Mediaboss Marketing

Thu, Feb 18, 2021

MENASourcebyKarim Mezran

Geneva, Switzerland.- In the photos taken on February 5, 2021, the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum (FDPL), sponsored by the UN, managed this Friday (5), after two failed votes, to elect a transitional government, in charge of overcome six years of civil war and lead Libya to elections on December 24. The list of four candidates that achieved the majority necessary to be elected in the third round was led by Mohammad Younes Menfi, who will be the president of the new Presidential Council, while Mossa Al-Koni and Abdullah Hussein Al-Lafi will be vice-presidents, and Abdul Hamid Mohammed Dbeibah Prime Minister.

The Libyan peoples hopes have been raised and lowered by a succession of events so often in the past decade that it seems foolish to get on a roller coaster of emotions again.

A fact-based and precise analysis cannot be anything but negative toward the real possibility of Libya re-establishing its statehood, unity, and stability while acquiring, for the first time in its history, a pluralist, transparent, and inclusive political system. There are plenty of facts to support this conclusion.

The Libyan state, though not completely failed, is very limited in its governing functionalities. Authority is fragmented through dozens if not hundreds of armed militias, criminal gangs, and extremist groups. In addition, Libya is also occupied by countless foreign mercenaries competing for power against each other to pursue unachievable total victory. This was most recently exemplified by an attack on the city of Tripoli, the United Nations-backed Government of National Accords (GNA) capital, by the forces of former General Khalifa Haftar on April 4, 2019. It is a clear example of a dominant, foolish attitude even though the situation is a zero-sum game. Even if Haftars forces could enter Tripoli, how did they plan to control a city of almost two million inhabitants who are hostile to Haftars force? It would have beena Pyrrhic victory of epic proportions.

On the positive side, there are significant new developments that raise hopes for a reversal of the negative trend that has plunged Libya into the current crisis sparked by Haftars April 2019 attack.

The intelligent and astute ways through which the Acting Special Representative of the Secretary-General Stephanie Williams led the divisive, weak, and riotous Libyan political class to establish the Libyan Political Dialogue Forums Advisory Committee is noteworthy. On February 5, 2021 in Geneva, it resulted in seventy-five representatives of the Libyan people successfully voting on a list of candidates to numerous positions, including president of the Presidential Council, which went to Mohammed al Manfi, and Prime Minister of a new government of national unity, which went to businessman Abdul Hamed Dbeiba .

This is undoubtedly a major outcome for many reasons that requires some time before it can be entirely and completely assessed. Nevertheless, even such a success would not be enough by itself. Thankfully, it is complemented by the apparent and hopefully long-lasting realignment of most international actorsincluding Egypt, Turkey, Italy, France, and the United Arab Emirateswho have intervened in the internal affairs of Libya and brought it to near collapse through their respective proxies. The necessity to obtain the withdrawal of these foreign entities from Libya has been evident for a long time and has been pursuedby various United Nations (UN) special envoys and by Williams relentless but unsuccessful predecessorGhassan Salame.

This situation of widespread foreign intervention suddenly mutated in the late Fall of 2020 when a change of positions occurred in the capitals of the various stakeholders. Haftars military defeat and, arguably, the election of a new US president, helped energize UN mediation and allowed for a rethinking of their involvement in Libya in many foreign capitals.

Russia, which has its forcesthe Wagner Groupentrenched in central Libya, ignored the complaints of their former proxy Haftar by accepting to limit their actions to a defensive posture, and showed much more interest in dealing with the GNA and its Turkish protectors. Egypt, the main supporters of the strongman of the East, as Haftar is mockingly called, is becoming dissatisfied with their policy of full support for the general and is displaying a readiness to engage with Tripoli to find a peaceful solution.

This same attitude has been followed by almost all other foreign actors involved in Libya. This alignment of foreign powers has been brought aboutat least in good partby the new Joe Biden administration, after four years of a confused, erratic, and ultimately self-defeating policy led by Donald Trump.

Its worth noting that even though President Biden has done very little in foreign policy, having only taken office on January 20, it is the attitude and the posture of the new American leadership that the Middle East and North Africa are currently taking note of. This was demonstrated by President Bidens first foreign policy declarations, which were directed against Saudi Arabias and the United Arab Emirates actions in regard to the civil war in Yemen.

