SOUTH LIBYA POWER

Since the Western intervention and the toppling of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, Libya has slowly swirled into lawlessness, providing unprecedented opportunities for migrants and traders throughout the Sahel. The collapse of Libya as a state meant an unprecedented shift of power to the south, giving rise to unlikely alliances between nomads and terrorists, and emboldening a thriving illegal trade.
As the country itself split into rivalling entities city-state, regional dynamics are pushing towards the emergent of new routes across the Sahara desert, creating a network of alliances and rivalries that is changing the Sahel region. Three networks, all closely intertwined, have emerged out of the Libyan conflict: trade, smuggling and militant routes. This article aims at examining how they overlap.

Trade routes

Libya proved to be a fertile ground for the Islamic State (ISIS) after the emergence of two competing separate governments; the internationally recognized government of Libya, based in Tobruk, and the General National Congress, based in Tripoli. In reality, the division of power is much more subtle, with dozens of militias defending their own smaller city-state, constantly forging alliances that span tribal, ethnic, religious and military lines. At the core of it all, of course, is business.
The Sahara’s vast expanse has been a vital economic crossroad even before the Roman Empire, culminating in a prosperous trade in the 15th century before slowly falling under the imposition of arbitrary colonial lines. The removal of Gaddafi, a keen ethnic divider, helped restore it. A new flourishing trade, smuggling goods north and south, has brought militants, migrants and water north, while bringing cheap petrol being smuggled to Niger and Chad.
In 2015, the International Business Times noted: “the scale of the illicit network trading people, drugs, weapons and fuel is so vast and so lucrative that it encompasses all factions and groups in Libya’s divisive civil war”. The Fezzan region is at the core of this booming lawlessness; Sabha, the capital of this province, has become a lawless transport hub, with stakes high enough to cause infighting between Tuaregs and Tebu, as in the 2015 clashes, which led to 40 killed in the city. According to an activist who spoke to the IBT, the Tebu smuggle both migrants’ drugs, as most smugglers do.
“The smuggling networks are intertwined and their common ground is economic. It is all about making money. That’s what it is all about for these groups.” Says Mohamed Eljarh, non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East. So much so that Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and Al-Mourabitoun (The Sentinels) have taken to intermarry with the Tuaregs and Berabiche tribe in a symbiotic enterprise that has allowed them to facilitate trade in cocaine, cannabis and tobacco.

Militant routes

Given the two rival governments inability to curb islamism, it is no wonder that Libya attracted the Islamic State. But other salafist organizations also benefit from the overall lawlessness of the country, such as Ansar al sham. As a result, experts consider the country an ideal training ground for Salafists, preparing for attacks in Egypt and Tunisia as well as in Western Europe.
Broader regional problems also explain the flow of militants who joined Libya’s numerous militias. According to the Geopolitical Monitor, “high unemployment in Algeria, a two-front fight against extremism in Niger and many disaffected youth in Tunisia and Egypt account heavily in the country’s inflow of foreign fighters.”
Southern Libya, over which neither of the two de facto governments have power, has effectively become a no-man’s-land, with local tribes taking an active role in the jihadist agenda. In 2014, Nigerian Interior Minister Massoudou Hassoumi referred to southern Libya as “an incubator for terrorist groups“. According to Critical Threats, ISIS uses the same established smuggling routes for bringing its own new recruits.
The Tuareg and Tebu tribes, alternatively exploited and marginalized by Gaddafi, found empowerment in the collapse of his regime by filling the power vacuum in Southern Libya, resulting in tactical alliances with various smuggling groups. Further south, the Libyan spillover has emboldened local regionalist groups, many of which pledged allegiance to ISIS, including Boko Haram.

Migration routes 

Libya’s lawlessness and chaos are often pointed out to describe its transformation into a migration hub for Europe. There is another reason: last year,  87% of the 900,000 migrants entered Europe through Greece, but this year’s deal between the EU and Turkey disrupted that route, making Libya a promising alternative.  As a matter of fact, Libya’s prosperous smuggling business has become so successful that fishermen are now complaining they can’t find any boats to fish, leading to dramatic price hike. But getting on the boat is the easy part. It is merely the second phase of a long, dangerous journey through the Sahara desert. In 2013, the largest portion of refugees smuggling out of Libya were Syrians, but other migrants from Sudan, Chad and Niger have joined the stream, all of this facilitated by Libya’s porous borders.

