The Libyan crisis: an elected authority and rebel militias

The General National Congress granted legitimacy to many of the military formations after the end of the war with Gaddafi’s brigades for reasons they believed were convincing and temporary, but what happened after this was that these militias and their leaders continued to exist and exercised their control, while the conflicting political forces in the GNC viewed the militia phenomenon as a chance to employ them as the military wings for their conflicts against each other. This combined all the various circumstances, leading to the creation of all possible obstacles to hinder the establishment of the army and police institutions, thus making it an almost impossible task.

It became clear to the conflicting political forces in the GNC that the emergence of a national army institution and its monopoly of the country’s arms would logically lead to the disappearance of these militias, which would lead to two consequent possibilities for these forces, each worse than the other.

The first possibility is that the forces would end up without teeth in the conflict arena and one may have to break the rules of the democratic game if the results do not please it and it is not guaranteed to have a strong share in the power. Such militias remain effective tools used to threaten the toppling of the political scene on everyone in a country where there is no security force or strong army subject to the elected authority.

By means of these militias, the roots of some date back to the war against Gaddafi’s regime, one party or another could neutralise or counteract the results of the democratic competition, if they were not in its favour, by resorting to these militias to use their weapons on the electoral arena. Under the banner of revolutionary legitimacy they would have the right to reconsider the events in the political scene if they consider what is going on to be a threat to the February 17 revolution, as they are more protective over this revolution than any other Libyans.

The second possibility, which is based on the disappearance of these militias and the emergence of a strong army, is that some forces fear military coups that have plagued the Arab region since the middle of the last century. These fears have been amplified by the fact that two incidents have occurred, one on an Arab level and the other on a local level.

In the first precedent since the beginning of the Arab Spring, Egypt’s strong army overthrew the elected president – regardless of the mistakes he made – and did not leave it to his constituents to remove him from power just as they had elected.

In Libya, the retired General Khalifa Haftar formed a military body outside the legitimacy of the state and declared a war on terrorism in which he targeted both extremist and non-extremist formations, not sparing the Muslim Brotherhood and the Justice and Development Party, a party in the elected legitimate authority.

Perhaps such incidents have increased due to the Islamist party’s insistence on keeping its militias, because they have established the belief that the legitimacy of elections alone is not enough if they do not also have a thick baton in their hands to threaten others, even if some of these parties cannot be allied with in the long run.

These developments have further complicated the Libyan scenes and have added more reasons to hold on to both the legitimate and illegitimate militias. They have also opened other doors and rationales to the conflict that have led to a change in goals and references for the parties concerned with the conflict, represented by the Karama (Dignity) Army and the rebel Shura Council.

No party considers the elected legitimate authority to be their reference nor do they aim to protect it. One party adopted the war on terrorism as its reference and goal, while another party adopted the defence of the revolution as an open goal and reference, and therefore, the electoral legitimacy has begun to recede into the background of the political arena, while terms and names Qaswara, Fajr Libya, and Karama have dominated the arena.

If this is an indication of anything, then it indicates that the Libyan elite have failed miserably over the past three years to lead a small rich community that is barely lacking ethnic mosaics and sectarian pluralism, and instead, this elite invested its wealth in developing and creating everything that could cause conflict, rivalry and strife, thus turning Libya into a failed state with open doors to all those who are ambitious and adventurous.

Libya and its democratic experience have become captives of its militias and military formations, a few of which were born during the war against Gaddafi’s brigades; many provincial, regional and religious militias were born after for three reasons.

First is the absence of the army and police institutions which are both able to collect all arms and prevent its proliferation amongst people in society.

The second reason is the existence of implicit encouragement for the continuation of these militias by means of continuing to give high salaries and gifts to its members, thus making taking up arms a job that generates an income that is incomparable with the jobs awaiting the unemployed, vocational workers, and many students.

The third reason is the clustering and alignment amongst the political forces that reached the GNC, which, instead of being the first elected institution in 50 years that is tasked with laying the foundations of the future Libyan state, consensually, has turned into an arena where every party allows itself to use any means necessary in order to impose its vision on the others and make it the only party controlling the authority and state in Libya after the revolution.

