The spirit of 15 July against the coup-maker Haftar in Libya

The whole world has united in the struggle against the coronavirus with a shared sensitivity and sense of security, has grasped the gravity of the matter, and is seeking ways of solidarity in the search for a common strategy. Everyone knows that this problem is the problem of the whole world, and that however successfully a single country may find ways to cope with it, there is no way of being rid of the problem unless it is solved simultaneously across the entire world. A simple emergency measure should naturally be demanded by this situation. People should focus on this common and most urgent problem and postpone some of their disputes and quarrels.

This being so, this problem seems not to concern some countries and some individuals at all; far from not concerning them, they are in a rush to snatch a log from the flood.

In Yemen, BAE continues step by step to carry out its plans in the South, ignoring all the humanitarian crises there, and to carry on its efforts to divide Yemen. In fact, the total number of people who have died of the coronavirus across the world, which is now the most important item on our agenda, is still no greater than the number of children who have died in just a few months from hunger alone in the war conditions in Yemen, made thoroughly filthy by BAE and SA. Of course, a common defense mechanism has been put into operation across the world regarding those who die from the virus, but in Yemen the children are dying not because of a virus for which we can blame no one, but because of so-called saviors who came under the pretext of rescuing the place and are now trying to plunder the country by dividing it.

Meanwhile, in Libya, the coup general Haftar, backed by BAE, instead of stopping to catch his breath because of the virus, remembering that he is a human being and must enter into solidarity with other human beings, launched an attack on Tripoli precisely by seizing on the world's preoccupation with this crisis as an opportunity. As always, he again hit civilian targets, adding crime to his crimes. Yet he had announced that he would abide, if only under Russian pressure, by the ceasefire declared most recently with the Berlin Agreement. At present he has no justification he can offer for not abiding by that agreement. The only reason was that he had imagined that, since the world, and Turkey in particular, was busy fighting the coronavirus, there was no one left to prevent him from taking Libya single-handedly.

Yet he understood, tragically, how wrong his calculation was through the tremendous resistance and counterattack he met against this assault. Because even if Turkey is busy with the coronavirus, it has not abandoned life. At present the world is also fixing its attention on Turkey as the country conducting the struggle against the coronavirus most successfully. The success lies not only in halting and curing the disease but in managing, at the same time, not to bring the flow of life entirely to a standstill, and in being able to demonstrate the state's high capacity to cope with problems.

Indeed, with the technical and military support Turkey has given within the framework of the most legitimate, indeed the only legitimate, agreement in Libya that it made with Libya's legitimate government, Haftar saw that he had probably made the last great blow and mistake of his life.

The forces of the Libyan Government of National Accord, which repelled the attacks and soon went on the counteroffensive, captured a total of 7 cities, including Sabratha, Surman and al-Ajaylat in the west of Tripoli, and regained control of the borders of neighboring Tunisia. Not stopping there, UMH forces are now heading for Tarhuna, 50 km south of the capital Tripoli.

Tarhuna is, after Eastern Libya where Haftar launched his coup, his most important base in Western Libya, from which he has been carrying out operations to seize Tripoli and the whole of Libya. The fact that this center is now besieged has nourished a hope among the people in the south of Libya that Haftar's end has come. The fall of the base at Tarhuna will have collapsed all of Haftar's support in the West. UMH forces are now the pursuing side, and it seems that after the capture of Tarhuna, which has become a matter of moments, the turn will have come to al-Jufra in the south and then to Ajdabiya in the east, that is, in Haftar's main area of control.

Khalid al-Mishri, President of the Libyan High Council of State, said that the UMH was calculating on finishing off Haftar's army completely by the end of Ramadan.

In this situation, a process has been entered in Libya in which the end of the road is in sight for Haftar, who relies only on his armed force. Right at this point, a surprising move came from Haftar two days ago. Haftar, who with the mind of BAE once again staged a coup, this time against the Tobruk parliament on which he bases his own legitimacy, thus declared himself the sole ruler of all Libya and asked the whole Libyan people to recognize his authority.

This move is surprising, because as someone who is constantly losing on the ground and is on the verge of losing everything, this move has no counterpart in reality. Moreover, with this move he once again reminded everyone of his own history of coups. Of course, all sections of the Libyan people from whom he demanded obedience immediately showed their reactions more strongly than before. The spirit of Turkey's 15 July has, as it were, been transferred to Libya. At the level of the international community as well, this move met a harsh response both from Europe and from America.

In fact, this scene is the picture of the end of Haftar's legitimacy, which already did not exist but which he had been able to sustain with his de facto power and with the support of BAE, Egypt and France. Even if there is no aspect of this move, made while losing, that can be explained by reason or logic, it can be said that his hope is to cling to the possibility of continuing his domination over the east by dividing Libya. The forces that support him, BAE first of all, already had such a plan from the beginning. This means that, even if he cannot dominate the whole of Libya, he has come to the point of settling for a part of it.

Of course, a meaningful aspect of the event is that such a move, aimed at breaking Libya apart, coincided with 26 April, the date in 1963 on which King Idris al-Senussi made the constitutional arrangement that united federal Libya.

Of course, although Haftar's intention is to divide Libya on the date on which it was united, it seems that, through the very move he made, he will, even if unintentionally, become the occasion of its being reunited.