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Libyans can mark the 10th anniversary of the uprising against Moammar Gadhafi (generally accepted to have begun on February 17, 2011) with something in short supply since Libyas 2014 descent into division and civil war: hope.

On February 5, the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL)-facilitated Libyan Political Dialogue Forum (LPDF) selected a new interim Libyan executive authority. This has created significant momentum. At the same time, the situation is fragile, and the next few weeks are critical.

A year ago, with Tripoli under siege by General Khalifa Haftar, Libya appeared irreparably broken. National institutions had by that point been long divided between factions in Libyas east and west, and bereft of domestic legitimacy. With oil exports halted, economic and social conditions rapidly deteriorated. COVID-19 and conflict conspired to greatly increase the populations misery.

Yet Haftars assault, which began in 2019 with significant support from the United Arab Emirates, Russia, and Egypt eventually created the conditions that then-U.N. Special Representative Ghassan Salam used to establish the political processes that now promise to put Libya back together again. With the United Nations Security Council paralyzed by divisions over Libya, Salam designed an international conference hosted by Germany in January 2020 to build global consensus that would provide an international umbrella for the three intra-Libyantracks, led by Libyans themselves.

On the ground in Libya, Haftars use of sophisticated weaponry and intelligence from his outside backers not to mention the dispatch of mercenary forces prompted the desperate Tripoli government to reach out to Turkey for help. In a humiliating reversal for Haftar, Turkish military support helped end the siege of Tripoli and chase his forces eastward. The de facto truce established in central Libya in June 2020, centered in the vicinity of Sirte, was a tacit acknowledgement by the outsiders that neither the Tripoli government, with its Turkish backers, nor Haftars forces, with his UAE and Russian supporters, could prevail militarily over the whole country.

Enter a so-called 5+5 framework. Ten officers (eight of them generals) five representing the Government of National Accord, and five appointed by Haftar were not strangers to each other: all served under long-time Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi. The calm on the ground in the summer and early fall of 2020 allowed the 5+5 to propose meeting face-to-face, with facilitation by UNSMIL. While they represented opposing sides that had received outside military support, the 10 officers quickly reached consensus that all of the foreigners needed to leave, to help de-escalate the situation. Given the large number of mercenaries and the increasing occupation of Libyan military bases, Libyans were fast losing the ability to decide their countrys future for themselves. The occupation of their bases had become an affront to Libyans who have long expressed suspicions about foreign designs on their country. This shared interest that Libyans not cede control of their country to outsiders led to the 5+5 announcement on October 23 that the de facto truce around Sirte was now a national ceasefire, with a 90-day deadline for all foreign troops to leave. (While some external observers continue to muse about a U.N. or other peacekeeping force, the 5+5 rejected Blue Helmets out of hand. Instead, they proposed a small, scalable civilian unarmed observer force under UNSMIL with a limited mandate to monitor the ceasefire and the withdrawal of foreign troops and mercenaries. They also insist upon the right to veto monitors with nationalities from countries that intervened in Libya militarily or deployed mercenaries.)

The Libyan public celebrated the October 23 ceasefire agreement, and the 5+5 soon became minor celebrities with their patriotic declarations and calls for national reconciliation. The 5+5 process created pressure on the politicians. If the generals could produce results that transcended Libyas multiple divides, why not the political leaders? The fractured institutions the politicians led were successful only in enriching their own networks, as the Libyan people descended more deeply into misery of economic deprivations and failing services, as COVID-19 raged. And in addition to the ceasefire, the 5+5 talks enabled a de-mining process essential to re-opening the important coastal road between Abu Grein and Sirte, facilitated several detainee exchanges, and enabled the opening of domestic air routes throughout the country.

Following a series of Track II meetings facilitated by the Geneva-based Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, the seeds were laid for convening the first LPDF meeting in Tunis in November and drafting the LPDF Roadmap. The roadmap acknowledges what nationwide polling consistently highlights: that Libyans demand the unification of the countrys institutions and national elections. The roadmap is grounded in the need to protect and promote human rights and to advance the principles of transitional justice, including accountability.

The LPDF itself comprises elected representatives from the two Skhirat institutions (referring to the hijacked 2015 Libyan Political Agreement negotiated and signed in Skhirat, Morocco), the House of Representatives (HoR) in the east, and the High Council of State. These elected representatives are rounded out by the so-called UNSMIL bloc, including a cross-section of political forces, youth, women, ethnic groups and tribes, and geographically diverse personalities. Notably, the LPDF included supporters of the former regime, the first major political event since the 2011 revolution to include the so-called Greens.

