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CAN BLAIR BE SAVED BY SEIF (IMPOSSIBLE) EXECUTION ?

AFP Journalists watch as the judges (unseen), question Seif al-Islam, the son of slain Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, broadcasted live from inside a room in Tripoli in 2014.

Four years after he was captured trying to flee the country, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, 43, has been sentenced to death by firing squad, having been convicted of murder and inciting genocide during Libya’s 2011 civil war.
Muammar Gaddafi’s son is unlikely to be executed due to the political chaos in his homeland.
But the news revives uncomfortable questions about the nature of his relationship with former Prime Minister Tony Blair..
All happy, if Saif al-Islam Gaddafi (remote possibility even after 1st verdict) takes to the grave what he knows about Blair, the politicians and businessmen who courted him and his family?
Chief among them, of course, was Tony Blair, who helped Saif with his philosophy PhD thesis during his controversial student days at the London School of Economics (LSE) - an institution later revealed to have accepted hundreds of thousands in “donations” from Saif’s charitable foundation and the Gaddafi clan.
As Prime Minister, Tony Blair became acquainted with him soon after the young man was appointed by his father, the Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, in 2001, to act as the public, modern face of his country while Gaddafi senior lived in a Bedouin tent in his compound in Tripoli on the edge of the Sahara.
Educated at university in Libya and Vienna, Saif began visiting London regularly in 2002, setting up his foundation and pursuing his other interests of clubbing, casinos and womanising.
He lived in a £10 million home in North Hampstead, complete with a suede-lined cinema and private swimming pool, dined at China Tang, a restaurant at the Dorchester Hotel, and bought rounds of drinks at Annabel’s nightclub.
The playboy, seen as a potential heir to the throne in Libya, was also welcomed at the salons of the rich and powerful - particularly following the “deal in the desert” of 2004 in which Colonel Gaddafi was persuaded to give up his chemical weapons or face military action.
Even before that deal was struck, Saif had sat down in the House of Lords to a lunch of smoked salmon and Dover sole with Lord Levy, Blair’s sometime Middle East envoy and tennis partner, and Sir Nigel Sheinwald, then Blair’s senior foreign policy adviser.
Prince Andrew played host to him at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle.
Saif’s 37th birthday was held at an opulent nightclub and marina in Montenegro and attended by billionaires such as his friend, the banker Nat Rothschild, and Oleg Deripaska, the metals magnate and friend of Peter Mandelson.
He visited Rothschild’s villa in Corfu, too, meeting Mandelson there while the latter was Business Secretary.
The men met again at a glittering party at Waddesdon Manor, Rothschild’s country home in Oxfordshire.
It was amid this social whirl that Blair’s relationship with Saif developed.
Having brokered the desert deal, Blair was keen to open up Libya to British businessmen - and regarded Saif as the man to deal with.
Documents discovered in the Libyan capital after Colonel Gaddafi’s downfall revealed how close the relationship was between Blair and Saif.
The then Prime Minister addressed him warmly as “Engineer Saif”, while he called Blair a “close, personal friend”.
So CLOSE, in fact, that Blair would later prove influential in winning BP a £600 million Libyan oil contract from Gaddafi’s regime, despite its appalling human rights record and torture of dissidents.
As for the PhD thesis, Saif sent his 400-page paper to Blair seeking feedback.
The then PM wrote a lengthy response, pointing out areas Saif might like to include, such as “how to prevent corruption in oil-rich nations” - bitterly ironic, considering Saif and his father are believed to have stolen £100 billion from Libya’s coffers.
The LSE went on to award Saif a much-prized doctorate even though there were allegations of plagiarism and shoddy work, and there was evidence Saif had spent thousands on extensive private tutoring.
Six weeks after his doctorate was confirmed, the LSE requested a £1.5 million donation to fund research into Libya and North Africa. The payment was later halted amid a public outcry.
How things changed after the war in Libya erupted in 2011.
Blair - by then out of office but working as a Middle East peace envoy - and other influential friends of Saif quickly sought to distance themselves from the Gaddafi clan and deny all knowledge of such close personal friendships.
Tony Blair’s spokesman claimed tersely: “For the record, Tony Blair has only met Saif Gaddafi twice; on both occasions, there were officials and staff present.”
For his part, Saif had abandoned his designer suits and nightclubs, to reappear in Libya as his father’s most rabid defender and vowing to slaughter “those rats”, as he called the rebels, when the uprising began in February 2011.
Living in his own home inside Gaddafi’s compound, with two pet tigers held in an adjacent pen, he was instrumental in plotting attempts to put down the uprising.
Saif was filmed in Libya standing on top of a vehicle, clutching a Heckler & Koch G36 automatic rifle, and urging Gaddafi fighters to “feast on a banquet of their enemies”.
Acting as the country’s de facto prime minister during the protests ahead of the civil war, he stood accused of ordering the shooting of hundreds of people marching against the Gaddafi regime.
Many of the allegations against Saif and his father involved their onslaught against Misrata, a rich port two hours’ drive from the family’s compound in Tripoli, where widespread crimes against humanity were committed.
I know; I was trapped in Misrata at the height of the siege when, under Saif’s command, his troops encircled the city and fired thousands of missiles into civilian areas, while his men used women and children as human shields to repel a fightback by rebels.
Among many horrors, I saw a baby ablaze after a home was hit by Grad rockets - the name means “hail” in Russian - killing three members of the same family, while rotting bodies littered the city’s streets.
Told by Saif that “Misrata is yours”, Gaddafi’s forces also attacked ambulances carrying the wounded, mortared hospitals and carried out mass rapes against women trapped alone inside the city.
As we know, the Gaddafi family lost the war.
The underground compound in Tripoli, where Saif and his brothers had grown up and where Tony Blair had once been a guest, was overrun by rebels on August 22.
Muammar Gaddafi fled and was captured two months later in Sirte, his home town.
He was tortured by rebels, sodomised with a rifle bayonet and shot in the head.
Meanwhile, a month later, Saif was captured trying to escape into neighbouring Niger by soldiers hunting him.
Disguised as a shepherd in old robes, with dirt rubbed on his face, he surrendered to rebel forces in the south of the country near Niger.
He had planned to live there with Saadi, his bisexual brother, who had already been granted asylum.
Saif was caught - and now faces death - as a result of Western intelligence agencies, believed to include Britain’s MI6, monitoring his satellite phone as he made two calls in quick succession before attempting to run for the border.
He initially told his captors he was “Abdul Salem, a camel keeper”, but was soon forced to admit his true identity and imprisoned in Zintan, a dusty town full of rows of non-descript, single-storey buildings.
There, Saif has been held for the past four years.
He slept for short time on a mattress on the floor and is seldom allowed outside his villa prison, which is surrounded by armed guards.
Stung by international condemnation after mobile phone pictures appeared of Gaddafi’s gruesome last hours, Libyan officials have always insisted that Saif will face a court of law, rather than pay for his crimes with summary execution.
Throughout the eight-month Libyan war, I was told repeatedly by senior rebel commanders that Saif would be killed because he, more than any of the other sons, had the “poisoned blood” from his father.
Yet his captors in Zintan on Tuesday night declared they would not hand Saif over to the authorities in Tripoli, knowing their famous prisoner may be worth more alive than dead as warring rebels vie for power in a lawless land which has become a hotbed for Islamic State terrorists.
Perhaps for the sake of truth and justice, rather than vengeance, it would be better if Saif al-Islam Gaddafi was spared the firing squad in return for telling all that he knows - about everything, and everybody.
Though that might make life uncomfortable for Tony Blair and other old friends in the West.

Europe & Libya: CRITICAL ELECTION IN LIBYA - by Richard Galustian ...

Europe & Libya: CRITICAL ELECTION IN LIBYA - by Richard Galustian ...: The UN special envoy of Libya, Bernardino León, believes he came to an agreement on July 11 between the warring sides that featured a four...

CRITICAL ELECTION IN LIBYA - by Richard Galustian 28.7.2015

The UN special envoy of Libya, Bernardino León, believes he came to an agreement on July 11 between the warring sides that featured a fourth draft of what Libyan governance should look like.
The Skhirat Process, named after the Moroccan city where talks were held, intended to bring peace to Libya by reconciling the two opposing Libyan factions: the House of Representatives (HoR) in Tobruk, the Abdullah Al Thinni government in Beida and the Libyan National Army (LNA), including Khalifa Haftar on one side, and, on the other, the Tripoli-based General National Congress (GNC), the government of Khalifa Ghwell it appointed and the various Libya Dawn militias, including the Muslim Brotherhood.

