Operation Oil Theft: Month 12, Week 2, Day 3.

Originally titled; "Operation Oil Theft: Month 11, Week 1, Day 1." on 2/1/12.

Although the National Transitional Council (NTC) has promised not to award any new oil contracts until Libya elects a government it has promised to honour existing contracts and announced that it has plans to increase capacity. Former NTC member Ali Tarhouni has also indicated that contracts for this extra capacity will be awarded with a preference given to nations that helped overthrow the Qaddafi government. At present Libyan oil production (for February delivery) is back at it's pre-war levels of 400,000 barrels per day (bpd).

This coupled with the immense cost of post-war reconstruction has led many people to predict that Libya will be the world's fastest growing economy in 2012 and could become the Dubai of the Mediterranean by 2017. I'm not sure how Libyans should take that second prediction though because despite it's vast oil wealth Dubai is actually quite shaky economically and keeps needing bailouts from Abu Dhabi. However with a sensible government I can see no reason why Libya can't become one of the richest country's on the Mediterranean providing they remember to award their oil contracts on the basis of getting the best deal rather then rewarding war time allies. Before that though they really need to sort out their internal security problem by disbanding the militias and taking the guns out of circulation.

The NTC is already well aware of that problem and have begun a publicity campaign encouraging ordinary Libyans to hand their weapons back or at least leave them at home and stop shooting them in the air. The NTC has also unveiled a US$8bn fund to re-integrate revolutionary fighters through micro-finance loans to start homes and set up businesses and grants to provide training in trade skills. Both Italy and Turkey have also promised to help the NTC set up and train a Libyan police force. Jordan has also offered to take in revolutionary fighters and train them to be proper soldiers but to me that sounds like a recipe for a disloyal Libyan National Army.

So far these efforts to reign in the militias has only had a limited success. On January 9th (9/1/12) an Algerian provincial governor - Mohamed Laid Khelfi - was kidnapped from inside Algeria near the Libyan border. He was released from captivity unharmed 24 hours later inside Libya. No-one has yet claimed responsibility for the kidnapping but Libyan militias are obviously suspects. For their part the Algerians have blamed Al Qaeda but then they blame everything on Al Qaeda because if they're fighting Al Qaeda the US will give them lots of money. On January 13th (13/1/12) fighters from I believe the Misrata brigade militia and the al-Asabia brigade militia because one group accused the other of being loyal to the Qaddafis or something. The fighting went on through to the following Monday (16/1/12) leaving 4 dead and 50 injured before a NTC brokered deal saw both sides give their prisoners back and the fighting stopped.

The other issue that is casting a long shadow over Libya at the moment is Saif al-Islam Qaddafi who has not been seen or heard from in almost two months. Former NTC member Ali Tarhouni has announced that the International Criminal Court (ICC) is perfectly happy for Libya to try Saif al-Islam on it's own without ICC assistance. However to me this sounds like a disgruntled former employee trying to cause trouble because the ICC seem to be taking a very different position. Firstly they've pointed out that because the ICC warrant pre-dates the NTC's jurisdiction it is actually up to the ICC to give the NTC permission to try Saif al-Islam not the other way round. They have also given the NTC until January 23rd (23/1/12) to demonstrate that Saif al-Islam is alive, well and being treated humanely and is being given access to a lawyer. They also need the NTC to clarify whether he is being held as a prisoner of the NTC or as a prisoner of the Zintan brigade militia.

The NTC didn't help strengthen their argument that they're capable of giving Saif al-Islam a fair trial by welcoming Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir as an honoured guest on January 7th. As al-Bashir is currently subject to an ICC arrest warrant Libya should have arrested him and handed him over to the ICC rather then rolling out the red carpet for him. However in the NTC's defence al-Bashir's indictment by the ICC was a highly politicised decision driven by an expensive Israeli publicity campaign that resulted in Sudan being split in two. Given what's currently going on in Nigeria and the simmering tensions between east and west Libya I would say that al-Bashir is exactly the nasty piece of work the NTC needs to be talking too right now.