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MISRATA:As revolution swept their region in 2011, three young Libyans joined mass protests against Muammar Qaddafis four-decade rule. They now live divided by Libyas frontlines, their futures irrevocably shaped by the uprising.

The first demonstrations against Qaddafis rule began in the eastern city of Benghazi on Feb. 17, 2011. A decade on, Libya is still split between rival factions, and shell and shrapnel holes scar its cities.

The UN has backed a new effort to unite Libyas warring sides through an interim government and national elections at the end of the year. But many Libyans remain skeptical.

Usama Ali Al-Aguri, a graduate from Benghazi, was unemployed in 2011 and at the time decried what he called the injustice that we suffered and heard of from our fathers and grandfathers.

As the fighting spread through the summer of 2011, he joined the assault on Tripoli. When he and a comrade went to reconnoiter an attack, Qaddafis forces spotted them.

There was massive shooting at us. I got a bullet in my leg, he said. His comrade was killed. He ended up in a wheelchair, paralyzed from the waist down.

He condemns many of those who emerged as leaders in 2011. The revolution has been stolen from the honorable people now in their graves, he said.

As the country fell further apart, he joined many others from the east in backing Khalifa Haftar, head of the eastern military forces whose push to capture Tripoli failed last year.

Al-Aguri said his injury changed his life. Now 34, he lives for his two children, he said, and for work he goes each morning to the cattle market to buy and sell livestock.

Hisham Al-Windi came from a family that did well under Qaddafi his father was a diplomat. But after taking part in protests, he learned he was wanted by police and fled to Tunis.

Traveling to the south of Tunisia, he crossed through a border post held by the rebels and joined their battle in the western mountains. I was several months in the fight, he said.

Al-Windi was among the first fighters to storm Qaddafis Tripoli compound. Wandering through the rooms where the leader had lived, he found an item known to all Libyans his brocaded military hat.

Interviewed that day on television wearing the hat, Al-Windi voiced his hopes for the future, briefly gaining international recognition as a face of Libyas uprising.

I wanted to say first that Libyans were not as bad as people thought. And I was also saying Qaddafi is finished and we need to rebuild, he said.

He now works in Tunis and is hopeful for change.

People say to me: You took part in this disaster. How do you like it now? Well of course I dont. But it doesnt mean you have to choose between Qaddafi and chaos. Revolution is a process. We must build a new Libya that we deserve, he said.

In Misrata, Malek Salem Al-Mejae, then aged 20, began to fight in 2011 when his city came under attack by Qaddafis forces.

That July, he, too, was wounded, losing a leg.

I was in the back of the truck. A missile fell behind us, he said. Some of my friends were killed. I received treatment in Tunisia, then returned to Libya.

He had hoped to see far greater progress in Libya than he has in the last decade, and blames Libyas post-revolutionary leaders for the countrys failure to unite.

Unfortunately the situation is as you see it after 10 years of wars. The politicians, who were entrusted with the task, were not up to the standard.

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10 years on, Libyan revolutionaries live with wounds, unfulfilled dreams - Arab News

Defence Minister Salah El-Din Al-Nimroush has called on the United States and its allies to assist the Libyan government in its efforts to oustthe Russian forces deployed in Libya.

The Defence Minister's statements were made to the "white paper" presented by the head of the Democracy and Human Rights Foundation, Emadeddin Muntasser, to the decision-makers in Washington.

In the recently published white paper entitled "Biden Administration Options for and Benefits of Countering Russian Influence in Libya" the defence minister highlights the Russian threat to Libya, warning that Moscow's influence is expanding well beyond military occupation.

"This expansion is now taking the form of political and media meddling. Our planned elections are in danger and can only be protected by a robust and activist strategy that would involve support from our allies in the free world," Al-Nimroush said.

"With more support and resources, our conventional forces can play a leading role in defending Libya," the minister added, emphasizing that there is a genuine will to build a strong and reliable army.

The author of the paper Emadeddin Muntasser confirmed to The Libya Observer that the white paper was forwarded to the US National Security Adviser, "Jack Sliven "and other members of the US government, pointing out that this paper was also rolled out in government circles in Rome, Berlin, Paris, London, and Ankara.

In a similar statement to Muntasser's paper, the Presidential Council member Muhammad Ammari warned that "Wagner's forces will not abide by any agreement to withdraw from Libya."

"The Wagner Group provides the Russian government with the power and means to influence Libyan political, military, and economic policy," Ammari said.

