TRIPOLI, Libya
Libyans on Wednesday marked the 10th anniversary of their 2011 uprising that led to the overthrow and eventual killing of longtime ruler Moammar Gadhafi.
The day comes as
Libyans have their eyes on a recently appointed government tasked with leading
the country through elections late this year.
Celebrations began late
Tuesday in the capital, Tripoli,
where people gathered in the city's main square amid tight security. The city's
main streets and squares have been cleaned and decorated with banners and
photos marking the anniversary. Festivities also rang out in other cities in
the south.
Hassan Wanis, head of
the general authority for culture in Tripoli, said celebrations and
commemorative events were planned in the three regions of old Libya:
Tripolitania in the west, Cyrenaica in the east, and Fezzan in the southwest.
Libya has become one of
the most intractable conflicts leftover from the “Arab spring” a
decade ago. In the years that followed Gadhafi’s
ouster, the North African country has descended into devastating
chaos and has become a haven for Islamic militants and armed groups that
survive on looting and human trafficking.
The oil-rich country
has for years split between rival administrations: A U.N.-backed, but weak
government in Tripoli — a city largely controlled by an array of armed factions
— against an eastern-based government backed by strongman Gen. Khalifa Hifter,
head of the self-styled Libyan Arab Armed Forces. Each is backed by foreign
governments.
Over the past years,
the country has seen devastating bouts of violence. The latest began in April
2019, when Hifter, who is backed by the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Russia,
launched an offensive seeking to capture Tripoli. His campaign collapsed after
Turkey stepped up its military support for the Tripoli administration with hundreds
of troops and thousands of Syrian mercenaries.
Months of U.N.-led
talks resulted in a deal in October that ceased hospitalities and called for
the withdrawal of all foreign forces and mercenaries in three months and
adherence to a U.N. arms embargo, provisions which have not been met.
The talks also
established a Libyan Political Dialogue Forum, that earlier this month
appointed an interim government - a three-member Presidential Council and a
prime minister - that would lead the country through elections scheduled on
December 24.
That government
includes Mohammad Younes Menfi, a Libyan diplomat from the country’s east who
hails from the tribe of anti-colonial hero Omar al-Mukhtar, as chairman of
Libya’s Presidential Council. Abdul Hamid Mohammed Dbeibah, a pragmatic,
well-connected businessman from the western city of Misrata, was appointed as
prime minister.
Dbeibah is still
consulting to form his Cabinet, which needs a confirmation from the country’s
divided parliament. Menfi arrived in Tripoli on Tuesday and met with Dbeibah
and other officials.
In a report marking the
anniversary, Amnesty International repeated its calls for holding accountable
those engaged in alleged war crimes and serious human rights violations during
the past ten years.
“Unless those
responsible for violations are brought to justice, rather than rewarded with
positions of power, the violence, chaos, systematic human rights abuses and
endless suffering of civilians that have characterized post-Gaddafi Libya will
continue unabated,” said Diana Eltahawy, the group’s deputy director for MENA.
In the past years Libya
has emerged as the dominant transit point for migrants fleeing war and poverty
in Africa and the Middle East. Traffickers often pack desperate families into
ill-equipped rubber boats that stall and founder along the perilous
Mediterranean route.
Thousands drown along
the way, while others end up detained in squalid smugglers’ pens or crowded
detention centers if captured by authorities. - AP
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