Significantly, the Tripoli-based government - the GNC - not only failed to sign onto the Skhirat Process but is also seeing that financial gain can be derived illegally from human suffering. Tripoli is knee-deep in the migrant exodus that is coming from Africa through Libya towards the soft underbelly of Europe because GNC allies are making millions of dollars off this illicit industry.
Why ruin a good income with a political agreement? These facts are a disgrace.

The EU is becoming increasingly alarmed not only because of the migrant flow but also the fact that Islamic State (Daesh) supporters and fighters are mixing in the humanitarian flood northwards. The stoplight on this threat to Europe is now coloured ‘red’ with sirens ringing in Brussels. Ten EU countries are contributing 15 ships, aircraft and drones for the operation, including the establishment of a intelligence collection and sharing hub in Sicily.

Tripoli is knee-deep in the migrant exodus coming from Africa through Libya towards the soft underbelly of Europe.

However, outside of and despite the many flaws in the Skhirat Process, Libya’s tribes and cities have pushed forward independently with their own efforts to promote peace and reconciliation.

The biggest developments are Zintan, Zuwarah and the Zawia agreements and Misurata’s Warshefana agreement.
The Zuwarah-Zintan agreement seems to preserve Zuwarah’s control of the key Ras Edir border crossing between Libya and Tunisia. And, importantly, the Zuwarah and Zawia agreements call for supporting the State to re-establish the army and the police as well as to help rebuild social services in their locales.
These deals signal the real start of putting the pieces back together in Libya under a future government. That’s called action at the local level by shifting fundamental blocks of Libyan society not included in the Skhirat Process by the UN.

Haftar is still supported by Tobruk’s HoR and a majority of the people, for security reasons. The general’s forces are being resupplied by Egypt and Russia for both ground and air operations.
Capitalising on the spread of Daesh/Islamic State, the Haftarities are aligned with a Cairo recently buffeted by an IS cell that was responsible for the bombing of the Italian consulate in Egypt’s capital city last week.

A concentrated effort on Daesh is required now given that the genie is already out of the bottle

The next key timing is October 20, when new elections are supposed to be held for the Parliament/HoR.

As the mandate for the internationally-recognised, democratically-elected HoR runs out soon and new elections need to be held, the international community but, more importantly, the Libyan’s themselves, need to be preparing the ground now for these critical elections.

All sides recognise that moving towards a new national unity government is in their best interests: except those in Tripoli whose funding by Turkey and Qatar with Ukrainian weapons continues unabated.
And, so, the international community, while promoting the dialogue in Shirkat, must also pressure Turkey and Qatar, plus Kiev, to back off since their supporting the recalcitrant Islamists in Tripoli is counter-productive.

Daesh understands what is ongoingin Libya and is expanding appropriately to fill geostrategic gaps in a fashion which is both political and tactical at the same time.
Not only is grabbing more coastline but it also appears to be targeting the Libyan south on the borders of Niger and Mali. On the coastline, Daesh kidnapped four Italians working for Mellitah Oil & Gas Company in Sabratha.

IS’s strategy is to impact the decision of all oil companies to not return to Libya, which helps Daesh sell oil on the black market. So IS not only gets to send a multilayered message to the Christian Nation, that is Europe, and, specifically, Italy but also its mercantilist desire to make energy profits.
A concentrated effort on Daesh is required now given that the genie is already out of the bottle.
As Libya moves towards the October elections, the National Alliance Party’s Mahmoud Jibril deserves watching. His close relations with the presidents of Tunisia and Egypt is part of a political strategy to bring a sense of solidarity to Libya based on two issues.
One, an accommodation needs to be reached with Haftar and other prominent officers including Wanis Bukhamada who, with a small band of determined officers and men (previously trained by the British), has held the line in Benghazi against Ansar al-Sharia and proto-IS since the end of the revolution.
Secondly, there also needs to be a reconciliation with those tribes that were previously loyal to Muammar Gaddafi, which brings them into the tent and provides them with a credible and sustainable stake in the State.

Saif al-Islam, still imprisoned in Zintan, is increasingly being touted to play some secondary role - as evidenced by recent calls for his release by Tobruk residents – and potentially as part of a future government perhaps under Jibril.

Talk like this is perhaps still a little too soon, particularly as memories of the fighting during the revolution remain raw.
Following Skhirat, the next step is the appointment of a new prime minister, deputy prime ministers and cabinet. This may take some time but the international community must prepare now to back this government, help protect it, as it seeks to establish itself and restore public services, and support its efforts to contain and, ultimately, destroy Daesh.

Tripoli Court will deliver tomorrow his judgment for 37 former officials of Gadafi regime, accused of crimes.

The defendants attended the hearings locked in a cage.

The Libyan court will deliver its verdict on forty-two years of kadhafisme. Tuesday, 37 officials of the former regime will hear the court judgment which sat, despite the Libyan chaos. Some of the accused - as Saif al-Islam and Abdullah Senussi, respectively son and brother of "guide" Muammar Gaddafi - incur the death penalty. They are notably accused of war crimes, acts prejudicial to national unity, looting, murder and incitement to rape. However, the trial raises questions. Began April 14, 2014, it is far from having met the legal standards one would expect of such a symbolic procedure.

Saif's favorite son, has not been seen in public since 2014
Shunned by Libyans who care far more civil war raging in their country, investigation and hearings have left skeptical observers. The 4,000 pages of the dossier were reviewed by the court within thirty four to five sessions? Hours each. Who left the country following the fighting in the summer of 2014, the UN and international organizations could not attend the hearings, while foreign media have sometimes been denied entry. Counsel for the accused noted, them, it was almost impossible to come to the witness stand, because of concern for their safety.
The defendants themselves have suffered from anarchic atmosphere in Tripoli and elsewhere. Saif al-Islam, the favorite son, only attended a handful of hearings satellite connection. Held by a brigade in Zintan revolutionary stronghold located 160? Km south-west of the capital, the designated heir of the dictator is a war chest for the militia who captured in November 2011. He was in indeed never been handed over to Libyan authorities - and even less to the International Criminal Court, which claims it. Since the beginning of the civil war in July 2014, Saif al-Islam has not been seen in public and did not attend the hearings. He will be retried if it falls on a day in the hands of the authorities.
"Prosecution of Torture"
Among his co-defendants are also found his uncle Abdullah Senussi, former head of internal security, Bouzid Dorda, intelligence chief and Baghdadi Mahmudi, the Libyan prime minister (note: the name of the plan). Mehdi Bouaouajah, Tunisian lawyer of the latter, has repeatedly denounced the transfer of his client from Tunisia to Libya in June 2012. "It took place in unclear circumstances and the Libyan authorities have not respected the 'extradition agreement. The charges have been changed and there was no fair trial, "he says. The lawyer has "not had access to the file" and, especially, did not get the accreditation Procuratorate to attend hearings. At the last session, televised, Baghdadi Mahmudi, less accused the prosecution of "torture". An output of the Attorney General, Sadiq al Sour, called "lie". He said that "all prisoners have access to a doctor and if that were true, there would have been a report."
Defenders of the defendants were targeted. In May 2014, one of them announced that he would not deal with his client, Abdullah Senussi. In his statement, the man came limping to the bar. According to one of his colleagues, he would have been shot in the leg.
"The court operates independently, it has not been affected by the unrest taking place in the country. All the accused and their advocates have put forward their arguments, "replied the prosecutor.

ITALY WELCOMES CLANDESTINES FROM ALL OVER WORLD

There is room for everyone. Italy opens the doors to those fleeing war, poverty or oppressive regimes, but also to terrorists who seek to infiltrate Europe, deserters who say they no longer want to fight jihad, the convicts escaped from prison. 

All in Italian of course, only state in the world and in history that does not claim even that provide documents or declare their personal details to cross the border and be welcomed. Only state in the world and in history to mobilize the armed forces to ensure access to all, no, only to those who can afford to pay thousands of Euros for criminals who traffic humans.
 

 Following the news we realize that Italy has really become a seaport, a no man's land in which anyone can enter, but also groped to flow freely (if not stopped by border guards of the French, Swiss and Austrian ) and where anyone will be welcome, as long as you on a barge with the business of the company rewarded "slavers and smugglers", a Spa whose share capital is held also by al-Qaeda Islamic State.

 

In 2011, when the Ministry of the Interior was the Northern League's Roberto Maroni, we welcomed 24,000 Tunisians who had nothing to do with the war in Libya, knowing that among them there were at least 11,000 prisoners escaped from prisons during the "Spring "Tunis. Today we can do even better, thanks to the government Letta gooders and Renzi, who encouraged the considerable increase in migratory flows that actually resemble evacuation operation in a big way in Africa.

 

 The illegal immigrants embark on small boats to be collected at sea by European fleets and moved to Italy where their assistance reserved enriches a large number of associations, cooperatives and organizations closely related to almost all political circles.