The PC member called on the EU allies and the United States to assist in removing the Wagner Group "by all means possible and at the earliest opportunity," stressing that the Russian expansion is not only a threat to Libya but also to European and American national security.

Ammari indicated that the head of the Wagner Company expressed this in secret meetings with Libyan officials last June when demanding at least 30% of the Libyan oil revenues be allocated to Haftar, in addition, to declaring their desire to establish a military base in eastern Libya.

According to Muntasser, his paper has been adopted by the BBC as a source of information and recommendations for the documentary program it is preparing about the Russian Wagner forces in Libya.

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Libyan officials call on western allies to help oust Russian forces - The Libya Observer

TRIPOLI, Libya

Libya's interim prime minister arrived Friday in Tobruk to meet with the speaker of the parliament based in the eastern city.

The premier's spokesman Mohamed Hamouda said Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh would discuss with Aguila Saleh the issue of forming a new government for the North African country.

Since recent elections that chose the nation's temporary executive, this is the first time Dbeibeh has visited Tobruk, which is the seat of parliament and is under the control of renegade general Khalifa Haftar.

On Thursday, Dbeibeh met with Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi and discussed ways to enhance cooperation during the transition period in Libya.

Libya's rival political groups agreed on Feb. 5 during UN-mediated talks in Geneva to form an interim authority that would lead the country to elections in December.

*Bassel Barakat contributed to this report from Ankara

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Libyan PM arrives in Tobruk to meet parliament head - Anadolu Agency

Libyans can mark the 10th anniversary of the uprising against Moammar Gadhafi (generally accepted to have begun on February 17, 2011) with something in short supply since Libyas 2014 descent into division and civil war: hope.

On February 5, the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL)-facilitated Libyan Political Dialogue Forum (LPDF) selected a new interim Libyan executive authority. This has created significant momentum. At the same time, the situation is fragile, and the next few weeks are critical.

A year ago, with Tripoli under siege by General Khalifa Haftar, Libya appeared irreparably broken. National institutions had by that point been long divided between factions in Libyas east and west, and bereft of domestic legitimacy. With oil exports halted, economic and social conditions rapidly deteriorated. COVID-19 and conflict conspired to greatly increase the populations misery.

Yet Haftars assault, which began in 2019 with significant support from the United Arab Emirates, Russia, and Egypt eventually created the conditions that then-U.N. Special Representative Ghassan Salam used to establish the political processes that now promise to put Libya back together again. With the United Nations Security Council paralyzed by divisions over Libya, Salam designed an international conference hosted by Germany in January 2020 to build global consensus that would provide an international umbrella for the three intra-Libyantracks, led by Libyans themselves.

On the ground in Libya, Haftars use of sophisticated weaponry and intelligence from his outside backers not to mention the dispatch of mercenary forces prompted the desperate Tripoli government to reach out to Turkey for help. In a humiliating reversal for Haftar, Turkish military support helped end the siege of Tripoli and chase his forces eastward. The de facto truce established in central Libya in June 2020, centered in the vicinity of Sirte, was a tacit acknowledgement by the outsiders that neither the Tripoli government, with its Turkish backers, nor Haftars forces, with his UAE and Russian supporters, could prevail militarily over the whole country.

Enter a so-called 5+5 framework. Ten officers (eight of them generals) five representing the Government of National Accord, and five appointed by Haftar were not strangers to each other: all served under long-time Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi. The calm on the ground in the summer and early fall of 2020 allowed the 5+5 to propose meeting face-to-face, with facilitation by UNSMIL. While they represented opposing sides that had received outside military support, the 10 officers quickly reached consensus that all of the foreigners needed to leave, to help de-escalate the situation. Given the large number of mercenaries and the increasing occupation of Libyan military bases, Libyans were fast losing the ability to decide their countrys future for themselves. The occupation of their bases had become an affront to Libyans who have long expressed suspicions about foreign designs on their country. This shared interest that Libyans not cede control of their country to outsiders led to the 5+5 announcement on October 23 that the de facto truce around Sirte was now a national ceasefire, with a 90-day deadline for all foreign troops to leave. (While some external observers continue to muse about a U.N. or other peacekeeping force, the 5+5 rejected Blue Helmets out of hand. Instead, they proposed a small, scalable civilian unarmed observer force under UNSMIL with a limited mandate to monitor the ceasefire and the withdrawal of foreign troops and mercenaries. They also insist upon the right to veto monitors with nationalities from countries that intervened in Libya militarily or deployed mercenaries.)

