Members of the Tripoli Rebels Brigade militia man a checkpoint in Tajoura, near Tripoli, on Nov. 16. (MAHMUD TURKIA/AFP/Getty Images)
Summary
The Libyan government will likely try to capitalize on public discontent to turn the tide in its ongoing negotiations with the powerful local governments, tribal leaders and their respective militias. Tensions in Tripoli are high after members of the Misrata militia fired on protesters Nov. 15, triggering an exchange of gunfire that left 40 dead and hundreds injured, many critically. The protests were in response to earlier clashes between the Misrata militia and local armed groups -- clashes that were themselves the result of a Nov. 6 incident in which a Misrata militia commander was killed at a security checkpoint.
Organized by Tripoli's religious and political leaders, the Nov. 15 incident reveals that the government, typically depicted as having few options to limit the role of militias in post-revolutionary Libya, is attempting to turn public perception against the armed groups. However, even if the public supports the central government's campaign to limit militias, the government faces a difficult and violent future as it tries to bring the armed groups and local governments under central control.
Analysis
The Nov. 15 protest was part of an organized campaign by politicians in Tripoli, including the head of the Tripoli Local Council, leaders of local mosques and the grand mufti of Libya, who called on supporters to gather and peacefully demonstrate against the presence of the Misrata militia in their city. The militia, which represents the second-largest city in the country, is in Tripoli to protect its interests and ensure that the central government adheres to the values of the revolution. The militia claims that the protest was cover for local rivals to oust it from the city. Indeed, militia members claim that people within the crowd fired at their headquarters first. According to the militia, the militiamen fired warning shots when protesters began to approach the building and started to fire into the crowd when the building was being stormed and eventually firebombed.
While the national government seeks to limit the role of militias in the political process, it has framed the conflict as a dispute between the Tripoli municipal government and the nearby western city of Misrata. Eastern Benghazi is most widely recognized as the source of opposition to Tripoli's nominal national authority, but there are several challengers to Tripoli within western Libya as well, including the towns of Misrata and Zentan and ethnic groups such as the Amazigh, who have halted oil and natural gas supplies from the Mellitah area.
Libya's militias initially relied on their popularity after the ouster of Moammar Gadhafi to justify their continued existence and to legitimize their attempts to shape the political process and secure a portion of Libya's oil revenues as their reward. This was seen most clearly in their increased presence around Tripoli when the Political Isolation Bill, which aimed to limit the role of Gadhafi-era officials in the government, was passed in accordance with militia demands. Now Tripoli's municipal leaders are hoping to use the militias' own public relations tactics against them. This was the case in eastern Libya, where in September 2012 large groups of peaceful demonstrators pushed out Ansar al-Sharia and its allied militias from Benghazi following the death of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens. Though Ansar al-Sharia did return a few months later, its presence and operations are much smaller.
Even if public sentiment has turned against the Misrata militia in Tripoli, the central government will still have a difficult time attempting to incorporate the militias, likely under military control, into a future permanent government. Regional militias and government security forces are relatively evenly matched, rendering force an undesirable solution for the central government to impose its will. In addition, financial incentives have had only a limited effect, as seen by the militia's willingness to halt oil production to pressure the General National Congress. Still, it is unclear how long the militias can resist the public will, or if the government can successfully unify the public across the country to force the militias to concede. What is clear is that disagreements between regions will continue to complicate the Congress' goal of unifying the country under a constitution. Although local competition and divisions help Tripoli ensure that regions do not pool their resources to challenge it, they also muddle the process of forging a unified national identity.
In the meantime, the embattled Misrata militia is likely to leave Tripoli and regroup at home. Violence between militia groups, while a threat to civilians caught in the crossfire, has not yet reached a level that would require the national government to try to punish Misrata through force. Nevertheless, the militia will probably leave before inviting danger to its hometown. Tripoli is in the midst of a general three-day strike set to end Nov. 18 as its citizens express their frustrations over the Misrata militia and other militias throughout the city. While citizens have not yet demanded that the government pursue the militia to Misrata, such an act would almost guarantee greater violence in the Tripoli area and would alienate several local governments and their militias, fearful of action against them by the central government and its allies, particularly in the east.
Currently, this conflict seems restricted to a few neighborhoods in Tripoli, but it may spur the government to expedite plans to incorporate greater numbers of militants into the national military forces. Tripoli announced Nov. 14 that 915 soldiers with links to the Gadhafi-era government had been expelled from the army, a key issue for militias, which oppose fighting alongside those who supported Libya's former leader.
Libya has experienced intense, localized clashes several times since the 2011 revolution, and each time the conflict has been contained. In this case, militias have an interest in not further alienating the public, and there is little desire from either side for a broader armed conflict. But past patterns of conflict are unlikely to hold as the political deadlock between the central government and the country's regional and tribal centers of power continues. The government will probably expand its use of public pressure against armed groups that refuse cooperation, especially those that resist joining or being supervised by the national military. With its recent success maintaining modest oil and natural gas exports in western Libya, the government could see a renewed threat to production in the western Sirte Basin from Misrata militants, though Misrata will face stiff opposition from the Zentan militia and other local tribes currently being paid to protect government forces in the area.
Events in Tripoli demonstrate that the framework that has limited violence -- very few foreigners have been harmed since the revolution, and critical oil and natural gas infrastructure has remained largely unscathed, even though production has been limited by various militias in the different fields -- continues to remain in place as all sides work to avoid a civil war. However, Tripoli will struggle to preserve these limits going forward, even as foreign governments pressure the nominal central government to codify its authority and be more aggressive in guaranteeing oil production and reducing violence.
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