Wednesday 30 September 2015
Europe & Libya: LATEST VISIT TO TRIPOLI
Europe & Libya: LATEST VISIT TO TRIPOLI: In Muammar Qaddafi’s Libya, people used to say, “We have/had one enemy.” Today, “people don’t know who their enemy is.” That is ho...
LATEST VISIT TO TRIPOLI
In Muammar Qaddafi’s Libya, people used to say, “We have/had one enemy.” Today, “people don’t know who their enemy is.”
That is how to describe the current situation in Libya. “There are potentially tens or hundreds of enemies, because of the myriad of armed groups,”.
Four years after Arab Spring protests turned into an armed uprising that led to the overthrow and death of the former strongman, Libya is torn between two governments and hundreds militias and armed groups.
Like many of their Middle Eastern neighbors in 2011, Libyans protested against a dictator hoping for more political freedom and an end to the Qaddafi regime’s repressive four-decade-long reign. However, life for Libyans average, today has become more dangerous and unstable than it was under Qaddafi.
“Libya today — in spite of the expectations we had at the time of the revolution — it’s much, much worse,” said Karim Mizran, a Libyan resident senior fellow at Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East. “Criminality is skyrocketing. Insecurity is pervasive. There are no jobs. It’s hard to get food and electricity. There’s fighting, there’s fear… I see very few bright spots.”
While Libya was able to hold elections in 2012, the government that emerged was never able to control the numerous militias and armed groups that gained power during the uprising, and skirmishes continued.
Fighting intensified in 2014, when a renegade general, Khalifa Haftar, launched an assault on the Islamist militias operating in the city of Benghazi. One month later, Libyans frustrated with the Islamist-dominated General National Congress (GNC) in Tripoli and its inability to bring stability elected a new legislative body — the internationally-recognized (HoR) House of Representatives in Tobruk.
Now, each of Libya’s rival parliaments is roughly aligned with armed actors, with Haftar and his “Operation Dignity” fighters supporting HoR, while “Libya Dawn,” an umbrella term that includes Islamist militias and revolutionaries who battled Qaddafi, supports the GNC.
The fight has only grown more complicated in recent months, as many of these groups have fragmented over time, and several other local militias and tribal fighters fight for control within the country.
Added to this mix are groups like Ansar al Sharia, suspected of being behind the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi in 2012, and a Libyan affiliate of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, which now controls Qaddafi’s home town of Sirte.
In all, an estimated 1,200 armed groups and militias are active in Libya, according to a recent report from UN for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
“People don’t feel safe, because the law doesn’t protect them anymore,” it is said, describing a situation in which police stations are either not operational or are too frightened to intervene.
Meanwhile, people can use militias that they have a personal connection with to settle scores.
It is also said that Courts have also come under attack by armed groups, as have many attorneys, especially when they represented clients thought to be Qaddafi supporters.
“It’s really the rule of militias and armed groups, as opposed to the rule of law,” Libyans say.
More than 4,600 people have died in the fighting since the beginning of 2014, according the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, a group that monitors violence using media reports.
Some of the worst damage from the fighting is in Benghazi, where many buildings in the city’s center have been reduced to rubble. “The level of destruction, apart from Benghazi, is maybe not one that captures the world’s imagination,” Mughrabi said, but “the fear that it creates is massive.”
That fear has driven about 500,000 Libyans from their homes to elsewhere in the country, according to UN, although Libyan officials say the true total is likely higher.
Libyans reported that a third of those displaced within the country were living in “precarious” accommodations, including unfinished buildings, garages, collective shelters or public spaces, according to an assessment carried out by UN in August 2015.
The U.N. estimates 2.44 million people — about a third of Libya’s population — have been affected by the fighting, which has led to shortages of food, water, electricity and medical supplies and reduced access to health care and public services. As of June, an estimated 2.5 million Libyans needed access to health services, according to the U.N., and around 400,000 required food aid.
Quality of life and access to basic services also depends on where you live in Libya. While the security situation in Libya’s capital, Tripoli, is worse off than it was five years ago, it is still more stable and better than cities like Benghazi.
For example, while a majority of Libyans interviewed by U.N. in August said school-age children were able to access formal education in their communities, Benghazi’s enrollment rate had dropped 50 percent since fighting intensified in 2014.
“Libyans are incredibly disenchanted with life,” said Frederic Wehrey, a senior associate of the Carnegie Endowment’s Middle East program.
Wehrey, who has made multiple trips to Libya after the revolution, said that many there have become so frustrated by insecurity and instability that they have expressed regret about taking part in the revolution. Many have even wished for a return to the relative stability of Qaddafi’s rule.
Such sentiments should be “taken with a grain of salt” he said, adding, “You could walk down the streets at night under Qaddafi but . . . no democracy and little freedom”.
Many Libyans comment ''better as it was''.
The revival of political life in some pockets of Libya is one improvement from Qaddafi years, according to observers.
With the central government practically non-existent, Wehrey said the towns and cities that have managed to function are those where Libyans have come up with local solutions.
“In the realm of politics, there is more freedom,” Mezran added, “more people who can talk, more who can demonstrate, more who are participating in politics. That’s the only bright spot, probably.”
Libyans must now pin their hopes for stability, slim as they are, on a U.N.-brokered peace agreement that calls for a unity government made up of officials from both parliaments. The deal calls for a cease-fire and disarming the various militias and armed groups, but yet to be determined is how it would be enforced.
That is how to describe the current situation in Libya. “There are potentially tens or hundreds of enemies, because of the myriad of armed groups,”.
Four years after Arab Spring protests turned into an armed uprising that led to the overthrow and death of the former strongman, Libya is torn between two governments and hundreds militias and armed groups.
Like many of their Middle Eastern neighbors in 2011, Libyans protested against a dictator hoping for more political freedom and an end to the Qaddafi regime’s repressive four-decade-long reign. However, life for Libyans average, today has become more dangerous and unstable than it was under Qaddafi.
“Libya today — in spite of the expectations we had at the time of the revolution — it’s much, much worse,” said Karim Mizran, a Libyan resident senior fellow at Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East. “Criminality is skyrocketing. Insecurity is pervasive. There are no jobs. It’s hard to get food and electricity. There’s fighting, there’s fear… I see very few bright spots.”
While Libya was able to hold elections in 2012, the government that emerged was never able to control the numerous militias and armed groups that gained power during the uprising, and skirmishes continued.
Fighting intensified in 2014, when a renegade general, Khalifa Haftar, launched an assault on the Islamist militias operating in the city of Benghazi. One month later, Libyans frustrated with the Islamist-dominated General National Congress (GNC) in Tripoli and its inability to bring stability elected a new legislative body — the internationally-recognized (HoR) House of Representatives in Tobruk.
Now, each of Libya’s rival parliaments is roughly aligned with armed actors, with Haftar and his “Operation Dignity” fighters supporting HoR, while “Libya Dawn,” an umbrella term that includes Islamist militias and revolutionaries who battled Qaddafi, supports the GNC.
The fight has only grown more complicated in recent months, as many of these groups have fragmented over time, and several other local militias and tribal fighters fight for control within the country.
Added to this mix are groups like Ansar al Sharia, suspected of being behind the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi in 2012, and a Libyan affiliate of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, which now controls Qaddafi’s home town of Sirte.
In all, an estimated 1,200 armed groups and militias are active in Libya, according to a recent report from UN for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
“People don’t feel safe, because the law doesn’t protect them anymore,” it is said, describing a situation in which police stations are either not operational or are too frightened to intervene.
Meanwhile, people can use militias that they have a personal connection with to settle scores.
It is also said that Courts have also come under attack by armed groups, as have many attorneys, especially when they represented clients thought to be Qaddafi supporters.
“It’s really the rule of militias and armed groups, as opposed to the rule of law,” Libyans say.
More than 4,600 people have died in the fighting since the beginning of 2014, according the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, a group that monitors violence using media reports.
Some of the worst damage from the fighting is in Benghazi, where many buildings in the city’s center have been reduced to rubble. “The level of destruction, apart from Benghazi, is maybe not one that captures the world’s imagination,” Mughrabi said, but “the fear that it creates is massive.”
That fear has driven about 500,000 Libyans from their homes to elsewhere in the country, according to UN, although Libyan officials say the true total is likely higher.
Libyans reported that a third of those displaced within the country were living in “precarious” accommodations, including unfinished buildings, garages, collective shelters or public spaces, according to an assessment carried out by UN in August 2015.
The U.N. estimates 2.44 million people — about a third of Libya’s population — have been affected by the fighting, which has led to shortages of food, water, electricity and medical supplies and reduced access to health care and public services. As of June, an estimated 2.5 million Libyans needed access to health services, according to the U.N., and around 400,000 required food aid.
Quality of life and access to basic services also depends on where you live in Libya. While the security situation in Libya’s capital, Tripoli, is worse off than it was five years ago, it is still more stable and better than cities like Benghazi.
