Militia rule extends to control of oil......
http://antiwar.com/blog/2013/10/25/armed-militias-rule-libya-primed-for-backlash-at-the-sign-of-western-meddling/
Armed Militias Rule Libya, Primed For ‘Backlash’ At Sign of Western Meddling
John Glaser, October 25, 2013
.jpg)
Libyan rebels gathered in Ajdabiya, March 2011. Credit: Al Jazeera English
This well-reported article by Will Crisp at the Christian Science Monitor has two important findings. First, disparate armed militias are really who rules Libya, not the government. Second, these militias are motivated to wrest even more control over the government by a fear of Western interference.
Abdelmonem al-Said is the head of the militia that kidnapped Libya’s prime minister last month. He proudly stands by his role in the abduction and defiantly announces in press conferences how not scared he is of retribution or punishment, because the government is too weak, Crisp reports.
Here’s a key section of Crisp’s report, sub-titled “Suspicion of intervention.”
In the weeks ahead of Zeidan’s abduction, the Justice and Construction party, linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, repeatedly called for the prime minister’s removal, but couldn’t drum up the 120 votes in parliament needed for a no-confidence vote. The new lawmakers behind the push for a no-confidence vote insist they were not behind the kidnapping, and only seek to bring down the government by legitimate means.“This could well have been an attempt by the Muslim Brotherhood to achieve something illegally that they failed to achieve through the legitimate means of a no-confidence vote,” says Jason Pack, a research at Cambridge University and president of Libya-Analysis.com.“The Brotherhood doesn’t necessarily want to replace him with one of their own ranks, but it does want to block his plans to build a strong army. It’s seen what happened in Egypt and sees plans to cooperate with the US and Europe over training troops as a threat.”British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President François Hollande raced to condemn the abduction and pledged to help Libya rein in militias. NATO announced earlier this week that it would send security advisors to Libya to help it build up an effective defense force under the auspices of the government.While this has been broadly welcomed in Libya, observers say the international community must be careful not to reinforce the militias’ grip on the country’s politics.“Libya’s militias continue to dictate the terms of politics for the foreseeable future and risk the stability of the country in the process,” says Oliver Coleman, senior Middle East and North Africa analyst at risk analysis company Maplecroft. ”Any sort of outside intervention that could be construed as Western interference is likely to provoke a serious backlash from some militias, and indeed from the Islamist JCP [Justice & Construction Party].”
The militias who NATO helped bring to victory by overthrowing Gadhafi are now wary of further Western meddling that would strengthen the army and buttress the government. And any sign of greater intervention, according to some analysts, “is likely to provoke a serious backlash.” Meanwhile, “Radical Islamist brigades that publicly praise Al Qaeda have expanded,” Crisp informs, and “The militant group Ansar al-Sharia has opened a number of new branches in the west of the country.”
The enfeebled Libyan government is even aiding and abetting Ansar al-Sharia, Mohamed Eljarh reported at Foreign Policy back in March, even though “they remain firmly opposed to the idea of democracy, which, they contend, contradicts sharia law.”
“The basis for Ansar’s reappearance seems to be an arrangement with the Libyan Ministry of Defense,” Eljarh reports. ”At the time of the attack on the consulate, the government promised to do everything in its power to bring the perpetrators to justice — but now we see the Libyan authorities actually cooperating with the militia.”
Notably, such groups didn’t exist in Libya to any substantive extent prior to U.S. intervention. Like in Iraq, U.S. intervention brought precisely the end result Washington tries to battle against in its counter-terrorism efforts.
Can somebody please remind me what was the wisdom behind this intervention?
and....
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Security-Watch/2013/1024/Libyan-militias-most-valuable-hostage-oil?cmpid=editorpicks
Libyan militias' most valuable hostage: oil
Militias have seized control of Libya's oil facilities to extract concessions from the government, bringing national oil production down to a third of what it was at the beginning of 2013.
Workers inspect a drilling rig at the Bouri offshore oilfield, 81 miles north of Tripoli, October 9, 2013.
Ismail Zitouny/Reuters
Militias in eastern Libya have seized control of key oil infrastructure, launched their own government, and created their own army in a bid to improve their bargaining position as they demand semi-autonomy from the central government in Tripoli.
Related stories
| Ads by Google |
|
Search From 272,300+ Local Cars.
Compare and Get the Best Deal Now! |
Subscribe Today to the Monitor
Their actions have reduced oil production to about a third of its post-civil war high and prompted international oil companies to reconsider investments in Libya. The outlook is worsening as declining security erodes the central government’s power and armed groups with their own agendas gain ground.
