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Libya: the difference between east and west

I spent the better part of an hour Thursday on an Al-Arabiya program discussing Libya.The main issue was US and British resistance to lifting the UN arms embargo. The anchor questioned why Washington and London are so concerned with weapons falling into the “wrong hands” and whether that problem can’t be solved by transferring them only to the Libyan army under close supervision. I said I thought the Americans want to see some progress toward unifying the government authorities first. I got this email this morning from a Libyan, which I think merits airing:

I am watching a TV program. Even if I may agree with some of your views, what concerns me is the confusion you have about the reality in Libya. You and others get their information from politicians who have been out of Libya for decades and have lost touch with reality. You do not make distinctions between what happened in the eastern part of Libya and the western part.

In the east there is an army. It is a small number but it is on the ground and fighting all kinds of terrorism (Islamic factions and ISIS) as well as those who are really just gangs of outlaws.  I and other Libyans in the east do not understand how the West has denied the Libyan army weapons because of fear that those weapons may fall in the wrong hands. There are no wrong hands. There is an army and there are gangs.

In the western part of Libya there are many factions, militias, gangs, and some of the remaining of Qaddafi army. In fact you can say there is a war among all those factions. It is really a civil war.

As for the government, it has been formed by a freely elected parliament, whether we agree with its decisions or not. Many in the West ignore or do not realize that Islamists, and their allied militias, lost the election. The forming of the Libyan army will cause those militias to vanish gradually. The Islamist faction denies the presence of ISIS in Libya and insists that the government has been formed by Qaddafi’s followers.

Forming a national unity government is a nice idea, so long as there is a power that will protect citizens and enforce the laws, enabling the government to work. That power is a state army, which already exists in eastern Libya, but there are diplomats who see only what they want to see. This is our country and we will defend it with all means.

The West started this process in 2011 but you did not finish your assignment. Your countries have a moral responsibility toward the Libyan people to assist in establishing democracy and securing for the nation growth and development again.  For this you need to recognize the very important difference between what is happening in the eastern and the western parts of Libya. If you make this distinction, your judgment will change.