Operation Oil Theft Month 18: Week 2, Day 1.

As of Sunday (15/7/12) - the last day I have information for - the official results of Libya's July 7th (7/7/12) election have still not been released. However from the results that have been made public it seems that Mahmoud Jibril's National Forces Alliance (NFA) are in the lead with 41 seats. The Muslim Brotherhood linked Freedom & Construction Party are in second place with 16 seats. The National Front are in distant third place with 3 seats. The Union for Homeland are in fourth place with 2 seats. The Central Union Current are in fifth place with 2 seats. The Homeland Party are in sixth place with 1 seat. There are 15 seats for parties still up for grabs. The 120 seats reserved for independent candidates are too difficult to predict so I'll have to wait until the official results are published before I can comment.

In the meantime today (16/7/12) the President of the Libyan Olympic Committee Albil Elalem has been kidnapped by nine or ten men in military style uniforms in Tripoli. No further information has been released and no ransom demands have been made. However kidnappings are all too common in Libya and tend to be a way of forcing political concessions out of the National Transitional Council (NTC) rather then being for profit.

For example on July 9th (9/7/12) two journalists were kidnapped in Bani Walid as they returned from covering the election. As the journalists were from Misrasta which sees itself as the crucible of the anti-Qaddafi uprising in the west and the kidnappers were from Bani Walid which along with Sebha and Sirte fought for Qaddafi until the very end the incident quickly re-opened old wartime divisions. The following day (10/7/12) the Misrata Brigade militia along with members of the Libya shield militia assembled an ominously named Bani Walid invasion force to storm the town and rescue the hostages. To make matters worse on July 14th (14/7/12) two members of the invasion force along with an embedded journalist were also captured by Bani Walid forces. Fortunately due to some extensive mediation by the NTC and various tribal elders the initial two journalists were released without violence on Sunday (15/7/12) in exchange for an unspecified number (believed to be 120) of Bani Walid residents who were taken prisoner during the war. The two invasion force members and the embedded journalist are still being held.

While I most certainly don't agree with their tactics I can't help but feel the Bani Walid forces have a point about the prisoners. Although no-one's sure of the exact number almost a year after the end of the war 4000 prisoners remain in NTC custody and a further 5000 are being held by the various militias. This contributes to keeping the wartime mentality going which increases the tension with the Tebu in Kufra and the people of Sirte, Sebha and Bani Walid. It also gives the militia the idea that they're still needed when maybe it's time for them to start disbanding. Obviously the senior commanders of Qaddafi forces need to be prosecuted but it might be time to hold an amnesty for the foot soldiers and let them gradually go free in small groups. After all there's little point winning a war in the country remains trapped in that war.

Operation Oil Theft: Month 17, Week 5, Day 2.

Due to delays in Libya's election for it's General National Congress (GNC) voting has continued today (8/7/12) in Sirte. However counting in the 98% areas that were able to vote on schedule yesterday (7/7/12) has begun. The results are not due until later in the week however the general consensus is that while the electoral system was specifically designed so no one party wins overall control the National Forces Alliance (NFA) will emerge as the largest party. Led by Mahmoud Jabril this is a very moderate, liberal party that is essentially the National Transitional Council (NTC) only with a democratic mandate. This is most likely their reward for the very good job they've done up to now under very difficult circumstances

In all 24 polling stations were unable to operate due to violence. These were all located in either in the troubled Kufra region or in the east of the country. The voter turnout 60% seems to have been suppressed by eastern-federalist campaign to boycott the election and they have also seized five oil terminals although three of these - Ras Lanuf, Sidra and Brega have been returned to NTC control today. I don't think this is really the time to get into the details of exactly what the federalists grievance is because Libya really needs to count the votes of this election, get some form of government sworn in and start work on writing a constitution. That's because unlike Egypt Libya doesn't have the luxury of having a strong military to run things day to day while the politicians sort themselves out.