 

If in 2011, the year the war in Libya, landed in Italy in 40000, for a couple of years you do things in a big way: 180 000 last year, and already more than 85,000 this year.

 

At the Interior Ministry they are satisfied because the trend of 170,000 arrivals this year against 200,000 expected! I choose not to wait to toast to the "success" because the summer is long and flows could have a significant increase especially in the absence of rejections and of military intervention against the traffickers.

Faced with significant numbers so it makes little sense to complain of the EU partners who have reduced from 40,000 to 35,000 the number of people who are willing to accept from those who are boatloads in Italy and Greece and are entitled to refugee status: in every If it is a very small percentage.

 

Then it would be a shame to ruin the fantastic business of hospitality that makes hundreds of millions of euro cash to the underworld and lobbies linked to the political leadership in Libya as in Italy.

The account the weld us Italians forced to pay a fleet that helps the traffickers to get rich and highest level of assistance to illegal immigrants in any way would have the right to stay in Italy.

The smugglers raking in about 3000 Euros per person, the Italian state pays 35 per day for each illegal immigrant welfare organizations that provide food, housing, medical care, TV in the room or apartment, phone, cards for calls and surf online and even cigarettes.

 

All of course in a context that respects the precepts of the Koran because otherwise our guests get angry and ask (and get) to be transferred in the most respectful of their customs and traditions of Islam.

The operation "empties Africa" ​​conducted by the Italian and European fleets brought to our shores all kinds of people, but of which we know nothing.

 

There is no evidence (so says the Italian Government) that among the illegal immigrants have infiltrated terrorists of the Islamic State, but at least five militants Jabhat al-Nusra Front, arm of al-Qaeda in Syria, have landed in Italy and fortunately intercepted by Italian intelligence.

Their story? Wounded in combat and hospitalized in Turkey, the five decided to defect reaching the Sudan and then Libya with families. Once in Italy admitted they were just passing through, they will achieve some relatives in northern Europe.

 

Please, you are welcome, come in. Among the multitude of Africans to pay for the trip on the boats they have sold homes, work activities and family assets or who have had to work a year in Libya to raise the money necessary to "buy a ticket" there seems to be some foreign workers residing in Libya that he had no intention of risking their lives at sea but they were forced to embark by militias loyal to the Islamist government in Tripoli.

This is the case of a Niger citizen 35 years old working in Libya as a carpenter whose story was told by The Journal. "The Libyan soldiers stopped me on the street and forced me to get into the boat, without paying anything."

A story that deserves study, but that seems an additional confirmation of the close relationship between the Islamist government in Tripoli and traffickers and it could indicate that the barges are also the most expeditious method by which Libya gets free of illegal immigrants increasingly cumbersome.

 

Moreover, about paradoxes, authorities in Tripoli have stopped in recent days 110 illegal African migrants who were preparing to set sail on a tramp steamer from the beaches of Sabratha. Would be several thousand illegal immigrants detained in Libya are waiting to be repatriated, and last week the secular government of Tobruk had repatriated 27 confirming that even the Libyans expel illegal immigrants while only Italy welcomes them all.

Sure Renzi had spoken to repatriate economic migrants (who are the vast majority of illegal immigrants), but then the Ministry of Interior have indicated that no agreements with individual countries of origin can not send home anyone.

In fact it would be enough to threaten blocking economic aid that the EU and Rome provide to African States to "encourage" to recover their people.

 

Instead of expensive and hard returns, they would be much more effective expulsions of illegal immigrants directly on the Libyan coast: those "assisted rejections" of which we have written. In addition to elementary considerations of a political, economic, social, health and safety, to induce the Italian Government to discourage the influx of hundreds of thousands of people, mostly Muslim, it should help the last report by Bank of Italy on loans to Terrorism from Italy.

 

Mosques, NGOs, associations and foundations have moved rivers of money to Islamic terrorists, with cash payments and foreign transactions that are not within the "ordinary handling of the relationship or association with the stated purpose" carried out by Islamic centers and documented in May by Unità (newspaper) upon financial information from the Bank of Italy.

 

In the first quarter of 2015 it was reported 74 cases of terrorist financing "," more than three times "over the same period of 2014 according to the report.

Since 2011 we have been 822 reports of which only 30% has been filed, but the report admits that the detected cases are the tip of the iceberg. "The limited number of reports', it says," comes from the fact that the phenomenon is difficult to identify. " Obviously Italian Government considers still worth opening the doors of hospitality and build more mosques, of course, all at our expense.

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VISION FOR LIBYA: INTERVIEW AREF NAYED BY LIBYAN HERALD 20.7.2015

Abu Dhabi, 19 July 2015:
Aref Nayed, currently Libyan ambassador in the UAE, played a major role in the 2011 revolution, ensuring international recognition for the National Transitional Council and that there was fuel, food and funding for the areas that rose up and fought the Qaddafi regime.

Not only a diplomat but also an Islamic scholar, with his own think-tank and training organisation, Kalam Research & Media, as well the Libyan Institute for Advanced Studies, founded in 2012, he is again concentrating on bringing stability and hope to Libya. His name is one of several widely mentioned in relation to the Government of National Accord being prepared by the UN-brokered Libya Dialogue negotiators in Skhirat, Morocco.

In a lengthy but highly focussed interview with the editor-in-chief of the Libya Herald, Michel Cousins, on the country’s current predicament, he spells out the changes that such a government needs to implement.

In dealing with security, it will have to rely on the combined support of Misrata and Zintan, as well as the Warshefana and places such as Tajoura, of Suq Al-Juma, and Zawia, he says. He firmly believes that with them supporting it, the spoilers – those opposed to dialogue and reconciliation – can be dealt with. If not, they will have to be sanctioned by the UN or even indicted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

There will also have to be close cooperation between the new government and the international community, particularly in the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS). “Without fighting ISIS in Libya, ISIS will win the battle in the region”, he warns.

But security will not happen without economic reform. “To go forward, we need economic reform,” he stresses. The two have to go hand-in-hand. Libyans need jobs urgently, he notes. They need to earn an income, to be able set up their own businesses if they want, to feel they have a stake in society. They have to be helped. There can even be investment programmes linking business setup grants to handing in weapons, he says.

“If young people believe that the economy is booming, that there are opportunities for them out there and that they will lose by continuing to remain [working] at checkpoints … they will leave their weapons and create companies and try to participate in an economic boom”. But without reform, young Libyans will stay with their militias.

There also has to be justice, he insists, if there is to be security and the path to a new Libya laid. The release of illegally held prisoners, the right of the displaced to return home, compensation for those who suffered or lost homes and assets both during the Qaddafi era and since the revolution have to be addressed urgently.

“The release of prisoners is an absolute must,” he says. People will not be interested in Libya’s future if their children are still being held illegally and tortured. “How can you expect people to participate in rebuilding Libya with you if you have displaced them in their hundreds of thousands?” he asks.

The new government will not be able to do everything immediately, Nayed fells, but it must make a start on key issues that should have been done by earlier post-revolution administrations but were not.

He believes strongly change will happen if the government and the Libyan people work together for the country’s wellbeing.

