For a number of reasons, it is too early to speculate what the result of Libya’s transition out of Gaddafi-era authoritarian politics and toward good governance might look like. Or, for that matter, how long it will take, if at all, for Libya to arrive at the kind of free and fair practices that bespeak an accountable and inclusive form of democratic government.

In this paper, I suggest that despite the celebratory tone in the news media often used to describe the National Transitional Council’s (NTC) victory over Gaddafi loyalists, and with it the hopeful conjecture of the transition to democracy in Libya, there are three immediate challenges that lie ahead on the road to a stable and democratic Libya:

1. the immediate consolidation of NTC authority over Gaddafi loyalists and other dissident groups;
2. continued Western intervention under the ostensible guise of stability (yet in real pursuit of Libya’s vast oil resources); and
3. the unification of Libya through an interim Government that is finalised by the rewriting of Libya’s constitution en route to free and fair elections and stable and lasting democratic governance.

In pursuit of an NTC victory: Two steps forward, one step back

Though Libya faces major hurdles, the progress that Libyans have made in maintaining order amid the chaos of civil war is remarkable. Gaddafi’s main strongholds are neutralised, save for a couple. Rebel forces have largely abstained from brutal reprisal against Gaddafi loyalists as they have taken town after town, and looting has been kept to a minimum as they make their way across the country. Local authorities have managed to maintain law and order, and police officers once loyal to Gaddafi are returning to their old posts with new hopes for Libya’s transition. As the NTC shares its plans and vision for the future of Libya, the international community rightly applauds the strength and courage of Libyans to persevere.

At the same time, there remain causes for concern. Fears abound over possible resurgences as NTC forces solidify their authority through Libya’s rural areas and urban centres. Divisions are extant between former rebel forces. Electricity is absent over large portions of the capital, and many are left without water. Two major pro-Gaddafi cities — Bani Walid and Sirte — refuse to surrender. Indeed, though media reports were quick to announce the likelihood for Bani Walid to concede to the NTC through negotiations, new reports are now emerging that the NTC has been pushed back outside of the city. And in Sirte, the NTC is having a hard time penetrating the city limits for more than transitory periods altogether.

Bani Walid and Sirte are significant strongholds for Gaddafi’s loyalists. Bani Walid, 100 miles south east of the capital, is home to the largest tribe in Libya, the Warfallah, who were staunch supporters of Gaddafi under the old regime. It is suspected that many of Gaddafi’s former high officials have sought refuge there. In holding on to Sirte, Libya’s main costal highway city, some 200 miles east of Tripoli, loyalists continue to effectively divide the country in half. Until Bani Walid and Sirte are under NTC control, the proclamation of outright victory over the remnants of Gaddafi’s forces is premature.

Western involvement: Far from benevolent, closer to Libyan oil

In an interview on Free Speech TV, hosted by Amy Goodman this week (12-18 September 2011), the respected Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Professor and political commentator Noam Chomsky raised a few concerns about Western involvement in Libya that shed light on just how committed Western regimes are to the ultimate wellbeing of Libya’s general (re)public. To begin with, Chomsky identified two major points of contention in the debate surrounding Western intervention in Libya. The first was whether it was appropriate to initiate and implement United Nations (UN) Resolution 1973 that called for a no-fly zone and the protection of civilians. The second was the extent to which it was appropriate for the major Western powers (Britain, France, and the US, most notably) to reject that resolution in order to effectively enforce the rebel command by becoming the dominant airpower in Libya’s civil war.

While, as Chomsky opines, the no fly-zone might be a reasonable method of curtailing the death of civilian life in Libya while mitigating the damage to Libya’s infrastructure, the direct military involvement on the part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s (NATO) powers to ensure a rebel or NTC victory is questionable. Rather than respecting the process that accompanied overthrowing Gaddafi, the extent and caliber of British and French air force power (with significant United States (US) assistance) directly undermined the calls from the international community for a negotiated rather than enforced military settlement. The latest NTC reports indicate that at least 30,000 people have been killed in Libya thus far. The number of casualties might increase significantly in the event that Gaddafi loyalists decide to continue to hold out in Bani Walid, Sirte, and elsewhere. What is more, the extent to which the NTC represents a majority of Libyans remains unclear. “The seeds are there for pretty ugly conflicts and confrontations,” Chomsky told Goodman.

