Operation Oil Theft: Month 13, Week 2, Day 3.

Originally titled; "Operation Oil Theft: Month 12, Week 1, Day 1." on 19/2/12.

It appears that at around 19:50 on 19/2/12 my Internet connection has been restored.

Friday February 17th (17/2/12) marked the first anniversary of the February 17th uprising that eventually led to the overthrow of the Qaddafi government and most of the past week in Libya has been spent celebrating. This anniversary was proceeded with some good news. On Monday the Libyan Higher National Electoral Commission was formally sworn in for the first time. This is the body that will organise and oversee Libya's coming election and the appointment of the body that will write Libya's new constitution. As Mahmoud Jabril pointed out the next day (14/2/12) the Electoral Commission also has a lot of work to do making the Libyan people aware of the election and educating them about how the process works. This is something that people who have grown up in democratic countries take for granted but having never really had the opportunity to vote before the Libyan people will have to learn the equivalent of an entire new political and cultural language. In other good news the National Transitional Council (NTC) appears to be making good on it's pledge to bring all of the militia prisons under the control of the Justice Ministry. Of course the true test will be how the Justice Ministry runs those prisons once they've taken control of them.

Celebrations were tempered somewhat by the Amnesty International report; "Militias Threaten Hopes For New Libya" which was published on Thursday (16/2/12). It paints a picture of hundreds of rival militias that are answerable to no-one engaging in arbitrary arrest and detention, torture and extra-judicial killings, attacks on protesters, revenge attacks on each other and racist attacks of ethnic groups forcing them to become internally and externally displaced (refugees). It went on to argue that unless the culture of impunity in which these armed gangs operate is brought to an end and the militias are integrated into a formal security force Libya faces little chance of enjoying a peaceful and prosperous future. The militias themselves have been quiet this week choosing to celebrate rather the fight each other. There was some inter-tribal violence on Sunday (12/2/12) and Monday (13/2/12) when members of the Zwai tribe clashed with members of the Tobu tribe near the town of Kufra in south east Libya. Fighting started with small arms but quickly progressed to heavy weapons such as anti-aircraft guns leaving six dead and twenty injured. The Tobu tribe claim that the Zwai tribe is being backed by the NTC but this cannot be confirmed and the NTC have not commented on the accusation.

Aisha Qaddafi has been writing letters again. On Thursday February 9th (9/2/12) she wrote to the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Libya asking it to investigate the death of her father - Muammer Qaddafi. She went onto accuse the commission of having a bias against the Qaddafi government which seems like fair comment. The UN commission has yet to respond. On Sunday (12/2/12) NTC chair Mustafa Abdul Jalil announced that Saif al-Islam Qaddafi will be transferred to an NTC prison in Tripoli and put on trial in no more then two months. He may want to re-consider his statement in light of how badly the first trial of Qaddafi supporters went when it was re-convened on February 15th (15/2/12). Having been adjourned on February 7th (7/2/12) to allow lawyers to be instructed it reconvened on the 15th to discover that lawyers had been instructed but the number of defendants had suddenly risen from 41 to 50. The trial was then immediately adjourned for a second time after the Benghazi based February 17th Martyrs Brigade simply refused to bring the prisoners to the court.