The disruption could be dire for Libya's economy – oil is the source of 95 percent of its export earnings and 95 percent of government revenue, according to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Seizure of facilities in the east alone has cost the government $6 billion in lost revenue since blockades began in July. For the last month, the country has been pumping about 600,000 barrels of oil a day, down from 1.4 million barrels a day at the beginning of 2013. [Editor's note: This sentence has been edited to correctly reflect daily oil production.]
The groups, dubbed federalists because they demand a system that grants them substantial political and economic autonomy while remaining part of Libya, scorn the central government in Tripoli. They say it has been taken over by the Muslim Brotherhood, and accuse it of funneling oil money to favored militias in the country and allies overseas. They also complain that Tripoli has failed to fairly distribute oil revenues and invest in infrastructure in the east.
“While politicians in Tripoli argue over the constitution and use militias to intimidate and kidnap one another, we have been working hard to improve our position,” says Osama Buera, a spokesperson for the armed groups in Libya’s eastern region, known as Cyrenaica.
“The international community must understand that when they (are) supporting [Prime Minister Ali Zeidan] and his government, they are actually supporting criminal Islamist groups – not a legitimate government,” he says. “As the chaos increases in Tripoli we are winning more support domestically and this needs to be recognized.”
The government's control is so weak that a militia with ties to the interior ministry kidnapped the Libyan prime minister earlier this month. One of the militiamen publicly claimed responsibility for the abduction, but he remains a free man.
Steps toward self-governance
The federalists are led by Ibrahim Jathran, a former commander of the Petroleum Facilities Guard, the armed government force tasked with defending oil infrastructure from militants after the civil war that ousted former leader Muammar Qaddafi. The groups have the backing of powerful tribes in the east, making any sort of negotiated resolution unlikely.
“On a purely military level, of course the Ministry of Defense could easily defeat Jathran’s men, but politically the situation is very difficult,” says Brig. Idris Bukhamada, the head of Libya’s Petroleum Facilities Guard. “If troops are sent in from the west that would only help to further unite the tribes of the east against the government.”
Today the Barqa Political Office, which represents the armed groups pushing for semi-autonomy, unveiled a new regional government with 22 ministries; an event it says is a milestone towards gaining international recognition – and selling oil independently of the central government, directing the revenue into its own coffers.
It comes on the heels of last month's unveiling of the Cyrenaican Defense Force, a regional army of 17,000 fighters, comprised of both militias and military units nominally under the control of the Libyan government as well as the military hardware in their possession. Najeeb Alhassi, a Libyan National Army colonel, was named as its leader – something some Libya watchers see as a significant blow to the central government’s authority in the region.
Oil field pawns
Oil production bounced back surprisingly quickly after the revolution under the supervision of the Petroleum Facilities Guard. Mr. Jathran was one of the shining stars of the unit until he turned against the government and seized control of the oil ports he was meant to be guarding, cutting Libyan production in half.
Although Brig. Bukhamada says Jathran and his men in the east pose the biggest challenge to restoring Libya’s oil production to pre-war levels, they are not the only ones upsetting the flow of Libyan oil. Indeed, holding oil production operations hostage has become a relatively easy way to pressure the government to meet various groups' demands, and copycat barricades have sprung up at oil and gas installations across the country.
Production at Wafa oil field in southwestern Libya, operated by the Italian oil company Eni, has been brought to a halt by the Amazigh, an ethnic minority based in western Libya. The group is demanding that its language be recognized as an official language in Libya’s still-unwritten constitution. [Editor's note: This sentence has been edited to correctly reflect the nationality of Eni oil company.]
“We make sure there are armed men with trucks and heavy weapons on the site 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” says Saraj Mohamed Essa, an Amazigh from the mountain town of Yefren. "We're not going to give up until the government agrees to our demands"
In Libya's south, oil companies are also worried about attacks by militant groups. The failure to create an effective, unified army in the wake of the revolution has left Libya's southern border poorly guarded and porous.
Earlier this year, the African Union’s special representative for counterterrorism, Francisco Caetano José Madeira, warned that “Libya has become a major transit hub for the main terrorist groups traveling from one country to another” and called the situation “extremely dangerous.”
Libya Herald items......
Cyrenaica “government” unveiled
By Ahmed Elumami.
1950 Stamp of Cyrenaica
Tripoli, 24 October 2013:
Federalists announced a government for Cyrenaica today. Consisting of a prime minister, deputy prime minister and 24 other ministers, it is viewed as largely the creation of Ibrahim Jadhran, the former Petroleum Facilities Guard commander who is leading the eastern oil terminals blockade and who was elected as head of the self-proclaimed Cyrenaica Council’s Political Bureau on 17 August.
