Le rivalità tra gli ex-ribelli bloccano il governo della Libia
DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK e KAREEM FAHIM
– Shamsiddin Abdul Molah, un portavoce del CNP, riconosce la debolezza del consiglio, bande di guerriglieri ammucchiano nelle loro città armi e prigionieri, come “bottino di guerra”; spera nelle elezioni come legittimazione di un nuovo governo.
– I vari gruppi di guerriglieri sono contrapposti da rivalità regionali e reciproca sfiducia.
– Il vuoto di potere impedisce l’unificazione del paese, il controllo dei civili sulle milizie circolanti, e delle armi che invadono le strade.
– Sono ad un punto morto i negoziati sulla divisione del potere tra i gruppi delle diverse regioni, tutti rivendicano maggiori diritti derivanti dalle sofferenze patite o dai contributi dati nella rivolta.
– Il tentativo di formazione di un nuovo governo, iniziato ai primi di agosto, è stato bloccato dall’uccisione del capo militare dei ribelli, il generale Fatah Younes, una vendetta per il ruolo da lui avuto nella repressione di una rivolta islamista nel 1996. L’uccisione di Younes, per cui non è in corso alcun procedimento penale, rappresenta un colpo oltre che per il CNT anche per la potente tribù a cui apparteneva.
– Il presidente del CNP, Jalil: la partecipazione agli scontri militari non è una misura per la rappresentanza nel governo; il Consiglio ha deciso da tempo di dare la stessa rappresentanza agli abitanti delle roccaforti di Gheddafi e alle città più ribelli: 2 seggi per Surt come 2 seggi per Tobruk, anche se Tobruk ha appoggiato la rivolta prima di Surt.
o I gruppi di Misurata mettono in discussione la rappresentanza internazionale assunta da Mahmoud Jibril, che è stato primo ministro e ministro Esteri;
o al suo posto come Primo ministro propongono un esponente locale Abdul Rahman al-Swehli, ingegnere che ha studiato in GB.
– I sostenitori di Jibril: Jibril ha procurato ai ribelli l’appoggio internazionale, senza i bombardamenti Nato, nessuna delle brigate di ribelli sarebbe riuscita a vincere.
– Anche i gruppi dei monti Nafusa soprattutto della città di Zintan (che ha patito un brutale assedio) vogliono avere più peso nel governo; dato che l’attuale presidente del consiglio, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, proviene da Al Baida, nell’Est, chiedono che altri posti di primo piano (Difesa, Interni, Esteri, Giustizia) vengano assegnati ad esponenti dell’Ovest (Misurata o i monti).
– Quelli di Bengasi rivendicano il ruolo di iniziatori della rivolta, e fornitori di armi e denaro ai ribelli di Misurata e dei monti Nafusa.
Gruppi Usa ed europei corrono ad assicurarsi pezzi di bottino della guerra libica
– Continuano in Libia i bombardamenti Nato contro le ultime roccaforti dei lealisti, a Sirte e Bani Walid, a fasi alterne di vittoria e respingimenti.
– La Nato ha autorizzato la continuazione della guerra per altri 90 giorni.
– Sostenuti dai governi Usa ed europei, i gruppi transnazionali competono tra loro fare per assicurarsi lucrosi contratti nel petrolifero, nelle costruzioni, vantaggi per l’export, etc. in una Libia devastata dalla guerra.
– È tornato in Libia l’ambasciatore americano Cretz, che ha partecipato ad una conferenza del ministero Esteri con esecutivi di circa 150 gruppi americani interessati alle opportunità create dal bombardamento Nato.
– Una settimana prima del viaggio di Sarkozy (e del primo ministro britannico Cameron) in Libia, Medef International, che rappresenta gli interessi dei gruppi francesi all’estero, ha organizzato una conferenza intitolata: “Il Consiglio Nazionale Transitorio e i suoi progetti”, ad essa hanno partecipato 400 alti rappresentanti di gruppi, da Total a GDF Suez, a Peugeot, ed altri alti papaveri del CAC 40 (la Borsa di Parigi), di studi legali, di architettura, servizi postali, società cerealicole, tipografiche, del tabacco, assicuratrici, il ministro francese Finanze, un rappresentante del CNP.
– Il direttore generale di Medef, Courtaigne, ha stimato in circa $200MD gli affari per la ricostruzione nei prossimi 10 anni, avvertendo che ci sarà competizione.
– Il ministro francese al Commercio: le autorità e la popolazione libiche sanno quanto devono alla Francia.