Interview with Aref Nayed
Michel Cousins: The objective of the UN-brokered Libya Dialogue process in Skhirat, Morocco, has been to create a government of national unity – a Government of National Accord. But Libya has had governments of national unity since the revolution. They have not been the problem. The problem has been security. There are two issues relating to security: the militias and the Islamic State (IS or ISIS).
Regarding the militias, the Draft agreement has been initialled by most the delegates at Skhirat, but not those from the General National Congress in Tripoli. A new prime minister and two deputy prime minister will be chosen very soon by the Dialogue delegates probably without the input of the GNC delegates from Tripoli. Given that situation and given that the Dialogue aim is that the new government should be based in Tripoli, do you think that is possible? Will the militias there allow the new government go to Tripoli?
Aref Nayed: First of all, one of the biggest enemies we have today is cynicism and despair. That’s why it’s extremely important to always be hopeful and positive. And to appreciate the progress made. We must not lose sight of what is positive. The UN-led Skhirat process for peace making in Libya has made tremendous progress. One of the key progress points it made has been the disassociation of what I call social fabric elements or tribal elements from the ideologically-based elements in the Fajr Libya coalition [Libya Dawn].
A year ago, when Fajr Libya attacked Tripoli airport and the capital in general, and took over ministries and took over the seat of government, it was a combination of a great variety of elements with a huge participation from social fabric or tribal elements.
One of the key successes, I think, has been, the fact that Misrata in particular has seen that it is wrong to be associated with the thugs and that it is wrong to be associated with ideologically-driven zealots, and that it is very important for it to reintegrate itself within Libya’s broader social fabric.
This is key, a key success to this whole process.
So when we’re discussing the security architecture for the coming period, we must appreciate that a key element of success for any future architecture it that it must be support by both Misrata and Zintan. Realistically speaking, these are the two largest forces in the western part of Libya. Unless they see eye to eye, unless they come together as supporters of a national unity government, it is going to be very difficult to do anything in western Libya.
Now granted, there is an important element that did not sign. That is, to put a name to it, basically the Libyan [Islamic] Fighting Group [LIFG] and some of the armed militias that belong to the Muslim Brotherhood and some of the associated groups.
These people did not sign up to the agreement, despite the fact that that some politicians from the Muslim Brotherhood and the Justice & Construction Party, which stems from the Muslim Brotherhood did sign up and are actually promoting the Dialogue, which is a good thing. However, the armed wing, if you want to call it that, remains outside the agreement.
That is a challenge, of course, to the architecture of any security for Tripoli.
It will be difficult to enter Tripoli without bloodshed if these elements continue to be adamant about their refusal to participate with the rest of the Libyan people in a peace settlement.
So while the security situation is not going to be easy, and will definitely continue to be difficult, with the Libyan Fighting Group and some of their associated militias, and even some of the rogue militias with Misratan origins, like the Salah Badi militia for example, who refuse the consensus of Misrata and remain with the ideologues, these elements will continue to cause issues.
Unless they sign up, I’m afraid they will have to be pressurised by not only the Libyan people but the United Nations and the international community.
It is very important that people who made many concessions and who really tried hard and worked hard to make peace are rewarded. It is equally important that people who are spoilers, who sabotage the peace, who continue to give a safe haven to terrorists and who support terrorists, should themselves be given no safe haven or support in any way, shape or form – not  by the international community or the Libyan people.
We are looking forwards to a situation where there is definitely a deadline, where people either in in or be labelled as spoilers and duly processed through the United nations system and perhaps even the International Criminal Court in The Hague for sabotaging the political process.
So the security architecture will depend on the goodwill and cooperation of elements that are strong on the ground. Again, Misrata and Zintan are definitely important parts of this architecture but, of course, they are not the only ones.
What is very important is, ultimately, to have the commitment of all stakeholders, especially the broad social fabric of Libya, including all the towns and cities and the tribal areas and the tribal fabric.
MC: You mention the international community having a role. What role do it have in helping security, given that we also have the problem of ISIS? Are we talking about boots on the ground, air strikes, what?
AN: The international community will need to support the forthcoming government of national unity in various ways. An important way is by simply uniting with that government in a unified strategy.
One of biggest challenges in Libya is that there is no unified strategy for security, no unified architecture for security in the country. Security strategy can no longer be a device for any country without regional help and cooperation and without international help and cooperation. We cannot pretend to have security without arrangements with the rest of the world.
So the international community will need to sit with the upcoming government and put together a unified strategy for dealing with the threats and mitigating the risks that are risks not only for Libya but for all its neighbours and its neighbours across the Mediterranean as well.
That is a very important contribution which is unification of strategy.
The second very important thing is the enablement of the national unity government to be able to have proper and secure command and control over the entire territory of Libya. It will involve technical assistance with command and control centres and a unified command centre from which the government can oversee the security arrangements in the entirety of the country. This involves technologies such as satellite imagery, aerial imagery, maybe drones equipped with cameras that can survey coasts for example. There is a huge need for technological assistance for border control, for coastline control, of course for command and control centres that can enable the government to be able to see what is happening on the ground all over Libya and be able to issue commands that can be implemented across the country.
The third thing that is very important is equipment and training.
The current Libyan government, despite the fact that it is the legitimate government, stemming from the legitimate parliament, has been deprived from acquiring any equipment. Even training has been quite limited. It is very important for the future government to have the training and equipment its needs.
I am of the view that the training should happen on Libyan soil, in Libya. It is much more effective that way. The equipment should not be colossal contracts that will deplete the country’s resources, but specialised equipment that can give the government an edge over the terrorists so as to be able to handle the threats that these terrorists pose.
Finally, there has to be cooperation in fighting ISIS in Libya. It makes no sense to fight ISIS in Syria and Iraq and to give them a safe haven in Libya.
We have seen what Libyans weapons and training and finance can do to our neighbours through these disgusting terrorist aggressions against tourists in Tunisia, against consulates in Cairo. So we have seen that without stabilising Libya, without fighting ISIS in Libya, ISIS will win the battle in the region.
That is a very important form of cooperation and it will have to be done in the context of the international coalition on ISIS, to reintegrate Libya as part of the strategy against ISIS, and to have platforms for fighting ISIS in Libya through arrangements with the international community.
MC: The original aim of the Skhirat process was to create a government of national accord through dialogue and reconciliation. Furthermore, the US and other states said that they would not provide aid to Libya to fight ISIS until there was such a government. Now it looks as if that government is going to happen without the GNC’s approval and without reconciliation. Do you think the international community has decided that the need to fight ISIS in Libya is now too urgent and more important than the GNC and reconciliation?
AN: The international community took over nine months of very patient, persistent and meticulous negotiations. They have given all the stakeholders and all the parties a chance to be included. They have done their best. They have pressurised the House of Representatives to be more flexible. Indeed, the House of Representatives has made many concessions that would have been thought impossible and a few months ago.
Despite all this, some stakeholders still want to be spoilers and I believe there is a reason for that.
It is because they are stakeholders who don’t really have a stake in the Libyan state. They have a stake in a transnational state that they would like to build or a transnational ideological organisation that they would like to promote.
Such movements only cooperate with the national state in order to scavenge its resources for their transnational aspirations. That’s why they are not signing on.
I do hope that those who are more sensible among them will still catch up and sign but it is high time that we realise that not everyone will sign. It will be precisely those elements that have been sabotaging the democratic process in Libya for the last four years who will not sign. The reason they will not sign is because democracy is not in their vested interest.
Democracy is only useful to them when they can rig elections and win them. Or when they can control the levers of the state.
When they lose elections as happened in Libya – they lost three consecutive elections – and when they lose the levers of power in the state, they will try to sabotage it ­– as indeed they have done in the attack and takeover of the capital and the seat of government.
I was never of the view that the international community should wait for the national unity government. I always believed that because we have a legitimate parliament and because we have a legitimate government led by Abdullah Thinni that the world community should have been cooperating with that government to fight the terrorists and not lose these nine months that we have lost.
Nevertheless it’s never too late and it’s better to come to this conclusion now rather than never.
I think it’s high time that we moved forward. We cannot let a bunch of saboteurs of the state destroy our chances for fighting the state that they are trying to promote, which is the so-called Islamic State or ISIS.
MC: Do you think that the international community, by not rejecting the Supreme Court decision last November on the grounds that it was made under duress, empowered the rump GNC, and gave them a position in the debate, and thus prolonged the mess in Libya?
AN: It was quite understandable. The international community wanted to avoid a major conflict in Tripoli. Tripoli has two million people. We have seen the effects of a fight in Tripoli because when Fajr Libya attacked, they destroyed the airport, the fuel depots, they completely removed the Warshefana clans from their land and burned literally thousands of houses and looted thousands more. So we have seen what a fight in Tripoli can cause. So I think the international community was right to be persistently and patiently trying to convince everybody to come to terms.
However, I think everybody’s patience has run out and the danger is increasing.
ISIS keeps taking one town after another in the middle of Libya. They have more and more resources. They now have a fully functioning airbase an hour’s flight from Rome at Gharabiya near Sirte. So it only natural that everybody lost patience with this process and indeed wanted signatures, wanted the resolution.
It’s the same with the Libyan people. There are people who have been living in schools for almost a year now. There are people who cannot get things like basic medical care, who cannot get gas for cooking, fuel for their cars and food, and a peace for their children.
So people have definitely run out of patience. That is why the Libyan people will never forgive anyone who does not sign this agreement and gets on with life. It is a dreadful war that has to stop.
People who still want to spoil the peace are people who are not interested in Libya and not interested in the welfare of the Libyan people. They should not be further entertained by the international community or the rest of the Libyan people.
We should call for the application of sanctions against such spoilers and against those who actively support ISIS and promote it and finance it and condone it and create digital armies in its support and keep blessing it either in promotion or in the continued denial that ISIS even exists.
Such people should be categorised with ISIS as enemies of the Libyan people and of the international community. These people will never give Libya peace. They will never let Egypt or Tunisia be in peace. They will never let Italy or Greece or France be in peace.
MC: Can we go back to the issue of security in the capital. If and when a government of national unity is created and approved by the House of Representatives, where does that government go if there are people in Tripoli who do not want it? Even if the GNC might approve the agreement, there are still those people there, like Badi, like Ghnaiwa, who are opposed to it. Returning would be very dangerous.
Even if there is some sort of security, there could still be situations where, because people didn’t like a government decision or because their cousin had been arrested, who might kidnap a minister again, just as before. The government has to be safe to be effective. Where might it have to go if it can’t go to Tripoli?
AN: You are alerting to a very important imbalance in the architecture of the agreement.
The armed wing of the House of Representatives, which is the Libyan army, basically signed up to the agreement by obeying the parliament. They have said that only the parliament negotiates on their behalf. Zintani forces also did that. They said the parliament represents them. So in effect they signed up. Warsehfani forces also did so. The only forces that did not sign up and are not subject to any political pressure now are precisely those rogue elements in Tripoli.
There are people who say that, in effect, the armed wing of the Islamists stayed outside the agreement while their politicians jumped into the agreement so that they can have a say in the legislature and the executive while at the same time not be bound by any commitments regarding their military wing.
Such sceptics are right to bring this up.