Not surprisingly, great controversy surrounded the selection of the LPDF members. In order to boost the forums legitimacy, UNSMIL created sub-tracks for women, youth, and municipalities, and launched a series of digital dialogues working with the U.N.s Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs Innovation Unit at U.N. headquarters. Five digital dialogues were held between October and February, with over 1,000 mostly young Libyans participating in each session.

This commitment to transparency deepened earlier this month, when the 45 candidates vying for positions in the interim executive authority appeared live via television and Facebook before the Libyan public. This was an unprecedented way to present their candidacies, forcing them to respond to tough questions submitted by the public. Any whiff of smoke-filled backroom dealings dissipated, with at least 1.7 million Libyans between a quarter and a third of the population tuning in. Unaccustomed to such public grilling of their political class, Libyans embraced what became known as the National Barbeque Session. In addition, UNSMIL required candidates to orally commit to and sign pledges to uphold the roadmap, commit to hold national elections on December 24, 2021, accept the outcome of the LPDF selection process, and in the case of the prime ministerial candidates, agree to appoint women to 30% of senior executive positions.

Unaccustomed to such public grilling of their political class, Libyans embraced what became known as the National Barbeque Session.

In parallel to these political developments, there has also been notable progress in the UNSMIL-facilitated economic track: For the first time since 2014, Libya has a unified budget. The Central Bank Board met in December, after a five-year lapse, to unify the countrys exchange rate, mitigating the liquidity crisis. And it has finally agreed to extend loans to banks that have been under the strain of a growing backlog of uncleared checks resulting from the divided banking settlement system between east and west.

All the key domestic actors including the usually contrary General Haftar have endorsed the LPDF process. Key external actors including the leaders of Egypt, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, France, and Russia have likewise lauded the developments. The United States joined with France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom in a joint endorsement of the LPDF process. Describing the LPDF results as an important milestone, the U.N. Security Council overcame divisions to issue a presidential statement welcoming the announcement of interim authorities.

For this momentum to be sustained, Libyan stakeholders and the international community must act quickly. As they continue the creative facilitation that helped the Libyans start to transcend their divisions, UNSMIL and the new special envoy to Libya, Jan Kubis, need to be able to count on the external actors who spent the past several years exacerbating Libyas divisions to pivot in support of the process in deeds as well as words.

First, Prime Minister-designate Abdulhameed Dbeiba should form a small, inclusive, technocratic government with a discrete set of tasks: deliver services to municipalities long starved of resources, provide support nationwide to combat the pandemic, invest in the electricity infrastructure to avert the predicted collapse of the grid in summer 2021, unite executive and sovereign institutions, and pave the way for the elections in December. Per the LPDF roadmap, Dbeiba has 21 days from his February 5 selection to propose his cabinet.

Second, the notoriously fractious HoR, Libyas parliament based in Tobruk, must endorse the new executive within 21 days of Dbeibas submission of his cabinet choices and government program. Ominously, rival HoR factions have unhelpfully issued competing calls for sessions, and the United Nations and the international community can help mediate to organize a single meeting. The parliament members should be persuaded to emulate the example set by the LPDF and 5+5 processes and put aside their differences for the sake of the country.

Third, the LPDF should seize the reins they assigned themselves as the guardians and monitors of the process and the executive that they created. The roadmap, to which the LPDF members consensually agreed in a November meeting in Tunis, is the critical marjaiya or reference point moving forward. LPDF members designed the roadmap to prevent a repetition of what happened to the 2015 Libyan Political Agreement, when status quo institutions (including the HoR) simply dismissed obligations to re-unify executive authorities. Anticipating that parallel institutions namely the current internationally recognized government in Tripoli and the parallel executive in Beyda could fail to disband in favor of a new unified executive, the LPDF baked fallback mechanisms into the roadmap: If institutions fail to honor the decision points and deadlines, the matter returns to the LPDF.

Fourth, both the new government and the international community must support robustly the High National Elections Commission. While technically capable, and a recipient of U.N. technical assistance since 2012, the commission will require additional help to conduct presidential and parliamentary elections in December.

Fifth, the countries that are directly interfering in Libyas internal affairs need to honor their commitments to abide by the January 2020 Berlin conference conclusions, United Nations Security Council Resolution 2510 (2020), and the U.N. arms embargo in place since 2011 and renewed annually.While the January 23 deadline set in November by the 5+5 security talks expired without compliance, those who dispatched forces and mercenaries to Libya need to respect a demand the Libyans consider binding and relevant to the success of the current process.