– Da un rapporto Reuters sulla conferenza: alcune ditte francesi stanno già facendo affari con i nuovi governanti della Libia (Soufflet, cereali, ha un contratto di fornitura per circa $22mn.; Alcatel-Lucent, tlc, e Sanofi, farmaceutici, stanno già lavorando in Libia).
– Total sta riprendendo la produzione dalla piattaforma offshore Al Jurf, costa occidentale, che opera congiuntamente con la libica NOC e la tedesca Wintershall; prima della guerra produceva circa 40 000 b/g.
– La UE ha comunicato che la revoca delle sanzioni contro NOC; ma ha deciso di non scongelare gli asset della Banca Centrale libica, della Libyan Arab Foreign Bank, della Libyan Investment Authority e del Libyan Africa Investment Portfolio, tranne eccezioni, tra cui i fondi per la ripresa della produzione e vendita libica di idrocarburi.
– L’italiana Eni, il maggior operatore petrolifero in Libia prima della guerra, ha firmato un memorandum di intenti con il CNP a fine agosto, con l’impegno per una rapida e completa ripresa delle attività di Eni in Libia, e per la ripresa dell’attività dell’oleodotto Greenstream, tra Libia e Italia.
– L’AD di Eni, Scaroni, ha dichiarato che tutti i funzionari del CNP con cui ha parlato gli hanno assicurato che gli impegni presi dal governo Gheddafi saranno mantenuti.
– La posizione di Eni sembra essere stata rafforzata dalla proposta, fatta dal primo ministro ad interim Mahmoud Jibril, a ministro del petrolio di un ex dirigente Eni, Abdul-Rahman Ben Yezza.
– La scelta dei candidati per il nuovo governo ha scatenato lo scontro all’interno del cosiddetto vertice dei ribelli, che comprende ex elementi del regime di Gheddafi, fondamentalisti islamici, vari uomini d’affari prima in esilio, politici e collaboratori dei servizi segreti Usa.
I guerriglieri entrano nella roccaforte di Gheddafi, alto il costo in vite umane
– Occupata dalle forze ex-ribelli, appoggiati da pesanti bombardamenti Nato, la città costiera Surf, una delle due rimanenti roccaforti dei lealisti; in fuga gli abitanti.
– Nei giorni precedenti gli ex ribelli erano stati respinti dalla forte resistenza delle forze militari di Gheddafi ma anche di cittadini, o per paura degli ex ribelli o perché lealisti.
– Croce Rossa ed altre agenzie umanitarie temono che la violenta risposta degli anti-Gheddafi alla resistenza, anche con bombardamenti, provochi un alto numero di vittime civili, mancano cibo e medicine.
– Il ministro Giustizia provvisorio: aboliti i tribunali eccezionali usati da Gheddafi dagli anni Ottanta; in discussione leggi per la separazione di giudiziario ed esecutivo;
Scoperte sepolture di massa con 1000 prigionieri uccisi nel 1996 dalle forze di sicurezza nel massacro del carcere di Abu Salim a Tripoli, una delle scintille che ha dato il via alla rivolta lo scorso inverno a Bengasi.
September 25, 2011
Former Rebels’ Rivalries Hold Up Governing in Libya
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and KAREEM FAHIM
– TRIPOLI, Libya — When the fighters who ousted Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi find caches of weapons from his arsenals, they do not entrust them to Libya’s new provisional government. Instead, they haul them back to their hometowns, like Misurata, Zintan, Yafran or Rujban. And when they capture members of the Qaddafi government, the fighters say, they cart them home as well.
– “Why shouldn’t we?” said Mohamed Benrasali, a Misurata member of the Transitional National Council, the interim governing authority. “We call them the spoils of war.”
Anwar Fekini, a leader from the Nafusa Mountain town of Rujban, agreed: “All of us, we do the same.”
– As the former rebels in Libya try to assemble a government to replace the toppled Qaddafi government, the quiet hoarding of weapons and detainees illustrates the fissures of regional rivalry and mutual distrust that continue to impede progress.
– It has been almost two months since the leaders of the Transitional National Council promised to assemble a new cabinet, amid recriminations over the still-unsolved assassination of their top military commander, and they renewed that pledge more than a month ago when Tripoli fell.
– But after meeting to try again on Sunday, the council’s top officials have still not overcome regional disputes over the composition of the cabinet, even though it is expected to hold power for only the first eight months after the official “liberation” of Libya is declared.
– This vacuum at the top is, in turn, holding back efforts to unify the country, exert civilian authority over freewheeling militias, and get control of the weapons that now flood the streets.
– Negotiations are deadlocked, council members say, over how to divide power among groups from different regions. Leaders from Benghazi, Misurata, Zintan and other cities all argue that their suffering or their contributions during the revolt entitle them to a greater voice.
