The catastrophe has opened Libya's deep scars

Photo caption: On the 18th, after the flood, the building in Derna, Libya, was washed away. (Source: Visual China)

Special correspondent of this newspaper in Egypt and Algeria Huang Peizhao and Hao Ruimin Special correspondent of this newspaper Zhen Xiang Bei'an reporter Xie Wenting and Lin Xiaoyi

On September 10, Hurricane Daniel made landfall in eastern Libya, bringing torrential rain and severe flooding along the country's eastern coast. The latest data from the World Health Organization shows that as of the 19th, 3,958 deaths have been confirmed, and there are also reports that about 11,300 people have died in the Derna region alone, and about 10,000 people are missing. At least 20 per cent of the worst-hit district of Derna, has been completely washed away. On the 18th, the Chinese government announced that it would provide emergency humanitarian assistance of 30 million yuan to Libya. Some Western media continue to focus on the reasons for the severity of the floods, citing climate change and political turmoil in Libya as key factors. However, this claim has been refuted by many scholars and media, who believe that the "culprits" of Libya's domestic division and turmoil are the United States and Western countries. Twelve years ago, the so-called "humanitarian intervention" carried out by the United States and Western countries in Libya, and the ensuing civil war and the "mess" left behind became a scar imprinted in the hearts of the Libyan people, and this hurricane re-exposed this scar to the world. Some experts told the Global Times reporter that the military intervention of the United States and the West has triggered a series of subsequent turmoil in Libya, and the country's political process is still full of challenges.

The "forgotten ancient city" was unrecognizable in the floods

Libya's hardest hit area is the eastern coastal city of Derna. Torrential rains and flooding devastated the Derna and Mansour dams upstream of the city, leaving a deep scar in the middle of the city, destroying buildings and leaving the city unrecognizable.

According to the BBC reported on the 19th, hundreds of bodies are buried in the Martoba cemetery near Derna, and a volunteer at the cemetery said: "We dig holes in advance to prepare the cemetery based on the number of deaths and missing people updated every day, and we really hope that the numbers are not accurate." Abdullah, 48, a flood survivor, said: "I lost 25 family members but now only 4 bodies have been found. ”

A reporter for the Global Times was based in Libya during the Gaddafi era and visited Drna in 2010. Founded more than 2,000 years ago, Derna, backed by green hills and facing the Mediterranean Sea, was the demographic and religious centre of the Cyrenaica region during Roman rule. Walking into downtown Derna, the clean streets and buildings surprised the reporter. From the perspective of municipal governance, the city's level of governance even exceeded that of Benghazi, the largest city in eastern Libya, during the Qaddafi era.

However, the ancient city of civilization failed to withstand the test of cruel natural disasters. "The floods in Libya are a disaster caused by climate change and poor infrastructure," said the Yale University Climate Network in the United States. According to the Washington Post, Libya's political situation has been divided in recent years, and local officials have no intention of taking care of the country's infrastructure. To this day, Libya still has "two governments": the Libyan National Unity Government in the capital, Tripoli, recognized by the United Nations, controls part of the western region; The Libyan National Congress, allied with the "National Army", controls mainly the eastern and central regions.

As early as 1998, cracks appeared in two dams upstream of Derna, according to Libya News Today. But restoration work began only in 2010 and stopped shortly after the overthrow of the Gaddafi regime. Since then, an annual budget has been allocated for the restoration of the dam, but construction has never begun.

"Derna is a forgotten ancient city," commented the Saudi newspaper Arab Izvestia. The Libyan government has not invested much in Derna since 2011, and infrastructure, including meteorological observation networks, has long been severely damaged. Most of Derna's infrastructure was reportedly built during the Gaddafi era, including two dams built in the mid-70s of the 20th century. After the Arab Spring movement erupted in 2011, Derna became one of the first regions to declare its secession from the control of the Libyan government. In 2014, Derna militants publicly pledged allegiance to the extremist group Islamic State. It was not until 2019 that Derna was reoccupied by the troops of the National Assembly. Some analysts believe that the local government is reluctant to invest in roads and public services because of the resurgence of extremism.

Western media generally believe that the chaos of power and lack of social governance caused by regional disputes in Libya have aggravated the disaster. Television News reported that political "fragmentation" has hampered Libya's flood preparedness on the one hand and confused relief efforts on the other.

The United States and the West left Libya with a "mess"

"Why is the West refusing to name the culprit behind the Libyan disaster?" Indian independent journalist Dogra recently published an article questioning. In his view, the Western media are stuck in the rhetoric of "when climate change meets failed states" and refuse to analyze further the biggest responsible party behind Libya's division and decline, because they are the ones who created the situation. Some analysts believe that Western media avoid mentioning their own responsibilities in their reports, leaving the public with the impression of "wrong and dangerous", that is, "Libyans, even Arabs and Africans, are inherently incapable of properly managing their own affairs."

The Global Times reporter's personal feeling is that benefiting from huge oil wealth, Libya brought in foreign capital to build free or cheap housing more than 10 years before the outbreak of the "Arab Spring". The country's oil revenues are also used to provide free public education and health care.

