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BRIEFING PAPER

Number CBP 8314, 18 May 2018

Libya: the consequences of a failed state

By Richard Ware

Contents: 1. The concept of a failed state

and why it matters 2. Why did Libya disintegrate

after 2011? 3. Consequences and

implications for the UK, the EU, Africa and the Middle East

4. Rebuilding Libya 5. UK involvement and

implications 6. The future

2 Libya: the consequences of a failed state

Contents Summary 3

1. The concept of a failed state and why it matters 4

2. Why did Libya disintegrate after 2011? 6 2.1 Emergence of the Libyan state 6 2.2 Tribal politics 6 2.3 Was foreign intervention to blame? 7 2.4 A failure of EU strategy? 8

3. Consequences and implications for the UK, the EU, Africa and the Middle East 10

3.1 Migration 10 3.2 Extremists 11 3.3 Oil and the Libyan economy 12

4. Rebuilding Libya 13 4.1 The Skhirat Agreement 13 4.2 The UN Process 13

5. UK involvement and implications 15

6. The future 18

Cover page image copyright ECHO/DDG - Mine clearance Sirte by European Commission DG ECHO . Licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0 / image cropped.

3 Commons Library Briefing, 18 May 2018

Summary Since the overthrow of Colonel Gadaffi in 2011, Libya has joined a long list of “failed” or “fragile” states around the world, that is, states riven by internal dissent and without effective national government. In the case of Libya there have been rival governments based in Tripoli and Tobruk for several years, while a large part of the country is controlled by neither.

One of the effects of state failure is that neither Libyan authorities nor international agencies are able to offer effective protection and support for approximately half a million displaced Libyans who are either displaced internally or have returned from abroad. Similarly there are around two-thirds of a million non-Libyan migrants in the country who originate from elsewhere in Africa (mostly) and aspire to reach Europe. There are many reports of migrants and refugees alike being systematically mistreated and exploited.

Another effect of absent or weak government is that Libya has become a base for extremist Islamic groups, including elements of ISIS displaced from Iraq and Syria.

The United Nations, with diplomatic support from the EU, African Union and League of Arab States, is trying to broker a political dialogue that would result in new elections before the end of 2018 and the formation of a single unity government. To date there has been only limited progress.

To pave the way for successful elections and the rebuilding of a single set of national institutions it seems necessary not only to bring together the main tribal groups that still carry sway in Libyan politics, but also to align the foreign countries that have interests in Libya and support rival claimants for power.

Map courtesy of University of Texas

4 Libya: the consequences of a failed state

1. The concept of a failed state and why it matters

The concept of the failed state entered common currency in the 1990s, with Somalia as the best-known example. The failed state was said to be characterised by internal disintegration, the breakdown of structures guaranteeing law and order, and the absence of any one body capable of representing the government of the state externally.

Daniel Thurer, writing in 1999, described the legal implications from the perspective of the International Red Cross:

From a legal point of view, it could be said that the “failed State” is one which, though retaining legal capacity, has for all practical purposes lost the ability to exercise it. A key element in this respect is the fact that there is no body which can commit the State in an effective and legally binding way, for example, by concluding an agreement.

Thurer went on to ascribe the emergence of “failed states” in the late twentieth century to three primary causes:

• The end of the cold war, during which the USA and USSR had artificially propped up many weak regimes

• The legacy of colonialism which had destroyed traditional structures without providing an effective identity for newly independent states

• “Modernisation” encouraging a new social and geographical mobility

In the twentieth century an additional cause of failed states has emerged: the vacuum left by the removal of an authoritarian regime, often, but not necessarily, following foreign military intervention.

At the same time many have found the term “failed state” too simplistic. States may have failed in different respects and to different degrees.1 The term “fragile state” is often now preferred. However, the number of states that demonstrate some or all of the characteristics of “failure” has grown. This is partly because the apparatus of government may collapse relatively quickly under pressure, but takes a long time to rebuild. It may also reflect the long-term erosion of the legitimacy of some of the artificially created states which were the successors to colonial empires.

Of the 25 countries which top the “Fragile States” index of the US Fund for Peace think tank, 18 are in Africa, 6 in Asia and one (Haiti) in the Americas.

Libya joined the various lists of failed states following the removal of Col Gaddafi in 2011.

The Foreign Affairs Committee, in its September 2016 report, described the collapse of Libya in the following terms:

Muammar Gaddafi spent 40 years building an authoritarian regime in Libya. When his Administration collapsed in October 2011, security, basic governmental services and the rule of law collapsed with it. Alison Pargeter told us that “Libya was a country with no institutions to speak of. When you took Gaddafi away, you took everything away.

