Suppressed Political Parties in Libya
4.4.3. Old Hatred as a Trigger and the Cooperation between Dissents
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regime might be powerful enough to temporarily put down those “illegal” groups, but the oppressed energy will break out when appropriate moment coming.
4.4.3. Old Hatred as a Trigger and the Cooperation between Dissents
In the context of the toppling of Tunisia and Egypt government, Libyan civil war was ignited by the arrest of Fathi Terbil and the consequent protest in Banghazi for releasing him. Under the bloody repression and limited concession of Gaddafi, the riots rapidly grew from a local mobilization to a national one. On March 5, NTC, an ally between different oppositions, was set up. With the passing of UN Resolution 1973 on March 17, a no-fly zone was established in Libya, and after that the resistant forces were stabilized, and the gap of power between them and Gaddafi forces gradually diminished. The situation of civil war was ensured.
For theoretical reason, I would like to focus on the role played by the grievance from the Abu Salim massacre in the Libyan civil war. Just like in other places in the MENA region during the Arab Spring, in Libya the grievances promoting people to go against the government were too complex to single out the most significant one of them. Dissatisfaction to poor socio-economic conditions and lack of political freedom certainly played their role in mobilizing the people. The impact of Abu Salim massacre could not tell the whole story in Libya; however, it was hard to ignore it during the process of situation escalating into civil war.
The hatred due to Abu Salim massacre promoted the initial protest in Libya during the Arab Spring. On February 15, RC arrested Fathi Terbil when planning for a protest in demand for compensation for massacre in Benghazi, and the event was believed to trigger a series of consequent events that enhance the antagonism between Gaddafi regime and Libyan people.
The hatred from Abu Salim massacre served as the cause for people to join the rebellion. It is unrealistic to do a survey for Libyans by asking them the cause promoting them to take part in rebellion. Nevertheless, there were some proofs reflecting that some key figures might join the rebellion for the hatred from the Abu Salim massacre. First of all, Fathi Terbil who had fought for and was jailed for a reason about Abu Salim massacre participated in NTC latter and was in charge of
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affairs about youth there (ICG, “Popular Protest in North African and the Middle East (V)” 24). The other two examples here represented for two most suppressed groups under Gaddafi’s rule: LIFG and Muslim Brotherhood, whose members accounting for largest proportion of victims in Abu Salim (Ashour, “Ex-Jihadists” 117). In 2011, Abdel Hakim Belhaj, the former commander of LIFG and once prisoner in Abu Salim, led Tripoli’s Military Council to fight against the Gaddafi’s forces. Also, Fawzi Abu Kitef, jailed members of Muslim Brotherhood in the same prison, held the deputy defense minister in the NTC and led Revolutionary Brigades Coalition during the Arab Spring (Ashour, “Libya’s Muslim Brotherhood” 120). Though no data available to show how many Libyans were mobilized by hatred from Abu Salim massacre to fight against Gaddafi, we still cannot disregard its effect during the Libyan civil war.
In addition, there was other proof reflecting the connection between Libyans’
grievance and Abu Salim massacre: In response to the protest, the Libyan government set free not only Fathi Terbil but also 110 jailed members of LIFG from Abu Salim prison later (“Middle East unrest”). The intention of the government to mollify people’s grievance about Abu Salim was observable. Though we cannot exclude the possibility that the regime misperceived people’s mind, it is arguable that the regime’s attitude towards the protests support the might-be connection between the Abu Salim massacre and civil war in 2011.
In Libya case, we can observe that not only hatred from previous civil war but also from less violent past conflicts might serve as a cause for people to join the rebellion. However, it is defensible that due to the latter one involving narrower swath of population, such as the relatives of victims or fellows from the same Islamist groups, its influence might be limited. That is, when explaining the happening of civil war we need to give hatred, originating from less violent past conflicts, the explanatory weight that it should bear.
About political institution, to some extent, the outbreak of civil war in Libya resulted from the underdevelopment of the political institution. The regime’s failure is reflected by its relation with Cyrenaica and its policies towards tribalism and Islam.
From the two examples below, we can see that Gaddafi regime failed to form a political community by defining public interests and be identified by the most of social forces.
Gaddafi regime has maintained an awful relation with Cyrenaica for a long time.
As I mentioned before, to Gaddafi, Cyrenaica was the most rebellious region for its
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connection with former monarchy and Islam. Under the long-term bloody oppression and systematic discrimination and neglect, it was not too surprising that Cyrenaica was the first place to rebel. The rebellion initiated in the eastern region exemplifies the failure of Libyan political institution to absorb population into the political community.
Certainly, the regime took some policies to keep the resistance calm, but it is obviously not effective in the long term. Realizing how powerful tribal leaders among people, the regime establish PSL to absorb them and increase its legitimacy, however, we know it is ineffective by the example that Gaddafi’s failed try to achieve cease fire during 2011 civil war in the name of PSL (Brahimi 613). Also, Gaddafi’s iron-fisted policies temporarily pushed the Islamist groups out of Libya but cannot permanently neutralize their dissatisfaction. When the regime exposed its vulnerability during 2011, the former members of these groups in exile returned Libya and participated in the war against the regime.
