Gaddafi's disease:Still searching for a cure for Libya

Well, the breakdown (forecast by many experts) of an ultra-fragile unity of convenience among the rebels has spectacularly come to pass.

In June 2014, Libya held its second national elections since Col Gaddafi’s overthrow, but within months of being elected, the new parliament had been forced to flee the capital, Tripoli, driven out by Islamist and tribal militias in a severely splintered and massively over-armed country. The House of Representatives, pushed into internal exile, clings on in the city of Tobruk right on Libya’s eastern border, shoved – literally – to the margins. The Islamists have their own alternative legislature in Tripoli, the General National Council. Efforts dashedAnalysts point out that, as well as the disastrous effect on Libyans themselves of this fundamental internal breakdown, civil war is proving all but fatal to prospects of vital foreign investment in Libya. Who should investors deal with? Is there anywhere in the country that remains safe for them to invest in? And now Britain’s most practical effort at nation-building is in ruins. What happened at Bassingbourn Barracks, in Cambridgeshire, looks like a metaphor for the lawlessness in Libya itself – efforts to train young militia soldiers from Libya to become responsible and disciplined members of a national army at the service of their government and people completely broke down. Two of the Libyans face trial on charges of rape. In an unrelated case, three others are accused of sexual assault. Britain has sent all the remaining Libyans home and abandoned the entire training programme. Extremist infiltration So is there any hope of a cure for Libya as a whole? The US has been forced out of the country. Its embassy is now based in Malta, stripped of most of its influence. Britain’s diplomats work from the embassy in Tunis. The UN is trying to mediate between the rival factions, but so far without any success. That’s not wholly surprising, when you consider that there are estimated to be over 1,700 different groups scattered across the country contesting power. Western intelligence tends to confirm the increasing infiltration of Islamic extremists, the emergence in Libya of groups either actively involved with so-called “Islamic State” or at least sympathetic to the idea of a caliphate conquering as much as possible of North Africa as well as the Middle East. [caption id="attachment_14349" align="alignleft" width="624"] Training at Bassingbourn Barracks did not go smoothly[/caption] Libya can make the grotesque situation in Syria look relatively simple. None of which is to say that Libya was better off under Gaddafi. It was precisely the absolute control, masquerading as an ideology, he and his family imposed that destroyed any remaining foundation for representative government. Anybody who interviewed Col Gaddafi came away with a powerful personal impression. After my own thoroughly tense encounter in 2007, the memory I took away was the absolute terror felt by even his innermost circle. The Libyan officials with us in the room seemed to press themselves against the walls, as if to appear invisible. And that was at a time when Western governments were cosying up to the colonel, in their eyes a useful penitent – at least over the export of terrorism – who wanted to come in from the cold. His legacy is awful to behold. The Gaddafi disease was terrible. The cure has not been found. *Source BBC