There were attempts at stabilisation with foreign assistance, but The Economist commented 8 January 2015 under the headline “The next failed state”:

Libya is slipping fast—and its chaotic decline, like that in Syria, is already drawing in outsiders and posing a threat to the West.

1 For example, “The Concept, Causes and Consequences of Failed States: A Critical Review of the Literature and Agenda

for Research with Specific Reference to Sub-Saharan Africa” 2010, published on the DFID website at https://www.gov.uk/dfid-research-outputs/the-concept-causes-and-consequences-of-failed-states-a-critical-review-of-the-literature-and-agenda-for-research-with-specific-reference-to-sub-saharan-africa.

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More recently the Financial Times2 has quoted Emma Whiteacre, a specialist in political risk assessment, as describing Libya as “the very definition of a failed state... The country is broadly lawless and violent attacks are carried out with impunity. The Islamic State, al-Qaeda-linked groups, foreign fighters and traffickers target government interests and civilians alike."

Another common feature of failed states is that there is a high level of internal population displacement caused by civil conflict and economic failure.

The Foreign Affairs Committee reported in September 2016: In 2016, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimated that out of a total Libyan population of 6.3 million, 3 million people have been impacted by the armed conflict and political instability, and that 2.4 million people require protection and some form of humanitarian assistance.

The failure of the Libyan state is of fundamental importance to Europe for several reasons: it has become a gateway for unmanaged refugee flows from the whole of Africa across the Mediterranean; it provides a base for international terrorism and other international crime; and it leads to violence and suffering that spill over into and destabilise neighbouring states.

2 13 March 2018

6 Libya: the consequences of a failed state

2. Why did Libya disintegrate after 2011?

2.1 Emergence of the Libyan state There were prosperous Phoenician, Greek and Roman colonies along what is now the Libyan Mediterranean coast in ancient times. The interior was less arid than now and had been inhabited since the Bronze Age by Berber people. By the sixteenth century the whole of present-day Libya had been incorporated into the Ottoman Turkish Empire as the three separate provinces of Tripolitania, Fezzan and Cyrenaica, but the coastal cities were largely lawless, engaging freely in Mediterranean piracy, while the desert had a very low permanent population and few effective borders.

As the Ottoman Empire became weaker in the late nineteenth century, the European powers competed to replace it in North Africa. Italy, which lacked an empire, took the lead in Libya, because of its geographical proximity. It seized the three Libyan provinces in a short war of 1911 and, like France in neighbouring Algeria, began to settle an Italian population along the coast. It never gained stable control of the interior and was resisted fiercely by the Tuareg and other tribal peoples.

Britain and France shared the administration of “Italian” Libya from 1943 until 1951 when Libya became independent as a single kingdom. The first and only King, Idris, had been the head of the Senussi, a tribe but also a Moslem Sufi Order and had led resistance to the Italian occupation. King Idris ruled until 1969 when he was overthrown by a group of army officers led by Muammar Gadaffi.

This very brief summary indicates that modern Libya has only a short history of statehood and has never been easy to govern. It has neither the geography nor the history of well-established nation state: it has always been subject to foreign influences and invasions, there is a cultural and physical gulf between the coastal cities and the vast interior, and there has been no tradition of democracy.

2.2 Tribal politics The vacuum caused by the fall of Gadaffi has been filled at least in part by a return to tribal politics, a trend which has been seen in other Arab countries in recent years. A D Miller sets this in the broader regional context:

It has been said about the Arab states that, with the exception of Egypt, the rest are all essentially tribes with flags. One might put it more delicately today, but the idea that sectarian and ethnic identity, rather than national affiliation, is the driving organizing principle in much of Arab politics is an undeniable reality. This is not to suggest that national identity has been absent in Arab lands — the question is whether it will ever come first over these other loyalties.

When these societies undergo stress — particularly in a place like Syria, where Assad is purposefully exploiting sectarian divides — it’s loyalty to the tribe, family, sect, and religious group that provides the primary source of identity and organization. We’ve seen this in Iraq, where Shias displaced Sunnis as the dominant power, and we’re seeing it again in Syria, where Sunnis look to get even with Alawites. Meanwhile, the Kurds in both Syria and Iraq are quite naturally looking to their own interests — not to those of the so-called nation.

(…)

In Libya, tribal and provincial rivalries are now preventing any meaningful centralized authority.3

The ethnic and tribal composition of Libya has always been complex and there is a lack of up to date reliable analysis. The majority of the population speak a dialect of Arabic and regard themselves as belonging to the larger Arab nation, but may also have Berber or Turkish ancestry.