– Some are also challenging the council’s current face to the world, Mahmoud Jibril, a former University of Pittsburgh professor of political science who has been serving as both the prime minister and foreign minister. He faces especially determined opposition from Misurata, a center of manufacturing and trade whose fighters endured a devastating siege by Qaddafi troops, and emerged as the rebels’ most potent force.
“Misurata, we will never accept Mahmoud Jibril,” Mr. Benrasali, a spokesman for the Misurata fighters, said Sunday.
– He faulted the prime minister for spending little time in Libya in the Qaddafi years and almost no time there during the revolt.
– “He is a source of tension, and not a unifying figure at all,” Mr. Benrasali said. “He should do the honorable thing and just vanish.” Some in Misurata now want to charge Mr. Jibril with “treason,” Mr. Benrasali said, for weakening the transition by holding on to power.
– Many in Misurata are now backing a native son for the post of prime minister: Abdul Rahman al-Swehli, a British-trained engineer from a prominent local family. “The next prime minister has to be a Libyan — a Libyan who doesn’t have a second passport, a Libyan who has lived in Libya for the last 42 years,” Mr. Benrasali said.
– But fighters from the Nafusa Mountains — especially from the city of Zintan, which suffered its own brutal siege — want a greater role in the cabinet as well. Noting that the current council president, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, comes from Al Baida in the east, they say that other top posts should go to westerners — from Misurata or the mountains — who they say deserve credit for ending Colonel Qaddafi’s hold on Tripoli.
– “Like Misurata, we are the ones who paid the highest price,” said one council member from the mountains, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss private talks. “So there is no question who is going to take the prime minister, the defense minister, the interior minister, the foreign minister, the justice minister — during this transitional phase, they should certainly go to the people who carried the revolution.”
– Meanwhile, residents of Benghazi, the largest city in the east, noted that they had started the revoltand had worked for months to supply weapons and money by boat and plane to rebels in Misurata and the Nafusa Mountains. “Benghazi carried the weight of the country through this difficult period,” said Shamsiddin Abdul Molah, a spokesman for the council.
– He said the council was now “weak” and deadlocked, and he acknowledged that bands of fighters were hoarding weapons and captives. But he said he hoped that elections would ultimately give legitimacy to a new government.
– Supporters of Mr. Jibril, meanwhile, say the deadlock results from a power struggle among Misurata, Zintan and the other towns of the mountains, and that Mr. Jibril played a crucial role in the rebellion by building international support. Without NATO airstrikes, they note, none of the rebel brigades could have triumphed.
– During a news conference in Benghazi this week, Mr. Jalil, the council president, rejected demands for allotting political power based on the toll of revolt. Though cities like Zintan and Misurata deserved “priority in reconstruction” and recognition by history, he said, “fighting and struggle is not a measure for representation in government.”
– “Membership in the transitional national council and the new government is a right guaranteed to all of us,” he added, and the council decided long ago to reserve as much representation for residents of Qaddafi strongholds as for the most rebellious towns. “We have two seats for Surt, same as for Tobruk, regardless of Tobruk’s early support for the revolution and Surt’s delayed support,” he said.
– Still, Mr. Jibril has been trying to name a new cabinet since early August, when the top rebel military leader, Gen. Abdul Fattah Younes, was killed in circumstances that appeared to implicate council officials. Summoned to Benghazi on suspicion of betraying the rebels, General Younes and two aides were shot to death — out of revenge, officials said, over the general’s role in suppressing an Islamist insurgency in 1996.
– The killing was embarrassing for the provisional government as well as for General Younes’ powerful tribe, and no prosecution has been announced. “It’s in no one’s interest to solve this thing,” a former rebel official said.
US, European corporations rush to secure cut from Libyan war
– Backed by the US and European governments that have spearheaded the military intervention into Libya, transnational corporations are now scrambling to secure lucrative oil deals, construction contracts, export opportunities and other profit-making openings in the war-ravaged North African state.
– The New York Times last Thursday reported that the returned US ambassador to Libya, Gene Cretz, had briefed reporters following a ceremonial flag-raising at the reopened embassy in Tripoli. Cretz explained that about a week after the so-called rebel fighters had won control of the Libyan capital, he participated in a State Department conference call involving executives from about 150 American companies interested in the new opportunities created by the NATO-led bombardment.
– “We know that oil is the jewel in the crown of Libyan natural resources,” Cretz reportedly later explained to journalists, “but even in Qaddafi’s time they were starting from A to Z in terms of building infrastructure and other things … If we can get American companies here on a fairly big scale, which we will try to do everything we can to do that, then this will redound to improve the situation in the United States with respect to our own jobs.”