For example, while a majority of Libyans interviewed by U.N. in August said school-age children were able to access formal education in their communities, Benghazi’s enrollment rate had dropped 50 percent since fighting intensified in 2014.
“Libyans are incredibly disenchanted with life,” said Frederic Wehrey, a senior associate of the Carnegie Endowment’s Middle East program.
Wehrey, who has made multiple trips to Libya after the revolution, said that many there have become so frustrated by insecurity and instability that they have expressed regret about taking part in the revolution. Many have even wished for a return to the relative stability of Qaddafi’s rule.
Such sentiments should be “taken with a grain of salt” he said, adding, “You could walk down the streets at night under Qaddafi but . . . no democracy and little freedom”.
Many Libyans comment ''better as it was''.
The revival of political life in some pockets of Libya is one improvement from Qaddafi years, according to observers.
With the central government practically non-existent, Wehrey said the towns and cities that have managed to function are those where Libyans have come up with local solutions.
“In the realm of politics, there is more freedom,” Mezran added, “more people who can talk, more who can demonstrate, more who are participating in politics. That’s the only bright spot, probably.”
Libyans must now pin their hopes for stability, slim as they are, on a U.N.-brokered peace agreement that calls for a unity government made up of officials from both parliaments. The deal calls for a cease-fire and disarming the various militias and armed groups, but yet to be determined is how it would be enforced.
Wednesday 23 September 2015
ITALIAN PRESS LATEST LIBYA ANALYSIS 23.9.2015
Two Governments. Two parliaments. 140 tribes. 230 armed militias. Besides IS (Daesh).A situation that analysts over the world would not want to tackle even
by accident, but which is so dramatically close enough to touch.Libya
after Gaddafi is a betrayal of the Arab Spring is its daughter, it fully represents what is referred to as a 'failed state'. Nothing
seems to work if not the systematic failure of all that can lead to an
agreement between the warring factions for the common good: there is no
health care system, there is no state apparatus, there are, however, two
armies and two Governments, of those apparently He did not have enough.In all this riot the only happy period is the unhappy Islamic State grinds allow the defects of a west absent and hesitant. The Caliphate works great, is a perfectly oiled machine, is a country that works in a state that does not exist.It
is almost a year that Europe and the world look to Libya with suspicion
and indifference, as if the situation could be resolved by itself at
any moment. Since February 2015 there are rumors of a new military mission to
defeat the men of the Caliphate, but by the registrars from around the
world resonates only silence.In general mmobility, UN designated Bernardino León
Special Representative for Libya, the man who was supposed to give a
policy for the country and to lay the foundations of his rebirth.When
he arrived in Libya, Leon mandate international credibility was a little higher than nothing, no one believed possible to
reach an agreement among the myriad stakeholders.
Leon, with a momentum that has few equals in the history of modern diplomacy, did not surrender to failure in advance, and immediately made it clear to the parties that it intended to terminate the mandate without agreement.
Until July this year, it did not seem possible to find any solution that saw Tripoli and Tobruk finally agreed on all points programmed. The signing of the cease-fire this summer has raised hopes that eventually there was indeed hope. Not without difficulty these two months have passed so stormy, with the IS at the entrance claiming her insatiable appetite for conquest and two Governments wishing to war with each other first and then the real enemy.UN Representative at first understood as Libya he was working on was not the one we have described in the lessons of Political Science: Libya is a country oriented to the future but looking at the past. And it is in the past that Bernardino Leon found the key to the government of national unity; it is not the future that frightens Libya, but its history. A history made of rival clans, feuds, religion and rules.According to early rumors, the draft agreement provides that both governments of Tobruk and Tripoli will appoint the deputy who will support the new head of a government of national unity, with annual task. It includes: the creation of a legislative assembly unit, the House of Representatives; of a High Council of State, which puts the disputes that may arise between the various institutions; the dismantling of various armed militias, with the establishment of an army unit; a new constitution; and the entry into force of the 'ceasefire'. All points are extremely sensitive, but some more than others.The dismantling of militias is a key point strongly backed by Government of Tobruk, which continues to proclaim only real authorized and reliable interlocutor with the West. In Libya there are 140 tribes scattered throughout the country ready to arm themselves to the teeth on the black market if the new Unit Govt should impose their suppression. We have already had occasion in the course of the last few decades to see its effect in the annihilation of various clans and factions in occupied territory: Afghanistan screams still deeply not to repeat this error.The clans and militias should be integrated into the process of political maturity of the country, because in the future no opponent with ambitions authoritarian exploit their discontent to gain ground. Bernardino Leon now understood this quite well, and has called several times at the table of negotiations representatives of the largest factions in Libya. The same ideological factions that began the Arab Spring and that gave the final blow to the regime of Colonel. The 85% of the population is divided between clans rooted Warfala, Zintan, Rojahan, Orfella, Riaina, to Farjane, to Zuway, Tebu, Berbers and Tuareg.The second interesting point is that concerning the formation of an Army unit, presumably for the double purpose to suppress the militias of the caliphate and independent ones that undermine the country, of which we spoke earlier. After the fall of the Gaddafi regime is a law was passed in May 2013 whereby the so-called 'political isolation' for the supporters of the former regime (supporters in any capacity); crucial to prevent the supporters of the Rais would pass from one branch to another without restraint, a situation that eventually presented with the spearhead of the government of Tobruk: General Haftar, gheddafiano convinced.Before you even understand what will be the fate of the Army unit would be good to understand what fate will befall Haftar, a key to Tobruk and the key issue for Tripoli. This latter asks for forced removal of General Haftar from any position of power, but at same time for the general Tobruk is the only bulwark able to counter the military power of Daesh.Haftar militia, composed, probably, of about 30,000 units, is mainly based on former members of Gadafi Army reintegrated into what should have been the new Libyan security apparatus, but characterized by a deep aversion to new comrades from revolutionary militias. The general is now the leader of a coalition of nationalist tendencies, which brings together some tribes and pieces of what's left of Libyan institutions, which is opposed to radical militias and close to the Muslim Brotherhood, which is allied with the militia from Zintan.Not only Haftar is unbridled struggle against Daesh, but there are also many other militias fighting simultaneously and equally fierce. First, I would cite the Libyan Shield, which actually is an umbrella organization that brings together numerous militias, linked also to the Islamist and Salafist universe based on units territorially structured and working for the maintenance of law while having combat roles. The militia also collects reality Islamist radicals, and tends to be considered close to Muslim Brotherhood.Cyrenaica, is on February 17 Martyrs Brigade, which has a few thousand people and significant arsenal, thanks to the control of numerous barracks located across the region in the past belonging to the Gaddafi regime. The Brigade of Islamist trends.Considering that none of the militant groups called into question intends to fight alongside their archenemy, it is not entirely wrong to think that there is a great difficulty in maintaining a standard military beyond the dreams of decency. Not to mention that the problem of the official framework is still open: official youth and with no experience, or grant an exception to the Law May 2013 and we keep Gaddafi generals with some prior experience?But, more important question: who will be entrusted with the control panel? Tobruk and Tripoli? And if it were given to both, how supporters of opposing factions will react? Daesh is already in their home and these questions still do not have a shred of response.Many argue that Bernardino Leon work could be more effective and less scattered, but with hindsight, are all capable of dealing with the problem. Analysts who railed most vehemently against UN representative are economic ones, who support the undeniable link between the country's economy in crumbs and security.
Rais policies created big problem to the industrial and economic structure of the country, which has taken the road of blind socialism without initiative. Just because there was no economic initiative and the facilities were completely inadequate, almost all of the professional manpower has decided to leave the country, allowing rampant corruption and an increasingly hostile political class.
At social level, the result was economic inequality, corruption, resentment and loss of hope, which have slowly poisoned the country.
Instead of focusing exclusively on the issue of security, it would require a more equitable distribution of resources and a consequent reduction of social inequality: creating jobs and serious opportunities for young people, so that they are not forced to leave the country, and who have a viable alternative to dangerous option of enrollment in the militias which pay cash in exchange for armed loyalty; replenish the unions, so that there is greater protection for regular workers and their right to fair wages, so as to eradicate the widespread mentality of patronage, dependence on state subsidies and trafficking, which is used because of unsustainable prices of some basic necessities such as food and medicines.In addition to a strong difference of opinion on several points, leading the work of Bernardino Leon is likely to be jeopardised in the future struggle against Daesh, because if political work unquestionably favors this country freedom, it also opens the door to great question of international military mission to counter the advance of the Caliphate.The only possibility for a military mission was not a new Vietnam but just a national unity govt ready to dialogue with the military in the field. Because contrary to what is believed, a military mission is made also of dialogue among parties to decide jointly the objectives to be pursued and any criticality. On the European side the party would be the mission commander almost surely with French or US guide; but on the other side, who? Having two Governments, of which only one recognized, it would open a mission on paper, but in reality they would had two: one in Tobruk and another in Tripoli. Inevitably, each side would have pointed out to the international community a random unequal treatment, which eventually would lead to the failure of the mission.Once Unity govt is made, time is ripe in January 2016 to send ground troops with air support able to support local troops. Undoubtedly it will be a very complex path, with strategic obstacles not easy, but in many respects necessary to stem the advance of the caliphate.To those who think a mission can be only air, remember that Saudi Arabia in Yemen is having any kind of improvement in the situation, but at least its military analysts have lost credibility in all fronts. An air war does not discriminate between civilians and terrorists, and risks creating widespread discontent as to undermine the work of the international community. The bombings make us take away from poverty and the destruction of a country to its knees, by the death and suffering; but do not solve the problem. The problem of terrorism must be fought first and foremost on the political level, by establishing a joint future for the country after the military intervention, and in the second analysis on the military itself.The Italian Govt had reiterated its interest in September to take charge of unified command of the mission, because it is directly involved in the historical interests of the country.
