A year ago, we concluded that the political agreement would not persist because the undersigned politicians did not have the authority over the armed forces and militias. A report by the International Crisis Group from 4 November reached the same conclusion — namely that the Skhirat Agreement has reached a dead end.
A year ago, we concluded that the political agreement would not persist because the undersigned politicians did not have the authority over the armed forces and militias. A report by the International Crisis Group from 4 November reached the same conclusion — namely that the Skhirat Agreement has reached a dead end.
The agreement, in fact, reached a dead end once the Presidential Council sneaked from Tunisia into the Libyan capital, Tripoli, on a frigate and settled in Busta naval base guarded by Tripoli militias against other militias. Both militias soon started fighting one another, which created precarious security situations: abductions for blackmailing, political or provincial disputes, forced robbery, armed looting, targeted assassination, killing and rape. The Presidential Council remained besieged in its narrow security circle unable to play its role in providing solutions to the people’s urgent everyday problems, such as the lack of liquidity in banks.
When Fayez al-Sarraj realized that his Presidential Council was helpless, he went to London in late October to attend an economic meeting organized by western sponsors to support the council politically and economically.
In a press interview with Libya Herald website, al-Sarraj said that the Presidential Council of the Government of National Accord had been crippled by the four spoilers, as he called them: Marshal Khalifa Haftar, because he is, in al-Sarraj’s opinion, responsible for the military escalation; Advisor Aguila Saleh, because his maneuvers in the parliament to block the Skhirat Agreement led to a political deadlock; Sadiq al-Kabir, chairman of the Central Bank, because he refuses to provide GNA with funds; and Mufti Sadiq al-Ghariani, because of his extremist fatwas.
Objectively speaking, Al-Sarraj might be right regarding the obstacles he is facing. However, he is ignoring the fact that some, or the most important, of those he mentioned, reflect wide popular rejection of Skhirat Agreement throughout the country. This indicates that the crisis lies in the agreement not in those hindering it. He says he cannot deal with them because he does not possess the tools they have: money, media and religious authority.
Militarily, he can only rely on what he terms as “benign” militias that are able to cooperate and are protecting the Council in the naval base. He thus overlooks the execution of the security arrangements defined by the political agreement to drive the militias out of the capital particularly. Consequently, as he said, he could only apologize for letting the people down and for the Presidential Council’s inability to meet their big expectations in improving the situations due to the lack of necessary financial resources.
The economic meeting in London had three objectives, defined by Peter Millett, the British Ambassador to Libya as follows: emphasizing the international support of the Libyan political agreement and speeding up its execution, finding solutions to the country’s economic problems by providing basic services for Libyan citizens and finally, facilitating the increase of oil revenues and using them to improve the situation for citizens.
Nevertheless, opponents of al-Sarraj’s government used the London meeting to consolidate their rejection of the Skhirat Agreement. They considered the meeting a conspiracy by the West to have custody of the Libyan funds frozen abroad.
Factual analyses show that what made the Skhirat Agreement a dead instrument is the western sponsors’ insistence on it (the USA, France and Great Britain). They are continuously trying to revive it while ignoring the fact that it is an agreement imposed on Libyans from abroad. It represents the desires and interest of those intervening in Libya including westerners, some Arabs and a group of Libyan personalities prioritizing their personal, group and provincial interests.
The result is an agreement ignoring the real power on the ground. Thus, signing the agreement as a successful prescription for the accord means in reality aggravating the crisis and deepening the schism. According to the International Crisis Group’s report, the solution requires an urgent launch of new negotiations involving mainly the security personnel (warlords) to amend the Skhirat Agreement and reach a new agreement based on an accord of the armed groups.
However, it is very difficult to establish dialogue among so many warlords fighting each other. The reality of the armed conflict does not allow a stable political solution. This means waiting for one unified military force to take over Tripoli region and another force controlling Fezzan region, just like Haftar’s forces controlling the Cyrenaica region. Only then can there be a serious talk about a possible accord among the military leaders in the three regions. The aim would be to agree on a unified military leadership to reorganize the Libyan Army based on a national doctrine, activate its disarmament tasks, dismantle the militias, integrate its personnel into the security and military institution, fight terrorism and impose security in the cities with the assistant of the police forces.
Thus, all the political and civil society powers and community leaders will have the opportunity to meet inside Libya, on the ground, in a Libyan-Libyan dialogue to reach consensus on a transition roadmap to produce a constitution and organize elections.
