ITALIAN NAVY FLEET GROWS UP FOR LIBYA - 29.3.2015

As fighters from the Islamic State group build beachheads in lawless Libya, Italy is sending a naval fleet to monitor the Libyan coast and protect Italian shipping and oil rigs from jihadi attacks.
The mission, dubbed Mare Sicuro, or Safe Seas, will likely involve a landing helicopter dock vessel, two FREMM-class frigates, a patrol vessel and Predator UAVs, a defense source said.
A contingent of marines will join the mission, and use high-speed craft to intercept and board suspicious shipping, he added.
Speaking in parliament on March 19, Italian Defense Minister Roberta Pinotti said the assets would also be used for the "surveillance of jihadi formations." The source said that could involve monitoring ISIS communications in Libya and radar monitoring of shipping.

Italian Predators will fly surveillance missions from Sigonella air base in Sicily where US Global Hawks already operate. Italian Predators previously flew missions over Libya from Sigonella during the NATO air campaign in 2011, which led to the ousting of longtime dictator Col. Moammar Gadhafi.

Fears that ISIS fighters would try to attack Italian ships or rigs, or even try to reach Italy on migrant vessels that sail from Libya, grew in Italy following a March 18 terrorist attack in Libya's north African neighbor, Tunisia.

Although Pinotti said there was still no proof that ISIS fighters would sail to Italy from Libya, she added that the Tunisia attack helped prompt the establishment of Mare Sicuro.
Additionally, she told parliament that Italy would supply Tunisian security forces with night vision goggles, on loan from the Italian Army, to help them control the Libyan border

Not all were convinced Mare Sicuro made sense.

"Without an international mandate. we won't be able to stop arms shipments at sea. And in any case, the militias are already very well armed," said one Italy-based analyst who declined to be named.
"Secondly, we cannot stop the oil tankers leaving Libya, which are financing militias. And if our ships get mixed up with saving migrants whose boats sink at sea, it will interrupt their military mission," he said.
"And what are the rules of engagement?" he added.
"The mission seems a bit paranoid," said Habib Sayah, a Tunisian political analyst. "Individual members of ISIS have spoken about attacks on Italy and we cannot rule it out, but there are no serious indications that there is a plan underway," he added.
On the other hand, an investigation by magistrates in Sicily has reportedly established links between Libyan militias and the people smugglers who make millions loading African migrants in rickety vessels that often sink.
In February, the Italian coast guard, picking up migrants at sea, was confronted by armed traffickers who arrived on a separate boat and ordered the Italians to hand over the migrant vessel once it was unloaded.

Additionally, Italy has a strategic reason to patrol international waters off the Libyan coast. State-controlled energy firm ENI manages oil and gas rigs just offshore and helped lay a gas pipeline that enters the Mediterranean west of Tripoli and emerges in Sicily, bringing important gas supplies to Italy.
The chances of a national government being formed in Libya look as faint as ever, despite a UN representative working hard this month to kickstart negotiations between the Tripoli and Tobruk factions.
"The distance between the diplomatic situation and the real situation on the ground is getting bigger," said Gabriele Iacovino, an analyst coordinator at the International Study Center in Rome.
Iacovino said a Libyan military leader, Gen. Khalifa Haftar, who ostensibly commands forces for the Tobruk government, was impeding talks.
A former Gadhafi soldier who later tried to oust him, Haftar spent years in the US before returning to Libya as Gadhafi fell.
"Tobruk is finding it harder to control Haftar," said Iacovino. "As they talk to the UN, he is bombing Tripoli airport. But he has Egyptian backing and Egypt has no intention of negotiating with the Islamists in Tripoli, which makes Haftar stronger."
END

ALGERIAN VIEW ON LIBYA - 28.3.2015

When in May 2014, Algeria provided 3,500 paratroopers and a logistical contingent of 1,500 men jointly with the US Marines and French Special Forces in order to eliminate elements belonging to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in the Sebha region, officials concluded that Algeria has just abandoned its defence doctrine of military non-intervention abroad.
While this operation proved that specific doctrine adjustments were possible when the threat was deemed serious enough, the fact remains: for Algiers, the priority lies in finding political resolutions to regional crises.
Views certainly differ within the Algerian diplomatic and military circles: “Some suggest that the system set up by the NPA [National Popular Army] on the eastern borders should be made use of to literally ‘unlock’ major Libyan cities and push back Ansar al-Sharia troops to the west where they would be dealt with by the Egyptian army. Others favour a scenario similar to that undertaken by Egypt - choosing targeted airstrikes on Daesh’s groups of fighters and infrastructure in Libya,” Algerian journalist Akram Kharief wrote in El Watan newspaper.
So far, this internal debate has not altered the classic defensive approach, whose primary function is to secure the country’s borders.