The Niger route is the most widely used for West Africans. The Tebu, an ethnic group living in northern Chad and northeastern Niger, control most of the Libyan south border, and levy a tax for every person smuggling north. Migrants are then often dropped in the Fezzan region, where those who can afford it try to make it to the port. Libyan officials are virtually powerless to stop the flow.

Source : The Wall Street Journal

Source : European Council on Foreign Relations

Conclusion

“All the smugglers are connected and they pass the migrants on between each other,” said Ibrahim Shawish, the mayor of Murzuq, a small town 350 km north of Libya’s south-west border. Smugglers also work closely with Libya’s different factions, upon which Libya’s de facto two governments don’t have enough power to intervene. The two rival administrations do not extend to the largely tribal south. The result is the presence of actual anarchy.
What emerges from this outlook is the fluidity of movement in the Sahel region, pointing to an intimate interconnection between historical regional aspirations from marginalised tribes, terrorism and criminal networks.
Al-Qaeda was quick to get in bed with regional factions to access the lucrative drug trade. Human smugglers, from the southern Sahel region all the way to the ports of the Libyan coast, are embedded with local factions at every stage of the journey, and are often traded with their worth of oil on the same trip.

''Divided''? Libya at end August 2016

Often last little good news coming up close. And Libya is very close, from Sicily there you go by boat, to the base at Sigonella military aircraft takes less than 20 minutes for a trip to Sirte and back. The latest good news lasted a few hours, even if it was important, even exhilarating: the drubbing of Isis base in Sirte, its half destruction followed with a Victory Bulletin immediately upon an exchange of congratulations between the government in Tripoli and his allies.

If not that, a few hours later, came the answer: the disavowal of that government by Libyan (legitime) parliament. Although it operates, and in this case voted, at a considerable distance from Tripoli, Tobruk and much closer to the border with Egypt. The tone is rather glittering, so much that PM Fayez al-Sarraj takes refuge in Tunisia. A nasty surprise.

But worst surprise because the government enjoys the confidence yes or at least the sympathy of the West, but not that of the Libyans majority . And in fact on the ground nothing changed. The country continues to be in the hands of militias (Isis is just one of many), in Tripoli is returning the great usual clutter. If there was a Strong Man, general Khalifa Haftar, he was further strengthened even as defense minister of that other government, that of Tobruk in Cyrenaica and thus openly and firmly supported by the Egyptian one.

The situation, therefore, starts to get even more complicated. The country is split in two by at least one and half a year. Tripoli and Tobruk continue their creeping war without signs that one of the belligerents comes close to victory. Tripoli from its international recognition, US and EU that is also in the military version. Tobruk has what appears to be the real strong man, and the support of some more or less Islamic governments. It is more likely, that Haftar one day decides to march on Tripoli than Sarraj don't take the road to Tobruk.
It depends not only on military and political quality of both of them eastern Libya while Tobruk and Benghazi are content to keep what they have. And for them they have several things, including the oil and History. The Libyan land is ancient, glorious, but what it lacks is a unitary past. It never was even in its name. First there were the Greek Cyrenaica and West Carthage. The border was established, according to legend, by crossing two marathons: two pairs of games athletes one from the East, a West; where they were met there would arise the sacred boundary between two homelands. Those who won were the Fileni brothers, who died of heroic effort, but pushed forward the frontier. Then came the Romans, who incorporated both. The collapse of their power, a new division and  finally the Ottoman Empire mantle.

Libya did not speak. It rose as a result of an operation of prestige initiated by Giolitti in 1911, on behalf of an Italy which only  regained its unity 50 years. He sang "Tripoli beautiful land of love." But enthusiasm was not quite unanimous. A pacifist like Giovanni Pascoli applauded extolling the "great proletarian" but opposed a socialist already known as Benito Mussolini, author of a warning: "Neither a penny nor a soldier for the imperialist war." Then, then he became the Duce, he found himself in hand Tripolitania and Cyrenaica and did not resist the temptation to call it imperial and Roman Libya. He built a monument to Fileni brothers and went to personally to inaugurate it.