A situation similar to that of Somalia, except that in Mogadishu were waiting with red carpets and wide smiles while Libya no! In Libya, we expect a situation that leads to the guerrilla or you shoot or you are killed.
Libyan public opinion is not ready to face neither the shots nor the dead, and military leaders are not the idea of taking the blame for failure. Tactically speaking Italy should call in the sense most of its Army, replenish with fresh men and the so-called highly trained Enty Force (Thunderbolt, for instance), and then rebuild a big logistical apparatus both in motherland and in operating theater. Economically, this would lead with hard cash, which should come also out of the coffers of Italian Government, the Ministry of Defense and the Economic Development.Ready or not, if we were to miraculously give the summit of whole mission, this money must come to the surface. Speaking in more realistic terms, you should leave the task in hand to our French colleagues who already have proven not having to bend in front of unilateral international operating decisions. Not that the French are better than Italian military, but they have a policy that supports the troops, agreeing that these are used as an instrument of foreign policy. This point makes French troops more appropriate for the situation that we will face in Libya.Undoubtedly a significant role will also have US troops, but since the back of the government Obama faced with the difficulties of Middle East, let it be the Europeans to play the game. Not only that America is already involved politically on the Syrian front, which has many more interests at stake.Only certain matter is Libyan hope to write a better future than what we have seen for three years now, giving homage to so tormented Arab spring.
Leon, with a momentum that has few equals in the history of modern diplomacy, did not surrender to failure in advance, and immediately made it clear to the parties that it intended to terminate the mandate without agreement.
Until July this year, it did not seem possible to find any solution that saw Tripoli and Tobruk finally agreed on all points programmed. The signing of the cease-fire this summer has raised hopes that eventually there was indeed hope. Not without difficulty these two months have passed so stormy, with the IS at the entrance claiming her insatiable appetite for conquest and two Governments wishing to war with each other first and then the real enemy.UN Representative at first understood as Libya he was working on was not the one we have described in the lessons of Political Science: Libya is a country oriented to the future but looking at the past. And it is in the past that Bernardino Leon found the key to the government of national unity; it is not the future that frightens Libya, but its history. A history made of rival clans, feuds, religion and rules.According to early rumors, the draft agreement provides that both governments of Tobruk and Tripoli will appoint the deputy who will support the new head of a government of national unity, with annual task. It includes: the creation of a legislative assembly unit, the House of Representatives; of a High Council of State, which puts the disputes that may arise between the various institutions; the dismantling of various armed militias, with the establishment of an army unit; a new constitution; and the entry into force of the 'ceasefire'. All points are extremely sensitive, but some more than others.The dismantling of militias is a key point strongly backed by Government of Tobruk, which continues to proclaim only real authorized and reliable interlocutor with the West. In Libya there are 140 tribes scattered throughout the country ready to arm themselves to the teeth on the black market if the new Unit Govt should impose their suppression. We have already had occasion in the course of the last few decades to see its effect in the annihilation of various clans and factions in occupied territory: Afghanistan screams still deeply not to repeat this error.The clans and militias should be integrated into the process of political maturity of the country, because in the future no opponent with ambitions authoritarian exploit their discontent to gain ground. Bernardino Leon now understood this quite well, and has called several times at the table of negotiations representatives of the largest factions in Libya. The same ideological factions that began the Arab Spring and that gave the final blow to the regime of Colonel. The 85% of the population is divided between clans rooted Warfala, Zintan, Rojahan, Orfella, Riaina, to Farjane, to Zuway, Tebu, Berbers and Tuareg.The second interesting point is that concerning the formation of an Army unit, presumably for the double purpose to suppress the militias of the caliphate and independent ones that undermine the country, of which we spoke earlier. After the fall of the Gaddafi regime is a law was passed in May 2013 whereby the so-called 'political isolation' for the supporters of the former regime (supporters in any capacity); crucial to prevent the supporters of the Rais would pass from one branch to another without restraint, a situation that eventually presented with the spearhead of the government of Tobruk: General Haftar, gheddafiano convinced.Before you even understand what will be the fate of the Army unit would be good to understand what fate will befall Haftar, a key to Tobruk and the key issue for Tripoli. This latter asks for forced removal of General Haftar from any position of power, but at same time for the general Tobruk is the only bulwark able to counter the military power of Daesh.Haftar militia, composed, probably, of about 30,000 units, is mainly based on former members of Gadafi Army reintegrated into what should have been the new Libyan security apparatus, but characterized by a deep aversion to new comrades from revolutionary militias. The general is now the leader of a coalition of nationalist tendencies, which brings together some tribes and pieces of what's left of Libyan institutions, which is opposed to radical militias and close to the Muslim Brotherhood, which is allied with the militia from Zintan.Not only Haftar is unbridled struggle against Daesh, but there are also many other militias fighting simultaneously and equally fierce. First, I would cite the Libyan Shield, which actually is an umbrella organization that brings together numerous militias, linked also to the Islamist and Salafist universe based on units territorially structured and working for the maintenance of law while having combat roles. The militia also collects reality Islamist radicals, and tends to be considered close to Muslim Brotherhood.Cyrenaica, is on February 17 Martyrs Brigade, which has a few thousand people and significant arsenal, thanks to the control of numerous barracks located across the region in the past belonging to the Gaddafi regime. The Brigade of Islamist trends.Considering that none of the militant groups called into question intends to fight alongside their archenemy, it is not entirely wrong to think that there is a great difficulty in maintaining a standard military beyond the dreams of decency. Not to mention that the problem of the official framework is still open: official youth and with no experience, or grant an exception to the Law May 2013 and we keep Gaddafi generals with some prior experience?But, more important question: who will be entrusted with the control panel? Tobruk and Tripoli? And if it were given to both, how supporters of opposing factions will react? Daesh is already in their home and these questions still do not have a shred of response.Many argue that Bernardino Leon work could be more effective and less scattered, but with hindsight, are all capable of dealing with the problem. Analysts who railed most vehemently against UN representative are economic ones, who support the undeniable link between the country's economy in crumbs and security.
Rais policies created big problem to the industrial and economic structure of the country, which has taken the road of blind socialism without initiative. Just because there was no economic initiative and the facilities were completely inadequate, almost all of the professional manpower has decided to leave the country, allowing rampant corruption and an increasingly hostile political class.
At social level, the result was economic inequality, corruption, resentment and loss of hope, which have slowly poisoned the country.
Instead of focusing exclusively on the issue of security, it would require a more equitable distribution of resources and a consequent reduction of social inequality: creating jobs and serious opportunities for young people, so that they are not forced to leave the country, and who have a viable alternative to dangerous option of enrollment in the militias which pay cash in exchange for armed loyalty; replenish the unions, so that there is greater protection for regular workers and their right to fair wages, so as to eradicate the widespread mentality of patronage, dependence on state subsidies and trafficking, which is used because of unsustainable prices of some basic necessities such as food and medicines.In addition to a strong difference of opinion on several points, leading the work of Bernardino Leon is likely to be jeopardised in the future struggle against Daesh, because if political work unquestionably favors this country freedom, it also opens the door to great question of international military mission to counter the advance of the Caliphate.The only possibility for a military mission was not a new Vietnam but just a national unity govt ready to dialogue with the military in the field. Because contrary to what is believed, a military mission is made also of dialogue among parties to decide jointly the objectives to be pursued and any criticality. On the European side the party would be the mission commander almost surely with French or US guide; but on the other side, who? Having two Governments, of which only one recognized, it would open a mission on paper, but in reality they would had two: one in Tobruk and another in Tripoli. Inevitably, each side would have pointed out to the international community a random unequal treatment, which eventually would lead to the failure of the mission.Once Unity govt is made, time is ripe in January 2016 to send ground troops with air support able to support local troops. Undoubtedly it will be a very complex path, with strategic obstacles not easy, but in many respects necessary to stem the advance of the caliphate.To those who think a mission can be only air, remember that Saudi Arabia in Yemen is having any kind of improvement in the situation, but at least its military analysts have lost credibility in all fronts. An air war does not discriminate between civilians and terrorists, and risks creating widespread discontent as to undermine the work of the international community. The bombings make us take away from poverty and the destruction of a country to its knees, by the death and suffering; but do not solve the problem. The problem of terrorism must be fought first and foremost on the political level, by establishing a joint future for the country after the military intervention, and in the second analysis on the military itself.The Italian Govt had reiterated its interest in September to take charge of unified command of the mission, because it is directly involved in the historical interests of the country.