One of the most dangerous of these means is the armed militias who found a market in the conflicting political arena, either for ideological, zonal, or purely material reasons. Therefore, the desires and interests of many militias and political forces have intersected in fighting off all the conditions that may lead to the establishment of a strong national army that is not subject to any of these political forces.

The Libyans rejoiced at the election of the first parliament in nearly 50 years to succeed the General National Congress, whose term expired. However, this parliament’s first found itself sunk in a swamp left by the last three years, full of militias and armed formations, as well as political blocs and conflicts.

This parliament found legitimatised militias as well as illegitimate militias wreaking havoc and war in the country and found that its legitimacy and resolutions were worthless. Moreover, it has not inherited a strong army that is able to put an end to the fighting of the militias and formations that have reached the major cities and vital centres, warning of a disastrous civil war.

Therefore, the public opinion in parliament has resorted to asking for the help of the international community to rescue the country from what it sees as an imminent disaster, seen by the opponents of the parliament as a call for foreign intervention and antagonising the outside world against the country in the context of the accusations exchanged between the two sides. This has put the parliament in an endless cycle of explanations, clarifications, and denials, which some see as serving the interests of the opposing Islamic trend that believes that, thanks to the militias, they have come close to resolving the conflict by means of guns, and do not want a strong international party to take their opportunity to rise to power again away after democracy was defeated.

The legacy of the past three years has also burdened the new-born parliament with its other problem, represented by the political conflict and blocs. This spirit enveloped the political scene early on, when the election results were announced and the cries of victory broke out in the country in a manner that caused provocation that the situation in the country could not bear, while the Islamist trend, which considered itself to be defeated, withdrew to think, plan, and look for every means possible to deprive their opponents from this victory and turn them into a pile of ashes.

This set off a serious of actions and reactions, as the Islamist movement was furious when it saw most of the Libyan votes being cast to those they called the liberals and secularists, thus reducing its size in the new parliament. However, they consider themselves the spearheads in the war against the Gaddafi regime and see themselves as having the upper hand in guiding the Libyans out of Gaddafi’s dictatorship and putting them on the democratic path.

For their part, the other party, the so-called party liberal party, whose proposal won the satisfaction of the majority of the Libyan voters, did not reflect wisdom and consideration in some of their actions, such as not regarding the procedural formalities that some perceived as very important nor did they make any concessions while in a strong democratic position. In addition to this, it did not lend a helping hand to its opponent during the critical moment in the history of Libya to help them out of their crisis as much as possible in order for this opponent not to find any excuse, no matter how weak, to justify other options in place of the democratic path itself.

Therefore, the political scene in Libya seems governed by the same equation that was prevalent throughout the past three years, and the two concerned parties are the elected authority and the militias and military formations, but with only one essential difference in the relationship between the two parties; the GNC adopted and legitimised many of these militias in accordance with the interests of the blocs that were in dispute under the dome of the GNC, while the new parliament has no ties or relationships with these militias so far, nor has it legitimised any of them.

In light of the conflict taking place outside of parliament, it seems that these militias are no longer in need of the legitimisation of the authority chosen by the Libyan people, as long as they are content with pretending they have revolutionary legitimacy in which their guns rule all of their wills.

There is no doubt that the announcement of revolutionary legitimacy under the shadow of guns and the failure to submit to or accept the choices of the Libyan public’s will, made by means of democratic mechanisms, puts them in the rank of any dictator confident in themselves and in what they believe and this justifies their forceful impositions. However, it is not enough for one to describe themselves as revolutionary in order to impose their opinion on the nation. Gaddafi never called himself a demon; he called himself a revolutionary and held a gun in his hand until the rebels took it from him and pointed it at anyone.

If no final agreement is reached regarding the end of the revolutionary legitimacy and its disregard of the democratically elected authority, then these militias will continue to have a lot to say and do and the elected authority will also have a lot to say but can only do so much in the country. If its elites do not rescue them, then it will sink to the bottom.

Translated from Al Jazeera net, 25 August, 2014

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