However the federalists main complaint is that the way that electoral boundaries have been draw means they feel unrepresented. This is a constant complaint in a democratic society. For example in Britain the Liberal Democrat (LibDem) Party recently threatened to block Conservative Party plans to re-draw Britain's electoral boundaries unless the Conservative Party promise to help get LibDem plans for House of Lords reform through Parliament. Also in the United States one of the big worries about the upcoming Presidential election is that after winning control of many states in the 2010 mid-terms Republican Governors have been re-drawing the electoral boundaries to give their Presidential and candidate advantage. This gerrymandering as it's known could mean that although President Obama wins the largest share of the vote the way that vote is shared out would result in Mitt Romney actually winning a very tight race.

In Libya the electoral boundaries are divided up according to demographics meaning that the western Tripolitania region gets more seats in the GNC then the eastern Cyrenaica region because more people live there. This is how things are done in most democratic countries because a democracy is meant to be a government of the people not a government of the trees and mountains. However I appreciate that the Cyrenaica region was terribly neglected under Qaddafi meaning that people moved away lowering it's population. Therefore it may be possible to set up a funding formula that sees the Cyrenaica region receive some sort of subsidy in order to bring it's quality of life back up to the standard in the Tripolitania region encouraging people to move back evening out the population imbalance. However this is a very complicated thing set up and should be done only if a calm and considered assessment of the arguments involved conclude it's the right thing to do not because some men with guns have seized some oil terminals.

An Agressive Move From Morsi.

Today (8/7/12) Egypt's new President Mohammed Morsi has announced the reinstatement of the Parliament that was dissolved by the Supreme Constitutional Court on June 14 (14/6/12). If members of Egypt's Parliament attempt to re-enter the Parliament building tomorrow (9/6/12) - and members of Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood linked Freedom and Justice Party likely will - it may well provoke a confrontation with the police and military. Egypt's interim military rulers, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) are said to be holding an emergency meeting to consider their response.

This all stems from the Presidential run-off. According to the Muslim Brotherhood's own reporting this election featured a number of breaches of election rules that were serious enough to render the result null and void. However Egypt's interim military rulers were prepared to overlook these and allow Morsi to be inaugurated as President anyway. So now President Morsi is challenging the military to see if they are holding onto those voting irregularities as a way to force him out of office at some point in the future and if they are how far can he go before they use them.

I'm not sure how significant the Parliament issue is though because the constitutional declaration of June 17th (17/6/12) stripped Parliament of really it's one and only job of appointing the panel to write the new constitution.

Operation Oil Theft: Month 17, Week 5, Day 1.

Technically polling stations in Libya's election should have closed at 18:00(GMT) today (7/7/12). However as this has been Libya's first election there have understandably been some problems. As a result most polling stations remained open until 23:00. In Brega polling stations were unable to open until the late afternoon so will remain open overnight.

Obviously with voting still going on I can't really write up a round of events until tomorrow (8/7/12) at the earliest. However through-out the day there have been four confirmed reports of serious, armed violence all in the eastern Cyrenacia region;

• In Brega armed men hijacked electoral commission vehicles and stole the ballot papers they were carrying. The ballot paper were replaced but this delayed the opening of polling stations.

• In Gahmines armed men stormed two polling stations and stole ballot papers. I have not yet heard if the missing ballot papers were replaced to allow voting.

• In Ras Lanuf armed men stopped people entering a polling station. Although I've not had it confirmed I believe this was only for a short time and the polling station was able to re-open.

• In Ajdabiya there was a shooting at a polling station killing one. However again I believe that the polling station was able to re-open.

Despite these confirmed incidents and a few further that have been rumoured but not confirmed the electoral commission are confident that voting took place without obvious, significant problems at 94% of polling stations. They have also estimated a voter turn-out of 60% but that may rise as people continue to vote. That sounds like a good result to me and certainly a lot better then things were under Qaddafi.

Operation Oil Theft: Month 17, Week 4, Day 4.

At around 21:40 on 6/7/12 I really can't get into the Libyan election in much detail because it's almost month 18 and it's almost election day. However one thing that's perfectly obvious is that the federalists are deliberately using violence to prevent people in the east participating in the vote. The long term objective is to paint the General National Congress (GNC) as un-representative of the east.

Today's incident in which an election worker was killed after a helicopter came under fire is much more serious. It seems to be a reference to the news that a militia group has closed a major supply route in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). I still need to check up on that to see if that's actually happened and why that counts as "news" in the DRC.