3 “Tribes with Flags”, Foreign Policy, 27 February 2013

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Within the Arab-Berber population there are many tribal identities, some of which were originally associated with particular areas and others nomadic, but urbanisation is likely to have weakened the traditional tribal ties. Around two-third of the population now live in cities of 100,000 or more people.

There is also some religious diversity within the overall picture of Sunni Islam. In the later nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century the Senussi were highly influential. Founded by Mohammed ibn Ali as-Senussi (who originated in Algeria) in 1837 this was a Sufi Order which developed into a dynasty or clan, to some extent transcending other tribal loyalties. The Senussi Order was suppressed by both the Italian colonisers and the Gadaffi regime. It has re-emerged since 2011, but has to compete with more conservative Salafi influences.

There are also non-Arab-speaking tribes, in particular Nafusi Berbers in Tripolitania, the Tuareg (who form another branch of the Berbers) in the western Fezzan and the Toubou (or Tebu) in south-eastern Libya. These groups all have links across Libya’s borders: the Nafusi with the Berbers of Algeria; the Tuareg with Mali; and the Toubou with Chad. They were also all suppressed to varying degrees under the Gadaffi regime (the Toubou being denied Libyan citizenship entirely) and therefore joined actively in the overthrow of Gadaffi in 2010-11.

The fracturing of Libya since 2011 has reflected these and other divisions. Since 2014 there have been separate and rival centres of power in the East (Benghazi and Tobruk) and West (Tripoli and Misrata), the south remaining largely ungovernable with Islamic extremist elements that spill over into neighbouring countries. There are two national armies, but also many local militias whose loyalties are sometimes uncertain. Militias fight under shifting political labels which do not communicate their tribal allegiances. In some cases this may be because participants no longer feel a tribal allegiance, or subjugate it to a higher cause. In other cases it may be because two or more tribal groups have become allies and need a new banner.

A participant in the Chatham House working group on Libya commented in April 2015 that “the concept of two distinct, unified sides was misleading; there were multiple players, with some 400 different militias operating in the country”.4

2.3 Was foreign intervention to blame? The Foreign Affairs Committee report of September 2016 was forthright in allocating blame for the state of Libya, concluding in its summary:

In March 2011, the United Kingdom and France, with the support of the United States, led the international community to support an intervention in Libya to protect civilians from attacks by forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi. This policy was not informed by accurate intelligence. In particular, the Government failed to identify that the threat to civilians was overstated and that the rebels included a significant Islamist element. By the summer of 2011, the limited intervention to protect civilians had drifted into an opportunist policy of regime change. That policy was not underpinned by a strategy to support and shape post-Gaddafi Libya. The result was political and economic collapse, inter-militia and inter-tribal warfare, humanitarian and migrant crises, widespread human rights violations, the spread of Gaddafi regime weapons across the region and the growth of ISIL in North Africa. Through his decision making in the National Security Council, former Prime Minister David Cameron was ultimately responsible for the failure to develop a coherent Libya strategy.

In its response to the report, published in November 2016, the Government rejected these conclusions, but it found common ground with the Committee in its analysis of some of the factors that had led to the collapse of state power in Libya:

The UK Government agrees that that growth of state-funded militias has been a significant challenge since 2011 and one which successive Libyan Governments have been unable

4

https://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/files/chathamhouse/field/field_document/LWG%20summary%20draft%20final.pdf

8 Libya: the consequences of a failed state

successfully to address. Once the conflict against Qadhafi forces had ended in October 2011, armed groups evolved into mechanisms for retention of power and generation of income. Many were eager to secure a role in formal security structures while others became purely criminal. In a time of considerable political flux, the loyalty of many militia members remained to their leaders and not to government or state institutions, despite receiving salaries from the Ministries of Defence and Interior.

It also noted:

The UK made a significant contribution to international efforts to support Libyan economic and political reconstruction since 2011. The security situation on the ground has made this task challenging but not impossible; UK-funded programmes and UK advisers continue to work with the Government of National Accord and Libyan institutions.

The Government agrees that a more stable security environment would facilitate better economic and political recovery. The UK continues to support the Government of National Accord in its security planning, particularly in Tripoli. It remains a UK priority to help the Libyan Government to create a unified, professional national Army and security forces, under the authority of the Government of National Accord as stipulated by the Libyan Political Agreement.

However, deployment of UK or Coalition ground troops to help provide security on the ground in Libya was not a viable option in 2011 or subsequently. This would have been beyond the remit of UN Security Council Resolution 1973, would not have been supported by the Libyans themselves, who were clear that they did not want foreign troops on their soil, and would most probably not have been supported by the UK public or Parliament. As is noted in the committee’s report, UK forces would also have risked becoming a target for extremist groups, which may have added to the insecurity and instability.

