Libya: the struggle for a constitution

Submitted by Matthew on 2 May, 2012 - 6:57

Those comrades who live near the poshest millionaire villas at Winnington Close, Hampstead may have noticed the removal vans over the last few days shipping out the Picassos and the Chagalls from number 7.

This pad, worth about £10 million, was the British residence of the erstwhile Saadi Qadaffi, now hiding out in exile in Niger. It is in the process of confiscation as part of criminal assets by the National Transitional Council in Libya. Saadi Qadaffi is disputing their claim — although he may be stretching it a bit if he thinks Hampstead will again one day be the backdrop to his playboy antics.

Pro-Qadaffi forces within Libya itself have been physically destroyed, exiled to the south of the country, or keeping a very quiet profile in the face of attacks by militias who have still not been brought back under control by government forces and who are themselves deeply suspicious of the anti-federalist, anti-tribal regime.

Shokri Ghanem, who was the head of the National Oil Corporation under the old regime, was found dead last Sunday in the river Danube in Vienna where he had fled in the closing days of the regime — ostensibly because of Qadaffi’s brutal crackdown but probably in reality because he knew which way the wind was blowing. His death signifies the marginalisation of the personnel of the old regime and the total hostility of the NTC to accepting those who didn’t jump ship quick enough into the government.

Revelations about the close ties between the British government and the old regime have resurfaced in recent weeks particularly around MI5 giving details of dissidents, resident in Britain, to Qadaffi’s security services. It’s also clear that naval forces (European, US or UK) left 72 African migrants to their fate off the coast off Libya in the early days of the uprising — only 11 survived, only to be returned back to Libya itself.

The NTC is struggling with the militia question and in early April there were significant workers’ and women’s protests against the rule of the militias in Libyan towns and cities. The government has not bowed to some of the tribalist and autonomist demands of the militias.

The NTC is also wary of the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Libya which has now founded its own “Freedom and Development” party to stand in the forthcoming general elections, which will write and deliver the new Libyan constitution. The NTC has issued a ban against religious parties, which the militias have taken as another sign that the government is losing patience with them

The early statements on religious freedom from the Democratic Party of Libya clearly point to a hostility towards the Islamists on behalf of the new Libyan liberal democracy — particularly their idea that the measure of the success of Libyan democracy is the return of the longstanding Libyan Jewish population to Benghazi and Tripoli after their expulsion by the old regime.

The general elections in two months’ time will be critical for what kinds of constitution and immediate political settlements will pave the way for workers’ and women’s organisation in the country, and how far the political gains already won can be defended against an assertive and ebullient new political Islam in North Africa.

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