Defeated in World War II, Italy disappeared politically from Libya, leaving behind that name, but Libyans continue to feel and to be divided, held together only by Gaddafi dictatorship heritage without heirs, but a void that every time someone tries to fill. Now maybe it's up to Khalifa Haftar. If he becomes a dictator and "unite" a land which does not really feel this need.
Perhaps the acceptable solution would be to let "Libya" would return to be two. But the ''modern and democratic orthodoxy" so far has not accepted it.

Keys for solution Islam vs Europe?

 Mohammed Abed AlJabri  gave his views in 2008 to Arnaldo Guidotti but they are valid in 2016. Read (copy and click this link)
https://www.academia.edu/18142455/Deliberative_and_Participatory_Democracy_Towards_a_New_Model_of_Radical_Democracy

WAR IS NOT OVER DAESH SIRT DEFEAT. K. HAFTER ROLE

After Daesh defeat in Sirt, war in Libya is not over: the trap is in the south of the country.

A more decisive military intervention in Libya could be effective on the coast but will destabilize the inland and cause the collapse of the entire region. It is therefore important that military leaders do not underestimate the risks of a possible escape of Islamic extremism to the south

The Ouagadougou conference center of Sirte, built by EMACO (ex Enterprise was Emaco subsidiary with Administration city), former base Isis recaptured by the Misurati troops of Serraj

Despite the retreat from Sirte, the self-styled Islamic State - also in trouble in Syria and Iraq - directly retains several key provinces control: the Libyan coast from the borders of the oil installations 40 km west of Sirte to Al Sidr, Tikah the area south of Benghazi, the coast between Battah and the suburbs of Derna. But the self-proclaimed caliphate also governs Sabratah and then Ra's Ajdir on the Tunisian border. The interior holds numerous strongholds; the largest province is located in Bani Waled area. To these are added a myriad of other areas, each under the control of some of the many tribes and more or less directly connected to the Islamist terrorism.

The American bombing to be effective and have enabled ground troops loyal to the government of national agreement in Tripoli to regain almost entirely Sirte, where the caliphate had set up their headquarters right in the complex of Ouagadougou, the command center built by Gaddafi.

But it looks increasingly unlikely that the unified national unity government recognized by the UN can - without a strong external help - unite the nation and deploy an army capable of eliminating the threat posed by Isis, by Ansar al-Sharia and the numerous tribes extremist. At the moment, it is considered inevitable substantially wider military intervention under UN guidance and more or less officially requested by the government in power.

The tribal mosaic

After the Libyan revolution of 2011, the tribal conflicts repressed by Gaddafi for forty years are effectively re-exploded. Numerous militias were established in a mosaic of areas restricted by substituting the inexistent state authorities. For five years each tightens with its neighbors ephemeral alliances alternating with bloody conflicts in line with the interests of the leaders of the moment. While monitoring in the northern region - where various oil terminals - allows to have a clear view of the forces at work on the coast, is not so clear the strategic situation in the areas far from the Mediterranean and ethnic relations, religious and political tribes that control them.

Terrorist groups are concentrated on the coast and threaten cities, ports and oil infrastructures, but they understood the strategic importance and the interior of the vast reserves of energy and water vital for the survival of the entire region.

Who controls the south decides whether Tripoli and Benghazi can turn on the light or turn on water and if workers can receive their salaries. But also controls the trade arteries, arms smuggling, drug trafficking, armed militants and waves of desperate people willing to risk their lives to reach the Mediterranean and cross it.

Despite the retreat from Sirte, Isis has several key provinces control: the Libyan coast from the borders of the oil installations 40 kilometers west of Sirte to Al Sidr, the Tikah area south of Benghazi, the coast between Battah and the suburbs of Derna. But also Sabratah and then Ra's Ajdir on the Tunisian border. The interior holds a myriad of other areas under the control of the many tribes linked to Islamist terrorism

The military situation

France, Italy, United Kingdom and United States have already - in the air or on the ground - special unit training tasks and monitoring, and limited interventions, but are considering more and more seriously on a larger scale intervention aimed at eliminating the Islamic State and stop the waves of refugees. After the wars in the Gulf, no nation is ready to return to see planeloads of coffins, but it is not at all clear that foreign intervention would cause an aversion of the Libyan population already suffering from past experience, but also a marked expansion of Isis that aims as a defender of Islam and the country against the hordes of the colonialists infidels.

