 Over 50 people were killed in fierce fighting between two militias in Libya's capital Tripoli. What led to this sudden outbreak? A new report has revealed the extent of the crackdown by Indonesian forces on indigenous villages in West Papua. What caused this crackdown and what was its impact? And a controversy is brewing in the US after a soldier allegedly defected to North Korea. What is this all about? This is the daily debrief. These are our stories for the day. And if you're watching this on YouTube, don't forget to hit that subscribe button. We begin with Libya where fighting broke out on Monday between two militias loyal to the same government. The 444 Brigade and the Special Deterrence Force of the SDF fought over the detention of the commander of the brigade by the SDF. Later after mediation, the commander Mahmood Hamza was released. Both these militias report to the government of national unity, which itself is one of the two governments in the country. By large scale, fighting has not taken place in Libya for a couple of years. The country's political crisis has continued. We go to Abdul for more. Abdul, thank you so much for joining us. Curious and in fact deadly situation in Libya, warfare and Tripoli killing over 50 people. The death count is 55, I believe. So before we go into the largest situation which led to this, why are two militias which are affiliated to the same government fighting? As per the reports from the local media, whatever reports are available because the condition in which Libya is since 2011, it is difficult to verify the exact news. But whatever reports are available in the media, according to that, the Special Deterrence Force is one of the militias affiliated to Abdul Hamid-e-Malba government, which is called the government of national accord, national unity, basically arrested. One of the commanders or the commander of another militia and which basically when he was trying to go out of Tripoli going to Misrata for an official on an official mission to discuss certain matters, it seems there is a negotiations, different rounds of parallel negotiations going on between different sections of militias which are ruling Libya at this moment. And at that moment, because of the disagreement over this whether the talk should proceed the way it should be, they arrested the leader of one of the militias. And the other militia retaliated against it, which led to violence in Tripoli, different parts of Tripoli for almost two days continued, despite the fact that on Tuesday afternoon it was announced that the commander which was arrested, who was arrested has been released. Despite that news breaking out, the fight did not end. And the fight went on in different localities all across Tripoli. The civilian airport had to be shut for a while. The flights had to be diverted and so on and so forth. By the way, this is nothing new. Tripoli has witnessed such kind of fights between all militias loyal to one particular government, the fact that there are two different governments in Libya at this moment. So the militias within one government are fighting against each other. And this is, at least this year, this is the third major incident. There are other instances which has happened in which again dozens of people were killed on all those occasions. And it seems that all those disagreements, the militias with the guns and all the firepower they have, instead of sitting together and resolving their differences, they prefer to use their guns to resolve their differences. And this is exactly what is happening in Libya for the last more than a decade now. Right, Abdul, in this context, let's go into the larger picture, which is like you said, this is only one government, the government of national unity. That is also another government led by another prime minister to power centers. And you know, while, like you said, there's probably been no large scale fighting over the past couple of years, but there have been small clashes. So why exactly are there two governments and why is there no political resolution yet? Well, as I said before, since 2011, NATO led an intervention in Libya, which basically led to the fall of the DAPI government and completely broke the stability with which the Libya was known for for decades. The different militias trying to control over have to have larger control over the country's resources, particularly the oil resources fought against each other, continued to fight against each other. Finally, in 2020, UN was able to intervene and kind of there was a ceasefire agreed in which there was an interim government form. The Beba was the interim prime minister. His government had a mandate that by the end of 2021, there will be an election in Libya and a new government will come up. But that, of course, the Beba government failed to do it again because of the disagreements among all the parties which participated in the UN-led discussion. And because of that, the Libyan parliament, which is based in one of the eastern cities, Tabruk in Libya, completely came out of the so-called interim government and said that we do not recognize the legitimacy of the Beba government. And they basically established a new government. This government, they tried to control Tripoli again. And that led to another set of classes, minor classes, of course, not at the scale at which Libya was before the ceasefire in 2020. And that new government finally decided after failing thrice to kind of enter Tripoli and get control over it, finally decided to have a new base in service. So there are two governments, one supported by the Libyan parliament, based in serve and one government supported called interim government, basically