A situation similar to that of Somalia, except that in Mogadishu were waiting with red carpets and wide smiles while Libya no! In Libya, we expect a situation that leads to the guerrilla or you shoot or you are killed.
Libyan public opinion is not ready to face neither the shots nor the dead, and military leaders are not the idea of taking the blame for failure. Tactically speaking Italy should call in the sense most of its Army, replenish with fresh men and the so-called highly trained Enty Force (Thunderbolt, for instance), and then rebuild a big logistical apparatus both in motherland and in operating theater. Economically, this would lead with hard cash, which should come also out of the coffers of Italian Government, the Ministry of Defense and the Economic Development.Ready or not, if we were to miraculously give the summit of whole mission, this money must come to the surface. Speaking in more realistic terms, you should leave the task in hand to our French colleagues who already have proven not having to bend in front of unilateral international operating decisions. Not that the French are better than Italian military, but they have a policy that supports the troops, agreeing that these are used as an instrument of foreign policy. This point makes French troops more appropriate for the situation that we will face in Libya.Undoubtedly a significant role will also have US troops, but since the back of the government Obama faced with the difficulties of Middle East, let it be the Europeans to play the game. Not only that America is already involved politically on the Syrian front, which has many more interests at stake.Only certain matter is Libyan hope to write a better future than what we have seen for three years now, giving homage to so tormented Arab spring.
Tuesday 22 September 2015
LIBYA NEW SCENARIO 22.9.2015 frm Italian press
While
in Skhirat, Morocco theatre, between Thursday 17 and Monday, September 21 went on the latest diplomats show so dear to international
community - engaged through UNSMIL to form a
national unity government - completely different was the drama lived in Tripoli and Cyrenaica in the same hours.Cyrenaica: the new Haftar operationOn 19 September, General Khalifa Haftar announced the launch of a new military offensive on Benghazi. The
operation Hatf (named after one of the powerful swords of Prophet Mohamad) and
Doom (as international media write, meaning no less
apocalyptic) is intended to strike all jihadi militias in the city and
provides for a more intensive cooperation between Libyan national arm land and air forces. An announcement brought new battles and destruction (UNHCR estimates
are at least one hundred thousand displaced persons from Benghazi,
almost four hundred thousand in total) that contrasts with the
statements that a deal between Tripoli and Tobruk is "getting closer".The
UN envoy Bernardino Leon has in fact discharged Sunday, closing the
last session of the National Dialogue, delegates of the two parliaments
Libyans (returned to Tobruk and Tripoli to examine the proposal with
their respective deputies), with a promise to announce ' final agreement between the parties within the next 48 hours. In this climate, the operation of Haftar has obviously been denounced
by the international community as an act of hostility declared the
initiative of reconciliation.
Tripoli: Libyan Islamic state against DawnTo oppose the National Dialogue, however, have come in recent days also clear signs from Tripoli on September 17, during a session of the General National Congress aimed at finding consensus on the list of candidates to be presented to Leon, the seat of parliament from Tripoli was stormed by armed men who stopped work. Among the possible charge of sabotage, Libya Herald quoted the fervent opponent of the initiative of reconciliation, Salah Badi, already at the head of the militia called "Libyan Dawn 2" or "Face of Determination" (Sumud), born out of a split within the Islamist militias grouped under the umbrella of Alba Libyan.Other sources suggest the presence of more and more tangible in the capital of militias linked to the Islamic State, which has in recent months reached Derna Sirte, which is 450 km from Tripoli. The strength of ISIS strategy (which strongly undermines the outcome of the national reconciliation process) lies in attracting popular discontent about political "foreign" intervention, judged as an unacceptable interference by many Libyans. At the same time, the jihadist organization Al-Baghdadi aims to raise local adhesions in his personal fight against "apostates" Alba Libyan - are defined as Islamist militias in the latest issue of Dabiq, the official magazine of the Islamic State in English - while the presence of ISIS on Libyan territory is officialy made by Abul Mughirah to Qahtani, presented as head of Islamic state in Libya.
On September 19, two days before the attack on the Congress, an armed commando attacked a prison located at Mitiga airport in Tripoli with the intention of releasing some detainees. The prison is run by the Ministry of the Interior of the government of Tripoli Khalifa Al Ghweil, and controlled by the militia of Libyan Alba. In this case, the sources spoke of militiamen linked to the Islamic state, although it is not ruled out the possibility of the internal split between the various souls of the Libyan Alba, after the training has sworn allegiance to Salah Badi.Members of the Libyan army give protection to a demonstration in support of the Libyan army under the leadership of General Khalifa Haftar, in BenghaziL'esercito regular in Benghazi
The new Front of exiles Gadafi partyMeanwhile, from Cairo comes the news of the formation of new political front called Nidal ("The Battle or Struggle'' consisting mainly of immigrants and former members of Muammar Gaddafi Libyan regime. Officially, the group is led by former Libyan ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Mohamed Saeed Algashatt, although it is considered to be more a product of the cousin of Gaddafi and his trusted head of security, Ahmed Al-Qaddaf Dam, which now resides in Egyptian capital .In the statement released by the new political formation, the Central Committee claims to want to build a new inclusive Libya, supporting the initiative of reconciliation and suggesting a general amnesty for all the consequences of civil war. But it does not hesitate to criticize the "traitors", with clear allusions to France and Britain, which supported the Revolution and contributed to the collapse of the country.
Tripoli: Libyan Islamic state against DawnTo oppose the National Dialogue, however, have come in recent days also clear signs from Tripoli on September 17, during a session of the General National Congress aimed at finding consensus on the list of candidates to be presented to Leon, the seat of parliament from Tripoli was stormed by armed men who stopped work. Among the possible charge of sabotage, Libya Herald quoted the fervent opponent of the initiative of reconciliation, Salah Badi, already at the head of the militia called "Libyan Dawn 2" or "Face of Determination" (Sumud), born out of a split within the Islamist militias grouped under the umbrella of Alba Libyan.Other sources suggest the presence of more and more tangible in the capital of militias linked to the Islamic State, which has in recent months reached Derna Sirte, which is 450 km from Tripoli. The strength of ISIS strategy (which strongly undermines the outcome of the national reconciliation process) lies in attracting popular discontent about political "foreign" intervention, judged as an unacceptable interference by many Libyans. At the same time, the jihadist organization Al-Baghdadi aims to raise local adhesions in his personal fight against "apostates" Alba Libyan - are defined as Islamist militias in the latest issue of Dabiq, the official magazine of the Islamic State in English - while the presence of ISIS on Libyan territory is officialy made by Abul Mughirah to Qahtani, presented as head of Islamic state in Libya.
On September 19, two days before the attack on the Congress, an armed commando attacked a prison located at Mitiga airport in Tripoli with the intention of releasing some detainees. The prison is run by the Ministry of the Interior of the government of Tripoli Khalifa Al Ghweil, and controlled by the militia of Libyan Alba. In this case, the sources spoke of militiamen linked to the Islamic state, although it is not ruled out the possibility of the internal split between the various souls of the Libyan Alba, after the training has sworn allegiance to Salah Badi.Members of the Libyan army give protection to a demonstration in support of the Libyan army under the leadership of General Khalifa Haftar, in BenghaziL'esercito regular in Benghazi
The new Front of exiles Gadafi partyMeanwhile, from Cairo comes the news of the formation of new political front called Nidal ("The Battle or Struggle'' consisting mainly of immigrants and former members of Muammar Gaddafi Libyan regime. Officially, the group is led by former Libyan ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Mohamed Saeed Algashatt, although it is considered to be more a product of the cousin of Gaddafi and his trusted head of security, Ahmed Al-Qaddaf Dam, which now resides in Egyptian capital .In the statement released by the new political formation, the Central Committee claims to want to build a new inclusive Libya, supporting the initiative of reconciliation and suggesting a general amnesty for all the consequences of civil war. But it does not hesitate to criticize the "traitors", with clear allusions to France and Britain, which supported the Revolution and contributed to the collapse of the country.
Tuesday 15 September 2015
LIBYA: LATEST ANALYSIS BY ITALIAN PRESS
Facts and analysis
It has often been taken for granted, but yesterday we thought the UN envoy to Libya, Bernardino Leon, to give new vigor to the hopes of an agreement: During the negotiations under way in Morocco is no consensus " on the main elements "of an agreement for the formation of a national unity government in the former kingdom of Muammar Gaddafi, which could take place within 7 days.