And:

The Government agrees with the Committee’s conclusion that empowering a central authority should be the UK’s primary objective in Libya. That is why the UK supports the full implementation of the Libya Political Agreement signed in Morocco in December 2015, which established the GNA. The Government also fully agrees on the need to focus not just on the immediate fight against Daesh, but also countering other extremist groups, such as Ansar Al-Sharia, as well as taking steps to tackle the root causes of extremism.

Alistair Burt MP, who was a junior minister at the FCO at the time of the Libya intervention and has subsequently returned to the FCO/DFID as Minister of State, explained the Government’s position in a debate of 18 December 2018 on the enslavement of Black Africans in Libya:

There was no abandonment of Libya, but the depth of the damage done by 40 years of Gaddafi and the failure to create any institutions left a bigger hole than probably anyone understood at the time. There were a series of consequences, for which it is impossible to pin blame purely and simply, beyond on those who created the misery in the first place and who were overthrown. That is of only partial consequence now. What is important is to deal with what is happening at present…,

(…)

All the way through the conflict, the sense was “What happens next?” That is why people went in afterwards to seek to build a civil administration and prepare the ground for elections. Those took place, and a Government were established, but the fallout since then has been a combination of pressure from Islamist forces that came into the process afterwards and the inability of those who formed the militias to agree among themselves about how to support the politicians in civil Government. It was thought through, but it could not be imposed.

People themselves must create their own institutions. I remember people at the time praising the fact that there were not boots on the ground determined to do it for the Libyan people—they were doing it for themselves. It was thought through, but for every particular conflict and difficulty, it seems that a new adverse reaction is created, and that is what we are living through now…

2.4 A failure of EU strategy? The collapse of Libya represents a major failure and a challenge for the European Union. When the EU began to develop its Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) in the 1990s as the so-

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called “second pillar” of the Union, a major and apparently attainable strategic goal was to stabilise the Mediterranean region by developing closer economic and political relationships with North Africa, including Libya. A CFSP “Common Strategy” to this effect was adopted by the EU in June 2000.

The outcome was summarised in April 2017 by the independent Brussels think tank CEPS:

… almost nothing in Libya has followed the liberal peacebuilding playbook, which assumes an improving security situation followed by reconstruction and sustained democratic political transformation. Instead, the EU has struggled to make any impact while the ongoing chaos in the country has deepened divisions among member states, with migration control emerging as the lowest common denominator for EU action.5

The EU still has a “Delegation to Libya” but for security reasons it has operated from neighbouring Tunisia since 2014.

5 “Libya: the strategy that wasn’t”, CEPS, April 2017

10 Libya: the consequences of a failed state

3. Consequences and implications for the UK, the EU, Africa and the Middle East

3.1 Migration Because of its geographical position and the difficulty of policing its desert borders, Libya would be subject to the pressure of mass population movements even if it had a fully effective government. However, the absence of such a government exacerbates the problem, making migrants extremely vulnerable to exploitation and mistreatment and limiting the ability of other governments and international agencies to help.

Statistics from the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) record 662,248 migrants in Libya who originated from other countries in March 2018. Of these 65% came from sub-Saharan Africa, with Niger, Chad and Ghana accounting for the largest numbers. 28% came from North Africa (mainly Egypt and Sudan) and 7% from elsewhere in Asia and the Middle East. 90% were adults and 91% were male. The full report may be found here.

The IOM counts migrants, regardless of whether they have left their country of origin voluntarily or not. A subset of migrants in Libya and those seeking to travel across the Mediterranean are refugees, i.e. defined by the UN as forcibly displaced.

The IOM also tracks internally displaced persons (IDPs), i.e. Libyans who have left their homes as a result of political disruption and violence. 165,478 of these were recorded in February 2018. There were also 341,534 Libyans who had returned to the country in the recent past.

These figures have remained at similar levels for several years, but the proportion of migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean from Libya has declined since its peak in 2016. According to figures from the IOM which tracks migrants of all kinds: around 100,000 migrants made it to Italy from Libya in 2017, 19,775 were rescued by Libyan coast guards, and 529 were recorded as lost in Libyan coastal waters and about 2,000 lost outside Libyan waters.6

One of the reasons for the fall in the number of migrants reaching Sicily is that in 2017 Italy renewed a deal it had previously made with Libyan authorities in the coastal areas encouraging them to “pull back” would-be migrants. There have been allegations that “pulled back” migrants are mistreated and the agreement has been subject to legal challenge.7

The World Migration Report (published by the IOM) reports:

As a key hub of transit activity for migrants originating from many countries to the south, the North African subregion is confronted with protection challenges associated with irregular migration to Europe. Between 2011 and 2016, approximately 630,000 people used the “Central Mediterranean route” to reach Italy. In 2016 alone, more than 181,000 people were detected on the Central Mediterranean route (the main route of arrival via irregular migration to Europe in 2016), with the majority arriving in Italy.89 The majority departed from Libya (almost 90%),8

The EU published a Progress Report on its migration strategy in March 2018 which reported:

The appalling conditions faced by many migrants in Libya and heavy smuggling activity has been answered by the EU with intensive work to address the immediate needs of migrants, stabilise communities, and help stranded migrants return home or find a safe pathway to Europe if in need of protection.

