A sustainable political settlement in Libya remains an elusive prospect due to vested economic interests among the warring factions that have taken priority over peacemaking, according to a new analysis by Newsweek magazine.
In the aftermath of the latest resignation of a UN special envoy bemoaning insincere peace talks, the American publication explored the entrenched obstacles preventing a resolution of the decade-long Libyan conflict.
Researcher Aliya Ibrahimi cited two recent incidents laying bare how bad-faith actors are undermining efforts toward national reconciliation through graft linked to the country’s vast oil resources.
The first was the exposure of an alleged scheme by Libyan officials to procure Chinese drones in exchange for crude oil exports to Beijing, in violation of UN sanctions. The second was former envoy Abdoulaye Bathily’s parting condemnation that “peace talks were never serious from the start.”
“Libya’s economic powerbrokers are clearly working to muddy political outcomes,” wrote Ibrahimi, a research fellow at the Atlantic Council think tank. She urged the international community’s next engagement to “first focus on cracking down on corruption, especially in the oil sector.”
The researcher provided a scathing assessment of how Libya’s rival political elite have effectively carved up the nation’s institutions, budgets and black market rackets among themselves over the past 18 months.
“They lack any real incentive to solve the crisis and change the status quo,” Ibrahimi said of the competing forces in Libya’s east and west. Rather than a negotiated settlement, their primary aim appears securing individual economic interests.