Libyans have puzzled for four years over what might arrest their country’s disintegration.
Feuding
factions have consistently reached for guns instead of compromises in
their battle to fill the vacuum left by the fall of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, ultimately breaking the country into two warring coalitions of militias and city-states. Leaders on both sides vowed that Libya’s only hope was their own military victory.
But
now a growing number of politicians on both sides of the conflict say
that the dual threats from colonies of the Islamic State and a looming
collapse of the economy may finally jolt Libya
out of that spiral. In a series of interviews in five Libyan cities on
both sides of the fight, political leaders were for the first time
trying in earnest to reverse that trend, calling for unconditional
negotiations and reciprocal concessions.
“It
is the realization that Libya is in danger,” said Fathi Bashaagha, a
businessman who leads the pro-unity faction now ascendant in the pivotal
city of Misurata, whose powerful militias have been fighting in several
places around the country. “Nobody can win. We have only one way we can
survive, and that is a unity government.”
Abubakr
Buera, an influential lawmaker who last year led the Parliament to move
to the side opposing Misurata, said he now agreed, “to save the misery
of the people.”
Their efforts give at least a glimmer of hope to United Nations-sponsored reconciliation talks
now taking place in Algeria. But they still face long odds, in part
because of the presence of extremists averse to any compromise and in
part because of the personal ambitions and mutual distrust among leaders
of both factions.
Against
doves warning of an imminent catastrophe, hawks continue to minimize
the threats, insisting that a military triumph is the only lasting
solution.
“It
will take some time, but it is possible to win the war, and the winner
is going to be the winner,” asserted Abdulrahman Swehli, previously the
most influential political figure in Misurata and still the leader of a
hawkish camp opposed to Mr. Bashaagha.
The
reports about the growth of the Islamic State in Libya are
“propaganda,” Mr. Swehli said, and the economic situation is “bad but
not dire.” He accused the United Nations diplomat leading the unity
talks of “making things worse” by trying to isolate those like himself
who still saw the domestic conflict as an existential battle.
Still,
the chiefs of Misurata’s civilian and military councils both said that
the majority of the city was backing Mr. Bashaagha and the unity talks,
because of fatigue with the battle and a sense of the growing dangers.
“We are not as united as we once were,” Mr. Swehli conceded. “Some people are getting tired.”
Each of the two coalitions now has its own rival provisional government, each riven with internal divisions.
The
side that is recognized internationally, centered in the eastern cities
of Tobruk and Bayda, is dominated and defined by Gen. Khalifa Hifter,
72, who once fought for Colonel Qaddafi but later broke with him to join
the exiled opposition. General Hifter last year announced his own
attempt at a military takeover, promising to purge Libya of both
moderate and extremist Islamists.
Libyans
fearful of the extremists have embraced him as a hero, while others
have denounced him as a second Qaddafi. The western city of Zintan has
allied with him mainly in shared opposition to the expanding influence
of the coastal city of Misurata.
The
other coalition, centered in Misurata, controls the capital, Tripoli.
It includes both moderate and extremist Islamists as well as Berber
tribes and much of the former exiled opposition to Colonel Qaddafi — all
united mainly by a fear of General Hifter.
Their battles killed more than 2,800 people last year and displaced about 400,000, according to a recent United Nations report.
They have destroyed or incapacitated Libya’s two main airports,
flattened districts of major cities, and disabled much of the oil and
energy infrastructure. Libya, despite its oil wealth, now suffers
widespread blackouts, gas lines and even shortages of cooking oil.
Both
factions have continued to draw on the same central bank to meet
increasingly inflated payrolls, often for no-show jobs or inflated
militia budgets. Public payroll costs tripled to $24 billion in 2014
from $8 billion in the year before the uprising of 2011, said Musbah
Alkari, manager of the reserves department at the Central Bank of Libya,
while oil revenue plunged.
Libya
could run a deficit of more than $40 billion in 2015, quickly burning
through its foreign reserves of about $90 billion, according to Central
Bank figures. The currency may collapse in less than two years, Mr.
Alkari said, but many Libyan politicians still believe that Libya is
rich and that “we can’t go broke.”
Fighters pledging loyalty to the Islamic State, also known as ISIS
or ISIL in Arabic DAESH, control the midcoastal city of Surt and a militia in the
eastern city of Derna. They have claimed responsibility for attacks on
Misurata militias, a Tripoli hotel, government buildings, foreign
embassies and a major oil field as well as the beheading of a group of
Egyptian Christians.
The
Tobruk-Bayda government’s leaders say their current war is against
extremism, but a growing number of lawmakers in its Parliament now argue
that a unity government is the only way to defeat it. “I hope we can
all stand up and expel the terrorists together,” said Muad Rafa Mosod,
30, a lawmaker from the south.
Elected
last year and now based in Tobruk, the Parliament confers legitimacy on
the Tobruk-Bayda government and it has named General Hifter its top
military commander.
But
it does not disclose its attendance or vote counts. In part because of a
boycott by members opposed to General Hifter, fewer than 110 members in
the 200-seat chamber usually attended last year, and attendance has
since fallen below 90.
In
the first vote last year on the unity talks, more than 50 voted against
and fewer than 50 voted in favor, several lawmakers said. But the most
recent vote had flipped to 65 in favor and 12 against, according to Mr.
Buera, the first speaker and an influential member.
In
Tripoli, even the chief of staff overseeing his faction’s war effort
said that neither side could win on the battlefield. Without a unity
government, said the chief, Jedalla al-Obeida, “we will have city-states
and a Somalia scenario.”
But
like the Misuratan hawks, the military leaders in Tobruk and Bayda show
no sign of relenting. In an interview, Saqr al-Jarushi, chief of
General Hifter’s small air force, accused the Misuratans of plotting to
bring Jews to Libya and praised Colonel Qaddafi for his crackdowns on
Islamists. “It was better that he killed them,” Mr. Jarushi said,
“because otherwise they would be heads of militias just as they are now.
This is what Qaddafi was afraid of.”
But
how to deal with genuine extremists also remains an unanswered question
for the Misurata coalition. The coalition includes Ansar al-Shariah of
Benghazi, the extremist group linked to the attack that killed
Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens in 2012 and widely blamed for a
campaign of bombings and assassinations against security and other
perceived foes.
Misurata-Tripoli
leaders tend to dodge questions about their Ansar al-Shariah allies.
Jamal Naji Zubia, head of the Tripoli foreign media office, recently
suggested that the Benghazi Islamist fighters should address the problem
by better explaining themselves through the news media. “I told them,
‘You say you are mujahedeen and you are not afraid of death, so why are
you afraid to show your faces?’ ” Mr. Zubia said.
Mohamed
Dayri, foreign minister of the Tobruk-Bayda government, said he told
the United Nations envoys that talks were “necessary but not sufficient”
to defeat the extremists. “A political track, yes, but what about a
military track?” he said.
On
the other side, even the most conciliatory leaders of the
Misurata-Tripoli faction are dead set against any role for General
Hifter.
“He just wants to be on top of the throne,” Mr. Bashaagha said. “We had that experience for 40 years, under Qaddafi.”
Then
any unity government would face the same challenge that undermined its
predecessors: how to exert civilian control over the feuding militias.
“At
some point, they are going to realize that you can point as many guns
as you want and you still can’t pay salaries,” said Motasim Elalem, 39, a
banker in Tripoli. “I keep waiting for Libya to hit rock bottom,” he
added, “but I think we are going to have to burn it down first.”
END
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