It is extremely important that people who signed up do so in action and not just in words and pen. That means we must see real commitment from Islamists who did join the agreement and who will become part of the HoR by returning to the HoR or become part of the government by having some ministries or deputy minster positions. These people have to show real commitment in fighting terrorism. There can’t be a situation where they obtain the concessions because of the military pressure that they applied, and at the same time don’t have the responsibility and the obligation to curb their former military wing.
That is a key question regarding the upcoming architecture and we need to work with the international community and with all Libyans to make sure that this imbalance is addressed.
Secondly, you say that no government can go to Tripoli when people like Ghnaiwa or Badi are in charge. Of course that is the case. However, a government that has the full support of Misrata and the full support of Zintan and the full support of the Warshefana and the full support of Tajoura, and of Suq Al-Juma, and Zawia will be able to put a stop to these people.
I think these people will recognise, once these people unify under the command of a unified government, that they are no match to these combined Libyan forces.
When faced with the combined power of the Libyan people, these elements will submit to the will of the Libyan people.
Right now they are able to intimidate and scare, and kidnap and embezzle, and even assassinate because we are divided. Once we unify – all Libyans, all Libyan forces, all tribal forces, all social fabric forces, all towns, all cities – in a unified people’s will to peace, then we can put a stop to this nonsense.
That is the foundation of a security architecture. It is the unity of the Libyan people and the unified determined will of the Libyan people not to put up with thugs and blackmailers and assassins.
I think these people will either come to their senses or will have to be fought by the legitimate Libyan army, police and intelligence in order to dismantle their power and the stranglehold on our capital.
We cannot leave the capital to them.
MC: Could Tripoli became very nasty, very bloody, as the militants turn on those who they think have betrayed them – in this case the Misratans, people in the west of the country who want the agreement?
AN: Tripoli cannot be left to fester with intense fighting. It’s a large city with a large population.
But there is something that is quite comforting. When the signing happened, and using the excuse of the anniversary of the liberation of Tripoli, the thugs basically organised a parade in Tripoli. The good news is that no one showed up for it, and they only had something like 300 to 400 young people parading and they only had a very limited weapons supply; their trucks weren’t exactly very impressive.
So instead of intimidating everyone they stupidly showed that they actually are quite weak.
So I don’t think that the forces in Tripoli are as strong as they seem, and if the Misratans and the Zintanis and the Warshefanis and the people of Zawia and of Suq Al-Juma and Tajoura are all behind the Libyan army, including some Tripoli militias – for example people who are now answering to [Central Tripoli mayor Al-Mahdi] Al-Harati who did sign up – if all these people combine, I don’t think that these guys stand a chance.
They will probably give up their weapons and leave. And if they don’t then I’m afraid every nation has to fight for its sovereignty and its capital. You cannot just leave it in their hands.
MC: Other than security what should the priorities be for the new government?
AN: First of all regarding security, it’s important not to think about it narrowly. It is not just about weapons and checkpoints and command and control centres and fighting rogue elements.
Security has to do with economic well-being. It has to do with the giving of a healthy space and environment and an open horizon to young people. It has to do with medical security and food security and water security.
Part of the problem for the last four years is that every government that has come has narrowly conceived security and has focussed on security, security and then security again.
I think that if young people believe that the economy is booming, that there are opportunities for them out there and that they will lose by continuing to remain [working] at checkpoints, then they will leave their weapons and create companies and try to participate in an economic boom.
So I think that it is very important that we look at economic stabilisation as an integral part of various elements – elements that have to do with wellbeing, that have to do with medical comfort and medical care, that have to do with education, that have to do with moving the economy.
The Libyan economy has been stagnant. We’ve been treating the oil resource as a faucet that has been largely closed for the past couple of years.
A country cannot live like this. We need to produce again. We need to move the economy again. That is why it should be a top priority for any government that comes now to jump-start the Libyan economy, to regain the confidence of Libyan businessmen.
I don’t mean the huge tycoons that made a lot of money from the war economy, but I mean the middle-sized businesses and the people who own small and medium sized businesses and companies. We need to have their confidence again.
We need to assist them, by facilitating trade finance, by giving them the opportunity to thrive, by encouraging them to employ young Libyans, by giving them tax breaks, by giving them customs breaks.
We need to incubate new businesses for young people. We can even trade weapons for business opportunities.
We can say: you trade in your weapons and you get a small factory. You trade in your weapons and we will help you start up your construction company. Or we will help you start up your IT and communications company.
We need to have creative programmes that can inspire young people to leave the weapons aside, leave the bloodshed and move on to build something for Libya and for themselves, to settle down, to get married and have kids.
Without this you cannot have security.
So it’s not that you need to secure the country first and then jump-start the economy. You need to do it hand in hand.
You need to do this not with any self-sufficiency illusion but with the realisation that you need all your neighbours and all the world community to do this. We need to identify partners who are willing to invest in the young people of Libyan and in the future of Libya. We need to open up the country for such investment in a way that does not threaten Libyan wellbeing or sovereignty. We need to do so rapidly. People need to be inspired again.
As I said one of our biggest enemies is despair and the loss of hope. And it is despair, the loss of hope and nihilism that fuels things like ISIS, and we need to get over this.
MC: You say that economic reform has to go hand in hand with creating security. But there has been no economic reform any since the revolution. The result is that young people can’t get a job. So they go and join a brigade. It is the only way they can get any money. Not only has there been no attempt to reform the economy, if anything it has got worse since the revolution. 
AN: It’s got worse because people try to use cash as a fix, thereby creating cash addiction, which is worse than drug addiction. Because once you start giving free cash, and especially once you give cash as a reward for keeping your weapons, it’s very difficult to get the kids off the weapons, just as it is very hard to get people off drugs.
Unfortunately the policy of dishing out payments to fighters, which started during the NTC times, and continues till today, is not only wrong-headed, it basically destroyed the country.
Economic reform is absolutely important. One of the key elements that needs to be understood if we are to understand why we are in the situation we are in, which is often forgotten, is that Qaddafi’s socialist policies, which were quite drastic, destroyed three things in Libya.
They destroyed the old structure of capital; they destroyed the old structure of property, and the old structure of labour.
The three fundamentals of the economy were transformed. They were transformed into something that was a failure. The socialist transformation never worked. Libya became more and more dependent on oil, rather than less dependent. And, ironically, it produced less and less oil. Oil production in 1968 during the last days of the king was higher than oil production at any other point since then.
In order to go forward, we need economic reform.
One of the key reforms needed is respect for private property again. There is no clear land title in Libya because Qaddafi burned the land registry. We need to restore the land registry.
We need to restore labour unions that are real and not just a bunch or revolutionary committee members as they were in the time of Qaddafi, unions that can uphold the rights of workers to a fair wage.
We also need to restructure the way capital is distributed because right now if you look at the distribution of wealth in Libya, you have the government which has most of the money, then you have five or six tycoons who have horded away billions through thievery, especially during the last ten years of Qaddafi’s era. Then you have some small businessmen, maybe middle businessmen. Then you get a vast majority of young people who are jobless.
This kind of distribution just doesn’t work and it is a formula for trouble. Because the problem is, as these young people rebel, they don’t know what they want. They don’t know what to do. It isn’t because of their lack of imagination or vision. It is because no government has given them a framework in which to fulfil their visions and dreams.
That is why economic reform is a priority.
There is a famous economist named [Hernando] de Soto who did some studies on Libya. I contacted him as early as 2003 out of research interest to talk about to how an informal economy can be changed into a formal economy, how it is that we have a 1.750 million square kilometres in Libya and yet how much of that can be collateralised to guarantee loans for young people, for example. It’s less than .00001 percent because there is no land registry, no clear title, and no way of valuing, no credit bureau that can give credit worthiness reports.
Unless you can release this potential, you will not be able to jump-start the economy.
We need creative ideas – ideas like De Soto’s, ideas like the Finnish approach to development, or the Swedish, Norwegian attitudes towards the welfare of their people, and the automation of government as in Estonia and other countries where there is e-Government that can reach the tiniest of villages and towns.
We need laboratories for incubating new ideas about how to restructure the economy.
MC: You mention land registry. Countries like Poland and Hungary dealt with it. They did so by a mixture of returning land and compensating people. There has been no attempt to do that in Libya. There has been no attempt to deal with another issue – subsidies. If people do not pay a realistic price for water, electricity, fuel, they will never value it. Similarly, there are currency controls that prevent the economy growing.  
There are so many things that can be dealt with very easily, that need to be done but which have not been done. Will a government of national accord be able to do them? Why not , say, bring in the Poles or Czechs to advise on land registry straightway?
AN: It all depends on how this government is formed, how this government is composed – the balance between the elements of this government – whether it can really be a government of accord or will it be a government of discord and bickering with parties that never get anything done because they keep blocking each other.
That’s why I say that what is foundational for going forward is consensus. And consensus comes from mutual respect, and respecting each others’ dignity.
That is why the agreement needs to be expanded to include the vast majority of Libyans who form the social fabric of Libya.
It is quite alarming that there was a meeting in Bani Walid of more than 37 tribes, which will be meeting again in Soloug, which explicitly said that they are not supportive of the UN-led process.
This is quite worrying because if this attitude continues we will find that nothing can happen in the country.
You need the buy-in of stakeholders.
If you look at the grievances of why these tribes do not want to come in you can find that they are very easily addressed. Grievances such as prisoners who have been illegally detained, and for over four years now, who need to be released.
People will tell you: “How do you want to build a country with you when my kids are in your jails and where they are being tortured? And without due process.”
The release of prisoners is an absolute must.
There is a section in the UN agreement which deals with goodwill measures and trust-building measures. These should be in the preamble. These should be upfront in the agreement. These measures are absolutely important because they restore trust and dignity.
For example, how can you expect people to participate in rebuilding Libya with you if you have displaced them in their hundreds of thousands? People need to be able to go back to their homes.
The return of the displaced, the release of the prisoners and you mention compensation – the compensation for people whose houses have been blown up, and burned who have been maimed and whose property has been taken.
The only people who got compensation over the past four years are Islamists who compensated themselves for the years in jail in Qaddafi’s time. It’s fine but it is unfair to all the other people who have been injured in those times including all those who have lost their property – and the people who have lost their lives and property and freedom and limbs in the four years since the Revolution.
We need to have equity and fairness in all this. We cannot have two types of Libyans, the revolutionary Libyans and the anti-revolutionary Libyans who are seen as second-class or, worse, seen as non-human and then summarily destroyed.
We must restore equality between Libyans. Equality of dignity, equality of value. Only then will Libyans cooperate.
If the government is based on such a consensus, and if it is formed by reasonable people who are willing to work with each other ­– they may not like each other, they may still hold some grudges abut what happened during the war, they don’t have to love each other – but they must love Libya in order to work with each other. And they must be able to realise that putting hurdles and preventing decision making is not going to do anyone any good.
Regarding reform, it is has been done before [elsewhere], it can be done. Restructuring the banking system, exchange rates [and controls]. There is the corruption of the L/Cs and how they are used to syphon off Libya’s hard currency in the billions.
On subsidies, we need to have a sensible gradual lifting of subsidies and, at the same time, making sure that the Libyan people do share in their wealth by some sort of a smart-card scheme or a scheme for allocating money to every Libyan family because if the subsidies continue at the rate they are being paid today, we will continue to dish out medicine and food and goods and raw materials to all our neighbours – because the smuggling is massive.