Chomsky added that just hours after the decisive defeat of pro-Gaddafi forces in Tripoli, news syndicates across the Western spectrum announced that oil companies were already vying for contracts. The fighting in Sirte is ongoing, meaning that Libyans are still engaged in violent armed struggles against one another. And yet, refusing to skip a beat, oil conglomerates are fighting for their piece of the pie, often with the tacit support of their host governments. Western involvement must be regarded in light of the scramble for Libyan oil. And in supporting a military engagement with the NTC (perhaps prematurely), divisions between Libyans remain a secondary concern to stabilising Libya’s economic prospects for trade. Libya’s oil reserves are vast, the quality of its oil is pure, and swaths of Libya’s potential oil fields are, to date, largely unexplored. Thus, Western involvement might have contributed to the ouster of Gadaffi and the flight of his inner circle, but continued Western intervention in Libya’s oil economy may foment more divisions within and between a post-Gaddafi Libya than it serves to mend. Indeed, inter-Libyan debate over the extents and reaches of Western involvement is likely going to be a point of contention in and of itself.

In a recent Wikileak report, the UN spelled out what its post-Gaddafi plan for Libya entailed should Libyan authorities request UN assistance, including the deployment of 200 unarmed military observers and 190 UN police officers to train Libyan forces.

In an interview with Al Jazeera, Matthew Russel Lee (an Inter City Press journalist) raised serious concerns for the UN’s plan: "It's a very detailed plan really spelling out [roles for] military observers, UN, [and] police; it says things like NATO has an ongoing role and there's some things the UN can do without a mandate from the Security Council.” However, “[i]t doesn't set forward something like here's four different scenarios and let the Libyan people choose,” Lee continued: “it very much says lines like 'we have developed principles for the transition in Libya'. And you have to ask yourself, on behalf of whom and to benefit whom?"⁽²⁾

On the one hand, a UN plan for Libya may mitigate elements of instability within the country, like the unjust treatment of Gaddafi loyalists and providing an avenue for dialogue among Libya’s diverse populations through the stationing of over 60 civilian staff for a period of three months, based in Tripoli and with an office located in Benghazi. Yet the report also calls for greater assistance [read: NATO mandated assistance under the auspices of UN Resolution 1973] if Libya’s NTC encounters major obstacles to forging national unity and a stable form of interim Government. And, given the short timeline for elections suggested, a quick transition may exacerbate rather than ameliorate divisions within Libyan society.

On the other hand, if the NTC accedes to greater assistance, such a plan, if implemented, opens the door for NATO involvement that could once again see to a continued overstepping of boundaries and mandates by Western states like Britain, France, and the US, not to mention the meddling of oil companies in Libya’s fragile domestic political stage. More than any other country where the Arab Spring (or comparable revolutions in the name of democracy across the globe) are underway right now, Western powers have thrown their military and diplomatic might behind regime change in Libya towards a Government that is amenable to Western interests. The Paris Conference, a meeting of 63 nations on post-Gaddafi Libya, can be viewed as a segue into this agenda: French President Nicolas Sarkozy urged a quick and speedy process of reconciliation and forgiveness; the unfreezing of Libyan assets; the recognition of the NTC by all states (despite the only recent stated non-recognition by powerful regional and international actors such as the African Union (AU), China, Russia, and South Africa; and NATO military assistance for as long as Libya’s NTC needs in order to put down Gaddafi loyalists.

The UN, Libya Contact Group [an ad hoc NATO body], International Monetary Fund (IMF), and World Bank will doubtless play a leading role in “reconstructing” Libya, despite its significant oil resources, a source of wealth that would normally more than obviate the need for outside intervention. And, in line with the policies across the development projects forged and forced on nations by the IMF and World Bank in particular, not only is a secular, multi-party democracy envisioned for Libya and Libyans, a neoliberal economic order that is open to foreign direct Western investment is also keenly sought out. A recent Savo Heleta report in Transconflict poignantly reflected this scenario: “Even if the UN Security Council remains blocked and unconstructive, the West has a solution for that. Rather than going through the UN, the Libya Contact Group could appoint a Bosnian-style High Representative, perhaps even giving him the same sweeping executive, legislative, and judiciary powers to do as he pleases. Unfortunately, with all the powers given to the external actors will not come responsibility and accountability; they will not be accountable to the local people and will have full immunity from criminal prosecution, allowing them to often forget about human rights norms and rule of law.⁽³⁾

Whether Libya can forge ahead post-Gaddafi with a stable and accountable Government is not entirely up to Libya. Rather, just as Britain, France, and the US refused to accept UN Resolution 1973 alone, they will likely not permit Libyans to implement the will of its people without foreign intervention. That will likely mean demands for a neoliberal economic order and a decidedly liberal (as opposed to Islamic or post-Islamic) political order, neither of which necessarily coheres with the general will of the people. And the unreasonably short time frame within which Libya is expected to renew trade relations and stabilise its domestic politics and international diplomatic missions is evidence of just that.

