The Challenges Facing Libya’s New Leadership After Gaddafi

Daunting questions face Libya after the death of deposed autocrat Muammar Gaddafi. Host Lisa Mullins speaks with George Joffe, a North Africa expert from Cambridge University about the challenges facing the new leadership.

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Lisa Mullins: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is The World, a coproduction of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH in Boston. The dark shadow of tyranny has been lifted from Libya. That’s how President Obama put it today after the news that former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi had been killed. Mr. Obama also spoke of the challenges still facing Libya after Gaddafi’s death.

President Obama: We’re under no illusions, Libya will travel a long and winding road to full democracy. There will be difficult days ahead, but the United States together with the international community is committed to the Libyan people. You have won your revolution.

Mullins: George Joffe is a North Africa expert from Cambridge University in England. He says that Libya might be easier to unify if Gaddafi had faced a trial.

George Joffe: Had he been brought to justice then the myth of Colonel Gaddafi would have been destroyed by the trial that followed, whatever the outcome would’ve been. Now of course, the danger is he can be seen as a martyr by those who still believe in him and they’re are quite a few in Libya that do. Now his tribe can argue that he was sacrificed, brutally treated and killed and therefore, they in a sense have got a martyr that they wish to immortalize in a renewed struggle against those who’ve taken over power.

Mullins: How strong are those forces who still believe in him and I wonder what there is or was to believe in, and this will presumably play out in terms of the reconciliation which is a key priority for the transitional government there now.

Joffe: Well, if reconciliation is possible, and it’s not clear that it is, there are many in Libya and they’re particularly in the militias, particularly from Misrata or the Jebel Nafusa, who don’t believe in reconciliation and don’t see any point to it. They regard those who were involved with the regime as being culpable almost as the regime’s leaders were. And in a sense there’s been a big argument taking place behind the scenes about the process of reconciliation. The National Transitional Council is not in a position to impose itself and therefore, the danger is that actually reconciliation may rest a dead letter.

Mullins: The United States froze something like $33 billion in Libyan assets. What is the impetus right now for the United States to send that money back to Libya and is there any incentive for Libya to use some of its oil revenue ultimately to pay NATO back for its role in deposing Gaddafi?

Joffe: Well, that’s a very interesting question. I think for the United States it’s clear that as part of the support it gave to NATO for the operation and indeed to the National Transitional Council, it will want to release those funds to the National Transitional Council, which is being recognized as the legitimate body representing Libya interests abroad. So I assume that those $33 billion will eventually be released. It’s part by the way of $150 billion that has been frozen worldwide. Now, the National Transitional Council has already received some money for that purpose, and the first thing it will have to do is to rehabilitate Libya’s oil industry because that will be the driver of development in the future. I don’t think that actually the National Transitional Council or the government that succeeds it is going to formerly propose to repay NATO. But quite clearly, NATO nations and particularly Britain and France will expect some kind of privileged access. The question is whether indeed Libyans feel they should give that. We need to understand that Libyans possess their own revolution. They’ve been empowered by it. They aren’t necessarily going to accept what may seem to us on the outside to be reasonable.

Mullins: So you say that Libyans are presumably empowered by this and consider this their own revolution despite the enormous amount of help that they had from NATO and other Arab countries working with NATO. What does that mean for Libyan oil and its tremendous oil resources and for those of us who depend in part on Libyan oil in the future?

Joffe: Well, what it means is the first task that will face not just the National Transitional Council, but now the provisional government will be to rehabilitate the Libyan oil industry. It’s estimated it’ll take perhaps three years for the oil industry to come back on stream at the level it was producing before the crisis broke out. And it will require considerable amounts of money, but there’s no doubt it can be done. And it will be done as expeditiously as possible, largely because foreign companies have always been engaged inside the Libyan oil industry. Libya ironically enough was one of the few countries that didn’t fully nationalize its oil industry, but always had foreign partners there. So, that’s going to help because foreign companies are already returning and they’re already beginning to rehabilitate the fields that they once operated.

Mullins: All right, George Joffe, lecturer at the department of politics and international studies at Cambridge University in England. Thank you.

Joffe: You’re welcome.

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