Recent outbreaks of violence in Tripoli have exposed the dangers on overdepending upon militias for security. Fighting among the capital’s key institutions, including on the offices of the National Oil Corporation have been driven by economic opportunism, and expose potential spoilers to any Libyan elections where such armed groups stand to lose much during the democratic transition. The solution lies in establishing a comprehensive DDR program, that provides a vision for a democratic Libya that includes these actors, through mechanisms that integrate these militias either into a new national army or into civilian life.
Libya is again in international headlines with reports of renewed fighting in Tripoli between its many armed militias. These reports included the news that some 400 prisoners, many of whom were supporters of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, managed to escape confinement at the Ain Zara prison in South-East Tripoli as the guards holding them have fled the prison facilities during the recent fighting[1]. Interestingly, Reuters instead reported that most of these prisoners at Ain Zara were in fact detained migrants, who were abandoned at the facility by fleeing prison guards[2].
After the supposed ceasefire on 4th September, further violence was reported when gunmen stormed the offices of the National Oil Corporation in Tripoli on the 10th. These reports of violence have again refocused international attention on Libya’s security and cast serious doubt on proposed Parliamentary and Presidential elections in December. While international parties, most notably France, Italy, the UK and the USA, have expressed public condemnation of hostilities, stating, “We strongly warn against any further escalation and call on all parties to work together to exercise restraint, restore calm, and engage in peaceful dialogue”[3], it should come as no surprise that the security situation appears to be fundamentally compromised. The competing interests of armed groups that claim legitimacy from the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA), but have no accountability will continue to act as spoilers during Libya’s political transition.
A Security Monopoly of Militias
The current security issues in Tripoli are fundamentally predisposed by the nature of the current political landscape within the capital. What were once a multitude of smaller armed groups in the post-Gaddafi landscape have morphed into a select few larger groups, four or five big militias that Lacher from SWP refers to as a “militia cartels”[4]. These groups support the GNA as a matter of economic convenience: they provide security whilst profiting from the capital’s economy, both over the table and under it. For while they have economic subsidence from the GNA, as well as its benefactors, most notably the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), they have mainly profited from the informal economy that developed in Libya in the environment created by the collapse of the state in 2011[5]. This, for example, included exploiting Libya’s failing financial system, by monopolizing fragile banks at the inflated official rate of exchange for the Libyan dinar, obtaining foreign currency cheaper, and then selling these foreign currencies back on the informal market for profit. There is also clear evidence of these militias acting as protection rackets, as well as orchestrating kidnappings and working with human traffickers.
Consequently, militias in Tripoli appear to be more akin to criminal-networks that exist based on material incentives, rather than some ideological basis to support the GNA in state-building. These fragile loyalties were exposed in recent weeks during the outbreak of violence in the Libyan capital. One of these larger militias, Kaniyat or the Seventh Brigade from Tahouna, a town just southeast of Tripoli, engaged in fighting with two of the largest militias in the capital, the Tripoli Revolutionaries’ Brigade and the Nawasi. The public reasoning behind such clashes is money and access to Tripoli’s aforementioned public finances: for example, the Kaniyat declared their rivals to be “the Daesh of public money”[6].
In the fighting that followed, at least five people died and nearly thirty more were wounded on the first day of clashes on the 28th August. By the time the ceasefire was brokered on 4th September, some 61 Libyans were killed and 159 were injured according to the UNSMIL[7]. The knock-on effect of the insecurity has caused the main airport in Tripoli, who relied upon the security offered by these militias to function, to temporarily close among a number of official buildings and agencies in the capital. This was also the cause of the chaos at Ain Zara prison too. And even after the announced ceasefire, the militias did not, and have not since, withdrawn their heavy weapons from Tripoli’s streets.