TIMING
However the road is uphill and it was the same Leon (whose term will expire at the end of the month) to invite caution. Within two days, the two main rival factions which are covered in Tripoli and Tobruk should return to Skhirat, which hosts the talks, with the go-ahead for the signing of the agreement by September 20. Will also fall with the names to be proposed as candidates for the national unity government, "added Leon. Many things could happen in the meantime, but there is confidence that the situation can be a real turning point.
WORDS OF LEON
"We know there is much work to do, but we believe it will be possible to reach this deadline of 20 September with an agreement signed," he added Leon yet. "After hours of discussion, we have found what we believe to be a consensus on the main elements" of a political agreement to end the conflict, the diplomat announced. "We believe there will be a consensus by all."
WHAT DOES THE AGREEMENT
"After hours of discussion - even Leon explained at the press conference - we found what we believe to be a consensus on the main elements, the amended points are six or seven, and by September 20, all parties should give their consent to the formation the unity government. " The formula shows UN envoy adds Vincenzo Nigro of the Republic, "he provides for the appointment of a prime minister and two deputy prime minister, who would form the core of a strong" Council presidency "expanded to two other ministers of the new government. Among the "triumvirate" there should always be unanimity in decision-making, and the three would be indicated by Tripoli, Tobruk / Benghazi and south of Libya. "
ANALYSIS by Toaldo
Mattia Toaldo, analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations in London, however, have other aspects to be reckoned with. "We do not know all the details of the agreement and will need to look at a particular aspect: the elimination of the military positions requested by CNG, which would imply the dismissal of General Khalifa Haftar", near Tobruk. According to sources close to the government of Tripoli, the expert explains to Formiche.net, "we would be in this draft presented by Leon to the parties today. It would be a decisive element that would not excuse the militias that control the capital not to support the agreement. " On the other hand, emphasizes the analyst, "we must see if the regional powers (especially Egypt) will make an explicit step of recommending a reaction Haftar prudent and realistic."
RISKS
Now, Toaldo concludes, "the agreement is very likely and then approaching the time when the Prime Minister Matteo Renzi will decide the contours of the Italian military mission. If you will not do it quickly, the mechanism with our allies to decide the military mission will remain locked as it is now. Creating a dangerous security vacuum. "
THE SECOND PHASE OF EUNAVFOR MED
Facts and assumptions that are intertwined with another important news. Brussels gave the green light to the second phase of the mission Eunavfor Med, which provides for the use of military force in international waters against the smugglers of migrants who work starting right from Libya, seizing and - if necessary - destroying barges to dismantle organizations involved in the smuggling of human beings.
It has often been taken for granted, but yesterday we thought the UN envoy to Libya, Bernardino Leon, to give new vigor to the hopes of an agreement: During the negotiations under way in Morocco is no consensus " on the main elements "of an agreement for the formation of a national unity government in the former kingdom of Muammar Gaddafi, which could take place within 7 days.
TIMING
However the road is uphill and it was the same Leon (whose term will expire at the end of the month) to invite caution. Within two days, the two main rival factions which are covered in Tripoli and Tobruk should return to Skhirat, which hosts the talks, with the go-ahead for the signing of the agreement by September 20. Will also fall with the names to be proposed as candidates for the national unity government, "added Leon. Many things could happen in the meantime, but there is confidence that the situation can be a real turning point.
WORDS OF LEON
"We know there is much work to do, but we believe it will be possible to reach this deadline of 20 September with an agreement signed," he added Leon yet. "After hours of discussion, we have found what we believe to be a consensus on the main elements" of a political agreement to end the conflict, the diplomat announced. "We believe there will be a consensus by all."
WHAT DOES THE AGREEMENT
"After hours of discussion - even Leon explained at the press conference - we found what we believe to be a consensus on the main elements, the amended points are six or seven, and by September 20, all parties should give their consent to the formation the unity government. " The formula shows UN envoy adds Vincenzo Nigro of the Republic, "he provides for the appointment of a prime minister and two deputy prime minister, who would form the core of a strong" Council presidency "expanded to two other ministers of the new government. Among the "triumvirate" there should always be unanimity in decision-making, and the three would be indicated by Tripoli, Tobruk / Benghazi and south of Libya. "
ANALYSIS by Toaldo
Mattia Toaldo, analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations in London, however, have other aspects to be reckoned with. "We do not know all the details of the agreement and will need to look at a particular aspect: the elimination of the military positions requested by CNG, which would imply the dismissal of General Khalifa Haftar", near Tobruk. According to sources close to the government of Tripoli, the expert explains to Formiche.net, "we would be in this draft presented by Leon to the parties today. It would be a decisive element that would not excuse the militias that control the capital not to support the agreement. " On the other hand, emphasizes the analyst, "we must see if the regional powers (especially Egypt) will make an explicit step of recommending a reaction Haftar prudent and realistic."
RISKS
Now, Toaldo concludes, "the agreement is very likely and then approaching the time when the Prime Minister Matteo Renzi will decide the contours of the Italian military mission. If you will not do it quickly, the mechanism with our allies to decide the military mission will remain locked as it is now. Creating a dangerous security vacuum. "
THE SECOND PHASE OF EUNAVFOR MED
Facts and assumptions that are intertwined with another important news. Brussels gave the green light to the second phase of the mission Eunavfor Med, which provides for the use of military force in international waters against the smugglers of migrants who work starting right from Libya, seizing and - if necessary - destroying barges to dismantle organizations involved in the smuggling of human beings.
Sunday 13 September 2015
Europe & Libya: MIGRATION CRISIS ROOTS
Europe & Libya: MIGRATION CRISIS ROOTS: The migration crisis enveloping Europe and much of the Middle East today is one of the worst humanitarian disasters since the 1940s. Mill...
Saturday 12 September 2015
MIGRATION CRISIS ROOTS
The migration crisis enveloping Europe and much of the Middle
East today is one of the worst humanitarian disasters since the 1940s.
Millions of desperate people are on the march: Sunni refugees driven out by the barbarity of the Assad regime in Syria, Christians and Yazidis fleeing the pornographic violence of Islamic State, millions more of all faiths and no faith fleeing poverty and oppression without end.
Parents are entrusting their lives and the lives of their young children to rickety boats and unscrupulous criminal syndicates along the Mediterranean coast, professionals and business people are giving up their livelihoods and investments, farmers are abandoning their land, and from North Africa to Syria, the sick and the old are on the road, carrying a few treasured belongings on a new trail of tears.
It is the first migration crisis of the 21st century, but it is unlikely to be the last. The rise of identity politics across the Middle East and much of sub-Saharan Africa is setting off waves of violence like those that tore apart the Balkans and the Ottoman Empire in the 19th and 20th centuries. The hatreds and rivalries driving endangered communities to exile and destruction have a long history. They probably have a long future as well.
What we are witnessing today is a crisis of two civilisations (Samuel Huntington ''CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS''): The Middle East and Europe are both facing deep cultural and political problems that they cannot solve. The intersection of their failures and shortcomings has made this crisis much more destructive and dangerous than it needed to be — and carries with it the risk of more instability and more war in a widening spiral.
The crisis in the Middle East has to do with much more than the breakdown of order in Syria and Libya. It runs deeper than the poisonous sectarian and ethnic hatreds behind the series of wars stretching from Pakistan to North Africa. At bottom, we are witnessing the consequences of a civilisation’s failure either to overcome or to accommodate the forces of modernity. One hundred years after the fall of the Ottoman Empire and 50 years after the French left Algeria, the Middle East has failed to build economies that allow ordinary people to live with dignity, has failed to build modern political institutions and has failed to carve out the place of honour and respect in world affairs that its peoples seek.
There is no point in rehearsing the multiple failures since Britain’s defeat of the Ottoman Empire liberated the Arabs from hundreds of years of Turkish rule. But it is worth noting that the Arab world has tried a succession of ideologies and forms of government, and that none of them has worked. The liberal nationalism of the early 20th century failed, and so did the socialist nationalism of Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser and his contemporaries. Authoritarianism failed the Arabs too: Compare what Lee Kuan Yew created in resource-free Singapore with the legacy of the Assads in Syria or of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
Today we are watching the failure of Islamism. From the Muslim Brotherhood to Islamic State, Islamist movements have had no more success in curing the ills of Arab civilisation than any of the secular movements of the past. Worse, the brutal fanaticism and nihilistic violence of groups like Islamic State undercuts respect for more moderate versions of Islamic spirituality and thought.
The Turks and the Iranians have had more economic and institutional success than the Arabs, but in both Turkey and Iran today, the outlook is bleak. Iran is ruled by a revolutionary alliance of reactionary clerics and hungry thugs, and it is committed to a regional policy of confrontation and sectarian war. Like the Soviet Union, Iran is an uneasy conglomeration of national and cultural groups held together by a radical but increasingly stale ideology. Turkey, too, is cursed by blind Islamist enthusiasm and unresolved ethnic and ideological chasms. Neither country is immune to the violence sweeping the region, and neither country has been able to develop policies that would calm rather than roil their turbulent surroundings.