It was Jadhran who named Abdraba Abdulhameed Al-Barasi to be Cyrenaica’s “prime minister” three weeks ago and who today said that the announcement of the government was two days late but that “we fulfilled our promise of a new regional government”.
Barasi said that the reason for the move was because the central authorities “have failed and have shown incompetence and corruption”. They were not to be trusted anymore, he said. Also, Cyrenaica had suffered systematic negligence. His “government”, he declared, took its legitimacy and legal status from the 1951 Kingdom of Libya constitution (which, in fact was amended in 1963, and the three-state federal makeup was replaced by a United Kingdom of Libya with 10 regions).
Insisting that it was “not a secession movement but a movement for Libya”, and that “Cyrenaica is the start and the aim is Libya”, Barasi added, the primary task at the moment was the security situation in Cyrenaica. He promised “swift action” to enact it. All the assassinations there would be investigated. Without law and order being imposed, he added, the whole idea of a Cyrenaica government would be “meaningless”.
As well as ensuring security, it would address the lack of investment in the region as “a matter of urgency”.
According to the Cyrenaica Council (CC), the “government” had been formed “after extensive consultations” with all civil society in the region. It would be based in Beida and would start work next week.
It had been divided into “four clear administrative province” – Ajdabiya, Benghazi, Green Mountain and Tobruk. Each province would have a ten-member management team to run its affairs initially, and would be further subdivided into municipalities.
Although there are no women in his team, there is a fair representation of Cyrenaican tribes which, unlike those in the west of the country, still have some political clout.
Responding to the announcement, Congress Spokesman Omar Hemidan told the Libya Herald that the announcement of the “so-called Cyrenaica Region” was illegal. Those behind it were exploiting the fact that there hd been failings in the government’s performance.
It was not going to work, he suggested, because it was not going to be recognised by any of the state authorities that have been elected by the Libyan people.
“We said our position before about so-called Cyrenaica and repeat once again that despite the shortcomings in [government] performance, it doesn’t mean we divide Libya” Hemidan stated.
The Cyrenaican ministers, said to have been chosen for their qualifications and experience, are:
- Faraj Omar Al-Abdli (Deputy of the Executive Office);
- Colonel Adam Ali Urufi (Interior);
- Abdulhammed Saleh Al-Hayash (Islamic Affairs);
- Abdulmalek Zway (Wealth and Minerals);
- Riad Anwar Shenib (Economy and Commerce);
- Alameen Attaya Al-Minifi (Industry);
- Jibril Razqallah Al-Awami (Planning);
- Mohamed Al-Mabrouk Buqaiqis (High education and Search);
- Mohamed Yousef Fanoush (Education);
- Fatthallah Mohamed Taher Al-Drisi (Public Service);
- Faraj Abdel Salam Al-safty Al-Shalawi (Transportation);
- Abdulhafeed Burghaia Ubaidi (Agriculture);
- Fathi Salem Raheel Ashaba ( livestock and marine);
- Mohamed Saad Hammad Qabaili (Housing);
- Nasser Eddin Mohna (Health);
- Abdel Nasser Suleiman Altbawi (Water and Environment);
- Hamad Saad Saaiti (Tourism and Antiquities);
- Faraj Hamad Al-Musmari (Wounded people)’
- Abdulsalam Ashour Qattani (Culture);
- Mansour Salem Khamis Faitori (Communications);
- Abdulati Mohamed Al-Fakhri (Electricity);
- Tawfiq Uthman Uraibi (Youth and Sport);
- Ibrahim Bakar Imdawi (Justice);
- Hussam Moamen Naas (Social Affairs).
It is unclear what following the “Cyrenaica Government” has, but it is not thought to be great.
High profile trials set for former Libyan big wigs....now it remains to be seen if the defendants actually are produced for said trials ( especially Saif al - Islam )
Saif Al-Islam, Abdullah Senussi, Al-Baghdadi Al-Mahmoudi and others committed for trial
By Ashraf Abdul Wahab
Tripoli, 24 October 2013:
A Tripoli court today ruled that all 31 former senior Qaddafi-era officials, including his son Saif Al-Islam and his security chief Abdullah Senussi, should be sent for trial on charges ranging from mass murder, to incitement to rape and corruption.
After the hearing, a spokesman for the prosecutor’s office, Seddik al-Sour, told AFP that the court expected all the defendants to be present when the full trial gets under way. This was a clear reference to Saif, who remains in Zintani custody, and was not delivered to any of the pre-trial hearings, despite his captors being ordered the produce him.