6 Figures supplemented from https://www.iom.int/news/mediterranean-migrant-arrivals-reach-150982-2017-deaths-

reach-2839 7 The Guardian, 8 May 2018 8 P 50

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The number of people being helped to leave Libya has increased significantly since the joint African Union-European Union-United Nations Task Force was established and decided to increase assisted voluntary returns from Libya (via the International Organisation for Migration), and to step up evacuations through an Emergency Transit Mechanism (with the UN Refugee Agency UNHCR). The targets of an additional 15 000 assisted voluntary returns by February 2018 and the evacuation of 1 300 persons by early 2018 have been met. These efforts will continue with a view to completing the evacuation of migrants and persons in need of international protection in detention and putting an end to the dire conditions in which they are held.

3.2 Extremists Another consequence of the disintegration of the Libyan state has been the appearance of Islamic extremist groups using Libyan territory as a base for attacks on neighbouring states and further afield. To some extent these groups may arise from local traditions and grievances, but they have undoubtedly been boosted by the return of Libyans radicalised elsewhere in the Middle East (particularly Iraq and Syria) and the arrival of non-Libyan jihadists.

There were Islamist groups with links to Afghanistan active in Libya from the 1990s. They have generally been regarded as an offshoot of Al Qaeda, but the nature of that relationship has been ambiguous. They were opposed to the Gadaffi regime and eventually took part in the uprising against Gadaffi. There seem to have been a few hundred active fighters at large in 2012, some identifying with Al Qaeda, but mostly autonomous with a general commitment to Salafism (the doctrine of puritanical Moslems who are guided by the militancy of the generations immediately following the life of the Prophet) and jihad.9

From 2014 a similar Salafist/jihadist movement generally known as ISIS or Daesh took control of large parts of Iraq and Syria. While the territory controlled by this movement has now been greatly reduced, there has been growing concern about its influence and presence in Libya, including the arrival of ISIS fighters displaced from Iraq and Syria.

In February 2015 an ISIS group based in Libya crossed the border into Egypt and murdered 21 Coptic Christians on a beach and in June 2015 an ISIS terrorist trained in Libya killed 38 people, 30 of them UK nationals, on a beach in Tunisia. There have also been numerous attacks on both of Libya’s rival governments (neither of which is sympathetic to the extremists) and on Libyan oilfields and related facilities.

By early 2016, the US Administration estimated that there were 6,500 ISIS (also known as ISIL or Daesh) fighters in Libya and ISIS had established control of Sirte and about 150 miles of the Libyan coast. In the south of Libya Islamic extremists have established bases which allow them to link up with similar movements in Mali and Nigeria.

The US has been conducting periodic air strikes against ISIS since early 2016. Later in 2016 ISIS was forced to abandon Sirte. The US continued with air attacks on what were believed to be ISIS transit camps further south.

In March 2018 the UN Secretary-General reported:

While no longer in control of territory, ISIL continues to be active in Libya and retains the ability to conduct complex terrorist attacks. ISIL so-called “desert units” continue to operate in the oil crescent, the central region around Jufrah, as well as in the south of Libya. There are sleeper cells in other parts of the country, including the western region. That presence is augmented by a number of ISIL elements moving into Libya following their eviction from Iraq and the Syrian Arab Republic.

9 See for example a Library of Congress analysis of 2012.

12 Libya: the consequences of a failed state

3.3 Oil and the Libyan economy

Libyan crude oil production was at the rate of around 1.6m barrels per day in the Gadaffi years. During the chaos of 2013-14 it fell to around 200 barrels per day and has subsequently recovered to around 1m barrels.

The UN Secretary-General reported in March 2018:

While economic indicators reflected a significant improvement in the Libyan economy owing to an increase in oil production (1.1 million barrels per day in January 2018, compared with 860,000 barrels per day in August 2017), as well as an increase in international oil prices, structural issues have not been addressed, causing concern that the fiscal and monetary crisis will worsen further in the long term. The National Oil Corporation reached an agreement with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries that granted Libya a continued exemption from measures aimed at cutting global oil output.