Paris-Algiers, a minimal operational partnership

Since French forces were redeployed in the Sahel in July 2014 as part of Operation Barkhane, France has been exercising pressure on Algeria to provide military support to crackdown on the Islamist strongholds in south-eastern Libya. Paris’s ultimate goal is to build up a broad coalition of Western, Arab and North African countries ready to militarily intervene in Libya.
Following the operational rapprochement between Paris and Algiers during the Serval operation in Mali, France was left with the impression that Algeria would welcome another French initiative in the North African region and the Sahel. The visits to Algeria by French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and the Chief of Staff aimed to gauge Algeria’s readiness and assess the level and nature of its contribution to a possible military action in Libya.
However, at the 5 + 5 meeting (Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya in the south of the Mediterranean; Italy, Portugal, Spain, France and Malta on the northern shore) held in Madrid on 17 September 2014, Algeria categorically opposed France’s initiative: “We don’t want the parties [in conflict] to reach security arrangements that will protect the country’s people and property and at the same time create the conditions for the pursuit of the counterterrorism efforts, for this remains a major challenge,” the Algerian Minister of Foreign Affairs said at the time.
According to Algerian analyst Ali Boukhlef, Le Drian, during a visit to Niger, “made insinuations in favour of a military intervention in Libya [although] France primarily advocates a political solution. Some senior officers, however, do not rule out the possibility of coordinated airstrikes, as long as Egypt and Algeria gave the green light.”
Nevertheless, thanks to a bilateral defence cooperation agreement signed in February 2013, France may rely on Algeria’s prompt operational partnership limited only to border interventions in order to contain the expansion or stop the movement of criminal groups or armed jihadists from one country to another.
However, a wider Algerian military action in Libya is even more unlikely to take place, since Algerians are not welcomed by the thowar – Arabic for “revolutionaries”, young Libyans who took up arms to overthrow Gaddafi in 2011 and who later organised in multiple militias – for they accuse Algeria of having sheltered members of the overthrown dictator’s family in 2011. Also, as long as Daesh’s strongholds are located far from Algerian territory, in eastern Libya, Algeria does not perceive the threat as imminent. Furthermore, NPA forces deployment and massive mobilisation along the Algerian-Libyan Saharan borders increasingly prevent infiltrations.

