It has now been five years since Libyans began a revolt which ended with the overthrow of the dictator Muammar Gaddafi ending four decades of autocratic and bloody rule. Gaddafi, trapped in his hometown of Sirte, was horrifically murdered by his captors and his mutilated body put on display in a refrigerated container in Misrata, the port city which he had tried and failed to bludgeon into submission in the longest battle of the civil war.
The manner of Gaddafi’s death has become a metaphor for the unbridled violence that has overtaken the country. He left Libya with no proper institutions, no well-trained bureaucracy and no well-developed civic pride, save the historic rivalry of individual towns and cities, reminiscent of medieval Italian city states.
While the fighting was still going on, a temporary government, the National Transitional Council, was established in Benghazi where the uprising began. While the fighting continued, it acted as a relatively stable contact point for the international community. But with the peace, it chose to press ahead with organizing elections rather than use its mandate to appoint proper judges, build a bureaucracy virtually from scratch and establish robust civil society organizations. It made one other fatal error. Rather than reestablish the police and army, it paid the myriad militias to keep the peace. Against most predictions, the July 2012 elections for a General National Congress were a success. The sole task of the new parliament was to create a new constitution within a year. Tragically it did no such thing. The minority Muslim Brotherhood party exploited differences between the two main political groupings who ultimately abrogated their responsibility and boycotted the chamber. Unwise and bigoted legislation was forced through, including a law banning anyone who held any office under Gaddafi from continuing in public life.
After two years of failure, the GNC agreed fresh elections for a new parliament. When the Muslim Brotherhood candidates were trounced in June 2014, they revolted, seized the capital Tripoli and forced the new parliament, the internationally-recognized House of Representatives, to meet far away in Tobruk.
The United Nations has since been working to bring the rival camps together. Last December it managed the creation of a Government of National Accord. But this is anarchic Libya where everyone with a gun protests they are fighting for their country while in fact they are lining their own pockets, through people trafficking, smuggling subsidized flour and fuel or kidnapping for ransom. The result is an almost failed state in which the cancer of Daesh (the self-proclaimed IS) has flourished, ironically centered on Gaddafi’s Sirte.
The international community wants a new government in place so it can be invited to attack the terrorists. Though such a government was announced by its designated premier Faiez Serraj on Sunday, two ministers have already resigned and it is far from certain that the HOR will accept the new ministry. Panicked by Daesh so close to Europe’s southern shore, the Americans and their NATO allies seem certain to extend to Libya their air campaign against Daesh in Syria and Iraq. The terrorists are already infiltrating Tripoli and attacking vulnerable oil installations. While, for geographic reasons, Daesh may be more vulnerable to attack in Libya, this second Libyan NATO intervention is sadly likely to compound the chaos that already grips the country.
