Jean-Jacques Cornish

Who’s holding Libya’s economic trump card

Jean-Jacques

The actors that needed to be in Berlin at the weekend were all there. But the agreement they reached on Libya is as full of holes as a colander.

So much depends on what happens at the follow-up meeting in Geneva later this week.

Will the five parties named by each side in the conflict be able agree on how best to monitor the deal?

The success or failure of the deal concocted at the German-hosted deliberations will be determined by whether it can be translated into a resolution that can be unanimously adopted by United Nations Security Council.

The ultimate question, however, is who holds the economic trump card?  

Libya has confounded the best-intentioned peacemakers since the fall and killing of Muammar Gadaffi in 2011.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who hosted peace talks in Moscow a week before the Berlin gathering can hardly be said to fall into this category.

Neither, in all honesty, can German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

She was able to get the great and good to attend her talks.

But her motivation, like Putin’s, was not altruistic.

An increasing number of the desperate  people using Libya as a launching point for reaching a more secure – both physically and economically – future in Europe end up in Germany.

She has to be seen to be doing everything she can to stem this flow.

The oil-rich nation of Libya has become a poor country split between the weak United Nations-backed Government of National Accord led by Fayez Al-Sarraj and the rebel- held Benghazi in the east led by Khalifa Haftar.

Both these leaders were present in Berlin but did not overtly participate in the talks.

This was left to the leaders of Russia, Turkey, France, Egypt, Italy, the United States. and Britain.

Berlin was a convenient stopover for the World Economic Forum meeting starting in Davos, Switzerland.

Algeria, the United Arab Emirates, China, Congo Republic, United Nations, European Union and African Union all sent representatives.

En route to Berlin Al-Sarraj and Haftar stopped over the Athens for talks with the Greek government that has taken a far more active interest in Libya following the signing of a maritime and military agreement by Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan with Al-Sarraj.

Fears of Libya becoming a proxy war are plainly well grounded.

No surprise, therefore that the primary demand from Berlin was of non interference.

Ironically it as the interference of Turkey – whose parliament voted to allow deployment of troops to protects to GNA – and Russia playing its more muscular regional role that led to the ceasefire earlier in January.

The Berlin conference, having called on players to implement the 2011 arms embargo on Libyan combatants, urged those opposing parties to observe the ceasefire.

The conference added that sanctions will have to be imposed on those breaking this embargo – yet another issue that has to pass the UN Security Council

The only way through the impasse is by restoring the political process.

That is what has to happen in Geneva.

The biggest question is  whether Haftar, who walked out of the Moscow meeting, actually inked any document in Berlin.

He maintains he holds the whip hand when it comes to Libyan oil.

He has brought the flow of oil out of Libya to halt by preventing exports through the ports of  Brega, Ras Lanuf, Hariga, Zueitina and Sidra.

As long as  he maintains this choke-hold on the economy, he can be considered effectively to control the peace process.

Even human rights, always a major consideration, has to follow the money. 

In Berlin countries were once again urged not to return rescued migrants to the appalling conditions in the Libyan detention centers.

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Jean-Jacques Cornish is a journalist and broadcaster who has been involved in the media all his adult life.

Starting as a reporter on his hometown newspaper, he moved briefly to then Rhodesia before returning to South Africa to become a parliamentary correspondent with the South African Press Association. He was sent to London as Sapa’s London editor and also served as special correspondent to the United Nations. He joined the then Argus group in London as political correspondent.

Returning to South Africa after 12 years abroad, he was assistant editor on the Pretoria News for a decade before becoming editor of the Star and SA Times for five years.

Since 1999 he’s been an independent journalist writing and broadcasting – mainly about Africa – for Talk Radio 702 and 567 Cape
Talk, Radio France International, PressTV, Radio Live New Zealand, Business Day, Mail & Guardian, the BBC, Agence France Press,
Business in Africa, Leadership, India Today, the South African Institute for International Affairs and the Institute for Security Studies.

He has hosted current affairs talk shows on Talk Radio 702 and 567 Cape Talk. He appears as an African affairs pundit on SABC Africa and CNBC Africa.
He lectured in contemporary studies to journalism students at the Tshwane University of Technology and the University of Pretoria.

He speaks on African affairs to corporate and other audiences.
He has been officially invited as a journalist to more than 30 countries. He was the winner of the 2007 SADC award for radio journalism.

He’s been a member of the EISA team observing elections in Somaliland, Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar, Zimbabwe, Egypt and Tunsiai.

In October 2009 he headed a group of 39 African journalists to the 60th anniversary celebrations of the Peoples’ Republic of China.

In January 2010 he joined a rescue and paramedical team to earthquake struck Haiti.

He is immediate past president of the Alliance Francaise of Pretoria.

Jean-Jacques is a director of Giant Media. The company was given access to Nelson Mandela in his retirement years until 2009.
He is co-producer of the hour-long documentary Mandela at 90 that was broadcast on BBC in January 2009.