Indispensable compromises among neighbours

Algeria’s major advantage is to have been called upon by the Libyan parties themselves. Nevertheless, the task remains difficult since Algeria must negotiate with many internal and external actors whose interests often differ or even collide.
The G5-Sahel countries for instance (Chad, Mauritania, Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso) had formally called upon the UN Security Council and the African Union to consider international intervention in Libya. The United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, Qatar and Sudan, one way or the other, are also stakeholders in the conflict in Libya.
Algeria, capitalising on its successful mediation in the inter-Malian dialogue, that led on 1 March to the signing of a peace agreement, seeks at all costs to avoid that the military option favoured by France, Egypt, the UAE and Italy. It believes this will jeopardise the smooth progress of the first inter-Libyan talks held in Algiers on 10 March under the auspices of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL). This dialogue is the result of a months-long effort during which Algerian authorities have discreetly met with no less than 200 Libyan interlocutors.
Hence, it is no coincidence that among the actors handpicked by Algiers are the major tribes located in western regions (Warshafana, Gaddaffa, Warfalla, al-Megharha), long marginalised due to their loyalty to the old regime, whose role will be decisive in the formation of a national unity government. This is also the case of the Zintan tribe that maintains ties with Gaddafi loyalists, holds and protects Saif al-Islam, son of Muammar Gaddafi, and supported General Khalifa Haftar’s strikes on Benghazi. In fact, Saif al-Islam, who had already met with influential tribal chiefs in August 2014, could covertly play a significant role in the talks led by Algiers.
For Mustafa Fetouri, a Libyan analyst and journalist, “Algeria knows better than anyone about Libyan society. In that sense, it is much more qualified than France to comprehend the complexity of the situation and convince various Libyan actors of the need for a national dialogue. The majority of Libyans favour an Algerian mediation.”
This is also the view of Jean-Marie Géhénno, president of the International Crisis Group, who said: “Algeria has a profound knowledge of the region [...], a good base for political action.”
To reach its objectives in Libya, Algeria will have to deal with Egypt, Libya’s other influential neighbour. However, “while Egypt and Algeria agree on the objectives, namely to safeguard the unity of Libya and curb the threat of terrorist groups and organised crime’s expansion on the borders, the two countries diverge on the means to reach these objectives,” journalist Khaled Hanafi pointed out.
However, the Algerian government has no intention to dwell on these differences, which it considers as temporary and surmountable, as illustrated by Abdelkader Messahel’s statement during a visit to Cairo on 8 March: “Algeria and Egypt share the same position regarding the crisis in Libya. We support a political settlement of the crisis and back the fight against terrorism as well as efforts undertaken by the United Nations and neighbouring countries.”
The political aspect in Libya’s stabilisation process could be accompanied by a division of labour according to areas of security competence/jurisdiction/authority: the west assigned to Algeria and the east to Egypt. A strategic rapprochement between Algiers and Cairo appears therefore inevitable in the short term.
END

TWO DAYS AFTER UNSMIL-LIBYA OPTIMISTIC CONCLUSION - 27.3.2015

On March 25, the international peace process aimed at ending Libya’s civil war concluded its latest round of talks in Morocco on schedule. Both sides have agreed to continue the dialogue, despite predictions that it might collapse. This is encouraging news, coming as it does at a moment when the rising influence of the Islamic State (IS) reminds Libyans of the high price of continued disunity. Even as the country’s rival governments — the internationally recognized one based in the eastern city of Tobruk, and the self-declared Islamist government in the capital of Tripoli — continue to fight each other, IS forces are drawing attention with attacks on oil and gas installations, which have included taking Western hostages and beheading Libyan guards. So far, though, the IS threat is failing to bring Libyans together as the United Nations and Western governments have hoped. (In the photo, the head of the Islamist government in Tripoli speaks during the funeral of a field commander.)

Optimists can take heart from the fact that the two competing sides have at least been trying to talk.

Optimists can take heart from the fact that the two competing sides have at least been trying to talk. The U.N.-brokered dialogue began in September 2014, and it has continued intermittently since then, though beset by huge difficulties. There are two major issues at stake: the composition and authority of a possible unity government, and the problem of how — and under whose command — this government would restore security and peace.

The U.N. Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) has issued the participating parties a set of proposals describing a potential deal. UNSMIL recommends creating a presidential council that would fulfill the role of president and head of government, while retaining the internationally recognized parliament in Tobruk as the country’s legislature. The U.N. also suggests setting up a state council, consisting of leading representatives of society, that would play an advisory role if an agreement were reached. Two additional councils, one for local municipal authorities and one for national security, would be formed at a later stage. These proposals represent a good compromise between the two sides’ positions, and offer an excellent basis for forging a political settlement.

The devil, as always, is in the details. The two competing camps have already started to interpret UNSMIL proposals to suit their own ends. Mohamed Emazeb, a member of the Tripoli delegation to the talks, has announced that the former General National Congress (GNC), which is based in Tripoli, would be part of this power-sharing arrangement. Abubakder Buera, a member of the Tobruk negotiating team, has countered by saying that there is no place for the former GNC in the outcome of a potential deal.

Given such sentiments, there’s good reason to presume that these differences may prove insurmountable even despite the UNSMIL’s ambitious recommendations. The delegates will now head back to Tobruk and Tripoli for consultations with their respective camps. If this latest push for a settlement fails, the U.N. and the Western governments that backed the revolution that overthrew the Qaddafi regime will face some tough choices.

If the dialogue collapses, Libya will be beyond any easy solutions.

