Overcoming ISIS in Libya
The gruesome mass-beheadings of 21 Egyptian Copts on the shores of my country, and the thousands of beheadings, murders, kidnappings, and displacements of Libyans, combined to make the fourth anniversary of the Libyan revolution (February 17th) a heavy day indeed!
A dark nightmare replaced our
luminescent dreams of a better Libya — free from tyranny and springing
forward on a democratic path towards security, stability, the rule of
law, human dignity, economic prosperity.
Islamists have lost in every
single one of the three free, open and monitored elections held in
post-revolutionary Libya. The Muslim Brotherhood and the Libyan Fighting
Group have utilised arguments of ‘inclusivity’ to insert themselves
deep into the very joints of the Libyan state.
When Islamists lost the last
election, they simply boycotted the resulting parliament and physically
attacked both the parliament’s seat in Benghazi and the legitimate
government’s seat in Tripoli. Having lost through the ballot-box, they
effectively resorted to the gun!
Having been included, Islamists effectively
excluded all others. They used their control over the Libyan state, with
its vast resources, to turn Libya into an ATM, gas-station and a
platform for their ‘Islamic State’. Even today, they continue to do so
through their defunct General National Congress, and its Islamist
pseudo-government.
Thus, for four years, the
resources of the Libyan state went into enabling an ‘Islamic State’,
across the region, including in Syria and Iraq. Today, the Frankenstein
that Islamists fostered from the very livelihood of Libyans (to the tune
of tens of billions of dollars) slaughters Muslim Libyans, as well as
their Christian guests, with total impunity.
Daesh —
along with its affiliates, supporters and apologists — today controls
airports a couple of hours’ flight from any European capital, in
addition to controlling the illegal immigration boat traffic into
Europe. The bloodied knife pointed at Rome, in the grotesque Daesh
slaughter video, must be taken literally and seriously.
The Libyan state failed to
rise from the ashes of the 2011 uprising, simply because another ‘state’
was the real aspiration of the Islamists: an ‘Islamic State’ (Daesh).
They have been cannibalising the resources of the Libyan state to feed a
trans-national one.
The net result of four years
of building an ‘Islamic State’ at the cost of the Libyan state has been a
national, regional, and international disaster!
Facing disaster, there is
always an existential ‘either/or’: a ‘fight-or-flight’ response. I
believe that we must fight for Libya, and according to a proper
‘Disaster Recovery Plan’, let us first look at the flight-mechanisms
being peddled around lately.
Fleeing from the disaster comes in at least three varieties:
1. Denial (example: there is no Daesh in Libya, and the video was a fabrication or an intelligence conspiracy).
2. Abandonment (example: Libya is hopeless, let us just focus elsewhere).
3. Appeasement (example:
let’s engage in dialogue and make friends with ‘moderate’ Islamists, who
will help calm down their vicious Daesh attack dogs. Maybe we can even
form a ‘National Unity Government’ with them).
None of the above three
‘flight’ tactics will work. The first two will mean doing nothing to
address an existential threat not only to Libya and its Arab and African
neighbours, but to the very heart of Europe. The third will lead to the
continuation of the control of the Libyan state by Islamist Trojans who
have four years of experience in using the resources of the Libyan
state to build their own trans-national ‘Islamic State’.
We support the Bernardino
Leon-led efforts at national dialogue leading to the formation of a
national unity government. Such a dialogue must however be at the level
of the social-fabric. The resulting government must be broadly
representative of the Libyan people, purely technocratic and exclusively
focused on building Libya — a Libya for Libyans. We can’t afford yet
another government that includes trans-national ideologues at the
joints.
In the face of the disaster
afflicting Libya and threatening its neighbours, we have no choice but
to courageously and consistently take up the option to fight.
‘Fighting’, however, must consist of much more than just the necessary
military engagement of Daesh and Ansar Al Sharia’s bases and forces.
To overcome the darkness of
Daesh we must follow a clear disaster recovery plan for Libya. Such a
plan must be developed and implemented rapidly by Libyans, and in close
partnership with a new ‘Friends of Libya’ consortium consisting of
reliable and similarly-minded regional and international allies.