The Biden administration aims not only to defend democracy and human rights, but to return to an effective US foreign policy determined to retain the American global position of primacy. This includes defending institutions that have supported it and, in doing so, rallying US allies around a renewed vision of multilateralism. The elites of the various regional powers in the Middle East, which believed that they could continue to pursue their own interests freely and ruthlessly because the US was de facto disinterested during Trumps presidency, have realized rapidly that the climate was changing and that a change of policies on their part was more convenient and safer.

Despite its marginality and irrelevance for USs interests, Libya has come to constitute the litmus test of this perceived change in the world political landscape. If this perception matures into an effective and permanent policy to support negotiated solutions acceptable to the Libyan people, then their pessimistic attitude could turn into a cautious optimism.

Karim Mezranis a resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Councils Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East. Follow him on Twitter:@mezrank.

Fri, Dec 11, 2020

The politics of pandemics: Evolving regime-opposition dynamics in the MENA region.

ReportbyFrederick Kempe, Giampiero Massolo, Karim Mezran, Annalisa Perteghella, Emadeddin Badi, Yahia Mohamed Lamine Mestek, Hafsa Halawa, Abbas Kadhim, Gawdat Bahgat, Nadereh Chamlou

Read this article:
The Biden administration may have hit the reset button in Libya - Atlantic Council

TRIPOLI, Libya

Ahmed Maiteeq, deputy chairman of Libyas Presidency Council of the Government of National Accord (GNA), and Finance Minister Faraj Boumtari arrived in the eastern city of Al-Bayda on Saturday to participate in ceremony for approval of a unified budget for Libya, Maiteeq posted on his Facebook account.

Maiteeq said that he will also meet with Aguila Saleh, speaker of the Tobruk-based parliament, without providing further details.

This is the first visit by a delegation representing the Tripoli-based government to the east, which is controlled by warlord Khalifa Haftar.

On Feb. 8, the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) announced that rival Libyan parties agreed on a two-month unified national budget to allow for the newly formed unified executive to decide on the full budget for 2021.

This is the first time since 2014, Libya has one unified national budget, UNSMIL said at the time. The mission did not provide figures for revenue and expenditures in the interim budget.

On Feb. 5, Libya's rival political groups agreed during UN-brokered talks in Geneva to form an interim unity government to lead the country to elections this December.

*Ibrahim Mukhtar from Ankara contributed to this report

Here is the original post:
Rival parties to approve unified budget of Libya - Anadolu Agency

MISRATA:As revolution swept their region in 2011, three young Libyans joined mass protests against Muammar Qaddafis four-decade rule. They now live divided by Libyas frontlines, their futures irrevocably shaped by the uprising.

The first demonstrations against Qaddafis rule began in the eastern city of Benghazi on Feb. 17, 2011. A decade on, Libya is still split between rival factions, and shell and shrapnel holes scar its cities.

The UN has backed a new effort to unite Libyas warring sides through an interim government and national elections at the end of the year. But many Libyans remain skeptical.

Usama Ali Al-Aguri, a graduate from Benghazi, was unemployed in 2011 and at the time decried what he called the injustice that we suffered and heard of from our fathers and grandfathers.

As the fighting spread through the summer of 2011, he joined the assault on Tripoli. When he and a comrade went to reconnoiter an attack, Qaddafis forces spotted them.

There was massive shooting at us. I got a bullet in my leg, he said. His comrade was killed. He ended up in a wheelchair, paralyzed from the waist down.

He condemns many of those who emerged as leaders in 2011. The revolution has been stolen from the honorable people now in their graves, he said.

As the country fell further apart, he joined many others from the east in backing Khalifa Haftar, head of the eastern military forces whose push to capture Tripoli failed last year.

Al-Aguri said his injury changed his life. Now 34, he lives for his two children, he said, and for work he goes each morning to the cattle market to buy and sell livestock.

Hisham Al-Windi came from a family that did well under Qaddafi his father was a diplomat. But after taking part in protests, he learned he was wanted by police and fled to Tunis.

Traveling to the south of Tunisia, he crossed through a border post held by the rebels and joined their battle in the western mountains. I was several months in the fight, he said.