Challenges to a transition and stable Government: Planning and implementing a new Libya amid stark divisions

Chair of the National Transitional Council, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, a former justice minister under Gaddafi, and the emerging Government’s Prime Minister, Mahmoud Jibril, appear to command a reasonable amount of authority such that unifying Libya and ensuring a peaceful transition is possible. Within 30 days of declaring a liberated Libya (once all of Gaddafi’s strongholds have surrendered), there are plans to appoint an interim Government. Multi-party elections are on the horizon within eight months, and a new constitution is supposed to be written within 20 months of the “declaration of liberation.” Yet all of that is on the horizon. Neither figure has moved into Tripoli, fearing a resurgence of violence in the capital. Civil servants are as of yet unpaid. What is more, voices of opposition are rife.

Major divisions within Libya carry with it the possibility for lasting instability: rural communities vs. city dwellers, Easterners and Westerners, tribal divisions, old guard, secularists, and Islamists are just some of the possible politics of identity to heed when considering how Libya’s political scene may fracture in a post-Gaddafi picture.

While many in the old guard, including civil servants, demonstrate support for Jibril, likely because he too was at one time a member of that old guard; secularists, leftists, and Islamist rivals are vociferously dissenting, calling instead for new politicians to replace the old echelon. Many secularists back Ali Essawi, a leading figure in the NTC, while many Islamists back Abdel Hakim Bel Haj, leader of the newly found Tripoli Council. To further complicate matters, Islamists — many of whom are returning to Libya from exile — demonstrate strong support for Bel Haj. Yet Western powers are as opposed to his grab for power as are the secularists and old guard: Bel Haj accuses Britain and the US of torturing him after MI6 and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) deported him back to Libya from Bangkok at Gaddafi’s request at a time when the two Western powers and the now bygone autocrat were allies. Add to that Ben Haj’s now renounced connections to violent expressions of Islam, Ben Haj is sure to be a controversial figure in Libyan politics for some time to come.

As one commentator wrote in Al Jazeera: “These conflicts are part of the wider scene in the region, which is characterised by polarisation between the internal dynamics of the revolution and the foreign powers' logic of containment and control, of calculated, limited, and monitored change. These foreign powers' strategy is to swap the old players with new ones while keeping the rules of the game intact, using proxy wars manned via allied local elites, thus working to recycle the old regime into the new order in Libya, as they have been doing in Tunisia and Egypt.”⁽⁴⁾

Thus, while Western powers throw their might behind the NTC, the council speaks for Libya’s transition in opposition to Gaddafi alone; when the vacuum becomes more palpable — as it quickly is — Libyans will be confronted with a number of options for political leadership, so long as outside intervention permits them to be “forced to be free,” that is, as Rousseau once put it. Yet there are strong indications that the NTC is rushing to the polls too hastily. As a recent Foreign Affairs article asserts, post-conflict states that wait more than five years to hold elections are one third less likely to return to violent conflict: “For democracy to take hold, a country needs parties and civic organisations that bridge traditional divides. And we found that even partial demobilisation before elections reduces the chance of renewed fighting significantly. But four decades of Muammar al-Qaddafi's rule have left Libya without a civil society, and the NTC will not be able to build one instantly. Moreover, Libya is still awash in weapons, including stocks looted from Government warehouses. Those arms are held by rival factions and private citizens alike.”⁽⁵⁾

Thus, although the NTC speaks for Libya’s transition, it does so with but a fragile veneer of legitimacy and authority. Libya is a highly tribal society, and tribal rivalries, as elsewhere in the region, run deep. With that in mind, however, Jibril is likely the best man for the job at the moment. Studying both secular and Islamic law in university, he is capable of reeling in the centre by negotiating between the staunchly secular-minded and the Sharia-seeking Islamists. He is well known as a fair and honest man, and he was one of the first faces on the news to publicly oppose Gaddafi at the outset of the conflict.⁽⁶⁾ Thus, between the secularists and the Islamists, the NTC is best off with Jibril at the helm. If the NTC can keep Libya together, Libyans should follow the advice of international organisations that recommend extending the timeline for rewriting the constitution and holding elections.⁽⁷⁾ In this case, it is better to be safe, and ameliorate divisiveness, than sorry, and revert back to conflict.

NOTES:

(1) Contact Matthew J. Gordner through Consultancy Africa Intelligence’s Conflict & Terrorism Unit (conflict.terrorism@consultancyafrica.com).
(2) ‘UN “plan for post-Gaddafi Libya” leaked’, Al Jazeera News, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net.
(3) ‘Post-Gaddafi Libya: A liberal peace project’, TransConflict, 2011, http://www.transconflict.com.
(4) ‘Dueling legitimacies in Libya’, Al Jazeera News, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net.
(5) ‘The Libyan rebels and electoral democracy’, Foreign Affairs, 2011, http://www.foreignaffairs.com.
(6) ‘Libyan revolts quite mastermind Mustafa Abdul Jalil’, The Daily Beast, 2011, http://www.thedailybeast.com.
(7) ‘Extending Libya’s transitional period capitalizing the constitutional moment’, USIP, 2011, http://www.usip.org.

Written by Matthew J. Gordner ⁽¹⁾