supported by a presidential council. This is a remnant of an earlier parliament which came out in Libya in 2014. So you can see there is a very complex situation, but the primary reason for the difference between all those forces is who will have the larger control and greater say over the country's resources. And this basically, and who is backed by which external power. So there are, of course, the involvement of US and other European countries like France, heavily involved, trying to have a greater control over the resources in Libya, backing a particular section of Malaysia there. But there are people who are also, and the regional countries, we're also trying to assert some kind of role in Libya's politics. And that basically has led to a complete chaos in Libya. Libya is ruled by, as we discussed already, there are two major governments, but also there are reasons in the southern Libya, which are ruled by other tribal affiliated militias. So it is a complete chaos, primarily created by the NATO-led intervention which basically broke all the truth which was there under Gaddafi's regime. Well, Abul, thank you so much for that analysis. It looks like, like you said, the underlying issues stemming from the NATO invasion and the complete failure thereafter, the complete chaos that is broken out. And to this day, people in Libya are suffering from that. We'll come back to you on other stories soon. A new report by a rights advocacy group has documented gruesome and indiscriminate violence by Indonesian security forces in the militarized region of West Papua. The report was released on August 17th by a Germany-based group called Human Rights Monitor. It focuses on Indonesia and West Papua. The report documented massive civilian destruction in the region because of the ongoing violence between West Papua nationalists and Indonesian forces, with over 2,000 people displaced. We speak to Anish about the report and the recent developments in the region. Anish, thank you so much for joining us. Now, we have talked on this show and written about West Papua and people's dispatch before, but for the benefit of our viewers, could you maybe explain the context of the violence which this report has documented? Yeah, so the current state of violence that we've seen kind of began in about December 2018 when, you know, nationalist, West Papua nationalist, actually militants, especially attacked as a construction site and killed about a dozen, more than a dozen people, mostly workers of attack. And this pretty much began this fate of violence. But, you know, the intensity that we are looking at right now pretty much began after the 2019 protests, anti-racist protests that students, not just in West Papua, but also in different parts of Indonesia took out on August 15th, which was also the day when the New York Agreement was signed, basically which gave Indonesia control and, you know, power over West Papua after the Dutch actually left. So this sort of situation, ever since then, we have seen violence. And this pretty much began with riots and, you know, anti-Papua violence that we saw in different parts of the country, especially in Jaipur. And then, followed by police repression and the police repression gave way to a new set of protests that went on for months, actually, in September, it was a peak in September, at least in Jaipur, which was the West Papua capital appetite. And this repression actually soon made way for the violent repression at the time. And obviously, the riots that followed displaced a large number of people and the violence created more militancy at the time, which in turn was met with higher levels of militarization by the Indonesian government. Hundreds of Indonesian groups were pulled into the region, which was already facing a kind of sustained level of violence for decades at that point. So this pretty much created a situation where West Papua was not only militarized, but it was also pretty much cut off from the rest of the world. Journalists, international journalists, especially, need to get special permits to enter the region, all of these experiences right now. And in many cases, at times when violence are actually at its peak, you have internet shutdowns, prolonged internet shutdowns and any kind of, you know, broadcasting shutdowns even, that pretty much limit any information that goes out of the region. So, and this obviously is coupled with violence, because every time we see like there is some kind of radiation, a video comes out of armed forces indiscriminately firing at civilians. It clearly shows that the violence has never really happened. And this report only pretty much outlines the intensity of this violence. It clearly shows how the documentation is pretty much based since mid-2021 to 2022. And it shows, and it estimates how not only fatalities doubled, it went from 21 in 2021 to 48 in 2022. But the number of people who were displaced because of the violent destruction that was carried out by the military in their bid to subdue the militants clearly created a more or less a humanitarian crisis of its own, even though at a smaller scale than we see in different parts of the world, but definitely a massive problem for people of West Park lot. Right, also Anish, are there any more contemporary developments regarding this, any process of negotiation that has taken place, you know, or it being raised in international fora, something like that? Well, there have been multiple attempts by the Pacific neighbors of Indonesia trying to raise this issue, especially the island nations and at times New Zealand and Australia as well, talking about raising this issue last year. We had about more than 2000 Pacific nations bringing up