Geography and infrastructure

Libya is composed of three main regions: Tripolitania in Northwest, Cyrenaica in the east, the Fezzan in the southwest. While the settlements, foreign interests and energy terminals are located along the coast, most of the water reserves and Libya's energy found in the south, an area of ​​rocky plateaus (hamadat) and sand seas end (Ramlat) , dotted with small oases and occasional lakes. The mountain areas include the Tadrart Acacsus near Ghat in Fezzan, Bikku Mitti mountains along the border with Chad, and the Jabal Uwaynat in the southeast. The average temperature above 30 degrees and the sand storms have always kept away foreign armies. In addition, a network of dried up beds of ancient rivers drains the water produced by the rare rains and is commonly used to hide the movement of troops and convoys of smugglers.

The Great Man-Made River era Gaddafi collects immense fossil water reserves trapped Nubian sandstone aquifer that lies beneath the desert and through a network of smaller aqueducts, feeds the towns and agricultural areas along the Mediterranean. It is the largest aqueduct in the world, stretches for 4000 km carrying six million cubic meters of water daily from south to north along two parallel channels that start from Fezzan and Kufra. 70% of the Libyan population depends on this infrastructure, and underground piping in concrete can easily be interrupted at any point of the route.

Neglecting the offshore oil fields (Eni ones are defended by the Sea Safe operation forces of the Navy) there are five large oil and gas fields: Ghadames / Berkine (in the desert of Tripoli), Sirte (the largest on the coast) , Murzuq (in the center of Fezzan), the large Cyrenaica platform and finally, Kufra (in the deep south of Cyrenaica).

The roads used to connect the southern settlements with the coast unite with each other oases that offer water and eateries. The networks of aqueducts, oil and gas pipelines crossing the desert following the same paths leading to the strategic importance of the oases, villages and mountain passes crossing.

While the settlements, foreign interests and energy terminals are located along the coast, most of the water reserves and Libya's energy found in the south

TRIBES & ETHNIC GROUPS

The Arabs settled in the south fear the arrival from abroad of tens of thousands of non-Arab, such as the Tuareg and Tubu. On the other hand, they feel threatened by the Arabs. The Tubu, natives of Central Africa, coming from the northeast of Niger, the extreme southern Libya but, above all, from the Tibesti Mountains in northern Chad. The Tuareg are a Berber indigenous group dispersed in various confederations and spread in much of the Sahel and the Sahara, where they maintain control of the connections across the desert. In Libya, the Tuareg are mainly settled in the southwest and are part of the Kel Ajjar confederation extending to eastern Algeria.

Strategic areas in the southern region

During the Ottoman Empire, the Italian colonial period and the Gaddafi regime, the inaccessible southern Libya constituted a safe haven for tribal groups, religious and political conflict with the regime of the moment. Now it offers working space to extremist groups driven from neighboring areas such as northern Mali. In anticipation of a military intervention to remove the caliphate from the coastal regions, the nerve nodes of southern Libyan described above can be both a haven for terrorists is a point from which to build new bases can indirectly control the energy infrastructure and the life same coastal cities.

In addition, the south of Libya includes about a thousand kilometers of porous border with Algeria and the same with Chad, as well as approximately 400 kilometers with both the Sudan with Niger. Most of the Libyan tribes has derived no profit from the exploitation of oil fields in the southern areas, but bases its "gross domestic product" on the smuggling of people, weapons and drugs. From here Jiihadisti can connect to other terrorist groups in the entire basin of the Sahel.

    A military intervention on the coast can easily unleash the tribes of southern Libya. But this can lead to destabilization of the entire region through the uncontrolled infiltration of terrorists in a zone characterized by the dangerous combination of a network of vital economic installations and by the total absence of central control

In conclusion, a military intervention on the coast can easily unleash the tribes of southern Libya. But this can lead to destabilization of the entire region through the uncontrolled infiltration of terrorists in a zone characterized by the dangerous combination of a network of vital economic installations and by the total absence of central control. Foreign intervention in a historically hostile area by both foreign regimes as the central government, it can pull together this mosaic of tribes hostile to each other and weld them with jihadist extremism bringing the conflict in a huge region from which it is unlikely to be flushed out.

As long as a government of national unity will settle and be recognized by most of the population and can not deploy military units recognized instead of local militias, the water and energy infrastructure of the entire region will be an easy target - and at the same time a meeting point - to terrorists, insurgents and criminal organizations throughout central Africa.   