The key features for such a disaster recovery plan for Libya are as follows:
1. Uphold, and
internationally support, the duly elected bodies that exist in Libya
today: the House of Representatives (HoR) and its government, the
Constitution Drafting Assembly (CDA), and local municipal councils.
2. Protect and secure the
HoR, the government, the CDA and the local elected leadership to enable
them to work without pressure, intimidation, and duress.
3. Protect and secure the
Supreme Court of Libya and its Constitutional Council, as well as
publishing the results of an independent international investigation of
its latest important decisions. Judgements made under duress should be
declared null and void by the international community.
4. Complete the membership of
the HoR through demanding that its few boycotting members re-join it.
They must participate from within. By stepping outside and then
complaining about ‘lack of inclusivity’ they are in effect excluding all
other members. Members who continue to refuse to re-join the HoR must
be duly replaced by runners-up from the same electoral districts.
5. Provide a safe location
for the HoR to hold its meetings in Tobruk, until it can safely move
back to its official seat in Benghazi.
6. Provide urgent technical
assistance to the CDA in a safe and supportive environment, in order to
expedite the completion of Libya’s Constitution.
7. If the constitutional
drafting process takes more than another 90 days to complete, we should
return to the original recommendations of the February Commission, and
then call a general Presidential election. The HoR had unfortunately
absorbed the powers of the president, on the assumption that the CDA was
to be done with the constitution drafting by December of 2014.
8. Provide urgent technical
assistance to the HoR-appointed government, and introduce mechanisms for
improved governance and transparency.
9. Urgently form an
‘Emergency Economic Board’ that can bring together Libya’s top
technocrats in central banking, oil, fuel, humanitarian relief, finance,
investment and telecommunications, with top-experts from the UN, the
EU, the Word Bank and the IMF. The board must be tasked with
safeguarding and optimising Libya’s remaining resources in order to
protect against the effects of the economic and financial abyss facing
Libya due to the deadly combination of collapsing oil output and prices.
10. Immediately convene
clusters of social fabric and civil society meetings, including
municipal, tribal and reconciliation councils, in preparation for
convening a pan-Libyan gathering of key leaders at the municipal, tribal
and civil society levels. Such social consensus-building is vital for
supporting constitutional and democratic processes.
11. Urgently form a National
Security Joint-Command Centre that can lead the fight against Daesh,
Ansar Al Sharia and all their affiliates, allies, and backers. This
council must include officers from all of Libya’s key cities, towns and
tribes who are genuinely committed to fighting terrorism in Libya. This
council must be vitally linked to regional and international consortia
that are now fighting Daesh and other terrorists in other countries.
Such links can be facilitated by placing international expert advisers
within the centre.
12. Urgently form a Libyan
Rapid Deployment Force (LRDF) that consists of army officers and
soldiers from across Libya, and provide three bases from which they can
operate: in the east, west and south of Libya. The LRDF must include
international expert advisers provided by the UN, to ensure that the
force remains pan-Libyan in command and orientation. The LDRF must not
include any ideologically-motivated elements. Its doctrine must be
Libya-focused, and must not include any trans-national aspirations.
13. The International
Community must demand and help to enforce the demilitarisation of
Tripoli, enabling the HoR-appointed government to function from the
capital. It must also demand and help enforce the demilitarisation of
Benghazi, thus enabling the HoR to function from its official seat.
14. The economic and cultural
effort against radicalisation and extremism must be given top priority.
We must re-start the Libyan economy, offer Libyan youth a
forward-looking and inspiring vision for the country. A truck stuck in
sand can only be pulled out from a fixed point at the front, beyond the
sand. A forward-looking vision is vital for getting Libya unstuck.
The capacity building
and visionary inspiration of young Libyan women and men is key to
national recovery. In the face of the hate, despair, and cynicism
propagated by Daesh through its grotesque videos, we must retrieve and
propagate the authentic virtues of compassion, faith and hope!
Source: gulfnews
Source: gulfnews
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