Among those now sent for full trial are former External Security Agency head Abu Zaid Omar Dorda, former Foreign Minister Abdulati El-Obaidi, General People’s Conference head Mohamed Al-Zway, former Prime Minister Al-Baghdadi Al-Mahmoudi and Tripoli Internal Security Agency head Mansour Dhou
Seddik said that only ten of the accused appeared today in the courtroom attached to the Habda prison where they are being held. The spokesman insisted that their presence was not necessary and that they after the hearing, they had been informed of their committal for trial. Seddik added however that all the defendants would be required to attend the full trial, a start date for which has yet to be fixed.
Municipal elections face postponement
By Michel Cousins.
Tripoli 25 October 2013:
The General National Congress has been asked by the head of the High National Election Commission (HNEC), Nuri Elabbar, to postpone the elections for the new municipalities because they would clash with those for the 60-member committee which is to draw up Libya’s new constitution.
The proposal is on Congress’ agenda when it meets tomorrow and is expected to be approved. There is, however, likely to be resistance from Congress members from the municipalities where plans for the elections have reached an advanced stage.
It has also been criticised by the local committee organising the elections for the new Benghazi municipal council. The city urgently needed an effective council in view of the security situation there, a member of the committee said on Libya Al-Ahrar TV station last night. HNEC was wrong to demand a postponement for the municipal elections, the official said.
However, the president of Congress, Nuri Sahmain, last night said on TV that they would probably have to be delayed.
If Congress approves HNEC’s request, it would probably mean that the municipal elections would not start before the end of January at the earliest. The Constitutional Committee elections are supposed to take place in late December, but that is seen as optimistic. Mid-January is seen as more likely.
The process of registering voters and candidates for the 90 municipalities is already complete in Beida where 24,000 people and 49 candidates registered and in Ghat (5,000 voters or 30 percent of potential electorate). Registration is currently taken place in Gharyan, Traghen, Awjila, Al-Haraba, Tazerbu, Zintan, Bint Baya, Shahat and Wadi Idba. It is due to start shortly in Zultan, Ajilat, Assaba, Hawamid, Nisma and Jalu. It should take place in Benghazi soon as well.
Municipal elections could take place in the next four weeks in Beida, Ghat and those places where registration is currently underway, Otman Gajiji, chairman of the Central Committee for Municipal Councils Elections (CCMCE), has said. The success of the process so far, he stressed, was largely due to the dedication and hard work of CCMCE staff, local committee workers and the support of the civil registry authorities. He also thanked the EU for donating election material as well as UNSMIL and UNDP for their support.
If the elections were postponed, he said, the CCMCE would continue to work, preparing and training committee officials for elections in other municipalities.
Amazigh threaten to black-list participants in Constitutional Committee elections
By Ashraf Abdul-Wahab and Hadi Fornaji.
Tripoli, 24 October 2013:
Any Amazigh who tries to stand for election to the Constitutional Committee will be considered a traitor, a meeting of Amazigh representatives has announced.
The meeting, on Wednesday in the Jebel Nafusa town of Tamzin, drew thuwar commanders and representatives, activists and elders as well as civil society institutions in the Tamazight-speaking towns of Zuara, Nalut, Jadu, Kabaw, Rahibat, Al-Haraba, Tamlushayit, Yefren and Al-Qalaa.
The meeting had been called to set up the mechanics of implementing the earlier call by the Supreme Amazigh Council for a boycott of the Constitutional Committee elections. The council rejected the decision by Congress to reserve just two seats for the Amazigh to the 60-member body. It had demanded more.
Under the law establishing the Constitutional Committee, two seats each were allocated to the Amazigh, Tebu and Tuareg communities, although the number of Amazigh is estimated to be at least 20 times that of the Tebu.
At Wednesday’s meeting, the Amazigh delegates reiterated that there would be a boycott which, according to an Amazigh spokesman, would cover all upcoming elections, including those for municipal councils.
The delegates added that members of the community who took part in any aspect of the Constitutional Committee or municipal elections, either by standing as a candidate, organising them or voting in them, would not be representing Amazigh society and would be “black-listed” and “considered a traitor to the Tamazight cause”.
The boycott appears to be working. On Monday, the head of the High National Election Commission (HNEC), Nuri Elabbar, revealed although a small number of Tebus and Tuaregs had registered to stand as candidates, no Amazigh had done so. He appealed to them to register.
No comments:
Post a Comment