All 44 resolutions were passed under Chapter VII of the UN Charter meaning that all UN member states are obliged to enforce them.
When studied carefully, there are three most common denominators in all 44 resolutions: “respect for Libya’s independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and unity”, thus effectively prohibiting any foreign meddling in Libya’s internal affairs; all urge other UN member states to maintain the embargo placed on Libya; and all resolutions call for a Libya owned and driven political solution to the crisis that is as inclusive and broad as possible.
On the ground, though, all of these UNSC resolutions implicitly and explicitly encourage all kinds of interventions in Libya, only to discover that such interventions are harming Libya’s progress towards peace and stability. In reality, the UNSC really did open the door wide for all sorts of interference in Libya from the very beginning.
As the years went by and Libya spiralled out of control with factions fighting for wealth and power, the UNSC kept adopting more resolutions despite all sorts of problems piling up that ultimately rendered them all ineffective. As early as 2014, the UNSC, its experts and Libya pundits identified three major hurdles as foreign interference in the country‘s domestic and foreign policies; the presence of foreign forces on Libyan soil; and the lack of accountability for states that breach any of the aforementioned 44 UNSC resolutions.
Basically, all of the resolutions were and are toothless because they do not provide for any kind of accountability for those who violate them.
The violators are well known, and they include almost all of the UNSC veto holders. They break the very rules that they have voted for — repugnantly in some cases — and get away with it. Yet the Security Council fails to even name them, let alone reproach or take any measures against them as examples to deter others.
Nevertheless, the UNSC resolutions kept coming while no members of the Council itself ever believed that they would be implemented in any meaningful manner. Furthermore, over the past 14 years, the UNSC has made the creation of more “mechanisms” and “entities” to help Libya an end in itself. Almost all such entities and structures have one thing in common: Libya is not represented in any of them, and if it does get a place at any table it is usually heard but not listened to. Astonishingly, two countries with a history of violating UNSC resolutions usually get places at any Libya-related table be it finance, government set up, unification of the security and armed forces or sharing of national wealth. Libyans are upset with the level of foreign meddling in their internal affairs, yet the UNSC does not appear to hear their concerns.
The Berlin II process of 2020, for example, produced at least three working groups with the stated aim of “helping to stabilise” Libya. The Security Working Group and the Economic Working Group. are sometimes referred to as “tracks”. Turkiye and the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) lead the security track. At the same time Turkiye is a violator of the UNSC resolutions and a major meddler in Libyan affairs.
Many experts designate Ankara as a “party” to the conflict because it maintains armed forces in different parts of Western Libya.
Egypt, another member of the same security track, is also a UNSC violator as it supports the other party to the current stalemate, General Khalifa Haftar’s army in the Eastern and Southern regions of Libya.
The other current UNSC member states include the African Union (AU), the US, Italy, France, the UK and Algeria. While almost all states do not, honestly and objectively, implement the various UNSC resolutions they almost all, with the exception of the AU, keep violating them one way or the other.
The Economic Working Group, or economic track, is co-chaired by the UNSMIL and the US and usually meets in Tunisia but only rarely inside Libya. Members of the group include Egypt, the US, the EU and UNSMIL. It is supposed to help Libya get its economy and finances strengthened but, in reality, the group members individually keep dictating to the Libyans what should be done through their country’s already weakened institutions such as the Central Bank. They even have a say in the country’s annual budgets and how the oil revenues handled by Libya National Oil Corporation, the major sources of Libya’s income, should be shared among Libyans.
The third group is the 5+5 Joint Military Commission, and is the only one of the three chaired by local generals. It is responsible for two major sets of security policy: maintaining and fully implementing the ceasefire agreed in 2021, and getting all foreign forces and fighters out of Libya. So far, the guns are silent but nothing else has been achieved. Foreign forces are still to be found all over Libya and the Commission has, repeatedly, failed to reach a framework or a plan to get them out. Lately, the US Africa Command (AFRICOM) has been taking increasing interest in the Commission.
To complicate the military situation further, all foreign forces known to have been in Libya — primarily Turkish regular forces along with Syrian mercenaries and former Wagner mercenaries — are still in the country. What is unknown, militarily speaking, is which African mercenary groups are still in Libya and how many there are. Former UN envoy Abdoulaye Bathily once made it a condition that the departure of African fighters from Libya should not happen if it means destabilising neighbouring countries like Chad and Sudan. Practically speaking this is impossible to achieve in the foreseeable future given the situation in Sudan, for example.
Every time the UNSC discusses Libya it fails to account for what it has achieved so far, and fails to pinpoint the reasons for the lack of any progress. Instead, it focuses on UNSMIL support and adding another resolution to the list if deemed necessary.
This vicious circle must be broken if any tangible progress is to be made in Libya otherwise more UNSC resolutions will come to no avail. They will make no difference to the Libyan people who are the real and number one stakeholders in their own country.
No comments:
Post a Comment