Afternoon rains lash the fraying facades of the Italianate quarter; traffic builds up and power goes out for 16 or 20 hours at a time. Half-finished high-rises loom on the horizon. There are shortages of fuel and cash: residents queue for hours outside banks for a daily allotment of dinars, herded by militiamen in lizard-stripe fatigues. Archipelagos of garbage line the roads. In a garage that serves as a studio, a year-old street artist and muralist named Mohammed Shandoul flips through cell phone photos of his artwork.
His family is crowded into a small apartment, but others have it far worse. They live in makeshift shelters like classrooms or factory dorms, enduring daily humiliations like contaminated water and disrupted schooling, amid a war with no end in sight. The artist paints mostly at night now, artillery booming in the distance. The resumption of fighting means that some of the militias that used to prowl the streets and harass him are otherwise occupied, deployed once again to the front.
Contact us at letters time. A vehicle burned during fighting in northwestern Gharyan on June 28, A fighter loyal to the GNA inside a building partially burned during a fight on the Yarmouk front line in Tripoli on July 1, A man stands near damaged belongings after an airstrike hit a detention center, killing 53 people and injuring about people, near Tripoli on July 3, Clothes hang inside a school, which became a shelter for those fleeing their homes, on the front line in Tripoli.
Fighters loyal to the GNA sit under a makeshift tent on the international airport front line in Tripoli on July 4, An anti-Haftar poster in Tripoli on July 1, A woman on a road near the old city in Tripoli on July 5, Each product we feature has been independently selected and reviewed by our editorial team. If you make a purchase using the links included, we may earn commission. While Libya is engulfed in instability today, it is important to not lose sight of the real possibility that Libya would be in a far worse position had Gadhafi remained in power, and one only needs to look at Syria to have a striking sense of where the country may have otherwise headed.
No-fly zones can work, as can Western efforts to remove the ability of brutal despots to carry out humanitarian atrocities. However, the international community and their Libyan partners failed to accomplish what should arguably be the most pressing objective in the aftermath of any conflict: the disarmament of militia groups, a prelude to establishing a professionalized security force that manages the fallout from a major military conflict, prevents the proliferation of arms and additional militia groups, and enables pathways for political stability.
The aftermath of the uprising was not followed with a viable power-sharing arrangement. The rush to hold elections prior to securing reconciliation exacerbated divisions and entrenched the prevailing military balance of power.
The opportunity to build on the success of the intervention to establish a success story out of the post-conflict aftermath was missed. The consequences have been profound and reverberate today through civil strife, an internationalized proxy war, and the demarcation of territorial boundaries by rival factions.
Order from Chaos. A how-to guide for managing the end of the post-Cold War era. Read all the Order from Chaos content ».
Pavel K. Order from Chaos A how-to guide for managing the end of the post-Cold War era. Foreign Policy. It may not be the time to remember and adjudicate this painful history. Tribal and traditional dispute resolution models in Libya generally seek to arrive at thin reconciliation, forgetting—or at least not dealing with directly—the grievances stemming from history.
In these agreements, it is easy to overlook root causes of conflict. If anything, many of the conflicts emerging in Libya after proved that despite the passage of years, many of the outstanding conflicts, even historical ones, will explode one day. Regarding transitional justice, the international community has not been clear about the ultimate goal and how and what kind of reconciliation will be achieved. Due to the lack of clarity about the transitional justice goals and concurrent political processes, Libyans have necessarily tended to revert to violence to achieve their goals.
When the U. But the country was ill-equipped for a swift transition to democracy after four decades of dictatorship. The elections and the violence and division that emerged after put this on full display.
One way is to convene grassroots dialogues to collaborate on solving local problems. Such dialogues can demonstrate how people can work together to overcome obstacles and lay the groundwork for working on root causes of conflict. While the GNU may be a step in the right direction, a top-down process is critical but not enough.
Bottom-up, collaborative problem-solving dialogues can be important means for building long-term confidence. Concurrently, the international community can host a national dialogue to discuss Libyan identity and other critical issues that are vital to achieving thick reconciliation. This can also identify potential problems related to a transitional justice process, and solutions to overcome them. However, "similar clashes are bound to recur in Tripoli and elsewhere", he added.
Subscribe for our daily curated newsletter to receive the latest exclusive Reuters coverage delivered to your inbox. VIOLENCE Libya is a major oil producer and though it has been able to maintain output over the past decade, disputes have sometimes shut down exports, including for months last year.
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