Too many interests at stake

Egypt, the Emirates and Saudi Arabia risk transforming Libya into a ‘third-party’ battlefield.

A quick fix for Libya’s problems right now is hard to envision. With the UN-led mediation likely to fail, it seems that all hopes kindled by the Madrid conference last September are as good as dashed.

The current problem is how to stop the slaughter in this worsening bloodbath while trying at least to restore the basic conditions required to coax the warring parties back to the negotiating table.

Nonetheless, in the light of this situation, one thing should be patently clear to the West: the legitimisation of Libya’s political forces can only happen through the identification of a real consensus on the ground. Mere abstract suppositions based on naive and inappropriate assessments of the problem just won’t work.

It isn’t just a choice between secularism and democracy as opposed to violent Islamism and authoritarianism, as some factions would have public opinion in Western countries believe. It’s about halting a conflict between militias based on what are essentially tribal claims. Within this complex situation, militant Islamism has been successful at worming its way headlong into Libya. That said, this form of extremism remains a complex, heterogeneous phenomenon that cannot generically be attributed solely to radicalism or, even less so, to jihadism.

A Each of these political forces claims to be the legitimate expression of popular will and, above all, the champion of the revolutionary spirit that toppled the previous regime of Muammar Gaddafi. At the same time, each accuses the others of wanting to turn back the clock or conniving with the jihadists.

Still, the most glaring problem is a political situation so divided that it has resulted in two rival parliaments: the Tobruk-based government headed by Abdullah al-Thani, who came out the winners in last June’s elections, and the government in Tripoli headed by Omar al-Hassi, which was originally formed as the National Transitional Council (2011-2012).

Amid the shambles of today’s Libya, last November its Supreme Court declared the June elections null and void, thus ruling that the Tobruk-based government was illegitimate. But this parliament promptly received strong support from most Western countries, eager to delegitimise the government in Tripoli.

Once again, the international community has ended up fuelling the personalised politics and tribalism that exacerbate the violence in Libya, triggering a fresh political crisis that poses a new major obstacle to the country’s stability and security.

This ideological confrontation, further exacerbated by the controversial General Khalifa Haftar and his supporters in Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, runs the risk of plunging Libya into a civil war with no exit strategy or way back in sight. A crisis the international community must make every effort to defuse instead of fanning the flames by recklessly offering support solely to those groups that further its own interests.

Indeed, Gen. Haftar’s success in imposing the concept of an ideological confrontation has only served to radicalise the conflict. There is fighting in Benghazi, Derna and many other cities on the western coast, where Zintan Brigades loyal to Haftar battle against the Misrata militias, who support the alliances ruling in Tripoli. Moreover, the Misrata fighters are kept busy in southern Libya by the Tebu tribes, the ethnic minorities loyal to Tobruk.

Should the UN mediation fail, therefore, the country would be back in limbo, racked by violence and uncertainty. This would give the forces behind the parliament in Tobruk a free hand to launch a global political offensive to reconfirm the international community’s consensus and recognition for it, flying in the face of the Supreme Court ruling against it.

With no internal political solution in the offing, the European countries and the United States should at least try not to fuel the clannish factionalism of the conflict underway and refrain from arbitrarily legitimising one faction to the detriment of the other. On the contrary, they should use their own political clout to impose a ceasefire with greater conviction and seek to foster unity through a political dialogue that involves all the components of Libya’s complex society.

Lastly, all interference by countries outside the area needs to be exposed and firmly condemned. We here refer to all the vested interests that revolve around Libya — such as those of Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia — that run the risk of transforming Libya into a ‘third-party’ battleground. Regional players could end up working against stability in Libya, which at present calls for political processes that foster inclusion and full representation for all Libyan sectors of society.