With smuggling comes criminality, come drug smuggling, comes human smuggling, comes wars in the south of Libya.
Most of the wars that have happened in the south of Libya and on the borders are basically smuggler wars. They are not really social fabric wars. They are smuggler wars that use the social fabric and turn it into a tribal war but it really is about who controls the dues they get from letting smuggled goods pass by.
All of this is important.
Again we see the intricate relationship between economic security, the architecture of reform, and security.
You cannot do one without the other.
MC: So much of what happens in Libya at present is about money, not about ideology. People jump on ideological bandwagons to get the money. That makes it easier to deal with. When it’s ideological it’s in the mind. There is a great deal of crime in Libya. In Sebha for example there were ver 40 murders in Ramadan.
What can a government of national accord do to cut down on crime? Is it again a matter of security? Or does something else need to be done?
AN: There is no simple solution. There has to be a complex solution consisting of various elements. But what you mention about money and ideology is important.
Money and ideology can be separate but they are often intertwined. The most dangerous thievery that happened in Libya in the past four years is ideologically-motivated thievery that is self-righteous. It thinks it is stealing the money to use it for a good cause.
The ironic thing and the destructive thing is that this cause had nothing to do with Libya. It had to do with syphoning off Libyan funds in order to finance an international aim, in order to finance the rise of ISIS in Syria and Iraq and the rise of (a zillion) other movements that have stemmed from this basic fundamentalist ideology of thinking that they speak for God Himself and want to impose God’s rule themselves as they understand it.
The ideology is not only dangerous as a system of ideas, but also because it is a major motive for stealing of Libya’s money in order to use it for transnational purposes.
What is interesting about ideological groups in Libya is that they often acted like tribes.
I know that many people from towns and cities will differ, but Libya is still quite largely tribal. So even when political parties and ideological movements thrived, they thrived on an almost tribal model. They became part of tribal warfare and used tribes for their warfare.
Crimes come in a huge variety.
There are corruption crimes that are quite vast. There is corruption in the foreign exchange and how it is used. There is corruption in trade finance and how L/Cs are used. There is corruption in customs. There is corruption in taxation. There is corruption in way things are imported. There is corruption in even in the way things are exported because people dismantle infrastructure to sell it as scrap. So there is corruption at those levels. But there is also corruption in government contracting. There is corruption in small bribes, for example, in getting a passport issued.
All that is criminality.
There is also the criminality of smuggling: human smuggling, drugs smuggling, weapons smuggling, and subsidised goods smuggling – which is a huge system of crime that deprives the country of billions of dollars every year.
How do you stop all of this?
Some of it is through structural reform. For example, restricting the economic model and how we do the economy; how we supply services to people; how we supply foodstuffs to people, how do we supply basic goods, like fuel, and cooking gas and food.
We need to work on these structural changes.
The taxation system needs to be reformed. When you have a taxation system that taxes you 90 percent of your income, definitely people will go and do tax evasion. It’s better to reform the taxation system rather than blame the people for evading tax in Libya.
When the customs system is designed in such a way that it encourages at least12 points of corruption, you need to change the customs system.
I think by simplifying the processes of government, by reducing bureaucracy, by reducing the number of stamps one needs to get on a sheet of paper before you can do something ­– it is interesting that every stamp in Libya becomes a source of corrupt income for the holder. So the less stamps you need, the less signatures and approvals, the less corruption.
So simplify government. Simplify bureaucracy. Have a straightforward system. Have a transparent system that allows the citizen to know what is going on – and to report what is going on.
A grievances reporting system, a system for public tendering where people can just log in and see what tenders are available and where they can do their submission, where they can see how they were evaluated and why it was that company A was given the contract and not company B.
You need all these measures together.
Unfortunately in Libya, when you say you want to stop crime, people think that they should commit even more crime by violating human rights, torturing people, beating up people, throwing them in these dungeons, not jails.
We need to look more comprehensively at this.
Of course, Qaddafi did release almost 15,000 criminals. Many of them unfortunately, joined katibas (brigades) and now have weapons.
So, there is some basic policing, some jail building and jail management. But that is only a small segment of what fighting crime is all about.
MC: Illegal immigration is a major issue for Europe, and for Libya too. Is it purely a matter of security? After all there is very little illegal immigration taking place in the east of the country, it is taking place in the west. It is not taking place in substantial numbers in other countries where there is security. Can it be dealt with by getting decent security locally? And by getting rid of the corruption, because in places like Zuwara local officials are involved in it.
AN: People are not things. They have dignity and are of value. It’s never good to compare human beings with mechanical systems. But there are mechanisms at play that can be understood through analogies.
What you’ve got basically is a flow – a flow of human beings in vast numbers, in the tens of thousands, going from Africa to Europe.
If you look at this from a flow point of view, from a fluid mechanics point of view, at why it is that this flow happens, you will understand how you can stop it.
First of all you have a differential that makes people flow. You have crushing poverty and perceived wellbeing in Europe. You need to work on this discrepancy. We have to look at this issue not superficially or at the final point. We have to look at the origin.
Why is it that people leave their lands? Every human being, like every animal on earth, likes its nest, likes its locality. Why is it that someone would leave his mother and father and walk for thousands of miles and risk dying to get to Europe?
Let us ask these questions. Is it something so fundamentally wrong in the way we do the world economy and the way we structure the world economy that makes this happen?
Instead of spending the money on navies to patrol coasts, why don’t we spend it on development projects in the countries of origin of these immigrants so that we help them in their own countries so that they don’t have to move?
So there is a differential issue that has to be looked at.
And like in the case of flow, it can be expedited and enhanced though mechanical pumps. What you have in Zuwara is basically a pump. These human trafficking mafias are basically pumps that just increase this flow.
You need to stop these pumps.
You need to identify them. There is a lot of intelligence work that needs to happen, a lot of surveillance work, including satellite and aerial surveillance, and you need to identify those individuals who live off the blood of these immigrants, who live off the thousands of lives drowned in the waters of the Mediterranean. These people deserve to be in jail. They should not be making money off the suffering of human beings.   That is the second thing you can do.
Another thing you can do to stop the flow is by making sure you have a government in Libya that understands that Libya also needs labour, that understands that the six million people of Libya are not enough for all the projects that can happen in Libya.
If we revive and enhance the agricultural projects that are in the south of Libya, which are surprisingly successful because of the water that is available underneath the desert, if we have vast agricultural projects there, it is conceivable that we will be able to settle many workers not only to offer Libyans food security, but maybe even to export food to Europe.
There are creative ways of looking at this.
We shouldn’t look at this as an issue of human beings who are showing up at our doorsteps and then put a navy to stop them. Because where would they go?
It’s not a simple problem, and it’s not a Libyan problem. It’s a world problem. Europe, I think, understands that.
We need to work with our European partners on development and on developing systems for fighting the criminals who promote this but also making sure that the lives of these people are not only safeguarded but, as dignified human beings, are given opportunities somewhere or somehow.
MC: Qaddafi paid Libyans to do nothing, to keep quiet. As a result an entitlement mentality has set in. People now think that Libya is rich and they should have a part of it and should not have to work or do anything, others can do it for them – the Tunisians, the Egyptians, the sub-Saharan Africans.
Libyans did not use to think like this. And outside Libya, Libyans work hard and are successful, especially in areas such as banking, finance, medicine. But not in Libya.
How can that be changed? Is it not about time that Libya started appreciating the value of Libyans? It does pay people properly. Look at how much a doctor is paid in Libya and how much in the UK. In the UK, he gets at least ten times as much. Look at how much an officer in the Libyan army is paid. It is peanuts compared to what a member of a katiba gets. Has Libya not got to start appreciating the skills and dignity of ordinary Libyans so that they are willing to contribute wholeheartedly in their society?
AN: Libyans began to be dependent on government subsidies and government hand-outs and government salaries for not doing anything when Qaddafi destroyed the free economy in 1978. Before that people used to farm, used to manufacture, used to have shops, they used to trade. There were a vast variety of activities.
All of that stopped, deliberately. Qaddafi wanted the country to be socialist. But what he ended up doing was making everyone dependent on a meagre government salary that was not enough to give them a dignified life, but just enough to keep them going and not have to do much. It was a very strange and precarious kind of existence, and not a pleasant one at that.
How do you change that?
It’s not going to change overnight. This is going to take time.
It will require putting in structures, of frameworks for economic development and activity, of structures of governance, for training, structures of capacity building, for technology transfer. That is going to take time.
What you say about Libyans being bright outside Libya and achieving, but not in Libya, it’s because people need a system to achieve.
A Libyan who works in, say, a large company like IBM in the States, is not working as an individual, he is working as a team member in a structure that was developed over a hundred years. When someone goes and works in a hospital in the UK, they are working in a medical care system that has taken a hundred years to develop. People thrive within systems that are successful and that encourage people to go forward.
Unfortunately, I know many [Libyan] expats who came back but who were not able to be successful. You get a combination. They were not able to be successful so they have resentment and people resent them because they see them as prima donnas who come from overseas who have unrealistic expectations and who look down on them.
So there is this discrepancy between Libyans who were outside and had opportunities outside and Libyans inside, and between Libyans in cities and in the countryside, and between Libyans in cities and Libyans in semi-nomadic areas.  There are huge social issues that have to be addressed.
No one can do this in a year or two or three. That’s why it is important to have a long-term vision.
I had the privilege of working with a group of young Libyans on a project Libya 2020 Vision. That seems so far away but it is only five years. We need a Vision 2050. We need a forwards vision. We need to get out of the quagmire we’re in by having something at the front, what Ernst Bloch calls the “not yet” to move forwards.
Just as you get a truck out of the mud by having a winch pull it out by having a point outside of the mess.
We need a vision. We have this document called Libya 2020 Vision. We are encouraging young people to work on this vision. There are other people working on visions. We need to get together and develop a Libyan vision that can inspire young people.
MC: Do you think that in a limited period of time – the maximum is two years – a Government of National Accord can achieve enough to give Libyans confidence that things will get better?
AN: When you call things temporary and transitional, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy. People tend to think that way. What is important, even if this government has six months, or a year or two years, even if it cannot achieve great things, it must start to achieve great things.
What is important is to start. The problem is that we have had false starts for four years. We just need a good start.
A jump-start of the Libyan economy and the beginning of putting in measures that can achieve fruition in a year, two years, three years, and some maybe in a decade, but we need to start.
We must not say “it’s only a year so I must be obsessed with security”.
No, jump-start the economy, jump-start education, jump-start medicine, jump-start wellbeing, jump-start the media so that instead of this cynical, hateful media that is teaching people to hate each other and kill each other, we can have a media that can encourage dialogue and understanding, and respect and dignity.
If we do nothing else in this one year or two years, except restore the dignity of men and women, by releasing prisoners, moving people back to their homes, beginning the healing process, telling the Libyan women and showing the Libyan women that we have not forgotten their sacrifices in the revolution and that they are an active member of this society, that they constitute 50 percent, give them their fair value in the government and their share in the government in a fair way.
We need to do all these things. I don’t think it takes all that long to show good intent and take a step or two forward towards achieving that intent.
We should not sit and lament “it’s only one year; what can be done?” A lot can be done in a year.
Look at Japan after the tsunami. That should inspire us. Look at Nepal after the earthquake. They are training their people who to do carpentry and how to do electricity and how to rebuild their country.
We all have pain and we all have anguish.
But pain and anguish are raw materials from which a nation can be built if we are determined enough and if we love each other enough and love our country enough