– Cretz’s claim that “jobs” will be generated through Libyan contracts is absurd—the real purpose of getting “American companies here on a fairly big scale” is to generate profits. The ambassador’s remarks again point to the nakedly colonial character of the US-NATO regime-change operation in Libya. From the outset, the intervention was bound up with the imperialist powers’ geo-strategic calculations across North Africa and their economic interests in Libya’s oil-rich territory.
– The New York Times report on Cretz’s statement noted that it was “a rare nod to the tacit economic stakes in the Libyan conflict for the United States and other Western countries.” After reporting the ambassador’s claim that oil was never the “predominant reason” for the intervention, the Times nevertheless admitted that “his comments underlined the American eagerness for a cut of any potential profits.”
– The September 15 visit to Tripoli by British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy pointed to the intensified scramble among the NATO allies for control of Libya’s natural resources.
– A week before Sarkozy went to Libya, Medef International, which represents the interests of French companies overseas, convened a conference titled, “The National Transitional Council and its Projects.” The event was attended by about 400 senior executives from firms including oil company Total, energy firm GDF Suez and car producer Peugeot, as well as what Reuters described as other “top names in the Paris CAC-40, law firms, architects, the postal service, wheat companies, printers, tobacco firms, and insurance firms.” French Trade Minister Pierre Lellouche attended, together with a representative of the NTC.
– Medef International Director General Thierry Courtaigne spelled out what was at stake. Estimating the value of reconstruction opportunities over the next ten years as at least $200 billion, Courtaigne warned: “There will be stiff competition . . . Italian, American, English, so the French package has to be perfectly targeted, prepared and competitive.” He made clear that because Sarkozy had led the assault on Libya, French corporations were in a strong position, but he warned against complacency. “It’s interesting to see that France is benefiting from a favourable environment after what the president did,” he declared, “however, let’s be clear the market is not there to be taken but to be won.”
– Sarkozy’s trade minister was no less frank. “The president took political and military risks, and all that creates an environment where the Libyan authorities and the people know what debt they owe France,” he declared. “We aren’t going to be embarrassed by helping our companies benefit from this advantage.”
– A Reuters report on the Medef International event noted: “Some French firms are already doing business with Libya’s new rulers. Grain firm Soufflet has signed contracts to supply wheat worth about $22 million and Courtaigne said others like telecommunications provider Alcatel-Lucent and pharmaceuticals firm Sanofi were now working in Libya.”
– France’s Total last Friday announced it was resuming production from an offshore oil platform, about 100 kilometres off Libya’s western coast, which it jointly operates with Libya’s National Oil Corporation and German firm Wintershall. The Al Jurf platform was shut down in March; before the war it produced around 40,000 barrels of oil per day. It is the first major international oil project to recommence operations since Gaddafi was ousted.
– Last Thursday the European Union[e] announced it was removing sanctions imposed on the state-owned National Oil Corporation, facilitating the resumption of exports to markets in Europe. The EU decided not to unfreeze previously targeted assets of the Central Bank of Libya, Libyan Arab Foreign Bank, Libyan Investment Authority and Libyan Africa Investment Portfolio. Certain exemptions were made, however, including for the release of funds used for “resuming Libyan production and sale of hydrocarbons.”
– Italian oil giant Eni, the largest foreign oil operator in Libya before the war, is reportedly preparing to resume production. Eni executives signed a “memorandum of understanding” with TNC authorities late last month. The document pledged a joint commitment to “creating the conditions for a rapid and complete recovery of Eni’s activities in Libya,” as well as “doing all that is necessary to restart operations on the Greenstream pipeline, bringing gas from the Libyan coast to Italy.” Eni Chief Executive Paolo Scaroni told the Wall Street Journal that every NTC official he had spoken with assured him that the deals worked out with the Gaddafi government were “sacrosanct” and would be upheld.
– Sections of the Italian ruling elite fear being shut out of the unfolding carve up of their former colony, as retribution for Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s previous manoeuvres between the Gaddafi government and Italy’s NATO allies.
– However, Eni’s position appeared to receive a boost with reports last week that one of its former executives, Abdul-Rahman Ben Yezza, is set to be appointed the NTC’s oil minister. “The proposed appointment is also a sign of increasingly cosy relations between Libya’s new rulers and Italian oil firm Eni, present in Libya since the 1950s,” a Reuters dispatch noted.
– The NTC has several times postponed the announcement of an interim administration, or what NTC spokesman Abdel Hafiz Ghoga has described as a “crisis government.” Reportedly, there will be 22 ministerial portfolios and one vice-premier,
o but selecting candidates has stoked infighting among the disparate forces that comprise the so-called rebel leadership, which includes ex-Gaddafi regime elements, Islamic fundamentalist forces, and various former exiled businessmen, politicians and US intelligence assets.
