Panafrican News Agency

Libyan crises persist despite identification of causes and remedies (News analysis by Youssef Ba, PANA correspondent)

Tripoli, Libya (PANA) – Despite the causes and solutions to Libya’s political and military crises being an open secret, the citizens of the North African country, which has vast oil resources, have continued to be subjected to years of insecurity and deprivation.

Foreign interferences by regional and international powers are at the root cause of Libya’s problems, as these powers seek to position themselves to control the country’s huge oil resources by supporting various factions, which also occupies a strategic geographic position as the door of Africa to Europe.

Actually, differences among Libyans have no link to foreign interests for their activities to cause such devastating economic, cultural and social damage to the people and the country.

On the other hand, they have everything that brings them together: Cohabitation between social components and traditional mechanisms have always served as regulator of relations dating back through history.  

Fathi Ahmed al-Fitouri, a Libyan political analyst, said misunderstandings and conflicts in the country, which are linked to local differences on the way to govern or who will be the leader, can be solved immediately through these internal mechanisms and not degenerate into a local war against a rival camp with huge military consequences.

The resort to foreign assistance that favours foreign interferences has widened the differences between Libyans thereby complicating the search for negotiated solution.

al-Fitouri asked himself how a crisis has not been resolved after nine years despite multiple reconciliation conferences and initiatives.

"This situation shows that the keys for the solution are not in the hands of Libyans but in the hands of foreign countries who want to carry out a proxy war via Libyans."

The recent string of defeats suffered by Marshal Khalifa Haftar, leader of the eastern-based Libyan National Army (LNA), has made him temper his warlike mood and drop his ambitions to seize the capital, Tripoli. This has sparked hopes that a negotiated political settlement is finally here.   

Hamza al-Fourjani, an activist of civil society in Tripoli, said: "Those successive defeats, after al-Wattia military base and, before then, the towns of Sabratha, Soman, Jemil and Regdaline, and other localities on the western coastline, have made him understand that he could not fulfil his dream to take control of Tripoli."

He added that those setbacks were followed by an unprecedented military escalation of rare violence with systematic bombardments of civilian districts in Tripoli and intensification of fighting in the city.

Al-Fourjani said the situation spread fear and terror among citizens at a time when they were preparing to celebrate the Eid el-Fitr, which was very eventful this year.

According to him, United Arab Republic and Egypt, who key supporters of Haftar, seeing the renegade general’s troops lose ground and fall entirely near southern Tripoli under pressure from forces of the Government of National Accord (GNA), called US President Donald Trump to intervene.

Contacts have intensified over the past few days between countries involved in the Libyan affair to resume the political process. These contacts have been between US president Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron; between President Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan; and between the Turkish president and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

But claims by the United States that Moscow has recently sent 14 Fourth Generation fighter jets to back the Wagner Group of mercenaries, which are close to the Kremlin, and who have been fighting for Haftar, show the scale of foreign interferences, as well as bigger risks of continuation of the armed conflict.

The US military command in Africa (AFRICOM) has criticised Russia for its ambitions to establish a military base on the verge of the Mediterranean and extend its influence from there to the African continent.

The Russians, who have rejected the fighter jets story as a concoction by the Americans, claim that Washington is a known Haftar ally. They add that the Americans have delivered materiel and mercenaries to Haftar in addition to providing him with political support at the UN Security Council by preventing a resolution to impose ceasefire.

These developments have caused some to some say that the Libyan conflict is being ‘’Syrianized’’, an allusion to the transposition of the Syrian scenario to Libya with the presence of the two foreign actors: Turkey and the GNA alliance and Russia backing Haftar.  

Analysts see a risk of Turkey and Russia bargain between them on concessions on Libya.

Against the scale of the Russian interference in Libya, Washington could come out more openly to intervene, the former minister of Information of the ex-National Transitional Council in Libya (NTC), Mahmud Shammam, said.

In a post on his Facebook page he quoted sources as saying that "the Russian complex and the fear of +chaos+ could lead to direct and high-level US involvement in Libya".

But the question is whether a US intervention will resolve the Libyan crisis or on the contrary complicate it further.

Even for now, the US elections in November make such an intervention a little remote.

According to analysts for the US to intervene militarily and fully in the conflict, its interests must be threatened directly and not only for considerations of “Russian complex”.

The conflict in Libya is bound to continue with interference of foreign countries as long as Libyans themselves do not take their destiny into their hands by putting the interests of the people over and above parochial and partisan considerations.

-0- PANA BY/BEH/MSA/MA 29May2020