In Libya, more than almost any where else, unity is hard to manufacture as the country is fundamentally fragmented. The rush of the international community to have an immediate and workable solution, is already unraveling the very basis of its legitimacy for the nascent government. There is very good reason that rival power centres perceive the GNA as an unconstitutional puppet government of the West. Its legitimacy does not derive from the August 3, 2011 Temporary Constitutional Declaration or any of its amendments. As such it is alien to the legal and social precedents of legitimacy which have emerged since Qadhafi's ouster. As such, the GNA represents a rupture with all that has come before it on the legal/legitimacy level, yet on the other it does not represent any change of the power structures on the ground and is a pure continuation of those.It simply lacks buy in on the ground and is as likely to cause fragmentation as unity as it is not different and no stronger than those factions that support it. In fact, the unexpected and poorly coordinated appearance of American soldiers at al-Watiya base has already fueled suspicions that thousands of international forces are to be deployed to protect and support the GNA in Tripoli. This exposes that it lacks the ability to generate any genuine buy in.So if the fragility of the GNA is already on display, there are abundant signs that various international actors are already beginning to drift away from the international ‘consensus’, as communicated in the Rome Foreign Ministers in Libya on Dec 13th. These developments could possibly delay, or even prevent a strong resolution by the UN Security Council. Russia, which has recently expressed reservations on a deal lacking significant local buy-in, may be less inclined to support such a resolution, especially after a recent visit to Moscow this week by the PM of the GNC government and his visit with the released crew of the Russian Tanker seized by Libyan authorities in the Western region. Regional Countries like Malta, Tunisia and even Algeria were not present in the official signing of the accord, while the U.A.E invited the minister of Finance of the HoR Thini government for talks in Abu Dhabi, after reports that the HoR established NOC is courting serious offers of oil sales to brokers in the Gulf. These indicators highlight that regional power players are more nominally, than actually, supportive of the UN-mediated process, likely using the process to buy time for preferred allies while they pursue alternate solutions and alliances.With the newly established government still in exile and with internal discordant already visible within it, and most crucially with no clear security arrangements to protect this government if it would seek to return to Tripoli, the UN faces insurmountable hurdles to ensure that international support for the new government does not exacerbate conflict in the country. It is likely that the UN envoy will be forced to manage a new dialogue process between the ‘Skhirat’ agreement and its supporters and the ‘Libyan-Libyan’ process and their supporters in an effort to properly reconcile the international roadmap with local power actors on the ground, before the GNA is able to have an actual or effective presence inside Libya.
Impossible to Manufacture Unity