Al-Windi was among the first fighters to storm Qaddafis Tripoli compound. Wandering through the rooms where the leader had lived, he found an item known to all Libyans his brocaded military hat.

Interviewed that day on television wearing the hat, Al-Windi voiced his hopes for the future, briefly gaining international recognition as a face of Libyas uprising.

I wanted to say first that Libyans were not as bad as people thought. And I was also saying Qaddafi is finished and we need to rebuild, he said.

He now works in Tunis and is hopeful for change.

People say to me: You took part in this disaster. How do you like it now? Well of course I dont. But it doesnt mean you have to choose between Qaddafi and chaos. Revolution is a process. We must build a new Libya that we deserve, he said.

In Misrata, Malek Salem Al-Mejae, then aged 20, began to fight in 2011 when his city came under attack by Qaddafis forces.

That July, he, too, was wounded, losing a leg.

I was in the back of the truck. A missile fell behind us, he said. Some of my friends were killed. I received treatment in Tunisia, then returned to Libya.

He had hoped to see far greater progress in Libya than he has in the last decade, and blames Libyas post-revolutionary leaders for the countrys failure to unite.

Unfortunately the situation is as you see it after 10 years of wars. The politicians, who were entrusted with the task, were not up to the standard.

Continue reading here:
10 years on, Libyan revolutionaries live with wounds, unfulfilled dreams - Arab News

Defence Minister Salah El-Din Al-Nimroush has called on the United States and its allies to assist the Libyan government in its efforts to oustthe Russian forces deployed in Libya.

The Defence Minister's statements were made to the "white paper" presented by the head of the Democracy and Human Rights Foundation, Emadeddin Muntasser, to the decision-makers in Washington.

In the recently published white paper entitled "Biden Administration Options for and Benefits of Countering Russian Influence in Libya" the defence minister highlights the Russian threat to Libya, warning that Moscow's influence is expanding well beyond military occupation.

"This expansion is now taking the form of political and media meddling. Our planned elections are in danger and can only be protected by a robust and activist strategy that would involve support from our allies in the free world," Al-Nimroush said.

"With more support and resources, our conventional forces can play a leading role in defending Libya," the minister added, emphasizing that there is a genuine will to build a strong and reliable army.

The author of the paper Emadeddin Muntasser confirmed to The Libya Observer that the white paper was forwarded to the US National Security Adviser, "Jack Sliven "and other members of the US government, pointing out that this paper was also rolled out in government circles in Rome, Berlin, Paris, London, and Ankara.

In a similar statement to Muntasser's paper, the Presidential Council member Muhammad Ammari warned that "Wagner's forces will not abide by any agreement to withdraw from Libya."

"The Wagner Group provides the Russian government with the power and means to influence Libyan political, military, and economic policy," Ammari said.

The PC member called on the EU allies and the United States to assist in removing the Wagner Group "by all means possible and at the earliest opportunity," stressing that the Russian expansion is not only a threat to Libya but also to European and American national security.

Ammari indicated that the head of the Wagner Company expressed this in secret meetings with Libyan officials last June when demanding at least 30% of the Libyan oil revenues be allocated to Haftar, in addition, to declaring their desire to establish a military base in eastern Libya.

According to Muntasser, his paper has been adopted by the BBC as a source of information and recommendations for the documentary program it is preparing about the Russian Wagner forces in Libya.

See the rest here:
Libyan officials call on western allies to help oust Russian forces - The Libya Observer

TRIPOLI, Libya

Libya's interim prime minister arrived Friday in Tobruk to meet with the speaker of the parliament based in the eastern city.

The premier's spokesman Mohamed Hamouda said Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh would discuss with Aguila Saleh the issue of forming a new government for the North African country.

Since recent elections that chose the nation's temporary executive, this is the first time Dbeibeh has visited Tobruk, which is the seat of parliament and is under the control of renegade general Khalifa Haftar.

On Thursday, Dbeibeh met with Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi and discussed ways to enhance cooperation during the transition period in Libya.

Libya's rival political groups agreed on Feb. 5 during UN-mediated talks in Geneva to form an interim authority that would lead the country to elections in December.

*Bassel Barakat contributed to this report from Ankara

See original here:
Libyan PM arrives in Tobruk to meet parliament head - Anadolu Agency