It is important to remember that the interim government wont (and shouldnt) do everything. Those selected for interim roles, notably the prime minister-designate, have courted controversy in the past. But the polling indicates that the public seems to have embraced this new united executive as a bridge toward the much-demanded elections. Given what is supposed to be its limited shelf life, the new government can sustain the legitimacy needed to oversee elections by keeping its work program modest and targeted immediately on improving living conditions and delivering services. The interim Presidency Council, selected on February 5, should seriously embrace the task accorded to it in the roadmap to launch a National Reconciliation program. There are some tasks such as decentralization that will require more time, and an elected government with popular legitimacy conferred by credible elections. As Desmond Tutu said, the only way to eat an elephant is a bite at a time.

Without question, the road ahead is challenging. A glance at Libyas prolonged agony since the unified institutions teetered and then collapsed in 2014 will cure even the most optimistic observer of believing in quick fixes. The aborted 2015 Libyan Political Agreement, applauded by many when signed, is a sobering precedent. Unsurprisingly, the current political process has thus drawn its share of negative, skeptical, and even hysterical analysis from both inside and outside Libya.

It is relatively easy to point to risks, weaknesses, and imperfections in the LPDF process. What is harder is finding an alternative path that does not squander the most promising moment Libya has had in years, with the combination of a ceasefire, various processes transcending Libyas divides, economic breakthroughs, and a population yearning to move toward elections. The roadmaps ambitious timelines will soon reveal whether the publicly televised oral commitments by current political leaders to step aside in favor of the new interim authorities were offered in good faith.

Going forward, the international community will need to curb the appetite of the Dbeiba government, work to limit armed group interference in the governments work, and push all institutions to produce the national elections. The LPDF will need to shoulder its responsibilities as the guardians of the process. The new U.S. administration, with a small investment and use of Washingtons convening authority, can help the U.N., as can the countries and organizations that participate in the Berlin process. With these concerted efforts, Libyans can perhaps usher in the second post-revolutionary decade with a measure of hope for increased stability and security and the holding of national elections to renew the democratic legitimacy of Libyas institutions.

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Can a political breakthrough mend a broken Libya? - Brookings Institution

Issued on: 17/02/2021 - 20:07

Can Libya move on? On the tenth anniversary of the uprising that would lead to Gaddafi's march on Benghazi and the French and UK-led intervention that would signal his downfall, the ensuing decade has been laden with tales of factional fighting, rival governments, proxy wars and migrant tragedies.

Now, a new UN plan raises hopes that Libya can reunify. Already there is agreement on an interim leadership, a common currency and the reopening of oil pipelines. What will it take to reach the goal of elections by the end of the yearand a disarmament that never happened?

Some are nostalgic for Gaddafi's Libya which was never a state like any other, kept together by an elaborate patronage system rather than a state apparatus. Others blame the current chaos precisely on that systemand on Western powers available to help topple a dictator but without much of a plan for what would follow. Ten years on, can a young, urbanised population take its own destiny in hand?

Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Juliette Laurain and Imen Mellaz.

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The Debate - Can Libya move on? New plan to end ten years of fighting - FRANCE 24

A decade after the overthrow of Muammar al-Gaddafi, justice has yet to be delivered to victims of war crimes and serious human rights violations including unlawful killings, enforced disappearances, torture, forced displacement and abductions committed by militias and armed groups, Amnesty International said today. Libyan authorities have promoted and legitimized leaders of militias that have been responsible for heinous acts of abuse, instead of ensuring accountability and redress for violations committed both since al-Gaddafis fall and under his rule.

The protests that began in February 2011 were met with violence and quickly escalated into a full-fledged armed conflict, which following an air campaign by NATO, led to al-Gaddafis demise. Since then, Libya has been engulfed by lawlessness and impunity for war crimes committed by rival militias and armed groups. Successive Libyan governments have promised to uphold the rule of law and respect human rights, but each has failed to rein in perpetrators.

For a decade, accountability and justice in Libya were sacrificed in the name of peace and stability. Neither were achieved. Instead, those responsible for violations have enjoyed impunity and have even been integrated into state institutions and treated with deference, said Diana Eltahawy, Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International.

