Friday 5 May 2017

ABU DHABI AGRMNT (??) 2.5.217

The Abu Dhabi ''agreement'' (??) - in 2 separate statements instead of a joint one = agreement - signed on Tuesday (May 2nd) between the head of the national unity government Fayez al-Sarraj and the strongman of eastern Libya Khalifa Haftar outlines the main lines that are able to bring the Libyans. It is an agreement in principle that does not draw up a road map and does not give details on how it will be implemented. But new meetings will take place next week in Cairo. Committees will begin to formulate the details of this ''agreement'' - better call it MoU (Memorandum of Understanding). Yet, multiple brakes may cause it to fail.

Internally, the militias are very powerful. For years, they have succeeded in establishing a system of gains based on smuggling and trafficking. This generates enormous interests that no one is willing to leave easily.

The Muslim Brotherhood and the faithful parties always seek to gain power alone by excluding others. For their part, extremists, including the EI group, who do not believe in the state, prefer chaos to Libya.

There are also supporters of the old regime who want to be involved in the dialogue and if they do not, they could block an agreement.

A fragile settlement of Libya's reconciliation requires a social, political, tribal and regional balance, and without this balance all these efforts risk falling into the water.

In addition to the domestic challenges, there is the interference of foreign interests. The West is present in Libya and Russia seeks to increase its influence in the region through that country. As for the neighboring countries, they are divided on the best solution to adopt.

These are all factors of discord, instability and conflicts of interest that are likely to block the revival of the political process. The mission of Libyan officials will therefore be very difficult, very complicated, but not impossible.

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