At the same time, foreign values are challenging traditional beliefs and practices across the region. Women throughout the Islamic world are seeking to shape theological and social ideas to better reflect their own experience. Modern science and historical and textual criticism pose many of the questions for traditional Islamic piety that 19th-century science and biblical criticism posed for Christianity. Young people continue to be exposed to information, narratives and images that are difficult to reconcile with traditions they were raised to take for granted.
As hundreds of thousands of refugees stumble from the chaos of an imploding Arab world toward Europe, and as millions more seek refuge closer to home, we see a crisis of confidence in the very structures of Middle Eastern civilisation, including religion. Reports that hundreds of Iranian and other refugees from the Islamic world are seeking Christian baptism in Europe can be seen as one aspect of this crisis. If people feel that the religion they were raised in and the civilisation of which they are a part cannot master the problems of daily life, they will seek alternatives.
For other Muslims, this means the embrace of radical fundamentalism.
Such fanaticism is a sign of crisis and not of health in religious life, and the very violence of radical Islam today points to the depth of the failure of traditional religious ideas and institutions across the Middle East.
In Europe and the West, the crisis is quieter but no less profound. Europe today often doesn’t seem to know where it is going, what Western civilisation is for, or even whether or how it can or should be defended. Increasingly, the contemporary version of Enlightenment liberalism sees itself as fundamentally opposed to the religious, political and economic foundations of Western society. Liberal values such as free expression, individual self-determination and a broad array of human rights have become detached in the minds of many from the institutional and civilisational context that shaped them.
Capitalism, the social engine without which neither Europe nor the U.S. would have the wealth or strength to embrace liberal values with any hope of success, is often seen as a cruel, anti-human system that is leading the world to a Malthusian climate catastrophe. Military strength, without which the liberal states would be overwhelmed, is regarded with suspicion in the U.S. and with abhorrence in much of Europe. Too many people in the West interpret pluralism and tolerance in ways that forbid or unrealistically constrain the active defence of these values against illiberal states like Russia or illiberal movements like radical Islam.
Europe’s approach to the migration crisis brings these failures into sharp relief. EU bureaucracy in Brussels has erected a set of legal doctrines stated in terms of absolute right and has tried to build policy on this basis. Taking its cue from the U.N.’s 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other ambitious declarations and treaties, the EU holds that qualified applicants have an absolute human right to asylum. European bureaucrats tend to see asylum as a legal question, not a political one, and they expect political authorities to implement the legal mandate, not quibble with it or constrain it.
This is, in many ways, a commendable and honourable approach. Europeans are rightly haunted by what happened in the 1930s when refugees from Hitler’s Germany could often find no place to go. But solemn declarations to “do the right thing” do not always lead to sound policy.
Under normal circumstances, the rights-based, legalistic approach can work reasonably well. When refugee flows are slack, the political fallout from accommodating them is manageable. But when the flow of desperate people passes a certain threshold, receiving countries no longer have the will (and, in some cases, the ability) to follow through. Ten thousand refugees is one thing; 10 million is another. Somewhere between those extremes is a breaking point at which the political system will no longer carry out the legal mandate. To pretend that this isn’t true is to invite trouble, and Europe is already much closer to a breaking point than Brussels or Berlin would like to admit.
In eastern and central Europe, the social and economic conditions for absorbing mass migration from the Middle East simply don’t exist. The relatively homogenous ethnic nation states that now comprise the region were created through generations of warfare, often accompanied by episodes of ethnic cleansing and genocide. Most of these states enjoyed a brief period of independence between the two world wars and were then engulfed, first by the Nazis and later by the Soviet empire. Their independence and security still feel fragile, and most of their citizens still believe that the role of the state is to protect the wellbeing of their own ethnic group and express its cultural values.
Larger, more self-confident and richer societies in Europe’s west and north are better prepared to cope with immigration.
But rules that work for Germany and Sweden can produce uncontrollable backlashes in other parts of Europe.
Add to this picture the continuing budgetary and welfare crises and the mass youth unemployment in many Eurozone economies, and it is easy to envision a point at which Europe’s capacity to absorb refugees reaches a ceiling.
And the flow of refugees to Europe could easily grow. The Turkish war against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party could escalate. Social breakdown or the victory of radical Islamist forces in Egypt could provoke a mass flight of the Copts, the last remaining large Christian population in a region that has seen one Christian community after another exterminated or forced into exile over the last 150 years.
The sectarian war in Syria could intensify and spread into Lebanon.
The intensifying religious conflict across the Sahel and northern sub-Saharan Africa could create the kind of political and economic insecurity that would produce vast flows of desperate migrants and asylum seekers.
The breaking point may be reached sooner rather than later.
In the short term, Europe’s attempts to welcome and resettle refugees will accelerate the flow. The news that rich countries like Germany are welcoming migrants will stimulate many more people to hit the road. Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, is calling on member states to accept 160,000 migrants through a quota system. What will be the response when the number of migrants shoots well past that number?
The EU has failed to see that refugee and asylum policy must have three distinct components: the compassionate embrace of those in great need, a tough-minded effort to reduce the flow at the source by correcting or preventing the problems that give rise to it, and an effective border-control regime that limits the number of refugees and migrants who reach EU soil.
When it comes to reducing the number of migrants at their source, the Europeans have gotten it partly right. The EU has been relatively generous with economic-development aid to North Africa and the Middle East. That aid often falls short of the hoped-for results, but at least the Europeans are trying.
There is a second dimension to this policy that runs into a buzz saw of European assumptions and beliefs: the security question. Poverty is one driver of migration to Europe, but what has turned a policy problem into an international crisis is the intersection of poverty and insecurity. It is the brutal war in Syria that has displaced millions of people from their homes and sent them streaming into refugee encampments from Amman to Budapest. It was the breakdown of order in post-intervention Libya that made the Libyan coast a point of embarkation for desperate refugees from Libya and farther south.
The humanitarian question of refugees and asylum seekers cannot be separated from the bankruptcy of Western security policy in Syria and Libya, and the bankruptcy of Western policy cannot be separated from the longstanding difficulties that many European states have in taking a responsible attitude toward questions of military security.
The utter failure of Western policy in both Libya and Syria has to be seen for what it is: not just a political blunder but a humanitarian crime. The feckless mix of intervention and indifference in Libya and the equally feckless failure to intervene in Syria have helped to trigger the flows of migrants that are overwhelming Europe’s institutions.
It is impossible to have a humane and sustainable asylum policy without an active and engaged foreign policy that from time to time involves military action.
The West’s current stance on human rights and asylum is reminiscent of the liberal approach to questions of peace and war in the early 1930s.
On the one hand, the West adopted a high-minded, legalistic stand that declared war illegal (the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928); on the other, we adhered to a blind commitment to disarmament. A noble ideal was separated from any serious effort to create the conditions that would make it achievable.
The dream of a liberal, humanitarian peace that both US and EU share may not be achievable in the wicked and complicated world in which we live. It certainly cannot be achieved with the kinds of policies now in favour in capitals on both sides of the Atlantic
Millions of desperate people are on the march: Sunni refugees driven out by the barbarity of the Assad regime in Syria, Christians and Yazidis fleeing the pornographic violence of Islamic State, millions more of all faiths and no faith fleeing poverty and oppression without end.
Parents are entrusting their lives and the lives of their young children to rickety boats and unscrupulous criminal syndicates along the Mediterranean coast, professionals and business people are giving up their livelihoods and investments, farmers are abandoning their land, and from North Africa to Syria, the sick and the old are on the road, carrying a few treasured belongings on a new trail of tears.
It is the first migration crisis of the 21st century, but it is unlikely to be the last. The rise of identity politics across the Middle East and much of sub-Saharan Africa is setting off waves of violence like those that tore apart the Balkans and the Ottoman Empire in the 19th and 20th centuries. The hatreds and rivalries driving endangered communities to exile and destruction have a long history. They probably have a long future as well.
What we are witnessing today is a crisis of two civilisations (Samuel Huntington ''CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS''): The Middle East and Europe are both facing deep cultural and political problems that they cannot solve. The intersection of their failures and shortcomings has made this crisis much more destructive and dangerous than it needed to be — and carries with it the risk of more instability and more war in a widening spiral.
The crisis in the Middle East has to do with much more than the breakdown of order in Syria and Libya. It runs deeper than the poisonous sectarian and ethnic hatreds behind the series of wars stretching from Pakistan to North Africa. At bottom, we are witnessing the consequences of a civilisation’s failure either to overcome or to accommodate the forces of modernity. One hundred years after the fall of the Ottoman Empire and 50 years after the French left Algeria, the Middle East has failed to build economies that allow ordinary people to live with dignity, has failed to build modern political institutions and has failed to carve out the place of honour and respect in world affairs that its peoples seek.
