A hundred days on from Libya peace summit, hopes for country curdle

It was hailed as a diplomatic triumph for Germany. 

On January 19, Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Heiko Maas brought together almost all the countries involved in the Libyan conflict for a summit in Berlin. There, they promised to stop supplying the warring factions with weapons and fighters.

Merkel and Maas were celebrated for their success, although the chancellor tried to dampen expectations, warning that the road ahead would be difficult.

Tuesday marks 100 days since the Libya summit and it is clear that all the hopes it raised have evaporated, leaving just frustration and bitterness. The arms supplies have not halted and neither has the fighting. Even the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic has not put a stop to the war. 

“We thought with the ongoing pandemic, the parties to the conflict would take their foot off the gas,” the acting UN Special Envoy for Libya, Stephanie Williams, told dpa. “The thing with Libya is: You think you reached the bottom, but then there’s a new bottom.”

HOW DID IT COME TO THIS?

It turns out that those who attended the Berlin conference never really intended to keep their pledge to observe the arms embargo. According to a BBC report, only five days after the summit, a cargo ship laden with weapons left Turkey for Tripoli, accompanied by two Turkish frigates.

Three weeks later, in a fiery speech in New York, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres voiced his anger at the continuing violations of the embargo.

“I’m deeply frustrated with what’s happening in Libya and I think that what’s happening is a scandal,” he said. Two and a half weeks later, the UN special envoy to Libya, Ghassan Salame, threw in the towel.

Meanwhile, the fighting has continued, with the United Nations recording more than 850 violations of the ceasefire since January. “The situation in Libya today is significantly worse than before the conference,” says Tarek Megerisi of the European Centre for Foreign Relations (ECFR).

ARMS FROM TURKEY, MERCENARIES FROM RUSSIA

What was once a civil war in Libya has morphed into a proxy war, just like in Syria and Yemen, with outside powers the driving forces. “We know the regional fuellers of the conflict, primarily the Turks and the Emirates,” Williams says. In addition, numerous mercenaries from Russia, Syria, Sudan and Chad are now active in the country. Arms shipments arrive on Turkish cargo ships and on cargo flights from the United Arab Emirates.

While Turkey supports the internationally recognized government of Prime Minister Fayez al-Serraj, Russia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates back the powerful General Khalifa Haftar.

TOO LITTLE PRESSURE FROM THE US AND EUROPE

But why could the Berlin resolutions not be enforced? Political observers blame it primarily on a lack of will on the part of Europe and the United States. “I would see the escalation as a direct consequence of the Berlin process,” says Wolfram Lacher of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.

“Berlin has shown that Europeans and the US are not prepared to exert pressure and the result is that these states have continued to provide massive support to the parties to the conflict.”

The EU and the US are not prepared to accept tensions in their relations with the Emirates and also Egypt, he adds. Meanwhile, Megerisi sees the lack of unity among Europeans as a major reason. And the UN mission for Libya had also hoped for more support.

EU MISSION WITH DEFICITS

Yet the Europeans have not been completely inactive. After all, they have a major interest in stabilizing Libya, since the main refugee routes from Africa via the Mediterranean Sea to Europe run through the country.

On April 1, the European Union launched a new naval mission, Operation Irini. Ships, aircraft and satellites are to be used enforce Libya’s UN arms embargo. However, while this could work at sea, where ships can be controlled and turned away, the EU can do little to tackle arms smuggling by land or by air. This has led to accusations that it favours General Haftar, who gets his weapons mainly from Egypt by air and land.

However, the EU has other ways of slowing down arms supplies, including naming and shaming. While Germany and other European states have so far refrained from public criticism of the arms suppliers, the information gathered during the EU mission may enable them to exert very concrete pressure. Another possibility would be sanctions.

“FED UP WITH ALL THIS LIP SERVICE”

“Words must finally be followed by deeds,” Maas demanded last Thursday during a debate in the German parliament on the EU mission. He has also become frustrated with the ongoing talks with the states that attended the summit. “If you regularly attend such meetings and are confronted with people who complain about violations of the arms embargo, but you know full well that they are the ones violating the arms embargo, then at some point you get fed up with all this lip service.”

Read also: Extensive curfew in Turkish cities ends after four days

Maas and the German government will still not accept that the Berlin summit was a failure. For the Libya expert Lacher, on the other hand, his initial fears have been confirmed.

“I never thought it would be a success”, he said, adding that it was up to Germany in particular to pick up the thread of the conference and put pressure on all those involved. (dpa)