The Attack on the National Oil Corporation
Even more worryingly, on 10th September gunmen attacked the offices of the National Oil Corporation, leaving two security personnel and two attackers dead[8]. The two security personnel were part of the RADA Special Deterrence Forces, military police nominally under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Interior, a branch of the GNA. Whilst this force is the main security force in Tripoli, in the sense they are not actively subverting the GNA, there are growing concerns that the documented links to radical Salafist Islamism under its leader Abdul Raouf Kara are potentially dangerous, as seen by its controversial raid on the November 2017 Comic Con event on grounds of ‘indecency’[9]. And while RADA has been critical in tackling some of the capital’s numerous criminal networks, some also think RADA is part of the problem by turning a blind eye to some operations to take a cut in the earnings[10].
Meanwhile, the attack on the National Oil Corporation was claimed by Daesh on its Amaq new agency. The group stated they were attacking the “economic interests of oppressing governments funding crusaders”[11]. And this is a stark reminder that while Daesh were expelled from Sirte, they are still active in Libya, and will continue to act as spoilers during Libya’s transition.
Breaking the Security Monopoly
The news of the recent outbreak of violence has drawn the overdependence of the GNA upon militias into sharp focus. Though perhaps once considered a necessary evil in order to support the UN-backed government, it is clear that Fayez al-Sarraj’s administration must begin to seek security solutions from elsewhere. While at present, the militias, with their military arms, hold the power to keep the GNA in place within Tripoli, but this is not a sustainable method of governance. It is also a dangerous precedent to assume that these militias, that stand to lose their power in a new unified democratic Libya, would allow, or even help facilitate, any future elections in the capital. It is more likely that these groups would become dangerous spoilers in a democratic process, either through intimidation, blackmail, corruption or even more sinister acts.
Ghassan Salame, of the UNSMIL, acknowledged that the “previous security configuration empowered groups who acted in a predatory manner against the residents of the capital”[12]. He also said that “in order to underpin the ceasefire, [UNSMIL] are working to revise the security arrangements in Tripoli in order to reduce the influence of groups who use arms to achieve their parochial goals”[13]. The details regarding these revisions are unclear, only going so far as to stress the need for more consultations, as well as economic and political reform through elections. To use the language of elections here again presents them as a cure for Libya’s problems, rather than a goal or measure of success of Libya’s democratic transition.
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Instead of this conception, to break the militia’s monopoly on security in Tripoli, the UNSMIL will have to do more to assist the various Libyan authorities in providing a new security framework for Libya. It is remarkable that a UN-backed administration, Sarraj’s de facto government of Tripoli, is funding militias in the first place. This is ultimately unsustainable for lasting security and will eventually need to stop. Instead, a new vision for the place of militias in Libya is necessary. In this vision, through a negotiated agreement underscoring a comprehensive Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) program, provisions will be in place to ensure that such armed groups can see they can have a place in a new democratic Libya. They need to be shown the benefits of peaceful democracy, rather than see it as a loss. This may possibly be achievable though a strategy of military unification, whereby the various groups can eventually be integrated into a new national security apparatus with allegiance to the Libyan state or given a clear opportunity to successfully re-enter civilian life.
If this were to be the case, the new security apparatus would need to be defined and governed by agreed legal principles. Reports have shown that many processes of integrating armed groups into national armies can be compromised if there are not enough legal provisions[14]. This could be mitigated through a comprehensive DDR program that provides clear guidelines for integration into a new state military, or disarmament into civilian life. Another factor to consider is active community engagement within the DDR program: some reports have shown that while ‘one-size fits all’ approaches to DDR often fail, by engaging the community actively throughout DDR through mechanisms such as participatory dialogue, there are better chances to have a more nuanced and successful DDR[15]. In the case of Libya, this will be especially true for those members of militias who do not wish to become part of the future national army and instead wish to return to civilian life. The lesson here is that the DDR program must be comprehensive and address the concerns of as many stakeholders as possible.
Regardless, the dialogue to determine a successful DDR program for Libya needs to take place as soon as possible to reduce further bloodshed, and crucially must be established before future elections. This process will take time, and needs more space for dialogue than the restrictions of any speculative deadline in December.