There is no point in rehearsing the multiple failures since Britain’s defeat of the Ottoman Empire liberated the Arabs from hundreds of years of Turkish rule. But it is worth noting that the Arab world has tried a succession of ideologies and forms of government, and that none of them has worked. The liberal nationalism of the early 20th century failed, and so did the socialist nationalism of Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser and his contemporaries. Authoritarianism failed the Arabs too: Compare what Lee Kuan Yew created in resource-free Singapore with the legacy of the Assads in Syria or of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
Today we are watching the failure of Islamism. From the Muslim Brotherhood to Islamic State, Islamist movements have had no more success in curing the ills of Arab civilisation than any of the secular movements of the past. Worse, the brutal fanaticism and nihilistic violence of groups like Islamic State undercuts respect for more moderate versions of Islamic spirituality and thought.
The Turks and the Iranians have had more economic and institutional success than the Arabs, but in both Turkey and Iran today, the outlook is bleak. Iran is ruled by a revolutionary alliance of reactionary clerics and hungry thugs, and it is committed to a regional policy of confrontation and sectarian war. Like the Soviet Union, Iran is an uneasy conglomeration of national and cultural groups held together by a radical but increasingly stale ideology. Turkey, too, is cursed by blind Islamist enthusiasm and unresolved ethnic and ideological chasms. Neither country is immune to the violence sweeping the region, and neither country has been able to develop policies that would calm rather than roil their turbulent surroundings.
At the same time, foreign values are challenging traditional beliefs and practices across the region. Women throughout the Islamic world are seeking to shape theological and social ideas to better reflect their own experience. Modern science and historical and textual criticism pose many of the questions for traditional Islamic piety that 19th-century science and biblical criticism posed for Christianity. Young people continue to be exposed to information, narratives and images that are difficult to reconcile with traditions they were raised to take for granted.
As hundreds of thousands of refugees stumble from the chaos of an imploding Arab world toward Europe, and as millions more seek refuge closer to home, we see a crisis of confidence in the very structures of Middle Eastern civilisation, including religion. Reports that hundreds of Iranian and other refugees from the Islamic world are seeking Christian baptism in Europe can be seen as one aspect of this crisis. If people feel that the religion they were raised in and the civilisation of which they are a part cannot master the problems of daily life, they will seek alternatives.
For other Muslims, this means the embrace of radical fundamentalism.
Such fanaticism is a sign of crisis and not of health in religious life, and the very violence of radical Islam today points to the depth of the failure of traditional religious ideas and institutions across the Middle East.
In Europe and the West, the crisis is quieter but no less profound. Europe today often doesn’t seem to know where it is going, what Western civilisation is for, or even whether or how it can or should be defended. Increasingly, the contemporary version of Enlightenment liberalism sees itself as fundamentally opposed to the religious, political and economic foundations of Western society. Liberal values such as free expression, individual self-determination and a broad array of human rights have become detached in the minds of many from the institutional and civilisational context that shaped them.
Capitalism, the social engine without which neither Europe nor the U.S. would have the wealth or strength to embrace liberal values with any hope of success, is often seen as a cruel, anti-human system that is leading the world to a Malthusian climate catastrophe. Military strength, without which the liberal states would be overwhelmed, is regarded with suspicion in the U.S. and with abhorrence in much of Europe. Too many people in the West interpret pluralism and tolerance in ways that forbid or unrealistically constrain the active defence of these values against illiberal states like Russia or illiberal movements like radical Islam.
Europe’s approach to the migration crisis brings these failures into sharp relief. EU bureaucracy in Brussels has erected a set of legal doctrines stated in terms of absolute right and has tried to build policy on this basis. Taking its cue from the U.N.’s 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other ambitious declarations and treaties, the EU holds that qualified applicants have an absolute human right to asylum. European bureaucrats tend to see asylum as a legal question, not a political one, and they expect political authorities to implement the legal mandate, not quibble with it or constrain it.
This is, in many ways, a commendable and honourable approach. Europeans are rightly haunted by what happened in the 1930s when refugees from Hitler’s Germany could often find no place to go. But solemn declarations to “do the right thing” do not always lead to sound policy.
Under normal circumstances, the rights-based, legalistic approach can work reasonably well. When refugee flows are slack, the political fallout from accommodating them is manageable. But when the flow of desperate people passes a certain threshold, receiving countries no longer have the will (and, in some cases, the ability) to follow through. Ten thousand refugees is one thing; 10 million is another. Somewhere between those extremes is a breaking point at which the political system will no longer carry out the legal mandate. To pretend that this isn’t true is to invite trouble, and Europe is already much closer to a breaking point than Brussels or Berlin would like to admit.
In eastern and central Europe, the social and economic conditions for absorbing mass migration from the Middle East simply don’t exist. The relatively homogenous ethnic nation states that now comprise the region were created through generations of warfare, often accompanied by episodes of ethnic cleansing and genocide. Most of these states enjoyed a brief period of independence between the two world wars and were then engulfed, first by the Nazis and later by the Soviet empire. Their independence and security still feel fragile, and most of their citizens still believe that the role of the state is to protect the wellbeing of their own ethnic group and express its cultural values.
Larger, more self-confident and richer societies in Europe’s west and north are better prepared to cope with immigration.
But rules that work for Germany and Sweden can produce uncontrollable backlashes in other parts of Europe.
Add to this picture the continuing budgetary and welfare crises and the mass youth unemployment in many Eurozone economies, and it is easy to envision a point at which Europe’s capacity to absorb refugees reaches a ceiling.
And the flow of refugees to Europe could easily grow. The Turkish war against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party could escalate. Social breakdown or the victory of radical Islamist forces in Egypt could provoke a mass flight of the Copts, the last remaining large Christian population in a region that has seen one Christian community after another exterminated or forced into exile over the last 150 years.
The sectarian war in Syria could intensify and spread into Lebanon.
The intensifying religious conflict across the Sahel and northern sub-Saharan Africa could create the kind of political and economic insecurity that would produce vast flows of desperate migrants and asylum seekers.
The breaking point may be reached sooner rather than later.
In the short term, Europe’s attempts to welcome and resettle refugees will accelerate the flow. The news that rich countries like Germany are welcoming migrants will stimulate many more people to hit the road. Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, is calling on member states to accept 160,000 migrants through a quota system. What will be the response when the number of migrants shoots well past that number?
The EU has failed to see that refugee and asylum policy must have three distinct components: the compassionate embrace of those in great need, a tough-minded effort to reduce the flow at the source by correcting or preventing the problems that give rise to it, and an effective border-control regime that limits the number of refugees and migrants who reach EU soil.
When it comes to reducing the number of migrants at their source, the Europeans have gotten it partly right. The EU has been relatively generous with economic-development aid to North Africa and the Middle East. That aid often falls short of the hoped-for results, but at least the Europeans are trying.
There is a second dimension to this policy that runs into a buzz saw of European assumptions and beliefs: the security question. Poverty is one driver of migration to Europe, but what has turned a policy problem into an international crisis is the intersection of poverty and insecurity. It is the brutal war in Syria that has displaced millions of people from their homes and sent them streaming into refugee encampments from Amman to Budapest. It was the breakdown of order in post-intervention Libya that made the Libyan coast a point of embarkation for desperate refugees from Libya and farther south.
The humanitarian question of refugees and asylum seekers cannot be separated from the bankruptcy of Western security policy in Syria and Libya, and the bankruptcy of Western policy cannot be separated from the longstanding difficulties that many European states have in taking a responsible attitude toward questions of military security.
The utter failure of Western policy in both Libya and Syria has to be seen for what it is: not just a political blunder but a humanitarian crime. The feckless mix of intervention and indifference in Libya and the equally feckless failure to intervene in Syria have helped to trigger the flows of migrants that are overwhelming Europe’s institutions.
It is impossible to have a humane and sustainable asylum policy without an active and engaged foreign policy that from time to time involves military action.
The West’s current stance on human rights and asylum is reminiscent of the liberal approach to questions of peace and war in the early 1930s.
On the one hand, the West adopted a high-minded, legalistic stand that declared war illegal (the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928); on the other, we adhered to a blind commitment to disarmament. A noble ideal was separated from any serious effort to create the conditions that would make it achievable.
The dream of a liberal, humanitarian peace that both US and EU share may not be achievable in the wicked and complicated world in which we live. It certainly cannot be achieved with the kinds of policies now in favour in capitals on both sides of the Atlantic
WOMEN FREEDOM IN TRIPOLI ??
IS IT TRUE?
Rome - In Libya, the so-called 'government of Tripoli' - which is actually an Islamist insurgent group linked to the 'Muslim Brotherhood' Egyptian (declared terrorist and dissolved by the Court in Cairo) he threw the mask and abandoned all restraint , by imposing a turning to fundamentalist used the 'Ministry of Foreign Affairs '.
Some versions of 'khimar'. The
photos are drawn from an online retailer and, as we see, the 'models'
coveingr their faces for not exposing themselves to retaliation by Islamic
fundamentalists. Does Federica Mogherini - EU foreign minister know these things? Yes, she does. For Tripoli govt the freedom of women must be like this.
