Paris // The head of Libya’s UN-backed unity government called for urgent talks on Wednesday after forces loyal to a rival administration seized the main eastern oil ports.
As tensions mounted in Libya following the seizure of the four export ports, Britain’s parliament savaged former prime minister David Cameron for launching a 2011 bombing campaign against Muammar Qaddafi based on “erroneous assumptions”.
In Tripoli, responding to the loss of four oil ports to Tobruk government forces in the past four days, prime minister of the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA), Fayez Al Serraj, said he would not accept dividing the country between two administrations. “I am not prepared to rule one part of Libya nor to lead a war against another part.”
For the moment Mr Al Serraj has ruled-out sending forces to try to retake the ports, which can together export more than a million barrels of oil a day. The only sizeable pro-GNA force in the vicinity are Misurata militias, but they are tied-down in a bitter battle, aided by US, air strikes, to capture the coastal town of Sirte from ISIL.
In parts of eastern Libya, including the principle city Benghazi, crowds rejoiced in the capture of the oil terminals. There were protests also in Benghazi and Tobruk against a statement by Western powers America, Britain, France, Germany and Italy on Tuesday calling for Tobruk army commander General Khalifa Haftar to return the ports to the GNA.
Gen Haftar looks set to defy the Western powers, with social media showing pictures of armoured columns of reinforcements from Tobruk’s Libya National Army arriving at El Sidra oil port and nearby Ras Lanuf refinery.
Tacit support for the capture of the oil terminals also came from an unlikely quarter, in the shape of Mustafa Sanallah, chairman of Libya’s state oil company, the National Oil Corporation.
Previously declaring his obedience to the GNA, Mr Sanallah said late on Tuesday he neither approved nor condemned the capture of the ports, but pledged that the oil company would work with Gen Haftar to restore production, promising output would rise from 290,000 barrels a day now to 600,000 within four weeks.
“As Libyans we have a common interest in keeping our oil flowing. By raising oil production and exports we can reduce our budget deficit and pay for vital services,” said a statement on the oil company’s website.
For Western powers who have poured so much diplomatic support into the GNA, the capture of the ports by the rival parliament’s forces has been a setback. Far from convincing the Tobruk government to join with the GNA, it is now clear Tobruk holds what one diplomat called “the oil card.”
British Libya policy meanwhile came under attack in London, with the release of a report by the powerful foreign affairs committee accusing Mr Cameron’s government of a series of errors during the 2011 Nato bombing intervention, which swung Libya’s revolution in favour of the rebels.
The report said the six month Nato bombing campaign in 2011, led by Britain and France, which helped rebel forces overthrow Qaddafi was based on flawed intelligence, and lacked foresight for the chaos that would follow the dictator’s overthrow.
“The UK’s actions in Libya were part of an ill-conceived intervention, the results of which are still playing out today,” said foreign affairs committee chairman Crispin Blunt, a member of Mr Cameron’s Conservative party.
The report highlights the lack of “follow up” by Britain and other Western states in assisting Libya once the bombs stopped falling — a neglect that, say British MPs, helped produce the present chaos in Libya..
The British parliament report comes after president Barack Obama said Libya was his greatest foreign policy error, and blamed European states for being distracted by other things in the aftermath of Libya’s uprising.
In Tobruk, parliament’s president Aguila Saleh joined Gen Haftar in promising that the captured ports, which serve the “Oil Crescent”, centre of Libya’s oil industry, would be reopened without political interference. However, Tobruk, not the GNA in Tripoli, now controls the bulk of the country’s oil, and is likely to demand recognition of this in any political settlement.
At the United Nations on Tuesday night, chief of the UN Support Mission for Libya Martin Kobler told the Security Council that the offensive to capture the ports had been unexpected.
But he stopped short of urging that GNA forces retake the ports, and conceded that Gen Haftar, a popular figure in eastern Libya, must be part of any new political order.
“I have always said that Gen Haftar must have a role,” said Mr Kobler. “I would like to sit together with him and discuss it.”
Previously Mr Kobler had demanded that only the GNA could choose who would be Libya’s army commander, a demand that Tobruk has refused to countenance.
foreign.desk@thenational.ae
