Libya still waiting on peace long after Paris breakthrough
The United Nations envoy for Libya, Ghassan Salame, said military forces “are flexing their muscles in many parts of the country”, imperilling a peace process centred on creating a united government for a divided nation.
Tripoli, the capital, remains tense after fighting on Monday between militias around Mitiga Airport in the city centre left 20 dead, 63 wounded, and much of the country’s small commercial airline fleet wrecked.
The fighting came on the heels of militia battles earlier this month for control of Ras Adjir, Libya’s main crossing point with Tunisia, and amid fighting around the north-eastern coastal city of Derna.
Such is the chaos that Mr Salame had to explain to the UN Security Council in New York that he was briefing them, on video link, from Tunisia’s capital, Tunis, because Tripoli too unsafe.
“The very reason that I am not briefing from Tripoli but from Tunis, as I had planned, is because bloody clashes at the airport have halted all flights in and out of Mitiga Airport for the whole week,” said Mr Salame, the UN secretary general’s special representative to Libya.
Tripoli is on edge after Monday’s clashes, in which a group of radical militias attacked forces of the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) at Mitiga Airport, hoping to free some of their members held prisoner there.
Pro-government forces beat the attacks off, but the capital is braced for a counter-attack from anti-GNA militias mustering in eastern and southern Tripoli. Mitiga, Libya’s main air link to the outside world, will remain shut until Sunday.
The fighting was a reminder of how little has been achieved since an agreement was announced in Paris last July to disband the militias.
That agreement, overseen by French president Emmanuel Macron, was between GNA prime minister Fayez Al Serraj and the country’s most powerful military commander, Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, head of eastern Libya’s Libyan National Army. Building on diplomatic groundwork laid by the UAE and Egypt, the agreement stipulates that militia formations are to disband and be replaced by regular army and police forces.
Yet, six months later, Tripoli remains in the grip of militias, some supporting the GNA and some opposing it. Complicating the picture further, the Libyan National Army, which holds most of eastern Libya and the country’s key oilfields, is loyal to the national parliament based in Tobruk which operates a government rivalling the GNA.
Mr Salame, a Lebanese academic and former culture minister, insisted in his UN briefing on Wednesday that peace talks are making progress towards the goal of creating a unified Libyan government.
“Libya needs a competent and efficient government,” he said. “One which can deliver the public services the people desperately need.”
Libya has been in chaos since the ousting of Muammar Qaddafi in 2011, with civil war breaking out in 2014.
Mr Salame is seeking agreement from all parties to revise the constitution of the GNA, a transitional government which was set up in December 2015 but has yet to win broad acceptance.
The UN envoy is hoping the GNA will win larger support with a plan to cut its ninestrong presidency to three members.
Mr Salame said there was now consensus to reform the GNA to ensure it represents all Libyans. “Although a formal agreement is yet to be reached, this consensus is desirable and reachable,” he said.
While underlining the desperate needs of migrants trapped in Libya, the envoy said the plight of Libyans was also urgent.
“The concentration on migration should not, however, allow us to forget those many Libyans held without judicial process, and often subject to ill-treatment,” he said. “Fuel shortages, electricity shortages, water shortages are common across the country.”
Yet with every new round of fighting, Libya’s situation grows more desperate. Yesterday, sand barriers erected by Tripoli’s galaxy of rival militias were being removed after local ceasefires were negotiated, but intra-militia fighting has become a common occurrence in the capital, with the city lacking regular police or military formations to counter it.