If the dialogue collapses, Libya will be beyond any easy solutions. The options then available to the international community could include putting Libya under a U.N. mandate, meaning that vital institutions — such as the Central Bank, the National Oil Corporation, and the Libyan Investment Authority — would be under U.N. administration and oversight. On March 16, Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo told reporters that the EU should consider such measures to push the parties back to the table in the event the talks should fail. This would essentially transform the country into a direct ward of the international community, a role that the U.N. is undoubtedly keen to avoid. This scenario would probably also entail military intervention by the West, perhaps led by Italy, to halt the rise of IS. The intervention could include targeted air strikes on IS targets and the establishment of peacekeeping forces to protect vital oil and gas infrastructure as well as to help secure the borders of the country. Another option would be to create an Arab-Muslim military coalition, likely led by Egypt and Algeria, that would intervene to restore security and prevent the flow of arms and extremist fighters.

Even if the competing sides do agree on a deal, the resulting unity government would confront daunting challenges. The most obvious would be restoring security and combating terrorism. Given that a number of armed groups oppose both the negotiating progress and the very principle of compromise, a future government would find itself in immediate and direct confrontation with those who refuse to cooperate with disarmament and security reform initiatives. (Many of these militias are currently on the government payroll, a fact that has contributed substantially to the deterioration of public finance over the last three years.)

It’s worth noting that past attempts to integrate the militias into the army and security forces have failed miserably, largely because successive central governments have given in to pressure from militias and their leaders rather than implementing professional, efficient training and reintegration programs. This precedent set by previous governments will be a big problem for anyone who attempts to disarm the militias on a national level. A better approach would be to tackle the issue of disarming the militias on regional and local levels instead, since local groups and authorities are better positioned to influence groups operating in their cities or regions.

The other immediate challenge is the economy. The steep fall in oil prices, a corresponding drop in production levels, and terrorist attacks on vital oil infrastructure are all exacerbating an already yawning budget deficit, compounding the woes of an economy already battered by war. A unity government will also have to deal with the issue of porous borders, which are being exploited by extremist groups and arms smugglers.

In short, even if the warring sides can come to an agreement to end their conflict, that won’t translate into a quick fix for all the country’s problems. But at least it would be a start.

