Sunday, November 22, 2020

Libyan Monkey Business

BY J. MICHAEL SPRINGMANN  

Time to Take the Bananas Away

Libyan Monkey Business 2baad

The United States is, apparently, back to its usual 3rd World monkey shines, again targeting Libya.  Not content to destroy the country in 2011, murdering its leader, Moammar Gaddhafi, America is back controlling the selection of its new government.

U.S. diplomat Stephanie Williams, deputy head of the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), appears to be controlling the makeup of what will be the new Libyan government.   The Libyan Political Dialogue Forum (LPDF), an intra-Libyan meeting series, and apparent creature of the UNSMIL, compiles lists of possible Libyan leaders who will govern the country until the next election.

The UN, through Stephanie Williams, seems to be pushing selected people into the list of projected future rulers, apparently ignoring the real interests of the Libyan people. More than half of those chosen were supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, the rest neutral public figures.

Minister-Counselor Williams' actions are in keeping with her diplomatic and non-diplomatic background.  Once Deputy Chief of Mission (DCM, deputy ambassador) in Iraq, she served in similar positions in other sterling examples of democracy such as Jordan and Bahrain, as well as Political Section head, UAE.  In the past, she had attended the U.S. National War College.  (Before joining State, she had worked in the private sector in Bahrain.)

Naturally enough,  given American monkey business, the LPDF decided nothing.  On November 15, following a string of meetings in Tunis, the Political Dialogue Forum decided almost nothing except for the date of the next election, December  24, 2021.  However, Stephanie Williams, critical of Libya's political elite, did push for installing women in several high governmental positions.  Additionally, she ordered an investigation of political figures trying to bribe delegates for appointment to top posts.  One of the beneficiaries of this parceling out of bananas was said to be Fathi Bashagha, the Interior Minister.

While two-thirds of the LPDF participants voted against the exclusion of politicians who had held senior positions since August 2014, this was another failure because 75% of the delegates had to approve such a move.

However, despite a week of meetings in Tunisia having already taken place, Deputy Special Representative of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya Stephanie Williams told journalists in Tunis on November 15 that the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum would be continuing debates in a week's time.

Despite no agreement having been reached, Williams said the participants in the talks had "come together over significant issues in a very short period of time".

This appears to be diplospeak for failure.

After the LFPD's breakdown, political experts, politicians and ordinary Libyans now oppose the UN's activist role in resolving the Libyan crisis. Why?

- First, the Libyans saw the helplessness and uselessness of the UN.

- Second, Libyans have long lived under a feeble, corrupt government, which the UN imposed on them at the Skhirat, Morocco conference.

- Third, Libyans still remember the UN authorizing the destruction of their country in 2011.   This prevented the Libyan people from deciding their own destiny.

UNSMIL will continue to intervene in the Libyan political process, not to achieve peace and prosperity for its citizens, but to maintain its own inflated budget and back the political ambitions of its leadership.

Prior to the collapse of the LFPD talks, the EUReporter  had said "hopes had been high that the Forum would be the first step towards forming an interim government, electing a Prime Minister and presidential council members, and within 18 months those procedures would enable the country to hold the long-awaited democratic elections and contribute to stabilizing a fractured Libya."

Continuing, the journal said " But it is important to note that the stabilization of Libya seems to be not the original goal of Williams and her team. What happened at the Forum proves once again that the U.S. is not interested in real democratic processes in Libya, and that it has not abandoned its plans to subordinate the country's leadership and maintain manageable chaos in the region."

 Sensible, patriotic Libyans, want a dialogue about the future of Libya to take place in Libya, not in Morocco or elsewhere.  And not under the aegis of the United States or its pawn, the UN.  Many feel the city of Sirte, home to Khalifa Haftar and his Libyan National Army, is the optimal venue for such discourse.

WRITER

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