Unless those responsible for violations are brought to justice, rather than rewarded with positions of power, the violence, chaos, systematic human rights abuses and endless suffering of civilians that have characterized post-Gaddafi Libya will continue unabated.

Unless those responsible for violations are brought to justice, rather than rewarded with positions of power, the violence, chaos, systematic human rights abuses and endless suffering of civilians that have characterized post-Gaddafi Libya will continue unabated

Since 2014, Libya has been fragmented between two rival entities competing for legitimacy, governance, and territorial control. UN-sponsored talks led to the announcement of a new unity government on 6 February, which has the task of holding national elections in Libya later this year.

We call on parties to the conflict in Libya and the incoming unity government to ensure that those suspected of committing crimes under international law are not appointed to positions where they can continue to commit abuses and entrench impunity. Individuals who have been accused of war crimes should be suspended from positions of authority pending the outcome of independent, effective investigations, said Diana Eltahawy.

Since al-Gaddafi's fall, successive governments have integrated militias under ministries of defence, interior or as separate entities answerable to the presidency and included them on official payroll.

In January, the Presidential Council of the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA) appointed Abu Salim Central Security Force militia leader, Abdel Ghani al-Kikli, also known as Gheniwa, as head of a new entity called the Stability Support Authority, which reports directly to the presidency.

Gheniwa has emerged as one of the most powerful militia leaders in Tripoli since 2011, in one of its most populous neighbourhoods, Abu Salim.

In his new role, Gheniwa and his agency will have broad - and vague -powers including law enforcement responsibilities, such as arresting individuals in national security cases. Yet Amnesty International has documented war crimes and other serious human rights violations by forces under his command over the past 10 years.

In 2013 and 2014, Amnesty International researchers found that detainees held by Gheniwa-controlled security forces had been subjected to abductions, torture and other ill-treatment, in some cases leading to deaths in custody. The United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) had similar findings, including concerning deaths in custody due to torture, while the Panel of Experts on Libya also reported attacks against civilians by these forces.

The GNA had already provided legitimacy and salaries to Gheniwas militia as early as 2016 by integrating it under its Ministry of Interior, further facilitating unlawful killings, abductions and torture, including sexual violence against women detainees.

Under international law, a military commander may be responsible for the crimes committed by subordinates if the commander is aware of the crimes, or should have been aware of them, and fails to prevent or punish them.

Gheniwa and his Abu Salim forces are not the only ones being rewarded despite their grim human rights records. Haitham al-Tajouri, who headed the Tripoli Revolutionaries Brigade (TRB) militia, which has been involved in arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances and torture, was appointed as Gheniwas deputy in January 2021.

In Tripoli, the Special Deterrence Forces (al-Radaa), under the command of Abdel Raouf Kara, were integrated into the Ministry of Interior in 2018 and then moved under the Presidential Council in September 2020 by the GNA. Amnesty International and other bodies, including the UN, have documented al-Radaas involvement in kidnappings, enforced disappearances, torture, unlawful killings, forced labour, attacks on the right to freedom of expression and the targeting of women and the LGBTQ+ community.

In September 2020, the GNA also promoted Emad al-Trabulsi, who led the Public Security militia, to deputy head of intelligence, despite the militias involvement in crimes against migrants and refugees, including enforced disappearances.

Successive governments have also failed to bring to justice members of Misrata-based militias responsible for war crimes including attacks against civilians such as the 2011 attack on the town of Tawergha, in which around 40,000 people were forcibly displaced. Misrata-based militias have also subjected its residents to widespread arbitrary arrests, unlawful killings, torture, sometimes leading to detainees death, and enforced disappearances.

The Libyan Arab Armed Forces (LAAF), an armed group in control of most of eastern and central Libya, has failed to arrest militia leader Mahmoud al-Werfalli who is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), for murdering 33 individuals, and instead promoted him to lieutenant of the Saiqa Brigade. Several other individuals against whom the ICC has issued arrest warrants on suspicion of crimes against humanity, or subjected to UN Security Council sanctions for their role in human trafficking, remain at large or have even fought alongside the GNA or LAAF.

The LAAF has also continued to harbor leaders of the Ninth Brigade, known as "al-Kaniat forces", despite their involvement in mass murders and the dumping of bodies in mass graves, torture and abductions in the city of Tarhuna.

Third party states also continue to hinder accountability. For example, Egypt continued to harbor ICC-wanted al-Gaddafi-era security chief, Al-Tuhamy Khaled until his death in February 2021. Turkey, Russia, UAE and Egypt have all been involved in violating the UN arms embargo on Libya.