UN-LIBYA SCENARIO 26.3.2015

The UN Special Envoy for Libya Bernardino Leon, announced this week that the factions he gathered in Morocco could be very close to signing a national unity deal leading to a consensus government for which names are being discussed. Yet, regardless of the outcome of those talks, the real kingmaker of Libya’s civil war will remain Khalifa Haftar, the man who started it and the only man who can stop it.
For some months now, UN-led negotiations in Libya have moved in parallel with the fighting. The latter track has obviously hampered the former, as different eruptions of violence have from time to time delayed or even blocked the talks brokered by Leon.
This collision between talks and fighting is not an accident but rather part of a deliberate strategy. Nowhere was this clearer than on Friday 20 March, when a military offensive was declared on the same day in which talks were due to resume in Morocco. The eastern-based, internationally recognised government of Abdullah al-Thinni and its “top military commander” Khalifa Haftar stated that the goal of the offensive was to recapture Tripoli.
As part of this onslaught, Tripoli’s only remaining airport of Maitiga was hit. This facility is civilian, although according to a recent UN report, some of the commercial flights coming in from Turkey had been used in the past to smuggle small weapons to the militias now in control of the city.
Prime Minister Thinni had abandoned the capital last summer, in the midst of the fighting between the militias of Zintan - which previously controlled the city - and those coming mostly from Misrata that eventually gained control of Tripoli after destroying its international airport.
Hitting civilian airports is against international law and yet too many “military commanders” have got away with it - starting with those responsible for the events of last summer. This occurred despite a specific UN Security Council Resolution (2174) allowed for issuing individual sanctions against those responsible for violating international law and human rights.
Haftar’s sense of impunity in leading successive attacks against Tripoli’s civilian airport is further heightened by a powerful web of international patrons and by the current political situation in Libya.
Ultimately, the Thinni government, sitting in Tobruk, has increasingly come to represent just one side of the civil war. This was particularly evident after the gradual integration with Operation Dignity, launched in May 2014 by Haftar himself with the aim of uprooting Islamists of all stripes from Libya.
In early March of this year, Haftar was appointed top military commander of the armed forces of Tobruk. He has never concealed his opposition to a power-sharing agreement with Islamists, in line with the policy of his main backers Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and the government of the UAE. Representing the internationally recognised government and with friends like these, Haftar knows that he can pursue his political strategy through military means as much as he likes.
As a matter of fact, fighting in Libya does not always respond to a precise military strategy but it is rather armed propaganda or politics by other means. Haftar’s onslaught on Tripoli was part of a political strategy that aimed at either stopping the talks or tipping the balance of those talks in favour of Tobruk.
Looking at the plan that the UN presented to the parties on Wednesday, he seems to have succeeded. Since last summer, two parliaments claimed legitimacy in Libya: on one hand, the internationally recognised House of Representatives (HoR) sitting in Tobruk and elected on 25 June 2014; on the other hand, the rump General National Congress - Libya’s previous legislature - which reconvened in Tripoli and claims to be the only legitimate body after a Supreme Court verdict on 6 November struck down the constitutional amendment that allowed for the elections of the House of Representatives.
This “clash of legitimacies” seems to have been resolved in favour of the HoR which on UN plan’s point 2 speaks of “The House of Representatives as a legislative body representing all Libyans under the full application of principles of legitimacy and inclusion.” Inclusivity has been a problem of the Tobruk parliament from the start: some if its members had not been elected for security reasons while others boycotted it because of its location in Haftar’s heartland, despite the constitution mandated it to be located in Benghazi.
It is not clear whether the parliament will now be moved to a more neutral location but the spreading of the fighting to almost all of Libya’s coastal towns makes this very unlikely. The fact that even the Tripoli parliament seems to have accepted point 2, gives reasons to be optimistic at least on the end of the boycott by many of the MPs in the House of Representatives. But that’s a very small silver lining.
Ultimately, the “consensus government” may not be a solution to the collapse of the country’s government structure. Thinking that the new executive branch will connect with ministries and government agencies in Tripoli is delusional as long as its decision-making remains in Tobruk, hundreds of miles from the capital.
The transfer of both government and parliament to the capital or to Benghazi will be impossible while the fighting goes on. This is unlikely to stop until the parties agree on a less public item which is under discussion in the talks: a “consensus” head of the armed forces to replace Haftar, or at least a consensual civilian commander-in-chief. This is why for as long as Haftar is in charge, he will do everything he can to sabotage a national unity deal that would ultimately unseat him - and strikes on airports like Maitiga are just the starter.
Alternatively, he could accept the creation of a consensus cabinet while at the same time pursuing his military strategy, including the fighting in Tripoli which would make the operability of the cabinet itself quite problematic.
And, after all, who would stop him? The consensus government would not have big forces of its own, unless one includes in the count those hostile to Haftar who would support the unity deal, which means more civil war to come. The foreign patrons of the general and of his opponents may hold the key to this dilemma. Not by chance, a high official in the UN mission to Libya stated that those who launched the recent offensive on Tripoli “have been very clear they don’t want an agreement”.
On the other hand, no one in the West can really count on Haftar’s military rivals. The Libya Dawn coalition has actively fought in the civil war and is in an ambiguous alliance with groups like Ansar al Sharia, blacklisted by the UN for their terrorist activities. Yet, the political branch of Libya Dawn, the General National Congress, has made significant concessions at the negotiating table as the point on the legitimacy of the House of Representatives demonstrates. Meanwhile, forces from Misrata (the main “shareholder” of Dawn) have fought against IS in Sirte.
If talks are going to be successful and if the consensus government is to be effectively operating from Tripoli, it is up to Haftar to call off the offensive against Tripoli. But this is unlikely to happen while he has such powerful friends in the region – and powerful friends of those friends in Europe, particularly in the Italian and French governments.

SECULARISM (LAICITE' IN FRENCH) IN FRANCE AFTER CHARLES HEBDO - 25.3.2015

the attack on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo has unleashed an ideological war over laïcité — the strict version of secularism that underpins laws banning headscarves at school and face-covering veils in public areas.

