Libya mired in instability

Divisions loom as regions demand autonomy under powerless govt

BENGHAZI: A large map of Libya hangs on the wall in the home of Idris al-rahel, with a line down the middle dividing the country in half.

Al-rahel, a former army officer, leads a movement to declare virtual autonomy in eastern Libya, where most of the country’s oil fields are located.

The region’s top tribal leaders meet on Tuesday in the east’s main city Benghazi to consider unilaterally announcing an eastern state, linked to the west only by a tenuous “federal union.”

Opponents fear a declaration of autonomy could be the first step toward dividing the country.

But some easterners say they are determined to end the domination and discrimination by the west that prevailed under strongman Muammar Gaddafi.

Al-rahel points to the capital Tripoli on the map.

“All troubles came from here,” he said, “but we will not permit this to happen again.”

The move shows how six months after Gaddafi’s fall, the central government in Libya has proved incapable of governing at all.

Other countries that shed their leaders in the Arab Spring

It’s ... hard to get over it in one or two years or even five years. — MUSTAFA ABDUL-JALIL

revolts – Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen – are going through rocky transitions, but none has seen a collapse of central authority like Libya.

The collapse has only worsened as cities, towns, regions, militias and tribes all act on their own, setting up their independent power centres.

After liberation from the rule of Gaddafi, Libyans dreamed their country of six million could become another Dubai – a state with a small population, flush with petro-dollars, that is a magnet for investment.

Now they worry that it is turning more into another Somalia, a nation that has had no effective government for more than 20 years.

Libya may not face literal fragmentation, but it could be doomed to years of instability as it recovers from four decades of rule under Gaddafi, who pitted neighbour against neighbor, town against town and tribe against tribe.

The resentment and bitterness he incubated is now bursting forth in general lawlessness.

“What Gaddafi left in Libya for 40 years is a very, very heavy heritage,” said Mustafa Abdul-jalil, head of the National Transitional Council, which in theory rules Libya but doesn’t even hold sway in the capital Tripoli.

“It’s ... hard to get over it in one or two years or even five years.”

Signs of the government’s weakness are everywhere.

Tripoli remains under the control of various revolutionaries-turned-militiamen, who have resisted calls to integrate into a national army.

Kufra, deep in the deserts of the south, is a battleground for two rival tribes, one Arab and one African, who killed dozens in two weeks of fighting last month.

And Misrata, the country’s thirdlargest city and just two hours’ drive east of the capital, effectively rules itself, with its militias ignoring government pleas and exacting brutal revenge on anyone they believe to have supported Gaddafi.

At a Misrata garage that has been turned by militiamen into a makeshift prison, one detainee, AbdelQader Abdel-nabi, shows what remains of his left hand: The fingers have been cut off in a ragged line about halfway down. Abdel-nabi said militiamen lashed his hand with a horse whip until the fingers were severed.

Medics in a clinic set up in the garage said they have treated dozens tortured in interrogations.

One medic said he had seen nine prisoners whose genitalia had been cut off, and others given electric shocks.

He spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared retaliation by the militiamen. Misrata was one of the few major cities in the west to rise up against Gaddafi last year, and paid for it with a months-long, devastating siege by regime forces.

After repelling the assault, its militias joined the final march on Tripoli that captured the capital and brought down Gaddafi in August.

It was Misrata militiamen who found Gaddafi in his final stronghold, the city of Sirte, and killed him in October.

Now the city seems determined to decide its own fate, creating a de facto self-rule.

Last month, it held its own elections for a new city council, after forcing out a self-appointed council formed in the uprising which came to be seen as corrupt and ineffective. —