‘World community, meet Libya’s new leaders’. That was the message of an international conference in Paris on Thursday that was short on substance but full of symbolism.
Leaders and envoys from 60 nations and world bodies such as the United Nations met for talks with Libya’s rebel-led Transitional National Council to map the country’s future.
They vowed to free up billions of dollars in frozen assets and offered to help Libya rebuild, while stressing that it is the Libyan people themselves who must lead the way.
World leaders cautioned that while Gaddafi is still at large, the work of war is not yet done – and the tough slog of nation-building looms after the six-month, Nato-backed rebellion can be formally termed a revolution.
Normalcy is far from ensured. Libya is rife with water, gas, and electricity shortages. Weapons pillaged from bombed-out or raided Gaddafi military installations flow through the country and abroad – possibly to the benefit of Islamic militants in the region. Libya’s crucial oil and gas infrastructure, which made it one of Africa’s richest nations, has been hobbled.
“They still have a huge hill to climb,” US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said. “But they are working with the international community to secure both chemical weapons stockpiles as well as conventional weapons. They are taking action against extremism wherever they find it.”
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon urged the Security Council to decide quickly on deploying a civilian mission to stabilise Libya. Other leaders at the conference called on the Security Council to take more steps to unfreeze tens of billions of dollars in assets held by Gaddafi’s regime that were squirrelled away in foreign banks but blocked by a UN resolution against him.
Sarkozy said that some $15 billion in frozen assets were being “immediately unblocked,” but he did not indicate which countries the money came from. Any such unblocking would need UN approval. As of Thursday morning, the UN had only approved the unblocking of about $6 billion from banks in the United States, Britain and France.
In a final communiqué, delegates also urged the UN to welcome the Transitional National Council “as the legitimate delegation representing the Libyan people.”
For the TNC to be recognised as the government of Libya, the UN General Assembly’s Credentials Committee must accept its credentials. The committee is expected to meet in the next few weeks.
In exchange, the world leaders pressed TNC leaders to make firm commitments to democracy and transparency. Rebel spokesman Mahmoud Shammam said that the TNC members will not run for office for four years once elections are organised, as a way to ensure completely new leadership.
Gaddafi, who remains in hiding, has vowed never to surrender, and his loyalists continue to fight in several cities. Nato Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the alliance’s military operation will continue as long as needed to protect civilians.
Clinton told Libyan opposition leaders that they must deal with the case of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the only person convicted in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. The ailing al-Megrahi was released from prison in Scotland in 2009 on compassionate grounds, then returned to a hero’s welcome in Libya.
Al-Megrahi, an ardent Gaddafi supporter, is now reported to be near death at his home in Tripoli.
Thursday’s talks weren’t expected to dramatically change the game in Libya, at least not in the short term. They’re largely an opportunity for the Libyans to make their case for rebuilding their nation and to gain global support. Many countries are claiming credit for Gaddafi’s ouster – and jockeying to reclaim Libya’s oil.
Thursday’s meeting formally put an end to the Contact Group on Libya, and transformed it into a ‘Friends of Libya’ group that will hold its next meeting in New York later this month.