This may seem counterintuitive. After the murders in January nearly 4m people took to the streets of Paris and other French cities in solidarity with a publication that could not be more emblematic of secularism à la Française. For decades, the fiercely anticlerical Charlie Hebdo cartoonists who were shot down by Islamists used their right to blaspheme — formulated by Voltaire, the Enlightenment philosopher, three centuries ago — to mock religions. Their attackers claimed their acts were in retaliation for caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed.

The atrocity could have strengthened laïcité. The crime of blasphemy was abolished not long after Chevalier de La Barre was tortured, beheaded and burnt in 1766 for not removing his hat in front of a Catholic procession. Today’s secular republic has a duty to protect all citizens, including those who do not believe in God. Prime Minister Manuel Valls was quick to announce a plan to bolster the teaching of those principles at school.

But the debate that ensued has highlighted deep divisions, pitting intellectuals who call for the return to stricter observance of secularism against those who argue that this version of laïcité is racism in disguise, directed at a Muslim population that already faces discrimination.

Alain Finkielkraut, an author and a member of the prestigious Académie française, belongs to the first category. Sitting in his living room in a well-heeled arrondissement of Paris, he laments that his camp is losing. The fact that Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right anti-immigration National Front (FN), has begun depicting herself as a champion of laïcité makes anyone else defending it a suspect, he says.

Born to a Polish leather-goods maker, he is a product of the meritocratic, secular state school system, and he fears these good old days are gone. L’identité malheureuse , the book he published last year, caused an uproar for accusing modern European societies of caving in to Islamists in the name of tolerance and liberalism. The son of an Auschwitz survivor, he was called a “fascist”. He says: “I get insults all the time now.”

Anti-racism and political correctness have become an ideology, he adds. The concept of Islamophobia “wrongly confuses the rejection of a population and the rational criticism of a religion”. Since Charlie Hebdo, “self-censorship has settled down, and it’s increasingly difficult to criticise Islam”.
For Mr Finkielkraut, religion is incompatible with teaching and learning. He is in favour, for instance, of banning the headscarf in universities, and prohibiting mothers who wear the veil from accompanying pupils on day trips. “It’s not discriminatory, it’s setting the rules,” he says. The veil, for example, is not neutral: “It’s a way of separating men and women, and that has nothing to do with the French tradition.”
When I suggest it is hard to prevent traditions from evolving, he snaps: “Evolution can be regression.”
Mr Finkielkraut’s malaise echoes the identity crisis afflicting France, which has partly translated into the rise of the FN — which received about 25 per cent of the votes in the weekend’s regional elections — amid record unemployment and fears over globalisation. But while it may make sense to stick to principles that have shaped French culture, it is not possible to ignore discrimination based on ethnicity, skin colour and religion — nor the fact that some do use laïcité to dress up racist tendencies. A dose of pragmatism is perhaps required.
Mr Finkielkraut fears that France will take a darker course, with more tensions and possibly some sort of civil war

LIBYA: Opposition to extremists is a prerequisite for inclusion in any negotiations, writes Dominic Asquith 22.3.2015

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Emaco-group-Libya/179598482132721

Rebuilding Libya should not have been hard. It had a small population with no sectarian problems, the largest proven oil reserves in Africa and billions of foreign assets, and the major international players were enthusiastic to help overcome Muammer Gaddafi’s disastrous legacy. Yet it has degenerated into failure, inexorably undermined by a minority intent on asserting their own interests to the exclusion of others.

Following the elections last June, the resulting parliament and the government it appointed were displaced from Tripoli, the capital, to Tubruq far in the east by an alliance of forces (including the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists) called Libya Dawn, which had suffered electoral defeat.

Libya now also risks becoming the platform for the most vicious terrorist group to emerge from the region. As in Syria and Iraq, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, known as Isis, has mutated in Libya, exploiting the political and military stalemate afflicting UN-sponsored negotiations to establish a national unity government under the guidance of Bernardino León, the UN envoy.

International leaders repeat their willingness to help — once this UN-sponsored unity government is in place. Depending on how you count, however, there have been up to five governments of Libya since the revolution. And each has embraced the political spectrum, only for unity to disappear each time one party pursued its own interests.