                                       

The IS was a calming , attracting him that the international spotlight has overshadowed the real problems of Libya, which is now returning all afloat while Baghdadi followers crumble under the advancing militias loyal to the government of Tripoli and bombs dropped by US planes: the lack of liquidity, the budget that is falling apart, the continuous and prolonged power outages, hospital closures; but also the situation of the sovereign fund, the oil companies and the Central Bank, the institutions that should be anchors of hope for the people and instead are a battleground for internal rift.

Despite the prime minister planned by the peace process conveyed by the United Nations, Fayez Serraj , both in Libya for months, getting a relative power: has the credibility and the almost complete diplomatic support (except for Russia and Egypt and a few others), but in Libya can not rule over a large chunk of the eastern country, Cyrenaica, where, however, according to the UN project called Libyan Political Agreement (Lpa), should reach the final vote endorsing its legitimacy of government. But from the East they arrive only shifts to agendas regionalized (led in part from Cairo). The military, responding to orders from the armed wing of the Eastern problem , Khalifa Haftar , not fighting in Sirte, but they try to liberate Benghazi (and Derna), which feed on direct interests; politics, led by Saleh Agila HoR president, the parliament in exile in Tobruk that still has the legitimacy of the popular vote received two years ago (and for the passage of Lpa is a necessary tool to fully function Serraj) , boycott any kind of assembly, in order to postpone that vote that would allow Tripoli to form a permanent government. The future intentions of leaving power: the HoR has moved to a new building.

THE "HEADACHE" LIBYAN

Missy Ryan, in an article in the Washington Post,  the headline "A former CIA agent has become a headache for the United States in Libya" writes that Americans and allies "can not understand what to do with Haftar"; the reference to the CIA is due to the long residence of the American general, during which he worked with the Central Intelligence as a person informed of the facts Libyans, persecuted by the regime after a sort of mutiny / repudiation in Chad, and anti-Islamist certificate (they were the years in which Washington hunted terrorists linked to Gaddafi Gaddafi). With men of the Islamic State defeated in Sirte, the main obstacle to the current project of peace and democracy in Libya (dream dance from 2011, when it was the same general to make a contribution in overthrowing the regime, then return to Virginia to "enjoying the grandchildren" as he confessed to the New Yorker ) seems to be Heftar, who fights according to their own agenda in Cyrenaica, where in 2014 he announced a crooked sort of coup, and this gets armed wing of the interests of Europe country (sponsored by Egypt of General): the East after the failure coup that was mocked succumbed to its charm and the military has put in charge of the military forces. "Even if there was unity of thought within the US government, we did not have the ability to marginalizzarlo and we were not able to integrate it," said an unnamed official at WaPo:  "It's a free electron." At his side have sided men of the French special forces, who have links with the Egyptians, but also Americans and probably Italian, engaged in horseback missions between the intelligence and military advising, because what you're doing in Cyrenaica not Haftar it can be left uncovered; "Regional support is a key factor," said  Frederic Wehrey , a Libya expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

THE WAR FOR OIL

Last week the UN envoy Martin Kobler, the man who more than any other has exposed his face because the international community asserted Serraj, admitted in an interview with the Swiss Neue Zuercher Zeitung that the support for the government units (Jon) "is slipping away", and this can mean the reopening of an internal military dispute, which could also go to support jihadist groups, which, according to the reconstructions of the Wall Street Journal are trying to regroup in the south in order to reorganize clandestinely, covering shifts with waves of suicide operations. It was precisely the General Haftar to give another sign of this can drift inside, announcing that his troops, that General freelance calls so foolhardy Libyan National Army (Lna), will undertake to secure the oil fields. The risk is huge, while the Tripoli government is trying to revive the trade of crude oil, which is the main economic asset of the country in crisis: if the militia led by Cyrenaica Haftar should be located in areas where there are Eastern militias , or rather those who support Tripoline or misuratine Serraj, or those of oil Pfg militia, armed confrontation may be unavoidable, given that these groups hate the more extensive the longitudinal distance that separates them. It all started after July 31 Presidential Council led by Serraj had announced plans to reopen the ports Zueitina, Es Sider and Ras Lanuf (closed in January for safety reasons: they had been subject to attacks of the SI) signing a security agreement with the controversial Pfg of Ibrahim Jadrhan . The leadership of the NOC, the oil company, which have also turned their noses to the presence of Jadhran, had spoken of an ambitious plan to triple the annual productions, still three years around 300 thousand barrels daily. Cyrenaica, however, claims the operation of a parallel structure (illegitimate), the so-called Noc-Benghazi, which would have rights to the wells (which are almost all in the eastern part of the country) and considers Pfg militias "outlaw forces" and thus It would ban the entry of export ships for cargoes to ports. The governments of France, Germany, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom and the United States issued a few days ago, a joint statement with which to support the decision to Serraj, excommunicate any non-centralized initiative (ie, delegitimize the Noc-Benghazi) and you say "concerned" about the situation of Zuetina, which is as close to Benghazi port where a LNA brigade has penetrated up to deal with the blockade of the port.

