Spring winds in Libya and the problem of the "forcibly displaced"

Libya was one of the three important countries of the Arab Spring in North Africa. Gaddafi, who for 40 years ruled Libya single-handedly with a peculiar style of governance of his own making and with a merciless despotic administration, became the third dictator to be overthrown, after Tunisia's Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Egypt's Hosni Mubarak. Unlike the other two, Gaddafi chose to resist the popular uprising and to fight his own people. He even announced that he would not choose that path, accusing Mubarak and Ben Ali, who had been overthrown before him, of cowardice and capitulation. His end, for that very reason, was far more dreadful than that of the other two.

In Egypt the revolution was completed on 25 January; then, in elections held after a transition period of more than two years, Mohamed Morsi was elected President in the second round. But within a year he was overthrown by a bloody coup. The same coup was attempted in Tunisia by various means, but it could not succeed. The Tunisian people, referring to being the country that started the Arab Spring, and addressing in particular the United Arab Emirates, the financier and conspirator of the counter-revolutions, declared that they would not give up on the path of revolution, saying: "We exported revolution to our neighbors; we have no intention whatsoever of importing a coup."

Libya, on the other hand, could not prevent the coup in its neighbor from forcibly and through intrigue penetrating it. Haftar, a former general who had long lived in the US, imported the Egyptian-model coup back into Libya with the logistical and military support of Egypt's coup-plotter Sisi. In 2014, that is, less than a year after the coup in Egypt, Haftar, in his military uniform and together with a command echelon he had appointed himself, announced that the elected General National Congress in Libya had been dissolved and that there was a new roadmap for the transition period. Starting out by accusing the legitimate administration in Tripoli of being terrorist, Haftar thus also resorted to a discourse that served as a skeleton key to open up space for himself in the international world. The armed force he had seized gave him, in any case, the opportunity to say and impose whatever he wanted. What he was looking for was never to create an atmosphere of dialogue embracing the entire Libyan people, nor a new, pluralist, participatory Libya.

Haftar, who began by carrying out his coup in the East, though he declared war on those in Tripoli and Misrata, actually fought his first war where he began, that is, in the East where he is stationed today. First of all he fought against the people of Benghazi, where he set out and where he is stationed. By killing, imprisoning or deporting everyone who opposed him, he created in Benghazi a people without objection, without opposition, cowed. The path he followed was Gaddafi's path, but even more merciless and more violent than his. Just as his supporter and exporter Sisi is more merciless and harsher even than the former Egyptian dictators.

From the very first days after coming to power, he uprooted at least 250 thousand people from the areas he seized: Benghazi, Derna, Al Marj, Bayda and Ajdabiya. Most of them have now settled around Benghazi and Misrata. Many set out onto the blue waters of the Mediterranean by way of the illegal migration we have become used to hearing about every day, and most of them, before reaching European shores, fell victim to Europe's cruel anti-migration operations and were buried in the waters of the Mediterranean.

What Said Yasin al-Ubaidi, President of the Association of Forcibly Displaced Benghazians, who visited me in recent days, told me about this is heartbreaking.

Said Yasin points to a helpless side of the dialogue efforts conducted for the future of Libya for some time, in Berlin as well as in Morocco and Tunisia, under UN supervision. It is this: "That Haftar, who recognizes no one in any way and whose only aim is to rule over everything alone, is treated as a party in these talks is both a helpless situation and not at all fair. Because Haftar has never been after dialogue. His only aim is to destroy everyone who could share his power alone. Today, thanks to Turkey's entry into the field, he sees dialogue as a remedy to cling to, but he in no way deserves to be a party to dialogue. Look at the mass graves he left behind in Tarhuna, which he held for a while. This is his path and method. By this method he is seen today as the representative of the Eastern side, isn't he? How can it not be seen that in fact there too he seized control by committing countless crimes against humanity? The military superiority he gained there came about through practices that require his trial in human rights courts. These practices do not give him the right to represent the East; they only require that he be tried for them."

Said Yasin continues his words as follows: "We, at least 150 thousand people displaced from Benghazi and currently in Tripoli and Misrata, are living witnesses of how Haftar established his rule there, and of the fact that he does not represent the East. We are the displaced, and never think that those who remained there are satisfied with him. Haftar, as a coup-plotter, like all coup-plotters, is someone with no right or authority of representation."

Even though this is the case, the forcibly displaced have no representation whatsoever in any of the forums in which Libya's future is being discussed today.

Yet in such situations one of the most important problems has to be that of "forcibly displaced people". While such a matter is a very secondary issue in all the talks, not a single seat is allocated to represent them in the representative assemblies that are formed. While the criteria by which the 75-person list most recently formed in Tunisia under the supervision of Stephanie Williams, Acting Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Libya, was determined is already a matter of serious discomfort, the absence of any representatives of such an important segment raises a separate question mark.