Libya: No hope in sight

Nato mission to Libya had been “one of the most successful in Nato history”.
Despite this announcement of success there are daily reports of fighting all across Libya with the levels of insecurity unprecedented in the history of the country with over 1 700 militias roaming.
After Col Gaddafi was executed on October 20, 2011, the disinformation agencies of empire worked hard to keep the news of the militias and the insecurity out of international news.
However, the competition between the differing oil companies had ensnared numerous forces. So this warfare continued with the militias linked to western oil companies through private military contractors and relevant Western agencies.
Citizens of the United States learnt of the levels of insecurity of the people of Libya on September 11 when the Ambassador of the United States to Libya was killed in Benghazi, the city that was the base of the rebellion against Gaddafi.
The death of ambassador Stevens brought out facts of the US diplomatic/intelligence activities and its relationship to the militias. The differing accounts of the death entered into the presidential campaign as the Republican controlled Congress mounted hearings to get to the “truth”.
Prior to these hearings reports had been coming out in drips and drabs about the US intelligence presence in Benghazi. When the US security personnel were evacuated after the fateful events of September 11, 2012, the Libyan deputy prime minister Mustafa Abushagour told the Wall Street Journal: “We were surprised by the numbers of Americans who were at the airport. We have no problem with intelligence sharing or gathering, but our sovereignty is also key.”
Libyans were awoken to the extent of the integration between the large numbers of US intelligence and the competing militias in Benghazi. The testimony of the officials of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security at the Department of State before the US Congress only created more uncertainty in relation to the objectives of the United States in Libya.
This hearing before Congress failed to bring out the important role of the intelligence community in Libya in the co-ordination of the present war in Syria. In our commentary this week, we will note that the war in Libya is not over and that the United Nations and the BRICS societies will have to be more forthright in placing a different plan for the restoration of peace and decent livelihood for the peoples of Libya.
Ultimately, the triggers of war that spun out of the Nato intervention in Libya are having a tragic effect on all of the peoples of the Middle East and North Africa. The African Union will have to once again intervene in Libya as the Nato countries descend into deeper economic depression and political repression at home and abroad.
After the execution of Gaddafi on October 20, 2011 and the capture of Saif al-Islam in November, the Western media went into overdrive to present the idea that a new era of peace and reconstruction had arrived in Libya. Carefully managing the news coming out of Libya, Western citizens were assured that Libya was in a “transition” phase.
Step one in the planning of the masterminds of the intervention was declaration of victory after the destruction of Sirte and the displacement of hundreds of thousands.
Step two involved the formation of an interim government which was supposed to have been completed by October 31, 2011 with Abdurrahim El-Keib succeeding Mahmoud Jibril.
This phase of the transition was supposed to be guided through February 2012 when there was an appointment of an election commission with the adoption of electoral legislation. The farcical nature of this transition was soon made obvious when in March 2012, NTC officials in the east, centred on Benghazi, launched a campaign to re-establish autonomy for the region, further increasing tension with the central NTC in Tripoli.
This push for autonomy in the oil rich region ensured that there was a flurry of activities as the executives of the oil companies and their private contractors fanned out in Benghazi to ensure that their own companies would emerge as strong forces after the redistribution of oil contracts.
It was in the midst of the dangerous squabbling between oil executives and their contractors and militias when there was the constant announcement of plans for elections in Libya in June 2012. The elections for the General National Congress were held on July 7, 2012. International news organisations went overboard to highlight the success of the elections and the “fact” that Islamists and Jihadists did not come out as winners.
The transitional government handed power to the General National Congress. This Congress then elected Mohammed Magarief of the liberal National Front Party as its chairman, thereby making him interim head of state. These well-crafted versions of the “transition” concealed the continued warfare that was going on all over Libya.
There were approximately 1 700 militia groups running the country with each neighbourhood dominated by a faction that went into the business of using weapons as a means of gaining access to resources.
After the death of Ambassador Christopher Stevens, US citizens were alerted to the existence of what the State Department called “security incidents.” But the 230 “security incidents” over the past year were the tip of the iceberg of the massive destabilisation and killings that had occurred.
Black skinned Libyans from Tawergha were expelled from their community and more than 30 000 displaced. Even the usual spokespersons for Western imperial missions had to speak out as Human Rights Watch joined in the condemnation of the rule of the militias.
Human Rights Watch brought out a “Report Rule of Law or Rule of Militias” bringing into sharper focus some of the outstanding questions of the role of these armed marauders all over Libya. In June one militia brigade briefly took over Tripoli international airport.
Despite the 230 security situations in Libya, international oil companies were back in business so that by the end of September 2012, Libya was producing 90  percent of its pre-Nato intervention output. In fact more oil was now being pumped out than in the month immediately prior to the start of the Nato war.
Foreign companies had been trooping back into Libya with BP being the last to arrive in May. Even without the hundreds of thousands of foreign workers, the stability of the exportation of oil had driven foreign companies to focus on who would be in control of Benghazi, especially after the noisy declaration of autonomy by the militia/political leaders in February.
US oil companies did not want to be left behind in this new insensate struggle, hence US diplomatic efforts were now directed at Benghazi.
Christopher Stevens had been appointed ambassador of the United States to Libya in January 2012 and arrived in Tripoli in May. When the uprisings had started in February 2011 and the French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy was going into Benghazi to mobilise support for French interests, Chris Stevens was one of the first US diplomatic personnel to be on the ground in Benghazi.
He had served as a “Special Representative” to the Libyan Transitional National Council from March 2011 to November 2011 during the Nato intervention. Prior to this period he had served as the deputy chief of mission in Libya from 2007 to 2009. At that time, Stevens described Gaddafi as an “engaging and charming interlocutor” as well as a “strong partner in the war against terrorism.”
Chris Stevens belonged to that section of the US Department of State that was very knowledgeable about the movements of militia members between Benghazi, Libya, and the current war against the Assad regime in Syria.
Libyan Islamists from the Eastern region comprise the largest single component of the “foreign fighters” who are playing an ever more dominant role in the war being waged in Syria with the aim of toppling the government of president Assad.
According to some estimates, they comprise anywhere from 1 200 to 1 500 of approximately  500 fighters who have been infiltrated into Syria from as far away as Chechnya and Pakistan.
Throughout North Africa, the fallout of the Nato war was being felt with the citizens of Libya bearing the brunt of the lawlessness that had been unleashed. Such lawlessness suited the short term interests of the capital equity forces of Wall Street, the oil executives and the Emirates.
The proliferation of military weaponry from unsecured Libyan stockpiles — including small arms, explosives and shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles (MANPADs) — expanded the availability of weapons with the border regions suffering directly. The present destruction in Mali is directly related to these forms of plunder by Western interests.
The Nato powers and Western nations remained smug because this instability temporarily postponed the questions of African integration. However, some sections of Africa were sufficiently angry for them to work for the removal of the Chairperson of the Commission of the African Union, Jean Ping.
The purpose of last week’s hearing of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee was to examine security lapses that led to the killing in Benghazi last month of the US ambassador and three others. What this hearing confirmed was what many knew; that there was no real “consulate” in Benghazi, but a vast intelligence and private contractors web for the CIA and the oil companies.
It was the testament of Charlene Lamb before Congress that gave away the fact that the “facility” in Benghazi where Christopher Stevens and three others lost their lives was not a diplomatic facility. — Pambazuka News