The brutal and very public manner of Gaddafi’s demise has divided opinion in Libya and the West. Should his illegal execution be dismissed as an impulsive act brought about following years of pent up anger, a moment most Libyans thought they would never see? Or perhaps a shrewd, pre-determined calculation that to avoid a lengthy and very public trial (aka Saddam Hussain) Gaddifi must not live?
There is an irony that the UN, the organization that sanctioned legal international intervention (or in other words the removal of Gaddafi) is now pursuing an investigation into the circumstances of his death. Yet such is the nationwide euphoria, after months of war and decades of opposition, it would be fair to say most Libyans care little about Gaddafi’s demise or the gory detail surrounding his capture, death and macabre display to the public in a Mistrata vegetable cooling chamber.
Yet this is exactly Libya’s biggest challenge: not the holding elections or the repairing of power lines, but de-sensitizing a nation where war, with all its horrors and the absence of rules, is the norm. Killing has effectively become ordinary. The social contract has broken down and communities were united by a simple desire to complete a mission – the removal of Gaddafi. Whether authority and rule of law is enforced by dictatorship or as in the UK, by mutual consent, political order helps bind communities together. Once absent, human nature drives the homeless, broke, starving or aggrieved individual into a darker world where a demise in moral values goes mostly unchecked. Whilst this behaviour cannot be condoned it must be understood – because this is where Libya now is. It is what seemingly allows Misrata the right to ignore Muslim tradition and display Gaddafi’s body for days. And it is the dangerous low moral baseline from which it must now claw itself back.
The National Transitional Council has therefore the Herculean task of uniting disparate factions of a country that have been waiting 42 years to express their views. Many of these tribes are now battle tested, armed to the teeth and whose tolerance, which has been numbed by war, will be tested if they are either denied a slice of the political cake or if community improvements are slow to materialize. As with Iraq, Libya’s enormous oil wealth will cover the post conflict reconstruction bill, but failure to address governance issues led to gangs turning into militias. And not forgetting the arrival of Al Qaeda of which half its foreign manpower came from Eastern Libya.
The NTC should certainly be commended for their efforts in planning for peace. But with Gaddafi gone there will be pressure to turn all that planning into action. In any post conflict environment, peace transition boils down to three distinct themes, security, governance and (economic) reconstruction and development. The international community has already provided assistance in the latter; the role of the private sector has been embraced and major oil and gas contracts have already been signed encouraging the vital foreign work force to return to Libya.
In relation to security, efforts have been made to encourage both police and army personnel to return to work. But it is unclear how the balance will be struck between accounting for the misdemeanors by members of the old regime and the need to keep well qualified officers in their post. The so called ‘Armed Forces Council’ is corralling old units and formations but worryingly it is already challenging the limitations of its power with its civilian counterpart the NTC.
Finally, the issue of governance will prove to be the most challenging of all. Libya may wish to learn lessons from Afghanistan where a failure to identify the appropriate balance between centralized and regional power threatens instability after ISAF departs.
After nine months of televised war, we have now become familiar with the diverse power bases beyond the three regions of Tripolitania, Cyrenaica and Fezzan which were united by the Italians in 1934. It will however not be the elections of parliamentarians which will cement the foundations of democracy, but the balance of power between the next president and the big coastal cities – each of which is enjoying a new found autonomy from Tripoli.
Libya is right to celebrate the end of an era. But behind this euphoria is a vulnerable, volatile and disorientated country in a state of flux. The next nine months will be as critical as the last.