The Libyan public celebrated the October 23 ceasefire agreement, and the 5+5 soon became minor celebrities with their patriotic declarations and calls for national reconciliation. The 5+5 process created pressure on the politicians. If the generals could produce results that transcended Libyas multiple divides, why not the political leaders? The fractured institutions the politicians led were successful only in enriching their own networks, as the Libyan people descended more deeply into misery of economic deprivations and failing services, as COVID-19 raged. And in addition to the ceasefire, the 5+5 talks enabled a de-mining process essential to re-opening the important coastal road between Abu Grein and Sirte, facilitated several detainee exchanges, and enabled the opening of domestic air routes throughout the country.

Following a series of Track II meetings facilitated by the Geneva-based Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, the seeds were laid for convening the first LPDF meeting in Tunis in November and drafting the LPDF Roadmap. The roadmap acknowledges what nationwide polling consistently highlights: that Libyans demand the unification of the countrys institutions and national elections. The roadmap is grounded in the need to protect and promote human rights and to advance the principles of transitional justice, including accountability.

The LPDF itself comprises elected representatives from the two Skhirat institutions (referring to the hijacked 2015 Libyan Political Agreement negotiated and signed in Skhirat, Morocco), the House of Representatives (HoR) in the east, and the High Council of State. These elected representatives are rounded out by the so-called UNSMIL bloc, including a cross-section of political forces, youth, women, ethnic groups and tribes, and geographically diverse personalities. Notably, the LPDF included supporters of the former regime, the first major political event since the 2011 revolution to include the so-called Greens.

Not surprisingly, great controversy surrounded the selection of the LPDF members. In order to boost the forums legitimacy, UNSMIL created sub-tracks for women, youth, and municipalities, and launched a series of digital dialogues working with the U.N.s Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs Innovation Unit at U.N. headquarters. Five digital dialogues were held between October and February, with over 1,000 mostly young Libyans participating in each session.

This commitment to transparency deepened earlier this month, when the 45 candidates vying for positions in the interim executive authority appeared live via television and Facebook before the Libyan public. This was an unprecedented way to present their candidacies, forcing them to respond to tough questions submitted by the public. Any whiff of smoke-filled backroom dealings dissipated, with at least 1.7 million Libyans between a quarter and a third of the population tuning in. Unaccustomed to such public grilling of their political class, Libyans embraced what became known as the National Barbeque Session. In addition, UNSMIL required candidates to orally commit to and sign pledges to uphold the roadmap, commit to hold national elections on December 24, 2021, accept the outcome of the LPDF selection process, and in the case of the prime ministerial candidates, agree to appoint women to 30% of senior executive positions.

Unaccustomed to such public grilling of their political class, Libyans embraced what became known as the National Barbeque Session.

In parallel to these political developments, there has also been notable progress in the UNSMIL-facilitated economic track: For the first time since 2014, Libya has a unified budget. The Central Bank Board met in December, after a five-year lapse, to unify the countrys exchange rate, mitigating the liquidity crisis. And it has finally agreed to extend loans to banks that have been under the strain of a growing backlog of uncleared checks resulting from the divided banking settlement system between east and west.

All the key domestic actors including the usually contrary General Haftar have endorsed the LPDF process. Key external actors including the leaders of Egypt, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, France, and Russia have likewise lauded the developments. The United States joined with France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom in a joint endorsement of the LPDF process. Describing the LPDF results as an important milestone, the U.N. Security Council overcame divisions to issue a presidential statement welcoming the announcement of interim authorities.

For this momentum to be sustained, Libyan stakeholders and the international community must act quickly. As they continue the creative facilitation that helped the Libyans start to transcend their divisions, UNSMIL and the new special envoy to Libya, Jan Kubis, need to be able to count on the external actors who spent the past several years exacerbating Libyas divisions to pivot in support of the process in deeds as well as words.

First, Prime Minister-designate Abdulhameed Dbeiba should form a small, inclusive, technocratic government with a discrete set of tasks: deliver services to municipalities long starved of resources, provide support nationwide to combat the pandemic, invest in the electricity infrastructure to avert the predicted collapse of the grid in summer 2021, unite executive and sovereign institutions, and pave the way for the elections in December. Per the LPDF roadmap, Dbeiba has 21 days from his February 5 selection to propose his cabinet.

Second, the notoriously fractious HoR, Libyas parliament based in Tobruk, must endorse the new executive within 21 days of Dbeibas submission of his cabinet choices and government program. Ominously, rival HoR factions have unhelpfully issued competing calls for sessions, and the United Nations and the international community can help mediate to organize a single meeting. The parliament members should be persuaded to emulate the example set by the LPDF and 5+5 processes and put aside their differences for the sake of the country.

