has apparently managed to sort out the Lockerbie crisis, resume ties with Western nations, having first abandoned the Libyan nuclear programme, and persuade armed groups in Libya to lay down their arms, as he approaches the 40th anniversary of his seizure of power in 1969 he still faces substantial problems both at home and abroad. At home, the Tebu tribes in the south of the country are continuing their struggle against the regime, while abroad the victims of Irish Republican Army (IRA) attacks, allegedly conducted with Libyan help, are demanding compensation. Unless the Libyan regime acts quickly to contain these problems, they may sap the country's resources and obstruct the progress Libyans have long been waiting for. However, it is far from all bad news for the regime in Tripoli. On the domestic front, the leaders of a key Libyan militant group have recently apologised for the damage they have caused through their insurgency, causing the Libyan authorities to reward the group by releasing 90 (nearly one third) of their imprisoned members and promising to release 50 more at a later date. Following two years of dialogue between the government and the leaders of the armed group, some militant leaders have agreed to renounce violence and published a document entitled "Corrective Studies in the Understanding of Jihad ". The dialogue was supervised by the Gaddafi Institute for Development, which is chaired by Gaddafi's son Seif Al-Islam. Libyan intelligence agencies and internal and external security services also took part. The group, which once vowed to overthrow Gaddafi and establish an Islamic state in the country, has renounced all connections with Al-Qaeda. In a statement issued last month, the group said it had no links with the Algerian-based Sunni Group for Call and Combat, also known as Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. The group's declaration has undoubtedly weakened the position of Al-Qaeda in North Africa, with some observers adding that it may also have undermined all Islamist militant groups seeking to unseat Arab governments. Yet, there is at present no way of knowing how long the rapprochement between the Libyan regime and its domestic opponents will last. Two thirds of the group's members remain in prison, and many of these have yet to renounce violence. Should hardline elements hold out, there will be no way of preventing them from recruiting another generation of militants. The group is largely made up of men who fought against Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s, with many of its members entertaining ideas close to those of Al-Qaeda. The present deal is not a guarantee that the combatants will not take up arms once more, since in Algeria militants did just that when the government failed to keep its promises, which included offers of jobs, mobility and immunity from prosecution. Libya is also home to other militant groups, including Salafi extremists who regard the rest of the country as apostate. In addition to the regime's dealings with the Islamist groups, a further headache has been problems in the south of the country, where Tebo tribesmen have openly challenged the government. Since the outbreak of a student uprising in Kufra in the south of the country in 2007, the Libyan government has been taking punitive measures against the Tebu people, limiting their travel, banning them from government jobs and depriving them of education. The government has said that the Tebu are not Libyans at all, saying that they should return to their "countries of origin", which include Chad, Sudan and Niger. For their part, the Tebu say that they are being punished for having lent their support to the country's former monarchical regime, with the former Libyan monarch, Idris Al-Sanussi, having recruited the tribesmen as bodyguards. The Tebo refuse to serve as Gaddafi's guards. A Tebu group, the Tebu Front, which is based in Norway, has called on the Arab League to look into the conflict, claiming that the Libyan regime wants to turn their areas "into another Darfur". Tebu Front leader Issa Mansour has threatened to wage a guerrilla war against local and foreign companies unless the tribes' demands are met, which include a share of oil revenues, citizenship rights and compensation for past grievances. Mansour has accused the Libyan security services of arresting members of the tribes during a campaign against them in November 2007, also alleging that the government expelled hundreds of Tebu students from schools and dismissed others from the security services, the army and the police. The Tebu are also banned from teaching in Libyan schools. The Tebu make up 20 per cent of Libya's population, and, coming from 38 tribes, including the Kufra and Tazaidu, there are an estimated two million of them in Libya living in an area larger than France, Belgium and The Netherlands combined. Some Tebu tribes live in Chad, Niger and Sudan, with smaller numbers living on the borders with Algeria and Egypt. Tebo leaders have said that while the Libyan government grants nationality rights to anyone who has lived in the country for 10 years or more, such rights have been denied to the tribesmen. They claim that the Libyan regime is wasting the country's resources, building hotels, schools, and hospitals in the north but neglecting the southern parts of the country. They have accused the regime of instructing Libyan revolutionary committees and people's congresses to mistreat them, and they are indignant that they have not been represented in the country's committees or congresses since 1982. For its part, the Libyan government has done its best to ignore the Tebo protests. The Libyan media has not reported on the problems, so it came as a surprise when, on 7 November 2008, the newspaper Al-Watan said that fighting between the Tebu and Zaweya tribes in Kurfa had left six dead and many homes destroyed. More recently, the Tebu Front has called on its supporters to engage in civil disobedience and to hold peaceful demonstrations to protest at what it calls Tebu mistreatment by the regime. The Front has also called for an independent international enquiry into what it calls "the massacre of Abu Selim prison", a reference to the death of dozens of people in a prison riot in 1996. The Front wants the government to reveal what happened to people still missing after the riot, including one of its leaders, Mansour Al-Kekhia. Mohamed Bashir Al-Khodar, an adviser to the General People's Congress, the Libyan parliament, has promised an investigation into the 1996 prison incident. As if these domestic difficulties were not enough for the Libyan regime to deal with, in another development UK prime minister Gordon Brown has recently announced the setting up of a team to assist the families of victims of IRA bombings. Brown, who has been criticised in the past for his reluctance to press the compensation issue, has now taken his cue from the Americans, who demanded compensation from the Libyan government for the families of three Americans who died in IRA bombings. Gaddafi's regime is widely believed to have backed the IRA during the latter's campaign for the independence of northern Ireland from British rule. Only a year ago, Brown told a lawyer for the families of the victims that it would be "inappropriate" to bring up the compensation issue with Libya, which he described as an "essential partner" in the war on terror. The statement drew criticism from those who believe that the UK government has been reluctant to put pressure on Libya because it wants to conclude various oil deals with the Libyan government. For his part, Seif Al-Islam Gaddafi has said that Libya will resist demands for compensation from the families of the victims, adding that the matter should be settled in court. This statement is being seen as representing flexibility on Libya's part, since until recently Libya refused to address the issue. Libya is believed to have paid $3 billion in compensation to the families of the 270 victims of the Lockerbie bombing in December 1988, when a Pan Am airliner was brought down by a bomb over the Scottish town of the same name. It may eventually pay a considerably larger sum in compensation to the families of the estimated 3,000 people who perished in the IRA bombings.
