Libya still in the mire as another ’versary passes

TRIPOLI: Libya’s transition has been bogged down by insecurity and chaos, leaving the country looking like a “failed state” six years after the NATO-backed uprising that ended Muammar Gaddafi’s rule. “We got rid of one dictator only to see 10,000 others take his place,” said Fatma Al-Zawi, a Tripoli housewife, bemoaning the multitude of warlords and militias which have run the North African country since the armed revolt which erupted in mid-February 2011.

Ordinary Libyans are showing little enthusiasm for the anniversary, which the authorities plan to mark on Thursday with cultural and sporting events in Martyrs’ Square in the capital. Living conditions have deteriorated badly through a combination of insecurity, power cuts, water shortages, a cash crunch and the plunging value of the Libyan dinar.

Libya’s executive and legislative branches have been paralyzed by fierce rivalries between political movements, ideologies and tribes. “The protagonists have not understood that no single ideological branch or political or tribal clan can govern the country on its own” in the post-Gaddafi era, said Rachid Khechana, director of the Mediterranean Centre for Libyan Studies in Tunis. “This is why the country is not ready for ‘classic’ democratic competition” through elections, he said. In the absence of a strong regular army, the oil-rich country with long, porous borders has turned into rich terrain for smugglers of arms and people from sub-Saharan Africa desperate to reach Europe via perilous Mediterranean crossings.