TURCHIA NON DEVE ENTRARE U.E.

Non so se, e fino a che punto, la storia sia, come suol dirsi, maestra di vita. Fatto stà che c’è una costante che pur qualcosa dovrebbe insegnarci: il popolo, armato di sano intuito e buon senso (e non solo di umori viscerali come vorrebbe certa propaganda), ha quasi sempre fatto scelte più giuste e lungimiranti delle cosiddette élite. Soprattutto quando esse hanno assunto le sembianze di professori prestati alla politica, tecnici, “competenti”.

A mio modesto avviso, credo che la bocciatura del progetto di Costituzione europea da parte di francesi e olandesi possa essere ascritta a questa dialettica. Quella carta rifletteva infatti l’idea che è alla base del progetto europeo così come è venuto delineandosi e che ne spiega anche l’impasse odierna e le contraddizioni in cui è incorso in questi ultimi anni.

Una Costituzione non può reggersi infatti se non c’è uno spirito comune ai cittadini che dovrebbero riconoscersi in essa. E questo spirito non può essere dato dalla semplice adesione a regole formali, parametri da rispettare, leggi da preservare o promuovere. Tutto questo, se del caso, verrà poi come naturale conseguenza. Prima però è necessario trovare degli elementi morali, culturali, spirituali, da condividere. Ritrovarli nella comune storia e tradizione.

Paradigmatico è il caso dell’ingresso della Turchia nell’Unione: prima promesso (tanto da creare soverchie illusioni), poi negato per considerazioni di carattere politico e utilitaristico (ad esempio demografiche), ultimamente riportato in vita (seppur non come esito immediato) ancora per motivi utilitaristici (la Turchia come “polizia di frontiera” di un’Unione incapace di gestire la marea dell’immigrazione). Fino alle minacce di questi giorni da parte della Merkel: qualora la Turchia reintroducesse la pena di morte, i negoziati si interromperebbero ipso facto.

Ove è ancora l’Europa dei parametri che ha la meglio sull’Europa della coesione morale, seppur dialettica e in progress come è ogni identità immersa nella storia. È l’idea astratta, di derivazione illuministica, di un “patriottismo costituzionale”, elaborata fra gli altri da un tardo epigono del marxismo come Jurgen Habermas e fatta propria in questi anni, con più o meno forte consapevolezza, dalle élite di Bruxelles e Strasburgo. Tanto più astratta in un continente con forti agglomerati nazionali, con identità sedimentatesi nei secoli.

In quest’ottica retrospettiva assume un certo rilievo la discussione che precedette e accompagnò l’elaborazione della mai promulgata Costituzione europea: una discussione che non a caso portò a eliminare l’accenno alle “radici cristiane” del nostro continente dal preambolo della nuova Carta. Insistere su quelle radici non avrebbe certo significato, in un continente fortemente secolarizzato (ma anche la secolarizzazione è per molti aspetti figlia del cristianesimo), l’imposizione erga omnes dei dogmi cristiani, come da parte da alcuni si volle far credere. Avrebbe semplicemente messo in luce, in un’ottica storicistica e non illuministica, ciò che accomunava le varie identità nazionali e su cui sarebbe stato poi possibile costruire una identità comune europea.

In quest’ottica, che guardava non alle leggi e ai regolamenti ma alla storia e alla tradizione, che in quanto tali non sono mai nulla di statico o definitivo ma che anche non fanno “salti”, con un Paese come la Turchia, non si sarebbe dovuto da subito iniziare nessuna trattativa. Per motivi storici e culturali, per il fatto appunto che la sua storia non è stata forgiata, come quella europea, dall’elemento cristiano. A cui essa si è anzi sempre opposta.