Libyan situatn picture by SouthAfrica press 20.7.2015

Libyan situatn picture by SouthAfrica press http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/…/2015-07-20-the-libyan-pol…/

Libya: Hafter is an obstacle on road to peace. Frm Italian press 16.7.2015

Signed a first ceasefire between militias. Islamists in Tripoli do not sign. Because they want the general out of the military. In this case, however, Tobruk can blow up the table.

As the world was glued to the signing of the agreement between the US and Iran, another negotiation was steps "significant" for the United Nations.

Negotiations on Libya in Morocco came to a document of the armistice signed by the majority of militias.
Still hostilities do not cease. The General National Congress (CNG) of Tripoli, the self-proclaimed parliament of Islamists, did not accept the agreement, for military and political reasons.
The parliament exiled to Tobruk has instead signed for favorable conditions and also because the enemies of Capital had said no.
THE VETO ON HAFTAR. The casus belli between the two main forces that govern in Libya remains the controversial General Khalifa Haftar, former gheddafiano who holds the assembly of Tobruk and dividing the country. Once on the verge of fail, the negotiations have still marked progress, the Special Envoy of the United Nations in Libya Bernardino Leon, "really important."  
PEACE BETWEEN MILITIA. The militias who control the territory out locally and also in Tripoli, sharing the deputies of the two parliaments as bombings, kidnappings and intimidation, have undertaken not to attack each other more. The text for the "Peace and Reconciliation", the UN aims to complete with the seal of all to celebrate the end of Ramadan, He states that "signatory cities do not use their territory to attack other cities, or support parties attackers to other cities."

• The draft of the armistice signed by the militia with the UN.