In June 2020, with the backing of the GNA, the UN Human Rights Council passed a resolution to establish a Fact-Finding Mission to investigate violations and abuses of international human rights law and violations of international humanitarian law committed by all parties to the conflict in Libya.

Accountability must be a central component of the political process in Libya. All parties to the conflict must remove those reasonably suspected of war crimes and human rights abuses from their ranks and fully cooperate with the UN Fact-Finding Mission

Accountability must be a central component of the political process in Libya. All parties to the conflict must remove those reasonably suspected of war crimes and human rights abuses from their ranks and fully cooperate with the UN Fact-Finding Mission. The international community must also ensure that the Mission has the sufficient resources, administrative support and time to complete its work, said Diana Eltahawy.

Impunity has been deeply entrenched over the past 10 years. A 2012 law provided blanket immunity to members of militias for acts committed with the aim of protecting the 17 February Revolution. Libyas judicial system remains dysfunctional and ineffective, with judges and prosecutors risking assassination and abductions for doing their jobs.

Accountability also remains elusive for crimes committed under al-Gaddafi's rule, including the 1996 massacre of prisoners in Abu Salim prison. Efforts to bring Gaddafi-era officials to account were marred by serious fair trial breaches, torture and other ill-treatment and enforced disappearances.

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Libya: Ten years after uprising abusive militias evade justice and instead reap rewards - Amnesty International

By Elise Flecher

Senior Programmes Officer at Lawyers for Justice in Libya

When Jabir Zain stepped out of a caf in Libyas capital, Tripoli, in 2016 after speaking at an event promoting womens rights, unknown attackers bundled him into a car and took him away.

They kept him in detention for over two years, subjecting him to repeated interrogations and torture. Zain, who was targeted because of his work as an activist, remembers the experience vividly: The first thought that comes to ones mind when they put you inside that car is that Im going to die, he told Lawyers for Justice in Libya in an interview.

Zain was the victim of an enforced disappearance: detention by state agents or those working with them combined with a refusal to acknowledge or with attempts to conceal their whereabouts, and he is not alone. Thousands of people in Libya have been subjected to this crime, while perpetrators enjoy complete impunity.

This phenomenon is not new to Libya. The former Gaddafi regime disappeared opponents in a widespread and systematic manner to silence dissenting voices, subjecting many to unlawful detention, torture and extrajudicial killings.

Following the fall of the regime in 2011, the widespread use of enforced disappearances has continued across the country. To tighten their grip on power and territory, armed groups and militias affiliated to both governments in the west and the east have continued to target people for their real or perceived political opinions or affiliations, tribal links, human rights activism or identity.

READ MORE With Libyas surprise vote result, a defeated Haftar is back in the saddle

Cases have surged since the Libyan Arab Armed Forces (LAAF) launched an offensive on Tripoli in April 2019, sparking renewed fighting. One such case is that of Seham Sergiwa, a defender of womens rights and a member of the House of Representatives, Libyas legislative authority.

A group of armed men abducted Sergiwa from her home in July 2019 after she had been openly critical of the LAAF offensive. To date, her fate remains unknown. While Sergiwas disappearance generated international outrage and wide media attention, thousands of other cases go unreported.

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By their very nature, enforced disappearances create a climate of fear, impacting not only the direct victim, but also their families, friends and communities as a whole, who often spend years in anguish before they discover the fate of the disappeared person.

READ MORE Egypt UAE: Has Libya come between the longtime allies?

Families rarely report cases out of fear of retaliation, and the countrys already weak criminal justice system has been crippled by attacks on the independence of the judiciary, making it effectively unable to operate. Libyas legal framework also has significant gaps. While a 2013 law criminalized torture and enforced disappearance, it fails to comply with international standards and to address the needs of the victims. As a result, victims and their families receive no support from the authorities in seeking truth, justice and reparations.

In addition to amending its domestic laws to bring them into line with international standards, Libya should ratify the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances (ICPPED), which marked its 10-year anniversary in December 2020.

READ MORE Libya: After five years at the helm, PM Sarraj having trouble letting go

During a review of Libya at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva a month before, 16 UN member states recommended that it ratify the treaty. Libya reiterated its readiness to do so, and yet so far this remains an empty promise.

Taking this much-needed step would demonstrate a serious commitment to tackling this crime and addressing the broader environment of impunity that continues to hinder accountability in Libya today.

