Libya: over the Sicilian channel is waiting for the chaos

(To Giampiero Venturi)
18/03/16

Libya is a half-invention. Although cited in the Gospel (At 2,1-11), already in the time of Diocletian it was divided into two: Tripolitania in the west, Cirenaica in the east. In reality, according to the colonial maps there would also be the Fezzan, the sand box with the capital Sebha, once the center of procurement for Italian companies, today a slave market marching from hell to what remains of Europe.

Yet the land between Tunisia and Egypt is called Libya, truly independent only with Gaddafi who invented it Jamahiriyya, the "republic of the masses".

Anti-American instinct, pro-Soviet by force, Nasserist, soldier, traditionalist, Bedouin, demagogue, statesman, our friend on business, our enemy for resentment, Third World, bomber ... however we think, Gaddafi was able to pass as antagonist through epochal transformations, including hair transplant, up to rehabilitation in the 90 years.

Among its twists and antics, its Libya has long been the Arab exception for social services and living standards, for many emigrants the only alternative to Lebanon and the Gulf States.

But Gaddafi died in the 2011. His leadership, lasting 11 World Cup, ended while the Italians were more concerned with the resemblance to Renato Zero and Michael Jackson, rather than the only real dilemma: what will happen next?

Gaddafi died when France closed the account opened in the 80 years, when it was dangerous to fly to Ustica and there was war in Chad. The confrontation between the Colonel and Paris was an ancient duel: on the one hand a megalomaniac leader tolerated beyond measure; on the other, colonialism par excellence, the white whip once master of Africa.

Now history presents the bill and among the heirs of the war of 2011 there will also be us Italians who have less faults than others but have already been expelled from Libya twice.

"Arm them and let's go" we could say.

The meeting in Rome of the military leaders of 30 Countries served this purpose: planning possible options and real availability. How to say "It's time to step forward or push someone", It depends...

It is good, however, to avoid illusions: today's Libya is chaos and while denials and lies chase each other, Egyptian President Al Sisi dissuades Italy from venturing into a mission, at present destined to become a new Somalia.

If it were not a drama on the doorstep, the Libyan landscape would indeed be comical. Al Sarraj, leader of a Government of National Accord which exists only for European governments eager to invent a state, two days ago he was threatened with arrest by Al Ghwell, premier of the Tripoli faction.

Just from Tripoli the video of the threat of the Islamic State against the Christians and the noises of the Islamist galaxy bounce off, including the former Misurata cartel, now a bank of gangs and bandits. Around the government of the former capital the fundamentalist groups federated with the coalition turn Libyan Dawn, self-styled heir of the uprising against Gaddafi. The main political and military support comes from Turkey, never as nostalgic for the Ottoman Empire. 

There are also in the Islamist clique of Tripoli Ansar al Sharia, responsible for the attack on the American embassy of the 2012 and related to AQMI (AQaeda in the Islamic Maghreb), and the Muslim Brotherhood, old glories of the Arab fundamentalist world.

The alliance in theory would contend with the control of the coast to the Islamic State on whose role several questions are raised in Libya. It would be growing between Derna and Bengasi (in theory under Tobruk) and along the coast around Sirte. It would be expanding mainly in the west with cells in Tunisia and Algeria, whose respective armies have long been at war with the Jihad.

A myriad of groups and groups then merge and shoot themselves according to the seasons in a logic of city-state, closer to the Middle Ages than to the idea of ​​a national state. Each has its own law, each its own militia.

In this regard it must be said that among the great merits of the Colonel there was that of mediating with the southern tribes, recalcitrant to the idea of ​​a central government. For the duration of the Jamahiriyya the tribal system of deep Libya was artfully regulated, alternating between stick and carrot. Once the balance, especially the Tuareg and Berber area on the border with Algeria and Niger, has become a bustle of arms and human trafficking.

However, in the territory controlled by Tripoli there are enclaves pro-Tobruk, like the mountainous area of ​​Zintan and part of the coast between the former capital and Tunisia. But it would be right to see clearly on the Tobruk line. The army of Haftar, former Gaddafi officer and former CIA, fights but (does not) control the rest of the country. Kufra and southern areas have been on fire for months now in the hands of armed gangs.

The Tobruk front recycles many men linked to the old regime, as numerous as in any socialist-inspired system and hated by fundamentalist militias. The clearest demarcation line between Tobruk and Tripoli is perhaps this: the wounds of the "revolution" of the 2011 pass between politics and personal grudges and create banks cut with a knife.

Meanwhile, behind the sand of Tobruk, Egypt blows, projected into Cyrenaica as a sphere of natural influence and ready to contend with the Islamists and Turkey for the pieces of Libya that it was. Al Sisi's war against the Muslim Brotherhood continues ...

In essence, the general situation resembles a vase dropped into the ground, of which we try desperately to reassemble the pieces.

Support for Al Sarraj is a grotesque attempt to empower a strong and secular man who does not appear as a puppet of the West: exactly what Gaddafi was.

The regret for the strongman who is not there would contradict the enthusiasm for the Libyan Spring and in the official statements of Western governments it is circumvented. Public nostalgia for the Jamahiriyya it would be the admission of a huge political and military failure. Everyone thinks, but nobody says it.

While waiting for a blind mission, Libya burns: Cyrenaica and Tripolitania return to the same situation as they did at the beginning of the '900.

Meanwhile, we are preparing for a "no one knows why, not for whom, no one knows for what ". We are preparing to cross what has meanwhile become more and more Male Nostrum. Tripoli beautiful sole of love, for now it's just fear and confusion ...

(Photo: LNA / web)