Zintan and Misurata lay down their arms, but remains outside Tripoli

Among the signatory cities stand Misrata brigade allied Islamists in Tripoli, Zintan and rivals, allies of Tobruk vice versa.
Through intenazionali pressures and a process of co-optation internal mediator Leon hopes to bring in even the government of the capital, "not ready "cartel.
"At the last round of the talks have advanced our reserves, but were not taken into consideration," said a leader of the CNG.
 POSSIBLE TOUCH. In fact, the draft was not meeting the Islamists who, in 2011, escaped to Tripoli Gaddafi. But it could be doctored with some concessions. Then the other party of Tobruk and his military chief will come out agreement? It is possible, the war between the two has been going on from the power of the National Congress of the Islamists in August 2014 and the subsequent appointment a premier parallel. Tripoli asks UN Haftar that is not the captain of a possible unity government, an objective of the negotiations, and that its Islamist militias be absorbed into the new police.
 LEGISLATIVE POWER TO TOBRUK . Another major concern is the transformation, according to the protocol of the agreement, the CNG in a Council of State with purely consultative. Legislative power would remain however, with an extension of the mandate, entirely parliament to Tobruk. It is true that Members hunted in eastern Libya are the only ones who have been legitimately elected to the Legislative than a year ago. The counterpart of Tripoli denies however the very low participation in the last vote (about 600,000 voters out of approximately 6 million inhabitants) and complaint bombing internal forces Haftar as a violation of international law.


Thanks to the mediation of Rome, the mosaic of Libyan militias and their local councils, created on the model of the Committees of National Liberation (CLN) Italian Resistance, is for many months with the United Nations.
Although very filthiness, through diplomacy in Libya you are putting together the jagged tissue civil and even military, on the ground of the national interest.
For the Libyans is essential to maintain control of oil and foreign fighters Isis are an alarm bell.
 The ISIS THREAT WELLS. In the Country Caliphate planted training camps thanks to widespread support of jihadist groups like Ansar al Sharia in Libya and the naive mouth of adhesion between the tribes. But it is a great threat to the control wells which represent 90% of the revenue of the state. It is important that Misurata and Zintan agree. Leader of the uprising against Gaddafi, Misurata brigade has cleaned up its collusion with jihadists, opening a difficult and bloody forehead against the Isis in Sirte, a former stronghold of Colonel in the hands of the Caliphate . Since 2011, the Zintan militia held prisoner instead heir and eldest son of Colonel, Saif al Islam, who has the hand the keys to the property regime.
 THREAT OF SANCTIONS. Behind the struggle between "Islamists and secularists" Libya is also a big division of power and money, however adhesives against foreign depredation. "The CNG will be the next round of negozionati », he announced the head of misuratini. To close ranks, the United Nations and the European Union would be ready to punish saboteurs cartel. The two major players in Libya is still unreliable. But the majority of the militias is with the UN. The agreements are signed in mid also to take time, relevant forces are against peace. But there are reasons for hope.

WAS AN ''AGREEMENT'' SIGNED IN MOROCCO ?

Only the representatives of the Parliament of Tobruk, recognized by the international community, signed UN peace agreement in Skhirat in Morocco

A "peace agreement and reconciliation" proposed by the UN was signed July 11, 2015 in Morocco by the Libyan conflicting parties except Tripoli govt. It is supposed to lead to the formation of a national unity government and holding new elections. But situation is much more complicated.

Representatives of the Tripoli government, political parties, civil society ... all were present at the signing. All except those of the government of Tripoli (not recognized by the international community). This government installed by force Fajr Libya, a coalition of disparate militias which Islamists participated in the negotiations but it has not signed proposed document. Is it possible then to call this document an Agreement? Certainly not.

But both the UN and EU seem content of this, so called agreement, for lack of better. UN Ban Ki-moon said he expected "forward to early conclusion of a comprehensive agreement." The door to negotiations remains open and absent for signature and have a catch-up session. In practice, therefore, everything remains to be done.

Very complicated situation
All Libyan belligerants agreed, in principle only, to the formation of a national unity government and new elections to bring stability and unity in the country. Libya is in chaos since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi regime in 2011 and currently has two governments and two parliaments vying for power, one based in Tripoli, the other at Tobruk in the east.

Since July 2014, clashes between rival forces left hundreds dead.

The threat of Daesh
As long as Tripoli government do not sign the peace agreement in Morocco, the threat of Daesh still hangs over the country.
Driven from the city of Derna, in the east, where Daesh installed in late 2014, the jihadi group the Islamic State promises to return to avenge its fighters.

ITALIAN PRESS OPINION ABT LIBYA UPDATED 12.7.2015

DAESH (ISIS) has claimed responsibility for the attack yesterday morning at the Italian Consulate in Cairo. A Twitter account near the caliphate has announced that "thanks to the blessing of Allah, soldiers of the Islamic state did explode 450 kg of explosives placed inside a car parked in front of  Italian Consulate in Cairo."attack took place yesterday morning at 6:30 am and caused one dead and nine wounded. For Gian Micalessin, war correspondent of Il Giornale, "the goal was Isis clearly hit Italy for its role it is playing in Libya, where the jihadists of Al-Baghdadi are booming. At the same time, the attack took place in Egypt since President al-Sisi is our main ally in the Middle East. " No coincidence that Friday the Libyan government of Tobruk, along with the militias of Misrata and Zintan, had given their yes to the UN plan to prevent the country were to get back ISIS. Yesterday morning, however, it was assumed that the real target of the attack was not the Italian consulate, but judge Ahmed al Fuddaly, considered close to President Al-Sisi.
DAESH (Isis) has claimed responsibility. In your opinion what was intended?

It 'clearly an attack against Italy. The scenario in which it occurred is Egypt, but it is really about our role in Libya. Our country is allied with Cairo, as confirmed by the recent meetings between Renzi and Al-Sisi. The two presidents are working side by side with regard to the contrast to the Islamic state in Libya, and especially to hit the smugglers operating from bases also Egyptian.

Then Libya and Egypt are a unique battlefield?

In a way, yes. Not by chance in ABC tactical and strategic operations that were a corollary to the European level, there was talk of operations that could be chalked up both in Libya and in Egypt, both in Tunisia itself. Do not forget that Al-Sisi is the main ally of the government of Tobruk and the main enemy of the Islamist coalition supported from outside by Qatar and Turkey. A coalition that reigns in Tripoli, Zuara, Misrata and in all coastal areas from which the boats of immigrants.

Why Isis should hit Italy, where Renzi govt has not done anything to Libya?
Renzi throughout the first phase, until last October, has completely forgotten Libya. With the expansion of Isis in the country's interest, however, it is increased. Tunisia has returned to the same interest to Italian politics, because from there comes a direct threat.

What is strategic role of Italy in Libya?

Italy is at head of  international mission in Libya. The fact that legitimate government of Tobruk Friday has said yes to UN document means that Egypt has taken a stand in favor of the fact that Italy is at head of the mission. Since Tobruk office on legitimate government recognized by international community, this opens the way for a resolution of UNO Security Council that might just start the mission.

For minister Gentiloni, "Italy will not be intimidated." What do you think that should be our reaction?

For months Italy openly receives threats from caliphate, and then bury your head in the sand is harmful. And 'better become aware of the danger and be ready to act and to stop the advance of a caliphate which is only 400 kilometers from our shores. Through Libya, Al-Baghdadi threatens the stability of Tunisia and Egypt. But especially if we do not stop the instability of Libya we will never put an end to migration flows that arrive in our country.

USA seems completely disinterested in these scenarios. What can we do alone?

If we do nothing we will remain submerged. We must clear occuparcene, because the border between us and the caliphate is separated by a strait. We are the first European country whose borders touch those of a country directly affected by the presence of the caliphate. Without forgetting that Libya is our former colony and the "treasure chest" of our strategic interests.

Isis is able to turn Libya into another Iraq?

Yes. Today Isis controls Derna in Libya, where it also is engaged in fierce fighting with other jihadist factions. It dominates also Sirte and its surrounding territories and defeated  militias of Misrata who were trying to block its advance westwards. Militias of Misrata, which in February had surrounded Sirte, a few months later were routed because the Islamist coalition of Tripoli had not provided sufficient support in terms of weapons. The caliphate in Libya is therefore booming. Its strategy is to grow by aggregation, incorporating smaller groups and less strong. And 'therefore the real emerging force of Libya, and if we wait to face him again witness to the same scenarios of Iraq and Syria.

Meanwhile, Isis is getting stronger also in Sinai, Egypt to the east. How do you explain this evolution?
After coup 3 July 2013, Egypt has begun a policy of heavy repression of Muslim Brotherhood with thousands of arrests and dozens of death sentences. This has led to progressive marginalization of large sections of groups linked to Muslim Brotherhood. Many have fled to Sinai, where there was already an Islamist component which operated since 2005. Initially it was a very tied to terrorism Bedouins who felt marginalized by big business. When their bodies were welded to those of Muslim Brotherhood, one of the main groups he declared loyalty to Islamic state, and therefore today Sinai waves flag of  Caliphate.