Given the distrust, it is key to get right the principles for determining who should be in a government. Does insistence on “inclusive policies” translate into including in government those in Libya Dawn who have long maintained an ambivalent relationship with Islamic extremists, whom the UN itself has outlawed? In answering that, we should not conflate participation in the political process with participation in government. Western leaders appear wedded to the proposition that governments in the Middle East must include every pol­itical faction to be held “legitimate”. The danger is that even a group that usurped power by force wields a veto.

Negotiation needs to shape the context of a final agreement. The litmus test of what is a legitimate participant in talks should be its stance on Isis. Some elements of Libya Dawn (including Muslim Brotherhood mem­bers) have failed that test for too long. Hence the distrust of their motives — even among those from their own ranks, some of whom have now taken the battle to Isis.
Mr León’s determination is impressive. There is, however, a flaw in his ne­gotiating framework. The elected government suspects western partners and the UN are bent on securing the inclusion in talks and in government of those who have maintained an alliance with the principal enemy — the one fiercely opposed elsewhere in the region.

Who appoints the unity government is therefore crucial. Is it to be assorted negotiators assembled by the UN most recently in Morocco, or leaders of political parties gathered by the UN in Algeria — some of whom have no representatives in an elected body? Why is that more legitimate than the House of Representatives elected nearly a year ago?
It is essential that the international community builds consensus around a few principles. Libya’s resources and territory must not fall into the hands of a coalition that can be manipulated by those associated with Isis and al-Qaeda. Explicit, unequivocal opposition to such extremists is a prerequisite for inclusion in any negotiating process.
“Legitimacy” cannot permit the transfer of legislative authority from an elected to an unelected body appointed by those who took up arms to assert power. The constituent assembly elected last year to draft a new constitution may regrettably need to enter the fray and authorise the establishment of a unity government until polls can be held under a new constitution.
The Libyan army should be supported in its efforts to defeat extremist forces. All other militias should be disarmed or integrated into government forces, with UN-agreed sanctions imposed on those refusing to do so.

The writer, a former UK ambassador in Iraq, Egypt and Libya, is chairman of the Libyan British Business Council

LIBYA COSTS FOR ITALY

published by FT - Original in English - Translation in Italian by Corinne McLeod 10.3.2015

Conversazione con l’ing. Arnaldo Guidotti – residente in Libia dal 1990 come direttore Emaco Group Libya filiale di Emaco Group, Viareggio Italia e Emaco Group International, Roma Italia - che gestiva in marzo 2011 contratti per infrastrutture di 280 milioni €.

Tra i 400 e i 500 milioni di euro al mese. A tanto ammonta il costo della crisi libica per l’Italia, tra appalti e commesse già nell’orbita di Roma, ma che hanno dovuto subire un brusco stop. Punto di partenza i numeri: l’Italia è il primo partner commerciale della Libia con circa 11,6 miliardi € d’interscambio, un dato che rispetto al 2010 è oggi in calo del 50%. Nonostante il caos del post-Gheddafi siamo ancora i maggiori destinatari delle esportazioni libiche relative a patrolio e gas: lo dimostrano le rilevazioni del primo semestre 2014 con l’export dell’Italia verso la Libia che ammonta a 1,8 miliardi (-15,4%) e l’import a 3,05 miliardi (-58,6%).€

LIBIA STRATEGICA

“Per noi la Libia è troppo importante, non possiamo lasciar perdere” osserva. Alcune aziende turche si stanno iniziando ad affacciare su quello scenario, “e noi non possiamo permetterci di lasciare il passo ad altri”. Guidotti conferma che se la bufera nel Paese dovesse passare, rientrerebbero senza dubbio tutte le aziende italiane, oltre ad altri soggetti, e “non vi sarebbero particolari controindicazioni, anche perché le imprese lì hanno commesse e di lavoro da fare ce n’è tanto”. Per cui l’intenzione, appena possibile, è quella di farvi ritorno. Dal punto di vista del calo del fatturato “non nascondiamo che siamo preoccupati, lo eravamo già stati in occasione della crisi politica, ma questa volta i riverberi potrebbero essere ancora più gravi per via di prospettive imprenditoriali che già c’erano per noi relativamente ad alcune infrastrutture”. Tutto quindi verrà rallentato, comprese le decisioni su possibili future acquisizioni.