Jabara, a columnist for Egypt's "Pyramids", said in an interview with the Global Times: "The root cause and initial cause of such a serious disaster lies in the United States interfering in Libya's internal affairs by force and forcibly overthrowing the Gaddafi regime that has been in power for 42 years. ”

In February 2011, anti-government protests broke out in Libya. NATO has used the so-called "responsibility to protect" principle to fuel regime change behind the insurgency, even directly bombing Libyan forces to provide weapons and intelligence to the opposition. On March 17, 2011, the United States, the United Kingdom, France and other countries won the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973, decided to establish a "no-fly zone" in Libya, and required relevant countries to take all necessary measures to protect Libyan civilians and civilian settlements from the threat of armed attacks. However, many NATO countries have significantly exceeded their original limits of responsibility in implementing the resolution and increased their support for the opposition on the grounds that Gaddafi massacred civilians in the opposition stronghold of Benghazi.

Economically, Libya has the largest proven oil reserves in Africa. Some analysts believe that after Gaddafi came to power, he renegotiated the terms of cooperation with Western oil companies and introduced Russian and other oil companies for development, which worried the United States and Western countries, because Western multinational companies controlled Libya's oil resources at that time. In the weeks leading up to the war in Libya, the country's oil production fell to 290,000 b/d from 1.48 million b/d. In addition, Libya's oil fields and pipelines are located in the jurisdictions of different factions, and different regions are willing to destroy each other in order to compete for interests.

Zhang Chuchu, associate professor at Fudan University's School of International Relations and Public Affairs and deputy director of the Center for Middle East Studies, told the Global Times that in the restructuring of the Libyan regime, Western powers are committed to promoting a Western-style democratic system in the country and supporting a pro-Western government. This forced system transplantation has led to incompatibility, not only has not achieved a reasonable distribution of power, but has intensified political struggles and social divisions.

Economic and political instability has led to a deterioration in the security situation in Libya. At the population level, violent incidents such as armed conflict are frequent; At the level of state power, the remnants of the former regime and different factions within the opposition are fighting in a mixed manner. Extremist organizations represented by al-Qaida's North African branch of the Islamic Maghreb and Al-Qaida Organization have further exacerbated social unrest.

In 2014, in the face of the increasingly serious security situation in Libya, Western powers closed their embassies and consulates in Libya and evacuated their expatriates in Libya. Li Haidong, a professor at the Institute of International Relations of the Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times that after the withdrawal of the United States and Western countries, Libya was left with a complete "mess".

The two camps have their own supporters

Zhang Chuchu told the Global Times reporter that in addition to directly changing Libya's original political and security order by force and triggering subsequent turmoil, the continuous decline in the ability of the United States and the West to shape Libya's new order has also intensified the competition among countries in the region in Libya, causing the contradictions in the Middle East to be projected on the country.

Since 2014, two camps have emerged within Libya, led by retired general Haftar in the east, and the "Libyan Dawn" camp of anti-Haftar formed by multiple militia groups in the west, both of which are supported and assisted by different countries. The supporters of the western government are mainly Turkey, Qatar and Sudan, while the countries supporting the "national army" in the east are mainly the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Some analysts believe that some regional powers have supported proxies in Libya, escalating their domestic contradictions into proxy wars, and Libya has once again become a game ground for major powers.

Wallers, a member of the European Parliament, spoke on social media: "Libya was illegally destroyed by NATO in 2011, and the entire region has not yet recovered from the impact. Sadly, those responsible are not held accountable at all. According to the analysis of the Monthly Review, the statement that the United States and Western countries care about the well-being of ordinary Libyans has been overturned by their years of disregard for the plight of the Libyan people.

After the United States announced $1 million in humanitarian aid to Libya in the early days of the floods, online public opinion criticized the United States for being "stingy" in aiding only destruction and construction. On the 18th, US President Biden announced that he would provide an additional $11 million in aid to Libya. Last week, the European Union announced a 53-strong medical team from France to Libya, as well as relief supplies from Italy, Germany and other countries, as well as 500,000 euros in initial humanitarian aid. The United Kingdom announced £1 million in aid for Liberia.

"I am afraid that the situation of political separation between East and West will exist for a long time"

Zhang Chuchu told the Global Times that Libya's perennial turmoil is related to some of its own characteristics. First, Libya has been a highly heterogeneous tribal and political plate for a long period of time, and in the absence of "strongman" rule, Libya lacks national cohesion and unity within the country. Second, Libya's oil resources are seriously unevenly distributed, causing unbalanced development between the country's regions, intensifying competition for resources, which in turn turns into political confrontation and armed conflict. In recent years, the discovery of natural gas in the Eastern Mediterranean has made the country a competition among major powers. Moreover, post-Gaddafi Libya is caught in the dilemma of "easy to break and easy to build", when the intervention of foreign forces has cultivated different power units, resulting in the continuous deterioration of national security governance.

Although Libya's Eastern and Western governments have made some progress on issues such as ceasefire agreements, organization and talks, and elections under the mediation of the United Nations and many countries, the country's political process remains full of challenges. Zhang Chuchu believes that Libya's politics, economy and society have long been mired in the dilemma of "fragmentation", and the situation of political separation between East and West may exist for a long time. Libya's way out lies in a simultaneous improvement of the internal and external environment, on the basis of which an inclusive power structure will eventually be formed. ▲