Aver ben chiaro questa situazione, aver quel senso della storia che le élites tecnocratiche dell’Europa hanno perso, avrebbe evitato le contraddizioni poi sopraggiunte. Lo scopo doveva essere solo quello di allargare sempre più le relazioni ed i rapporti, di far fruttare al massimo un rapporto di buon vicinato. Ciò per il bene dell’Europa, il cui perimetro ideale sarebbe stato da subito ben definito e la cui identità si sarebbe posta in modo forte, sia per l’eventuale e ulteriore evoluzione democratica della stessa Turchia, che avrebbe avuto alle frontiere un alleato e non un potenziale nemico.

LIBYA 12.8.2016

Libya’s game of thrones—its internal political struggle— is undermining its ability to rebuild its economy and government. The key to its future success is contingent on two things—security and one government. Both will be difficult to achieve, but both are necessary if Libya is to turn the page on its present state of crisis.

The once promising effort to build a unified national government marked by the 2012 elections, and US and international support for institution building, fell apart. In 2014 the Libyan government split into two main political factions. The Islamist-led Libya Dawn coalition took over Tripoli, and the House of Representatives (HoR) backed by the forces of “Operation Dignity,” the anti-Islamist campaign of General Khalifa Hiftar, moved to the East of Libya in Tobruk. A third Libyan government, the internationally recognized Government of National Accord (GNA)—a body that reflects an agreement made last December with the help of the United Nations—has begun to establish itself in Tripoli and seeks to build consensus among the opposing Libyan governments.

Trying, however, is not succeeding. The GNA has international support, but it lacks domestic backing, particularly from the HoR and General Hiftar. In an interview in early July of this year, said the UN “is trying to impose and unworkable agreement on the country’s factions that is ‘screwing up’ the political process...”

The debate moves from the political to the economic when considering the fight over Libya’s oil resources. The Libyan National Oil Company (NOC) called on rival Libyan factions—the Libyan National Army (LNA) led by General Hiftar and the Petroleum Facilities Guard (PFG)—to stop fighting in and around the Libyan oil terminal in the port of Zueitina. The PFG agreed to help the GNA reopen the port in order to assist the sagging Libyan oil industry. This did not sit well with the LNA, which believes it should control these facilities. The loser in this battle is the NOC and the Libyan economy.

The situation is further exacerbated by the fact that a tug of war continues over the fate of key Libyan institutions—the NOC, the Libyan Investment Authority and the Central Bank of Libya. There needs to be GNA support and oversight of all three. This should include backing of unified and competent management in these institutions, as well as consolidating leadership to make them more effective and efficient. These institutions can provide the foundation for the rebuilding of Libya.

The battle between the GNA and the HoR was also evident when the GNA asked the United States to assist in its effort to get ISIS out of the Libyan city of Sirte. The HoR is reported to have once again taken issue with the GNA making a request it considers to be within its purview. The US conducted airstrikes in support of the GNA and its allies’ fight against ISIS. Getting rid of ISIS is a goal the HoR shares with the GNA, but even so it protested the request because it did not make it. While the battle against ISIS is progressing, it could unravel without a united Libyan front and help from the outside. If ISIS decides to move elsewhere in less populated areas of Libya, it will be harder to eliminate.

Critics of the UN deal that established the GNA said there needed to be consensus within Libya before a new government could be established. While that certainly makes sense, the reality is that was not going to happen unless the UN, backed by the US and the EU, pushed the deal forward. There has been an effort to pull together various Libyan factions for some time, and the UN December conference establishing the GNA was a do or die moment.

The Libyan economy is failing. Its GDP contracted by 6% in 2015 after a contraction of 23.5% in 2014. Inflation increased from 2.4% in 2014 to 8.6% in 2015, and is expected to increase to 9.6% in 2016. Oil production is down dramatically following a high in the immediate aftermath of the Gadhafi government. The economic future is grim if the fight over who’s in charge of Libya continues to deteriorate.