Oil is exported via a string of refinery ports along the Mediterranean coast which are divided between the rival centres of authority in Tripoli and Tobruk. During 2016 the forces controlled from Tobruk by General Haftar seized several of the oil refineries from the Petroleum Facilities Guard which is run from Tripoli by the GNA.

These military successes changed the political dynamics in favour of the House of Representatives faction, based in Tobruk. Most of Libya’s oil production was now under its control, leaving the UN-backed GNA with the right to sell oil to those countries that had recognised it, but much reduced access to oil production. This amounted to a “huge setback” for the UN-backed authorities, according to the International Crisis Group.10

The oilfields have also been attacked from time to time by ISIS groups, but in the absence of refining and exporting facilities they have not been able to exploit oil in the way that the so-called caliphate did for a while in Iraq.

10 International Crisis Group, 14 September 2016

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4. Rebuilding Libya

4.1 The Skhirat Agreement As summarised above, the early attempts to rebuild the Libyan state following the collapse of the Gadaffi regime had resulted by 2014 in the establishment of two rival governments and a large swathe of Libya under the full control of neither. There had been elections held in July 2012 and June 2014 but the outcomes failed to win broad acceptance. The rival parliaments, the General National Council and the House of Representatives, based in Tripoli and Tobruk respectively, were derived from the victors in the two sets of elections, in alliance with a range of military formations.

During 2014 and 2015 the United Nations, in the form of a special representative of the Secretary-General and a Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) negotiated with civilian politicians representing both parliaments and eventually arrived at an agreement to form a unity government. The agreement, formally known as the Libyan Political Agreement, was signed at Skhirat in Morocco in December 2015.

The agreement was known to be fragile. It was not universally accepted by the civilian politicians in Libya and did not include military commanders. On the other hand it had been achieved by delicate negotiation under UN auspices and could be presented with some credibility as a home-grown solution rather than one imposed by ‘the West’.

The compromise at the heart of the agreement was that there would be a Presidency Council, advisory council and executive (the Government of National Accord or GNA) in the national capital Tripoli and that these structures would include members of the previous General National Council, but the House of Representatives would become the only legislature and would in due course endorse the GNA.

In the event the House of Representatives did not endorse the GNA and the two rival centres of power continued. Among those who rejected the Skhirat Agreement was General Khalifa Haftar, who until recently commanded the “Libyan Armed Forces” in Eastern Libya.

The failure to achieve a unity government in 2016 led many commentators to include that there would have to be a more broadly based negotiation, involving both military leaders, such as Haftar and traditional tribal leaders (see previous discussion – section 2.2).

The International Crisis Group summarised the situation and how the international community had responded in the following report of November 2016:

External actors who pushed for diplomacy and made much of their support for Skhirat are almost as divided as Libyans. A group of mostly Western countries, led by the U.S., calls for unconditional support of the council and recognises the unity government it nominated. Prioritising the fight against IS and controlling migrant and refugee flows, it favours moving ahead on the Skhirat roadmap without the HoR if necessary, betting that if governance can be improved in the west first, the east may eventually join. Haftar’s resilience has upset that assumption.

Another group, led by Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Russia, prioritises unity of what remains of the army (especially Haftar’s “Libyan National Army”) as the nucleus of a future military and is concerned about leverage Islamist militias controlling Tripoli may have on the council. It has given Haftar overt and covert political and military support, as has France on counter-terrorism grounds.

4.2 The UN Process During 2017 the UN Secretary-General launched a new initiative to resolve the deadlock in Libya with a new Special Representative - Ghassan Salamé, a Lebanese academic and former minister. This led to the adoption of an Action Plan, which was endorsed in September 2017 by UN Security Council resolution 2376.

14 Libya: the consequences of a failed state

The aim of the Action Plan is to resume an inclusive political process in Libya and thereby end what is known in UN terminology as “the prolonged transition”. The Action Plan has three main planks. The first of these was to negotiate and arrive by consensus at a set of amendments to the Libyan Political (Skhirat) Agreement. This was to be followed by the convening of a national conference, and then fresh elections.

In March 2018 the Secretary-General reported limited progress with the Action Plan. Drafting committees had been established to work on possible amendments to the Agreement, but no consensus had yet emerged; ‘town hall’ meetings had been organised across Libya to prepare for the proposed National Conference; and voter registration had begun for a new round of elections, although the House of Representatives had still to adopt the necessary legislation. The Secretary-General also reported that the security situation in Tripoli was still difficult – for example violent clashes at the international airport had closed it for a week in January.11 There had also been fighting in many other parts of Libya, in particular between the Libyan National Army (linked to the Tobruk parliament) and forces linked to the GNA in Tripoli.