Third, the LPDF should seize the reins they assigned themselves as the guardians and monitors of the process and the executive that they created. The roadmap, to which the LPDF members consensually agreed in a November meeting in Tunis, is the critical marjaiya or reference point moving forward. LPDF members designed the roadmap to prevent a repetition of what happened to the 2015 Libyan Political Agreement, when status quo institutions (including the HoR) simply dismissed obligations to re-unify executive authorities. Anticipating that parallel institutions namely the current internationally recognized government in Tripoli and the parallel executive in Beyda could fail to disband in favor of a new unified executive, the LPDF baked fallback mechanisms into the roadmap: If institutions fail to honor the decision points and deadlines, the matter returns to the LPDF.

Fourth, both the new government and the international community must support robustly the High National Elections Commission. While technically capable, and a recipient of U.N. technical assistance since 2012, the commission will require additional help to conduct presidential and parliamentary elections in December.

Fifth, the countries that are directly interfering in Libyas internal affairs need to honor their commitments to abide by the January 2020 Berlin conference conclusions, United Nations Security Council Resolution 2510 (2020), and the U.N. arms embargo in place since 2011 and renewed annually.While the January 23 deadline set in November by the 5+5 security talks expired without compliance, those who dispatched forces and mercenaries to Libya need to respect a demand the Libyans consider binding and relevant to the success of the current process.

It is important to remember that the interim government wont (and shouldnt) do everything. Those selected for interim roles, notably the prime minister-designate, have courted controversy in the past. But the polling indicates that the public seems to have embraced this new united executive as a bridge toward the much-demanded elections. Given what is supposed to be its limited shelf life, the new government can sustain the legitimacy needed to oversee elections by keeping its work program modest and targeted immediately on improving living conditions and delivering services. The interim Presidency Council, selected on February 5, should seriously embrace the task accorded to it in the roadmap to launch a National Reconciliation program. There are some tasks such as decentralization that will require more time, and an elected government with popular legitimacy conferred by credible elections. As Desmond Tutu said, the only way to eat an elephant is a bite at a time.

Without question, the road ahead is challenging. A glance at Libyas prolonged agony since the unified institutions teetered and then collapsed in 2014 will cure even the most optimistic observer of believing in quick fixes. The aborted 2015 Libyan Political Agreement, applauded by many when signed, is a sobering precedent. Unsurprisingly, the current political process has thus drawn its share of negative, skeptical, and even hysterical analysis from both inside and outside Libya.

It is relatively easy to point to risks, weaknesses, and imperfections in the LPDF process. What is harder is finding an alternative path that does not squander the most promising moment Libya has had in years, with the combination of a ceasefire, various processes transcending Libyas divides, economic breakthroughs, and a population yearning to move toward elections. The roadmaps ambitious timelines will soon reveal whether the publicly televised oral commitments by current political leaders to step aside in favor of the new interim authorities were offered in good faith.

Going forward, the international community will need to curb the appetite of the Dbeiba government, work to limit armed group interference in the governments work, and push all institutions to produce the national elections. The LPDF will need to shoulder its responsibilities as the guardians of the process. The new U.S. administration, with a small investment and use of Washingtons convening authority, can help the U.N., as can the countries and organizations that participate in the Berlin process. With these concerted efforts, Libyans can perhaps usher in the second post-revolutionary decade with a measure of hope for increased stability and security and the holding of national elections to renew the democratic legitimacy of Libyas institutions.

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Can a political breakthrough mend a broken Libya? - Brookings Institution

Issued on: 17/02/2021 - 20:07

Can Libya move on? On the tenth anniversary of the uprising that would lead to Gaddafi's march on Benghazi and the French and UK-led intervention that would signal his downfall, the ensuing decade has been laden with tales of factional fighting, rival governments, proxy wars and migrant tragedies.

Now, a new UN plan raises hopes that Libya can reunify. Already there is agreement on an interim leadership, a common currency and the reopening of oil pipelines. What will it take to reach the goal of elections by the end of the yearand a disarmament that never happened?

Some are nostalgic for Gaddafi's Libya which was never a state like any other, kept together by an elaborate patronage system rather than a state apparatus. Others blame the current chaos precisely on that systemand on Western powers available to help topple a dictator but without much of a plan for what would follow. Ten years on, can a young, urbanised population take its own destiny in hand?

Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Juliette Laurain and Imen Mellaz.

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The Debate - Can Libya move on? New plan to end ten years of fighting - FRANCE 24