As to political parties, Gaddafi regime had banned the establishment of political party for a long time, so there was lack of public competition. Due to the restriction by Gaddafi, most opposition parties were in exile before 2011, and they had no thick connections with domestic constituency. In other words, the oppositions in Libya were relatively less fragmented, and it was suitable to be mobilized, especially while the hated regime suffering from serious crises during the Arab Spring. As a result, the shared objective: pulling Gaddafi regime down was easily to rally Libyans and made people temporarily put down prejudices among them.
Although our focus is past hatred and domestic political institution, the effect of foreign intervention should not be ignored. The substantial assistance from the NATO prevented NTC from being destroyed by Gaddafi’s forces, and the international recognition gave more legitimacy to NTC.58 Under the external help, most Libyan united behind the temporary ally: NTC constituting enough pressure to topple down Gaddafi.
In Libya case, the dissatisfaction form Abu Salim massacre and the underdevelopment of the Jamahiriya were two causes behind the civil war, and the external intervention assured the survival of and strengthened the rebellions. The
58 About recognition of the NTC, most of relevant powers did it before the toppling of Gaddafi regime in 2011: France on March 10, Italy on April 4; Germany on June 13, the US on July 15, the UK on July 27, Russia on September 1, and China on September 12, see “Libya: France recognizes”;
“Focus-Libya”; “Germany Recognises”; “Fourth Meeting”; Nicholas Watt; “Statement”; “China Recognizes”.
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connection between the past conflict and Libyan civil war is observable, and the failure to form a political community excludes oppositions from formal and legal political competition which provides energy for rebelling. It is still not easy to prove that both of them are necessary condition but their explanatory weight is significant.
4.5. Brief Summary
In Chapter 4, I focus on the two might-be necessary condition behind civil war during the Arab Spring and the two deviate cases.
After analyzing the reason behind the deviation of Algeria and Libya, the findings are as below. Though the “peace duration” hypothesis tells that previous hatred will cause new civil war, in Algeria case I observe that the reconciliatory policies taken by Bouteflika might distort the impact of hatred from previous civil war. In Libya case, the ignoring of less intensive conflict, such as Abu Salim massacre, by the definition of “peace duration”, which only takes civil war into consideration, leads to the exception of theory. That is, not only civil war but also less intensive conflicts might trigger new civil war.
About the “anocracy”, I find it can still explain the happening of civil war after dropping the simplified indicator and returning to its theoretical base. Algerian institution has better performance in adaptability, complexity, and autonomy in general and in political parties in specific, as a result, it could avoid the outbreak of civil war. In contrast, Libyan institution has poor performance in the four aspects in general and almost no development of political parties, so it is not so surprising that Gaddafi regime was toppled down in 2011.
In sum, the analysis of the two outliers tells us some weakness of the definition of both “peace duration” and “anocracy”.
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5. Conclusion
According to the above discussion, we find that: Strictly speaking, under the context, that is, in the MENA and during the Arab Spring, C-H alone can effectively and parsimoniously explain the difference in the level and from of political violence/mobilization. In addition, the past hatred, captured by “peace duration”, and the praetorian polity, theoretical base of “anocracy”, were the possible necessary conditions behind civil war under the context. And, based on these research results, I would like to make conclusion with theoretical implication and policy implications.
My recommendations for theoretical improvements are as below. It seems like
“peace duration” hypothesis cannot explain the situation in Libya; in fact, the reason behind the exception from theoretical predication lies on that the definition of this variable ignore the less violent conflict, which might also cause new civil war.
Because not only civil war but also less intensive conflict experience can lead to new civil war, we need to expand the scope of hatred source when designing variable to capture past hatred.
Based on the result of the Algeria and Libya cases, it is also looks like
“anocracy” hypothesis, whose theoretical bases lays on praetorian polity presented by Huntington, cannot hold; however, the deviation from expectation might comes from the price of using simplified indicators, such as X-POLITY used by this study and Polity score used by F-L. As I mentioned in Part 4.2.2 and 4.2.3, both indicators ignore the two aspects of praetorian polity: adaptability and complexity, so I think they might be not qualified to represent the more complex concept praetorian polity.
As a result, for future theoretical development we need to take adaptability and complexity into account when operationalizing praetorian polity next time.
As to the policy implication, there are both optimistic and pessimistic news.
About optimistic one, despite of a case experiencing civil war before just like Algeria, under appropriate reconciliatory policies, it does not inevitably lead to new civil war.
About pessimistic one, given that praetorian polity is one of necessary behind civil war, civil war might be harder to prevent, because the root of civil war lies in political dimension involving ruling groups’ fatal interests rather than economic dimension with which is easier to deal.