Special Representative Salamé provided the Security Council with an update when it considered the Secretary-General’s report. He had relocated from Tunis to Tripoli, but bullets were still flying every day, and the backdrop of continuing violence and localised conflicts persisted. He saw many encouraging signs, including the successful conclusion of voter registration, with 2.5 million Libyans registered to vote. On the other hand, there was still no agreement on a new constitution, nor on the referendum legislation that might lead to its adoption. Nor had a date for elections been agreed, though the target remained to hold these before the end of the year. He saw little prospect of agreement on amendments to the Skhirat Agreement, but also felt that this would be less significant as elections approach.

11 Report of the Secretary-General S 2018/140

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5. UK involvement and implications As described in section 2 above, the UK was one of the leading countries advocating and participating in military action in Libya in 2011. The wisdom of that intervention is still debated and has become part of a wider debate about the circumstances in which UK forces should be involved in overseas interventions.

Partly as a consequence of this, and because a political vacuum in Libya is perceived as a challenge to UK and wider European interests, and a major humanitarian challenge, the British government has continued to take a strong interest in Libya and in international attempts to achieve a stable settlement there.

This has included support for the UN-sponsored political negotiations and some programmes of technical assistance to Libya, mainly channelled to the GNA. The largest part of this comes from the Conflict, Security and Stability Fund. The total budget for this in 2017/18 was £10.5m. The programme summary set out the intended result:

The UK is hoping to see a more stable and democratic Libya which can then also work with the UK to counter terrorism and assist on migration.

The outcomes we are pursuing through our programming in support of this for 2017/18 are threefold:

• More inclusive and representative political process.

• Strengthened capability within the Libyan government and in some key institutions at the local and national levels.

• Increased resilience amongst local actors to address and gradually reduce the levels of violent and non-violent conflict, and violent extremism in some locations.

The UK has also contributed naval vessels and personnel on rotation to Operation Sophia since its inception in May 2015. Operation Sophia is an Italian-led EU mission under the EU Common Foreign and Security Policy and was conceived as a means of disrupting the people-smuggling networks that operate across the Mediterranean and Italy by monitoring and intercepting their sailings. It is acknowledged by the Government that Operation Sophia has failed in its principal objective, although it continues in place to the end of 2018.

Sir Alan Duncan set out the government’s position in September 2017 in response to the second of two reports on Operation Sophia by the House of Lords EU Sub-Committee on external affairs:

…Operation SOPHIA has not delivered all that we had hoped. Nonetheless, our contribution to the Operation, and our continuing efforts to ensure its effectiveness, remain an important part of a whole-of-government approach to addressing the migration challenge, including humanitarian assistance and action to tackle smugglers. Although we are leaving the EU, we continue to cooperate with European partners, including through Op SOPHIA, on these shared challenges. (…)

The presence of EU vessels in the southern Mediterranean has not prevented the flow of migrants or eradicated the people smuggling networks because the gangs have adapted to the presence of Op SOPHIA vessels by using smaller boats. This increases the risk of incident and loss of lives of vulnerable migrants with the responsibility for those deaths lying squarely with the criminal smuggling and trafficking networks that operate out of Libya.

(…)

16 Libya: the consequences of a failed state

Overall it remains our view that all elements of Op SOPHIA can contribute to addressing the migration crisis and arms smuggling, and help to build sustainable structures.

Operation Sophia is one of the two active missions supporting Libya under the EU Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). The other is EUBAM, the EU Border Assistance Mission, in which the UK does not participate. The Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson visited Tripoli in August 2017 to support the GNA and the UN process to stabilise Libya. He announced a set of measures to assist Libya with bomb disposal and reconstruction. In October 2017 he made controversial remarks at a Conservative Party conference event about the tourist potential of the coastal Libyan city of Sirte for which it was necessary only to “clear the dead bodies away”.12

UK policy towards Libya was debated in Westminster Hall on 18 December 2017 in response to a petition against black enslavement in that country.

In replying to that debate the Minister of State (Alistair Burt) set out UK policy on achieving a settlement in Libya and on UK assistance programmes:

The UK is committed to addressing illegal migration across the Mediterranean, including through work in Libya and further upstream…. the UK supports a comprehensive approach that addresses the drivers of illegal migration and reduces the need for dangerous onward movements. That includes not only breaking the business model of smugglers and the trafficking rings that prey on the desperation of migrants, but providing vital protection to victims. The UK’s National Crime Agency is working with Libyan law enforcement, enhancing its capability to tackle the people-smuggling and trafficking networks.

