Insidious traps on the new roadmap in Libya

With Turkey's entry onto the scene in Libya at the call of the Libyan people, the entire occupation and partition order established earlier was cancelled. The ravenous sight of wolves swarming to plunder the resources of a country left headless and weakened in its administration is the most striking scene that can depict the situation in Libya.

Countries like France and the United Arab Emirates, which have no justification for expressing their presence in the region other than plunder, were trying to carry out this plunder through Haftar, whom they supported. Haftar, with this power he received from outside the Libyan people, sidelined the real representatives of the people and, seeing dialogue as a waste of time, tried to complete his occupation. By virtue of the de facto power he had, he had somehow obtained the position of being a party. But he had tried to turn this position, by completely denying the other parties, into utter arrogance and a monopoly of power. He tried to destroy Libya's only legitimate government recognized by the UN by declaring it "terrorist" in his own way. In doing so he also showed the most striking example of how the label "terrorist" has been turned into an instrument in the hands of bloodstained, war-criminal coup-plotting dictators and thereby watered down.

With the intervention of the Libyan people with Turkey, the picture changed completely. Now Haftar is treated, precisely as he deserves, as a war criminal who has committed crimes against humanity. In return, dialogue platforms where the Libyans themselves speak about Libya's future, and where they can make their own decisions in determining their own destiny, have begun to work again.

Turkey's mission and claim in Libya was not to make Libya belong even to Turkey, but to make it belong entirely to the Libyans. This consistency makes Turkey in its mission in Libya both the only legitimate power and the strongest presence. Now the way has truly been opened all the way for a process in which only the Libyans decide Libya's future.

Within this framework, last week roadmap-determination meetings of the Libyan parties were held in Tunisia under UN supervision. According to the map determined as a result of the meeting, held to end the crisis and to resolve military, political and economic problems as soon as possible, in the first stage a vote of confidence will be given to the newly formed government. The government's term of office will not exceed 18 months. The Prime Minister will have two deputies from two separate regions. Within 60 days after the formation of the government, the Parliament and the Libyan State Council will establish a Constitution Commission of 60 people and begin the process for a new constitution. If the constitutional work is not completed within 7 months, the "Libyan Political Dialogue Forum" will step in and, together with politicians and bureaucrats, urgently make the legal arrangements required for elections.

The indications that France and the UAE have infiltrated the meeting through lobbying activities and are trying to obtain by this route the superiority they ultimately lost on the ground are of course a source of serious concern. Besides the open intentions that have emerged in this matter, what has been done up to now is accepted as showing that the same path will be followed from here on.

In fact, when the process that led things to this point in Libya today is followed, it is also seen how the UAE in particular, as a source of discord, has made the situation in Libya intractable. Those who know, know: some time later striking claims emerged about the relations between Bernardino Leon, appointed in 2014 as the UN Secretary-General's Special Representative for Libya, and the UAE. When it emerged that Leon had been tied to a high-sum salary from the UAE, what he had done in Libya, on whose behalf and how, was in fact sufficiently clarified.

It is obligatory to remember that this same Leon was the EU special representative in Egypt in the period when Sisi carried out his notorious coup, and his activities there. In a sense, Leon was the architect of the view that formed in Europe after the coup, that "this is the internal affair of the Egyptians." Yet his contribution to the process leading to the coup showed that he did not see it as an internal affair at all, but on the contrary had played an actual role in the coup. Leon visited one by one the segments that hesitated about joining the Tamarod movement formed before the coup against Morsi and persuaded them to join Tamarod. For instance, he is said to have persuaded relatively more democratic names such as Mohamed ElBaradei and Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh to join by giving the assurance that this would not be a coup but would remain a movement to force Morsi into an early election, and that elections would even be held within 6 months at the latest. On whose behalf, for what, and with what authority Leon was able to give this assurance becomes beyond the need for explanation, above all through the dirty network of relations he entered into with the UAE.

But it also provides an instructive example of how Europe contributed, even if through such dirty representatives, to the anti-democratic coup processes in the Middle East. This example is of course only one page of the dirty past that Europe must face.

Now there is a necessity to be more vigilant so that the gains Turkey has achieved on the ground on behalf of the Libyan people are not neutralized by anti-democracy forces such as the UAE and the EU.

Note

On the role of Bernardino Leon, the UN and EU Special Representative in Egypt and Libya, one may consult the report titled "The Unshareable Wreckage: Libya" by Lokman B. Çenkaya and Deniz Baran of the Fatih Sultan Mehmet University International Law Application and Research Center.