READ MORE Without Turkey, Libya would have plunged into chaos, says Foreign Minister Mevlt avusoglu

To date, 63 states have ratified the ICPPED, with only 17 African states among them. However, there have been some recent indications that the long-ignored issue is finally receiving the regional attention it deserves.

In August 2020 the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights began developing guidelines to protect people from enforced disappearances, addressing the lack of a regional instrument on the issue, and in November Sudan approved the ratification of the ICPPED.

As the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum continues talks aimed at negotiating a peaceful end to the conflict, Libya should seize this regional momentum, follow the lead of some of its African neighbours and ratify the ICPPED, sending a strong message to the victims that their voices have been heard, at last.

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Libyas enforced disappearances: Time to end cycle of impunity - The Africa Report

TARHOUNA, Libya

Wadah al-Keesh is used to handling dead bodies; fighters and civilians abandoned on Libyas front lines. But a decade after the violent revolt that unseated Muammar Gaddafi and after yet another year of fighting recovering people from mass graves in a town notorious for brutal violence against civilians is different.

The first body I touched, I felt intimidated, recalled 31-year-old al-Keesh, one of a 30-member government forensic team combing through Tarhounas fields and emptied prisons. The body was so decomposed that if you didnt carry it carefully, it would break.

It wasnt just the fragility of the human remains left out or buried longer than he was accustomed to that startled him. It was the eerie emptiness of the town.

During 2019 and 2020, Tarhouna became a strategic base for eastern forces loyal to Khalifa Haftar, commander of the self-styled Libyan National Army, as they tried to take the capital, Tripoli, from the internationally recognised Government of National Accord (GNA). When al-Keesh arrived in June 2020, the clashes had just petered out. Around 16,000 people had recently fled Tarhouna some 60 kilometres south of the capital and its surroundings.

It was a ghost town, al-Keesh told The New Humanitarian. People were afraid [to go back].

For years, Tarhouna had been ruled by a militia known as the Kaniyat believed to be behind a series of atrocious crimes, including torture, killings, and forced dissappearances. Among the many militias involved in Libyas civil war, the Kaniyat has the dubious distinction of having served on both sides. Led by Muhammad al-Kani and his brothers, it vaguely backed the GNA before switching in 2018 and retreating east with Haftar last June.

Since then, al-Keesh and his team have been trying to identify the dead and get a handle on what happened in Tarhounas secret torture chambers. Others are busy searching for relatives; at least 350 people have gone missing from Tarhouna since 2014. Many more most having taken refuge in eastern Libya wonder if theyll ever be able to go back.

For Elham Saudi, co-founder and director of Lawyers for Justice in Libya, Tarhouna typifies years of traumatic conflict in the country: Foreign powers meddle as they please; lawless militias see no consequences for their crimes; in the end, civilians pay the price.

Tarhouna embodies a horrible truth about Libyas conflict and the culture of impunity: a reality where armed groups commit violations and then leave the scene, she said. Then victims [are also forced to flee], pressured into accepting a reality that they didnt create.

Libyas warring factions have mostly kept to a ceasefire signed in late October, and earlier this month a UN-facilitated process agreed to an interim government. But many question the viability of this government, which is supposed to set the groundwork for elections this December. Key questions like who will run a united Libyan armed forces remain unanswered, as do calls for justice and reconciliation.

Timeline: Libyas decade of wars and displacement

This matters in Tarhouna, where grievances from Libyas latest conflict inextricably linked to those from the revolution against Gaddafi 10 years ago continue to simmer and could bubble over into violence yet again.

People are demanding a judicial investigation, said al-Keesh, who has seen firsthand the horrific results of what happened in Tarhouna. They want to know who is responsible for these crimes. They ask for justice.

For Saudi, before places like Tarhouna, and Libya as a whole, can begin to move forward, wrongdoers must be made to answer for their crimes something that hasnt happened at all so far.

There is a constant pressure to ask the victims to forgive, accept, or recover, and to be brave, and to take the steps necessary for reconciliation for the country, she said. But there is not the same amount of pressure on the perpetrators to be held to account.

So far, 139 bodies have been found across 27 locations in Tarhouna, according to Kamal Abubakr, head of Libyas Authority for the Search and Identification of Missing Persons.

But numbers dont tell the full story of what happened in and around the town, where the al-Kani brothers are accused of meting out cruel treatment to those who opposed their rule or who fell afoul of them in some other way.