– NATO is continuing to bombard the last remaining anti-NTC holdouts, centred on the towns of Sirte and Bani Walid.
– At least 7 NTC militiamen were killed yesterday and more than 150 injured in fighting around Sirte, Gaddafi’s home town. The anti-Gaddafi fighters reportedly entered the town centre over the weekend, but have since retreated to the outskirts. Al Jazeera reported that they were forced back by heavy resistance, though one fighter told the AFP that he and his men had been ordered to leave on Saturday evening “because NATO has a mission to do there.”
– A statement released in Brussels claimed that in Sirte on Saturday, NATO hit 29 armed vehicles, a firing position, two command and control nodes and three ammunition storage centres; on Sunday morning the AFP reported at least another dozen air strikes. The bombardment is no doubt further escalating the war’s enormous civilian death toll. According to Al Jazeera, a Gaddafi spokesman reported that “several hundred” civilians have been killed in Sirte. Reports are emerging of a terrible humanitarian crisis in the town. One resident, Abdul Nasser Sadiq, told the Independent that there was “no food, no electricity, no nothing.”
– NATO leaders last Wednesday authorised another 90-day extension of its Libyan campaign, raising the prospect of ongoing air strikes and other military operations throughout the rest of 2011, unless the pro-Gaddafi forces capitulate.
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Fighters Enter Qaddafi Stronghold City as Toll Rises
By KAREEM FAHIM
– TRIPOLI, Libya — Fighters battling Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s loyalists on Monday entered the coastal city of Surt from the east as residents fleeing the besieged city, one of the loyalists’ few remaining strongholds, warned of an escalating toll from the fighting.
– The foray by the former rebels, backed by a heavy bombardment from NATO warplanes, brought them to a traffic circle more than a mile from the city center, Reuters reported. In recent days, the former rebels have struck deep into the city from the west, only to be beaten back by heavy resistance from pro-Qaddafi fighters ensconced in the city.
– As the anti-Qaddafi forces have struggled to unify Libya politically, the continuing, pitched battle for Surt, one of only two remaining Qaddafi strongholds, has become one of their most urgent concerns. To declare an end to the conflict, they have suggested that they need to capture the city. They have struggled to do so, facing resistance from both Qaddafi troops and, residents say, from citizen volunteers who either fear the former rebels or remain loyal to the colonel.
– And the frustrated response by the anti-Qaddafi fighters — including pounding the city with heavy weapons — has raised fears of a mounting civilian toll. The International Committee for the Red Cross and other aid agencies have warned that food and medical supplies are running short and have told the combatants to avoid civilian casualties.
– A doctor interviewed by The Associated Press, Eman Mohammed, said that many of the recent wounds at the city’s central Ibn Sina Hospital seemed to have been caused by shelling by the former rebels. There was no oxygen in the operating rooms, she said, and few staff members to treat patients.
– Moussa Ibrahim, a spokesman for Colonel Qaddafi, told Reuters on Monday that he had been moving in and out of the besieged city, despite the fact that anti-Qaddafi fighters surround it on three sides. As for Colonel Qaddafi, Mr. Ibrahim declined to comment on his whereabouts, telling Reuters that the deposed leader was “very happy that he is doing his part in this great saga of the resistance.”
– Mr. Ibrahim has claimed that NATO bombings in Surt are killing hundreds of people.
– The new government in Tripoli continued Monday to try to sweep away other vestiges of the Qaddafi era. Mohammed al-Alagi, the provisional justice minister, said that exceptional courts that had been used by the Qaddafi government since the 1980s, primarily to prosecute dissidents, were being abolished.
– Mr. Alagi also said the Libyan authorities were passing laws that, for the first time in decades, would ensure a separation of powers between the judiciary and executive branches.
– The interim government also said that a mass grave containing the bodies of more than 1,000 inmates killed by security forces during a massacre at the Abu Salim prison in Tripoli in 1996 had been found on Sunday, Reuters reported. The rebellion that toppled Colonel Qaddafi was ignited by protests in Benghazi last winter that were linked in part to the massacre.
And in New York, the interim prime minister, Mahmoud Jibril, thanked the United Nations for intervening to save civilians in Libya.
– He also asked again that the country’s billions in dollars of global assets be unfrozen in order to assure the country’s stability in the immediate future. Libyans are demanding all kinds of services from the interim government, ranging from housing to electricity to food to freeing the country of weapons.
Neil MacFarquhar contributed reporting from the United Nations.