So dammit it looks like it's time for me to buy nightvision goggles and give up on the idea Iive in a civilized time zone.
Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone on O2

Operation Oil Theft: Month 17, Week 4, Day 4.

Today (3/7/12) Libyan ex-pats living in Canada, Germany, Jordan, United Arab Emirates (UAE), the UK and the USA have begun voting in the election for the General National Congress (GNC). On Saturday (7/7/12) registered voters in Libya itself will go to the polls in the nation's first real election to decide the make-up of the body that will replace the National Transitional Council (NTC) and appoint the panel that will re-write the nation's constitution. I will try and prepare a post specifically covering that election before Saturday. However for now I will concentrate on some of the other events that have been taking place in Libya.

Yesterday (2/7/12) Melinda Taylor - an International Criminal Court (ICC) lawyer representing Saif al-Islam Qaddafi was released by the Zintan Brigade militia. You may remember that on June 7th (7/6/12) Ms Taylor and her Lebanese interpreter Helene Assaf were arrested by the Zintan Brigade over an ever changing list of allegations including passing letters to Saif al-Islam, concealing the location of Mohammed Ismail and possessing a spy camera (cellphone). Due to the lack of consistency in the allegations and the lack of evidence to support them the arrests seemed to be nothing more then a kidnapping on the part of the Zintan Brigade in order to force themselves into negotiations between the NTC and the ICC over the Saif al-Islam case. They certainly succeeded in creating a large and high level negotiation with the President of the ICC Sang-Hyun Song travelling to Libya to handle the negotiation personally. However the Zintan Brigade don't seem to have achieved anything more then that with Ms' Taylor and Assaf being released with no admission of wrongdoing by the ICC because they don't appear to have done anything wrong by any accepted international standard. Libya's Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammed Abdul Aziz has declared though that the pair will be tried in absentia on July 23rd (23/7/12). As the pair won't be present at their trial they will be unable to mount an effective defence so when they are inevitably convicted the only penalty will be that they'll be unable to visit Libya again. All things considered this latest incident has left people more convinced that Libya is not yet able to give Saif al-Islam anything resembling a fair trial.

The purpose of announcing this phantom trial seems to be an attempt to appease the Zintan Brigade who seem more intent then ever to use violence and bully-boy tactics to get what they want. Four days after they arrested Ms Taylor the Zintan Brigade claimed that some of their members had been killed by members of Mashasha tribe in the Nafusa mountains in the north-west of the country on June 11th (11/6/12). They responded by attacking the Mashasha tribe with heavy weapons triggering 9 days of fierce fighting that left 105 people dead and 500 wounded. The fighting got so bad that the NTC were forced to declare the area a military zone on June 16th (16/6/12) and send in the Libyan National Army (LNA) to keep the two factions apart and negotiate a peace deal. Therefore the whole incident seems to have been contrived by the Zintan Brigade in order to open another channel of negotiation with the NTC over Saif al-Islam and send the message that they're prepared to continue fighting and killing until the get exactly what they want. If Libya is going to become a stable and prosperous nation that sort of behaviour is simply not acceptable.

There has also been significant violence in the Kufra region in the south-east of the country. The conflict there has been taking place on and off since February-2012 and stems from tensions between the predominately Black Tebu/Toubou tribe that fought alongside Qaddafi and the predominately Arab Zway tribe who fought against Qaddafi. This latest round of fighting that began on June 24th (24/6/12) and has so far killed an estimated 100 people has been between the Tebu and the Libya Shield militia. This was formed out of half a dozen other militias in response to fighting between the Tebu and the Abu Seif tribe in Sebha in May-2012. The presence of this militia made up of men who spent most of last year fighting Qaddafi's "Black mercenaries" coupled with recent decisions to exclude thousands of Tebu from the upcoming election seem to have created a belief amongst the Tebu that the Shield militia is trying to racially purge the Tebu out of Libya. Therefore it would probably be better to send the more disciplined LNA to deal with the situation in Kufra and have the Shield militia deal with any problems in the less racially diverse north of the country.