ISIS is only part of the security problem. Ansar al-Sharia and other terrorist groups pose a threat to Libyan security. Criminal gangs, which operate across Libya, and smuggle everything from drugs, to guns, to people are another threat. In addition, Libya is awash in militias which have their own agendas not necessarily tied to backing a national government.

At best Libya has a steep climb ahead of it, even if it is able to pull together and back a single government. If it does not, the future is perilous. The international community needs to reengage with Libya at a higher level. Libya is not Syria, and could over time pull itself together, but it will take a sustained effort on the part of the Libyan people, as well as the international community, particularly the US, EU and UN.

The request by the GNA for US airstrikes and the involvement of US special operations forces with the Libyan effort to rid itself of ISIS, could be a positive step forward on two levels— it helps with the battle against ISIS and it could enhance the GNA’s standing, internationally as well as domestically. The GNA solution to Libya’s governmental game of thrones battle may not be perfect, but it is the best one available at the moment.

The present involvement of the US military in the fight against ISIS in Libya could be a gateway to a larger opportunity for aiding Libya. Specifically, the US could make it clear that helping Libya is a priority, and that all necessary resources and attention will be focused on getting Libya on track. This would mean putting Libya on a par with Syria, and having the Secretary of State organize a follow up conference to the December UN conference, bringing the relevant parties together to deal with the impasse on support for the GNA.

In addition, AFRICOM should intensify its coordination of US, EU and regional efforts to fight ISIS in Libya. At the same time, AFRICOM should coordinate an international response on how to deal with Libyan security issues: the militias, the need for a unified Libyan national security structure and how to deal with Libya’s criminal underground.

Finally, the US and EU, possibly through the G20, should call together international organizations, including the World Bank, IMF, regional development banks, the UN and the OECD to produce a plan to help Libya with its economy and governance issues as impetus for Libyans to get behind one government. Given the threat of ISIS, the dramatic decline of the Libyan economy since the collapse of the Gadhafi government, and heightened regional tension, support for a renewed effort to help Libya could work.

Ultimately, any hope for change is up to the Libyan people, but the US can and should take even more of a leading role in making this happen. It is in our interest both as part of the global fight against ISIS, as well as the effort to create a more secure environment in the Middle East and North Africa. President Obama has indicated that not following up sufficiently to help Libya after the fall of Gadhafi is one of his biggest national security regrets. Helping Libya now establish a new foundation for stability could be a moment of redemption.

END

Europe & Libya: ITALIAN ROLE IN LIBYA?

Europe & Libya: ITALIAN ROLE IN LIBYA?: Romano Prodi, ex Italy PM, is quite right when he argues that Italy must regain its role in Libya. But what is that role? Former P.M. does ...

ITALIAN ROLE IN LIBYA?

Romano Prodi, ex Italy PM, is quite right when he argues that Italy must regain its role in Libya. But what is that role? Former P.M. does not say. It is not hard to imagine why. Because whether and what role our country should take in respect of the former colony is extremely difficult.
The old colonial relationship is obviously impractical.
The same applies to the kind of protectorate that existed in the early years after World War II with the Libyan King Idris. Not to mention cartel's privileged founded on mutual interests that all Italian governments of any color have held with Colonel Gaddafi at the time of its dictatorship on the old "box of sand."

The "if" regain role in Libya would seem obvious. Although Five Star party amateur adventurers are theorizing for our country the advent of neo-isolationism outside of history and of all forms of logic. But, established the "if", it is the "how" that becomes complicated to define.
Because Libya is fractured by tribal struggles and, above all, by the attempts of all kinds of world-class power or local to take advantage and ride these tribal struggles to gain weight and influence on the country.

If Europe had an identity policy to prune out a foreign policy and military unit the issue of relations with the various drafts of state institutions in Libya would be less complicated to solve. The interests of a EU in the Mediterranean could easily coincide with those of the USA. And the West's united weight may have an easier time balancing attempts by Arab countries, at odds with each other, to transform parts of Libya in their protectorates.

But this Europe does not exist. Since 2011 France operates in Libya pursuing its own hegemonic objective  despite the historical relations between our country and Libya. And in a context marked by the contrast with its Latin European "sister" ranging redefined the role of our country returning to follow its national interest. This interest requires a greater Italian presence in Libya.
That must surely be diplomatic and economic but which, albeit with great caution and foresight, must be able to provide even a very limited military presence.

But is the country of  demented neo-isolationism ready to play this role?