Libya, the so-called 'government of Tripoli' disposable mask: Women in office only veiled from head to toe September 11, 2015 at 17:07 /
To enforce the new dress code Tripoli govt Foreign Ministry occupied by Islamist movements, unspecified 'consultants' religious, who have plumbed the offices for a week to study the new measures. No longer enough scarves or hijab. Set gender segregation: men and women can no longer work together. These rules on clothing apply from primary schools to university. Was that Federica Mogherini - EU Foreign Minister mean with "dialogue"?
Rome - In Libya, the so-called 'government of Tripoli' - which is actually an Islamist insurgent group linked to the 'Muslim Brotherhood' Egyptian (declared terrorist and dissolved by the Court in Cairo) he threw the mask and abandoned all restraint , by imposing a turning to fundamentalist used the 'Ministry of Foreign Affairs '.
Tripoli govt - not recognized by the international community - imposed to all women the obligation to wear at work the 'khimar', a cloak which covers the body from head to toe. A kind of Islamic clothing which may change according to local tradition, up to cover the entire face.
For women serving in those offices it is no longer sufficient just wear headscarf, as expected so far by Libyan dress code.
Some versions of 'khimar'. The
photos are drawn from an online retailer and, as we see, the 'models'
coveingr their faces for not exposing themselves to retaliation by Islamic
fundamentalists. Does Federica Mogherini - EU foreign minister know these things? Yes, she does. For Tripoli govt the freedom of women must be like this.
The
news was reported by newspaper 'Libya Herald', citing sources
inside the so-called 'foreign ministry' of Tripoli, and would not have
been decided by the authorities 'governance', but from unspecified
"consultants" external, clearly of Islamist, who went at the
headquarters of the ministry last week.
The 'new' dress code is not the only new tax. Employees has also been imposed a strict system of separation and gender segregation, under which men and women can no longer work together and have to work in separate rooms . The penalty for those who infringe these rules (at least for now: waiting for the next installment of jihad horror) will be fired .
In the coming weeks, according to the head of the Libyan, these rules will be extended to other ministries , but the fundamentalist turn not spare even schools, which will be imposed segregation and separation of gender, with the obligation to wear the hijab for students of all levels, from primary to university.
To
Mrs. Federica Mogherini, CFSP High Representative of the European Union
and worthy representative of the European institutions without spine
and without the spinal cord, we would like to ask: is this the kind of 'dialogue' which she claims to be the basis for restoring unity government national in Libya? Thus the EU - and the Member States most influential (including NO ITALY ...) - aim to promote human rights, indirectly supporting the criminals Islamist anti-libertarian?
Saturday 5 September 2015
EU doubts & hesitation
Cyclically flashed back to the hypothesis of an international military intervention in Libya, Italian-led and UN mandate. One possibility that seems to be believed by Italian Govt although
an agreement among all the Libyans factions still seems far away and it is not
clear what would be UN force tasks.Deploy
troops in Libya for a mission without a clear military objective would
entail high costs and risks in the current context in which the presence
of Western troops would end up attracting all the suicide bombers of
North Africa and Sahel. Not
surprisingly, Italian foreign minister Paolo Gentiloni said that 'Italy
does not intend to be involved in Libya in "adventures in the desert" because they
"do not serve and worsen the situation." Italy,
stressed the minister, "should do its part to support by all means the
negotiations" and "to take action in containing the terrorist threat",
"but if the invitation to leave the hesitation means promoting an armed
intervention" then we are not available, "the government does not want it."The
document with which France, Germany, Italy, Spain,
Britain and US govts have called on August 17 all Libyan
factions to unite their forces against IS which is
rampant and consolidated in Sirte and in
other places, it does not seem to indicate the rest
of Western powers availability to deploy troops and equipment on Libyan soil. In
recent weeks, British media filtered the availability of London
to conduct military actions against the Caliphate in Libya but in this
case it is unlikely that London will act in Rome subordinate position or indeed it seems that UN have quickly put point to a resolution authorizing international intervention.The
joint statement of the six states that "there is no military solution
to the Libyan crisis" but the Islamic State is expanding its domain with
weapons and appears increasingly strident confrontation between US
and NATO intervention against Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, called
then "necessary" to protect civilians from the regime and against the
Jihadists come to 400 kilometers from the west coast of Europe remains
at the window despite the Isis has proclaimed the emirate in Sirte,
forcing the population to submit to stricter Sharia and performing executions that have not spared Christians and alleged spies. Position waiting for Arab League last week ruled in favor of generic military supplies to Tobruk govt.
Wipe out IS militias from Gaddafi's hometown would be potentially rapid and within the reach of Italian forces only which could drive a joint action between Tobruk army in the east and the militias of Misrata in west with a attack by land, sea and sky leaving to Libyan troops the task of controlling the territory. It would be a valuable test to check availability of various Libyan militias to cooperate against Isis, but it would, however, an operation of war, similar (but larger) the one performed against the same enemy by Egyptians in Derna in February. Nothing to do with "peace missions". Therefore unlikely that Rome authorizes it as Italian contingent is the only one of 24 planes of the Coalition mobilized against Isis in Iraq and Syria not to use weapons.In recent days the minister Gentiloni stressed the risk that Libya will become another Somalia but the comparison was topical already more than a year ago (the African Union warned that effect NATO in spring 2011 when he took via the war against Gaddafi) and since then they have done virtually nothing if not rely on the negotiations of the UN envoy, Bernardino Leon, still on the high seas and that they failed to engage the Islamist government that controls the coast from Tripoli which set sail every day the boats bound for Italy.A traffic too intense and profitable because nobody knows anything in Tripoli as well as it should not escape the "strange coincidence" that sees Europe reached every day by thousands of illegal immigrants landing on the coast of the Greek and Italian from nearly all from Turkey and Libyan territories controlled by a government that has in Turkey and Qatar in his only allies. Perhaps it would be to demand some explanation in Ankara.The priority for Italy is to ensure the safety of facilities and Eni's Greenstream over to stop migration flows managed by the traffickers. However unlikely a green light to UN operations on the Libyan coast against criminals. Requests to that effect by Federica Mogherini have in fact been rejected and the fleet launched by the EU (Eunavfor Med) to combat the traffickers and at sea by the end of June is still waiting for a possible green light from Brussels to destroy the barges at least high seas, after having boarded passengers.A green light that optimists believe could possibly get from the summit of foreign ministers of the EU on 3 September.In fact a fleet which costs fifty million euro every three months for EU (11.8 million allocated so far), Italy (26 million) and the other participating countries, if all goes well will do what they already do without Triton fanfare the operation of the European Agency Frontex and the Italian Sea Sure that after having collected the occupants sink legitimately barges and rafts to prevent traffickers from using them
Wipe out IS militias from Gaddafi's hometown would be potentially rapid and within the reach of Italian forces only which could drive a joint action between Tobruk army in the east and the militias of Misrata in west with a attack by land, sea and sky leaving to Libyan troops the task of controlling the territory. It would be a valuable test to check availability of various Libyan militias to cooperate against Isis, but it would, however, an operation of war, similar (but larger) the one performed against the same enemy by Egyptians in Derna in February. Nothing to do with "peace missions". Therefore unlikely that Rome authorizes it as Italian contingent is the only one of 24 planes of the Coalition mobilized against Isis in Iraq and Syria not to use weapons.In recent days the minister Gentiloni stressed the risk that Libya will become another Somalia but the comparison was topical already more than a year ago (the African Union warned that effect NATO in spring 2011 when he took via the war against Gaddafi) and since then they have done virtually nothing if not rely on the negotiations of the UN envoy, Bernardino Leon, still on the high seas and that they failed to engage the Islamist government that controls the coast from Tripoli which set sail every day the boats bound for Italy.A traffic too intense and profitable because nobody knows anything in Tripoli as well as it should not escape the "strange coincidence" that sees Europe reached every day by thousands of illegal immigrants landing on the coast of the Greek and Italian from nearly all from Turkey and Libyan territories controlled by a government that has in Turkey and Qatar in his only allies. Perhaps it would be to demand some explanation in Ankara.The priority for Italy is to ensure the safety of facilities and Eni's Greenstream over to stop migration flows managed by the traffickers. However unlikely a green light to UN operations on the Libyan coast against criminals. Requests to that effect by Federica Mogherini have in fact been rejected and the fleet launched by the EU (Eunavfor Med) to combat the traffickers and at sea by the end of June is still waiting for a possible green light from Brussels to destroy the barges at least high seas, after having boarded passengers.A green light that optimists believe could possibly get from the summit of foreign ministers of the EU on 3 September.In fact a fleet which costs fifty million euro every three months for EU (11.8 million allocated so far), Italy (26 million) and the other participating countries, if all goes well will do what they already do without Triton fanfare the operation of the European Agency Frontex and the Italian Sea Sure that after having collected the occupants sink legitimately barges and rafts to prevent traffickers from using them
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)