Our new £75 million migration programme will specifically target migrants travelling from west Africa to Libya via the Sahel. It will provide critical humanitarian assistance and protection; assist those along the way who may wish to return home; give information about the dangers ahead; and offer vulnerable people meaningful alternatives to treacherous journeys through Libya and Europe… (…)

Ensuring Libya’s stability and helping the Libyan Government of national accord to restore unity, take control of their southern and coastal borders, and rebuild the economy is the best way to tackle the organised criminal groups that are making Libya a transit route for illegal migration.

(…)

The Government of national accord are supported by a UN resolution. We are working with them and with UN Special Representative Ghassan Salamé on the negotiations to move the governmental process forward, which have reached a critical

12 The Guardian, 4 October 2017

17 Commons Library Briefing, 18 May 2018

stage. The Libyan political agreement is being adapted and extended. Ghassan Salamé is spending his time trying to bring the various parties together to put the right names into the presidential council and work through a political process that is exceptionally difficult because of huge vested interests and a degree of distrust between the parties.

The prospects for peaceful stabilisation in Libya were raised again in the House of Commons on 20 February 2018:

Royston Smith: Millions of people are celebrating the seventh anniversary of the start of the Libyan uprising and the ousting of Colonel Gaddafi. Fayez al-Sarraj has been the Prime Minister of Libya for nearly two years and progress has been painfully slow. Will the Secretary of State update the House on what his Department is doing to help the Government of National Accord to bring about a prosperous and—more importantly—peaceful Libya?

Boris Johnson: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his interest in a country that is still bedevilled by factional feuding between a very small number of men—a maximum of about half a dozen—who have it in their power to come together and build a better future for Libya. We are trying to back the efforts of UN Special Representative Ghassan Salamé to bring the eastern and western parts of Libya together, with a plan for the whole country—a new constitution, to be followed by elections. That is what we are working for.

18 Libya: the consequences of a failed state

6. The future The future for Libya currently looks very uncertain. The UN is pushing for new elections but there are clearly risks to its strategy: even if rival factions accept the legitimacy of elections in advance (which is not guaranteed), the experience of 2012 and 2014 suggests that the results will be challenged after the event; and voting could be seriously by violence. A suicide attack on the Election Commission HQ in Tripoli on 2 May 2018 underlined this risk.

General Haftar was quoted by The Guardian in January as saying that “The upcoming elections in the country must bring a solution to the current bloodshed, but if the situation and the chaos continue after the elections, then we will say ‘enough is enough’ and take action”13 Haftar commands the Libyan National Army and has often been described as Libya’s potential “strong man” because of his opposition to Islamist forces. In April 2018 the 75-year-old General Haftar was evacuated to hospital in France after falling ill on a visit to Jordan. There were rumours that he was terminally ill, but he returned to Libya at the end of the month.14

The UN is taking the lead in facilitating a settlement in Libya and most of the international community is currently supporting those efforts. The UN, EU, League of Arab States and African Union meet periodically as “the Libya Quartet”. After its most recent meeting on 30 April the EU High Representative Federica Mogherini said:

For the European Union, having this unity around this Quartet, in support to the UN work, is extremely important. As my friend mentioned, if we managed to unite, we will also help Libyans to unite, and put an end to their endless transition.

We see some positive steps since the last meeting we had, on security, on economy, on migration management, on terrorism that is being contained – we see some reasons for hope.

But obviously, we know that the situation is very fragile and this is why I believe, convening today, in support to the UN process, also discussing concrete things we can do together to support this process, is particularly important.

Libya’s tribal dimension provides another perspective. An article in the Financial Times of 13 March 2018 commented:

There is a growing feeling in some quarters -- born out of frustration and desperation -- that the only way to undo the gridlock and make any headway in stabilising the country is a grand bargain among tribal leaders. Libya is arguably the most tribal of Arab countries, and there can be no political solution that doesn't engage and pacify the tribes. With that in mind, a strategic summit is set to take place in Amman in the next few weeks, under the auspices of the Jordanian government and bringing together leaders of the major tribes. It will be presided over by Sheikh Abdusalam Senussi, described as the "sheikh of sheikhs" for the clout he carries in Libya, and attended by the

13 10 January 2018 14 Daily Telegraph, 27 April 2018

19 Commons Library Briefing, 18 May 2018

president of the House of Representatives Aguila Salah Issa, among others.

A hopeful sign was the “reconciliation” deal reached in March between two Libyan cities – Misrata and Zintan – that have been fighting each other since 2014.15 Whether similar deals can be stitched together across the whole of Libya remains to be seen.

15 BBC monitoring of Libyan media in Arabic, 2 April 2018

BRIEFING PAPER Number CBP 8314 18 May 2018

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