The UN Envoy to Libya, Abdoulaye Bathily said the Libyan people could have found a solution to the country’s crisis if they had been granted the freedom to assemble peacefully.
“If the Libyans had the freedom of peaceful assembly, they would have been able to find a solution, because we have the solutions and we have proposed them,” Bathily told reporters.
However, he lamented that “under the pretext of the so-called legitimate institutions”, it is only the Libyan leaders who “possess a way to move forward” – leaders whom Bathily accused of being supported “in their tactics by foreigners in many ways.”
The outgoing UN envoy said the “vast majority of the Libyan people want to get out of this chaos” and had come to him seeking a formula to bypass the current leadership, whom he said “do not want to put an end to the crisis.”
But Bathily warned that “under these circumstances, there is no way for the United Nations to work successfully” in support of a political solution, as the Libyans of good will “cannot make their voices heard in the political process.”
He dismissed the notion of a “Libyan-Libyan solution,” asserting that “what we call the Libyan-Libyan solution is a Libyan solution that suits the group of leaders who do not want to move forward and suits their supporters.”
Bathily’s resignation, announced on Tuesday, came after he told the UN Security Council that the world body “cannot successfully move” in Libya due to leaders who place “their personal interests above the needs of the country.”