IL RUOLO DI PRODI

E’ auspicabile dipanare la matassa libica aspettando l’Onu o puntando su un negoziatore esperto, dopo i risultati poco confortanti del lavoro svolto dall’inviato speciale Bernardino Leon? Secondo Guidotti l’importante è evitare un intervento armato, perché “sarebbe l’errore maggiore”. “Rischierebbe di far diventare la Libia un’altra Somalia, con tutti gli effetti collaterali del caso”. La Libia si trova “a un passo dal nostro Paese”. E un intero universo imprenditoriale è in attesa che “la politica italiana si decida a spingere l’ex presidente della Commissione Europea Romano Prodi come partner di Leon, che fino ad oggi non ha raggiunto alcun risultato”.

VOLUTO DALLA LIBIA

Perché Prodi? In primo luogo, secondo Guidotti, “perché è il nome che tempo fa avevano chiesto gli stessi libici, per via della sua conoscenza approfondita del dossier politico-economico-energetico del Paese, dove coltiva relazioni decennali. La politica italiana ha tentato “di metterlo in disparte a causa di beghe interne e non lo ha sponsorizzato per via di eventuali ombre su qualcuno: questo è un dato di fatto reale”. Per queste ragioni è sbagliato fare riferimento a operazioni di “peace keeping o peace enforcing, ma serve andare su altri tavoli”.

RACCORDO

Bisognerà fare un lavoro sul territorio dove, ragiona Guidotti, occorre “una figura libica di una certa caratura, come alcune personalità legate a famiglie storiche del Paese contrarie al regime penso all’80enne Senussi, che faccia da raccordo con chi guiderà l’operazione e soprattutto sia l’emblema della pacificazione”. Sarebbe un buon inizio di dialogo, “ma guardando un momento all’esterno non conterei troppo sull’aiuto del presidente egiziano Al-Sisi”. La parte islamista di Tripoli infatti non accetterebbe di buon grado una mano del Cairo, percepito come ostile per aver preso le parti del governo laico di Tobruk e del generale Haftar”. Un altro problema, per Guidotti, “è in Italia”.

STASI POLITICA

Come “evidente da alcuni mesi”, c’è un nodo da sciogliere a Roma, dove “la politica dovrebbe farsi più attiva sul caso libico”. Più in generale, secondo Guidotti, serve smetterla di cincischiare sulla politica estera: “Renzi oggi, ma anche Letta ieri, non hanno voluto capire a fondo la questione libica, che per noi è strategica dal punto di vista petrolifero, imprenditoriale e anche migratorio”. Sono fermi miliardi di commesse, ci sono lavori da portare a termine e da avviare, oltre a “relazioni peculiari. Le nostre aziende sono affidabili ed efficaci”. Lo scorso febbraio, la conferenza sulla Libia è stata messa un po’ in ombra dalla crisi ucraina, ma in quell’occasione anche il presidente americano Barack Obama aveva più volte invitato il nostro Paese a farsi parte attiva verso Tripoli. “E invece – ricorda – a settembre è stata la Spagna ad aprire un tavolo sulla Libia, guadagnando la posizione di Bernardino Leon come inviato ad hoc dell’ONU. Quest’ultimo, pur molto volenteroso, non ha prodotto risultati perché Madrid non può vantare con Tripoli quelle relazioni che invece esponenti italiani avrebbero potuto mettere in campo”.

LATITANTE

Dopo la conferenza l’Italia è stata “latitante ad arte”, limitandosi a parlare del solo versante dell’immigrazione. “Purtroppo è andata così”, dice Guidotti. Il tutto rientra “nell’atavica incapacità” della nostra politica di “concentrarsi sui tavoli tematici”, come quando Obama disse che il dossier libico era di pertinenza esclusiva dell’Italia. “E noi siamo solo riusciti a tenere aperta la nostra ambasciata fino ad un mese fà”. Ma poi? Il fatto in sé di aver riconosciuto il governo di Tobruk mentre “la nostra ambasciata che era da tutt’altra parte, a Tripoli, non è stata mai toccata, vuol dire che l’Italia aveva saldi rapporti con entrambe le parti”. E oggi che Libia c’è? “Senza benzina, con banche chiuse, bancomat muti e negozi senza prodotti”

FINE