People were buried alive. Whole families were eliminated, recalled Tareq Ibrahim Mohammed Dhaw al-Amri, a 48-year-old father of four who told TNH he was detained for more than seven months in a small cell in al-Daam prison one of several locations where the militia is alleged to have held and tortured people.

Today, abandoned clothes, socks, and photos lie on the prison grounds in front of a defaced mural of Mohsen al-Kani, another of the brothers, referred to sarcastically as the Minister of Defence.

The Authority for the Search and Identification of Missing Persons was established in 2011, both to identify human remains from the conflict that brought down Gaddafi and to investigate human rights violations during his 42-year rule.

While Abubakr insists the authority is neutral, it has received funding from the GNA and has been affiliated with previous governments. It sent al-Keeshs forensic team to Tarhouna in early June to look into the recently discovered mass graves. They have been working non-stop since, with bodies found stacked inside a local hospital morgue, left in prisons, and buried in a reddish-brown field that has yet to be fully excavated.

Former prisoners like al-Amri believe they were imprisoned because of allegiances that go back to at least 2011. Al-Amri took up arms against Gaddafi as part of a group that eventually found itself aligned with the GNA. When the al-Kani brothers joined forces with Haftar, that put him and his two brothers in the militias sights.

From time to time, they would take men from their cells and shoot them. We would hear the sounds of shooting, al-Amri recalled of his time in the prison.

Migrants of which there are around 600,000 in Libya were also kept in al-Daam prison, and were forced by the militia to carry out tasks they reckoned the Libyans couldnt be made to do, according to al-Amri and three other sources.

Faraj Asgheer, a resident of Tarhouna and a member of the recently created Association of the Families of the Missing, told TNH that a member of the Kaniyat militia had confessed that some of the migrants detained in the prison were used to bury the bodies of other victims.

They let them out for half an hour, enough time to do the dirty work, and then brought them back, Asgheer said. They exploited migrants to bury bodies, or load ammunition, and a lot of other dirty tasks.

Several Tarhouna residents, in addition to al-Amri, told TNH their family members had been targeted because of political beliefs that dated back years, because they spoke out against the militia, or because they had money or property the al-Kanis and their fighters wanted.

Abduladim Jaballa said 10 of his male relatives were either killed or went missing. They were targeted because they opposed the militia, or because their family had supported the 2011 revolution, he said. They were killing people, and then seizing their money and property.

People began to flee the clashes around Tripoli in April 2019 around 200,000 people across the country left their homes during the course of the conflict, including around 16,000 from Tarhouna and the surrounding district. By the current mayors estimate, the town itself has a population of around 70,000, but other sources put it closer to 40,000.

Many of those who left Tarhouna were fleeing the fighting and the constant danger as a Haftar base, the town was an important target to take back for the GNA. Some of these people have since returned to Tarhouna, although its not clear how many.

But others left with the Kaniyat as it retreated to Haftars eastern stronghold of Benghazi. Among those who left were those who fought with the militia, or were perceived to have supported it or benefited from the al-Kanis time in power.

Muhammad Ali al-Kosher, Tarhounas interim mayor, told TNH there are around 1,500 Tarhouna residents now in Benghazi and another eastern city, Ajdabiya, who he considers fugitives from justice rather than displaced people as he alleges they were involved in murder, kidnapping, and other crimes.

But much like some residents were singled out by the Kaniyat for their past and present political affiliations, some people who left their homes in Tarhouna believe they did nothing more than pick the wrong side.

I feel as if I am a stranger in my own country, said Muhammad Jibril, a 43-year-old mechanic who left Tarhouna when forces allied with the GNA took over mid-2020.

Initially, Jibril thought it was just a short-term move as fighters allied with the government had asked him to evacuate because rockets might fall in the area. I left with just a few things, he said. We didnt know where we were going until we reached Benghazi.

Now living nearly 1,000 kilometres from his hometown, he holds out no hope of returning soon. I am from a family that is loyal to Haftar, he said. And according to friends who have been back in Tarhouna, Jibril is now wanted by the GNA-aligned forces that run the town.

And then there are families like Nawal al-Tarhunis, split in two by the conflict.

Al-Tarhuni ran from her home amid last years clashes in Tarhouna and is sheltering with her two sons and several other displaced families in an unfinished building in Tripoli.

Half of my brothers supported the Kaniyat; half did not, she explained. [One of my brothers] went east, and weve not heard from him since. I still dont know if he is alive or dead.

