International Crisis Group

Libya faces growing Islamist threat | The Guardian

By Chris Stephen and Afua Hirsch 

France sent troops to Mali in January after an uprising in the north started by the ethnic Tuareg National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (NMLA), named for the independent state it hopes to create.

The impetus for this uprising came from ethnic Tuareg soldiers who had fought alongside Muammar Gaddafi and fled south when his regime fell. They were later augmented by jihadists from Libya and across north Africa, who triggered international condemnation for their destruction of ancient Sufi Muslim shrines in Timbuktu. The fear across the Maghreb is that the French operation that has pushed them out of the northern cities has inadvertently compounded problems elsewhere in north Africa as jihadist units disperse.

“If you squeeze a balloon in one part, it bulges out in another,” said Bill Lawrence, of International Crisis Group, a political consultancy. “There’s no question that the French actions in Mali had the effect of squeezing that balloon towards Algeria and Libya.”

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Photo: Ammar Abd Rabbo/Flickr

Trial by Error: Justice in Post-Qadhafi Libya

Tripoli/Brussels/ Washington  |   17 Apr 2013

Unless Libya breaks the cycle of violence and urgently reforms its justice system, there is a real risk of an increase in assassinations, urban violence and communal conflicts.

Trial by Error: Justice in Post-Qadhafi Libya, the latest report from the International Crisis Group, analyses the ills plaguing the judicial system in Libya. Well over a year after Qadhafi’s regime was ousted, some armed groups continue to run prisons and enforce their own forms of justice, while others resort to violence to achieve political or criminal aims. All this triggers more grievances, further undermining confidence in the state.

The report’s major findings and recommendations are:

Distrust towards the Libyan judiciary, still considered a Qadhafi-era relic, and disarray within the security forces have led some individuals and groups to take matters in their own hands. They have rounded up thousands of alleged Qadhafi loyalists in total disregard of official procedures and carried out assassinations. This fuels resentment and grievances and risks triggering renewed conflicts.

Since coming to power, Prime Minister Ali Zeidan has declared a zero-tolerance policy towards arbitrary detention and revenge killings and made it a priority to transfer arbitrarily detained people into state custody. This is a welcome change of direction, yet he must tread carefully lest a confrontational approach towards brigades backfire.

Holding members of armed groups accountable for their actions is not enough. The government should work to restore trust in the judiciary. A first tangible step in this direction would involve establishing an independent panel tasked with vetting members of the judiciary found to be corrupt or guilty of unlawful behaviour.

Ultimately, Libya needs a comprehensive transitional justice strategy encompassing criminal trials against high-ranking Qadhafi-era officials, appropriate vetting procedures and truth commissions. The Fact-Finding and Reconciliation Commission and its local branches should begin operating alongside the ordinary criminal justice system, tackling both past and current abuses.

“The severe deficiencies of the current judicial system are rooted, first and foremost, in the failings of the one that, in principle, it has replaced”, says Claudia Gazzini, Crisis Group’s Senior Libya Analyst. “Four decades of arbitrary justice under the Qadhafi regime served as a burdensome backdrop to the new government’s efforts”.

“There are many necessary cures to Libya’s endemic insecurity, but few more urgent than repairing its judicial system”, says Robert Malley, Crisis Group’s Middle East and North Africa Program Director. “There are no quick fixes, but taking immediate measures to restore confidence in the judiciary and enhance its capacity to deal with abuses, both past and present, would be a first significant step forward”.

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Libya’s track to security challenged by militias and the Mali nexus | Al Arabiya

By Oussama Romdhani

Despite all street protests against the bloody attack on the U.S. Embassy and the security measures taken by the government after the attack, violence has continued unabated in Benghazi. There has been even another attack on a Western diplomatic target. The failed assassination attempt against Italian consul Guido De Sanctis, on January 12, caused a stir.

“This attack will certainly be a reason of concern for many oil companies who are operating in Libya or planning to return to Libya,” the Tripoli-based analyst for the International Crisis Group, Claudia Gazzini, said. “It can have a negative impact on their decision to stay or return.” 

With Italy being the number one foreign investor in Libya’s hydrocarbon sector, this attack did not obviously help the Libyan government in its efforts to woo back Western companies. Only two days before the assassination attempt, Mohammed Megarief, President of the Libyan National Assembly, was in fact on an investment promotion trip in Rome. In December, Italy’s ENI was the second foreign oil company, after Algeria’s Sonatrach, to announce the resumption of oil exploration in Libya. 

FULL ARTICLE (Al Arabiya)

Photo: Ben Sutherland/Flickr

Capture of Libyan town smacks of revenge, not reconciliation | Reuters

By Marie-Louise Gumuchian and Hadeel Al Shalchi

Hours after taking control of Bani Walid, a former stronghold of Muammar Gaddafi, Libyan militias from the rival city of Misrata fired ferociously at its empty public buildings.

FULL ARTICLE (Reuters)

Photo: A volunteer for the Libyan Red Crescent on his way to Misrata to assist in local hospitals.

Credit: Internews Network/Flickr

Libya marks 1st ‘liberation’ anniversary amid tension | AFP

By Dominique Soguel

TRIPOLI — Libya celebrated the first anniversary of its “liberation” from the regime of Moamer Kadhafi, even as fighting flared in a former bastion of the slain dictator.

FULL ARTICLE (AFP)

Photo: Abdussalam Nattah/Flickr