Al-Tarhuni said the war had left her husband sicker, her sons traumatised, and her family torn apart.

Whatever reason people had for fleeing Tarhouna, returning, for most, is far from easy. Some fear retribution from their former neighbours and friends, while others have been put off by mines or homes destroyed in the war.

Those who do come back find a town where the municipality has no money and is unable to provide basic services the hospital has been looted, its ambulances stolen. Houses have been damaged or ruined during fighting, and with mines and other explosives left behind, danger could be around any corner. Al-Kosher told TNH he had asked for money from the GNA to get Tarhouna going again, but his requests have gone unanswered.

The fighting has largely ended, but after so much violence its not just families like al-Tarhunis who are at odds with one another. The town of Tarhouna, and Libya as a whole, remain bitterly divided.

Fear of falling victim to this anger is one factor that leads people like Jibril to believe their exile will become permanent. He has reason to worry. Around 48,000 people from the western town of Tawergha, mostly of an ethnic group of the same name, were forcibly displaced during the 2011 revolution. They were accused of having backed Gaddafi and participating in atrocities like rape and murder, even though most of those uprooted were civilians.

Despite reconciliation agreements that were supposed to allow them to go back, their hometown remains largely empty and destroyed, leaving them among the some 316,000 Libyans who are still displaced inside the country.

Libyan officials insist they do want to hold those behind the worst atrocities to account. Justice for war crimes, whether through Libyan or international judicial institutions is needed, GNA Defence Minister Salahedin al-Namroush told TNH.

But the truth, despite such comments and numerous calls to investigate or help from the international community is that any meaningful justice seems a long way off.

The International Criminal Court has opened an investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity in Libya from 2011 onwards, but its unclear if any cases will ever go to trial.

There has only been one visit from an ICC delegation, last December. A separate UN investigation, meanwhile, is stalled due to a lack of funding.

Read more UN cash crunch still delaying Libya rights abuse probe

For the time-being, local groups are unable to do much more than carefully collect and preserve bodies and evidence; both for their own records and for any Libyan or international trials that might take place at some point in the future. And even this is difficult.

Although bodies are being recovered from mass graves or other sites, the Authority for the Search and Identification of Missing Persons doesnt have the funding to test their DNA in Abubakrs Tripoli lab he said more than 6,000 bodies found across Libya since 2011 havent been identified.

In Tarhouna, of the 139 bodies found, only 23 have been identified, and that is by family and friends recognising their clothing or identifying marks. The rest are being kept in two Tripoli hospitals where some personal belongings are on display, in the hope that people looking for lost relatives spot a familiar watch or wallet.

Even as Libyas politicians talk optimistically of government formation and elections as early as December, Tarhounas recent past has already come back to haunt the present to the surprise of almost nobody here.

In late January, after the funerals of a few people who had been identified from the mass graves, frustrated locals burned down the homes of several families perceived as having supported the Kaniyat.

Saudi, of Lawyers for Justice in Libya, warned that moving forward without truly interrogating the past as the interim government seems now to be doing is dangerous and simply not good enough for a country that has been suffering conflict on and off for a decade.

A process that does not include vetting for human rights violations and war crimes at its core, its not an adequate process for the appointment of Libyas next executive, she said. The system is designed from the top down not to hold people accountable.

Hanan Salah, senior Libya researcher at Human Rights Watch, also believes it is a mistake to try to turn the page without greater efforts to reconcile the past.

Intermittent armed conflicts and political rifts in Libya since 2011 resulted in the collapse of central authority, the division of the country, and have prevented institution-building processes, which in return have had a devastating effect on civilians, said Salah. The process needs to include a clear commitment to accountability for serious crimes, as the failure to see justice done will impede prospects for durable peace.

Any justice must include people like 35-year-old Zainab al-Ganouti, who has been struggling to raise her six children alone since February 2018, when she says her husband Ali and his brother were kidnapped outside their home.

I need to find the body of my husband, she told TNH, having just filed a report to document his disappearance with the municipality in Tarhouna.

Today, she lives in their partially destroyed home, even though it has no furniture and not much else.

My children ask me every day [about their father]. What should I tell them?

With local reporting support from an individual whose name is being withheld due to security concerns.

All images by Nada Harib for TNH.

Voiceovers by Linda Fouad and Mohammed Ali Abdallah.

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A Libyan town reckons with its past horrors and uncertain future - The New Humanitarian