this matter at the United Nations General Assembly, calling for significant scrutiny on Indonesia over its record, its human rights record in the region. So there is that, definitely. There is also a certain level of international pressure, but it's very subdued because very often the news about West Park doesn't really reach as much in the mainstream media unless it's a major incident or something particularly inclusive as we recently did about the torture and mutilation of West Park wounds and the case around it and the conviction of the soldiers on the matter. But definitely the repression continues earlier this week. We actually saw again on August 15th when there was a demonstration, a protest demonstration in Jerkura being violently dispersed by the police with tear gas and, you know, multiple detentions. Again, we do not get much information about this, primarily because foreign media is not allowed. That is apart from the fact that even national media, even Indonesian journalists are not really allowed without being vetted by the military itself. So there is a constant state of, apart from militarization, there's a constant state of being on a military rule that is quite different from what Indonesians elsewhere, you know, kind of has to deal with. And this creates a situation where information is very rare. You get that, definitely it's not like you can completely shut down information from flowing out, but it is quite rare for that information to actually come in and for that to be even credible in some cases. And so it becomes a big task. And definitely there's no attempt by the government, at least from the Jokowi government that we've seen. So far there were obviously a very recent to be spoke about how the Indonesian government began a reparations process for past crimes, but almost nothing was mentioned about West Papuan and any of the crimes that were committed in the West Papuan region, because obviously this government was leading this violent and immediate and anti-insurgency campaign. And this has created a situation where, I mean, if you look at the record, it's quite significant, about 200 structures, including churches, houses, entire villages, about at least eight villages were raised to the ground and 2,200 or more of Papuans being completely displaced and there being no, there being no shelter for them, obviously, and they have to take refuge in the forest. This is like quite a very star dark picture that we're looking at. And that is very rarely being, you know, very rarely the seeds of tension outside of the Pacific in most cases. Right. Thank you so much, Anish, for talking to us and stay back because we'll come back to you for another story. And finally, a very curious story. A US soldier is apparently defected to North Korea. Travis King reportedly crossed into North Korean territory in July in an action that the US military described as willful and without authorization. Now, North Korea says that King came to the country due to, and I quote, inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination in the US army. What is this all about? We go back to Anish. Thanks for coming back, Anish. So a very curious story. This story of a US soldier defecting to North Korea happened in July, of course. Lot of confusion, lack of clarity. So first, could you maybe take us to the exact developments? What happened? How did this US soldier, obviously belonging, you know, to a very professional military force, so to speak, suddenly vanishes off to North Korea? Well, the incident itself at the time that it happened pretty much created a sensation itself because obviously this was not a situation. Obviously the US and its media houses tried to portray it as some kind of illegal detention. They tried to make it as some sort of a situation where the soldier was kidnapped in whatever way. I mean, like that was pretty much the language that we saw at the time. And they were trying to raise this issue in different international forums as if the soldier's life was threatened. But there was a lot of confusion on how things came about. There were multiple accounts, even eyewitness accounts. In some cases, some people said that there were no soldiers at the DMZ, the demilitarized zone that pretty much separates North and South Korea. And at the time that he ran through the border, which is quite rare. It doesn't really happen in that particular area. We know that. And some even say that he looked back at the people and just said ha ha ha and ran into North Korea before being apprehended by North Korean soldiers. So this situation was quite rare in many ways. It wasn't something that we were expecting. And nobody was sure if it was defection for sure. But at the time, the data that he had at the time, many had assumed this was a defection and now it is confirmed by the North Korean authorities that this man is trying to defect to North Korea or another country altogether. At the time of the reporting, at the time of the incident, there were multiple accounts from the family as well about how he was not having a great time with the military. He was facing racial discrimination. He had severe mental health issues that the military was not taking into account. He was charged with assault of two civilians in South Korea. Again, something not uncommon for those soldiers to do in South Korea. This is not something that is new. But this is definitely being done by a black man and that definitely probably that racial aspect of it comes into play. And the fact that he has raised this fact that he is facing racism and racial discrimination in the military to the North Korean authorities clearly shows that there was something far more significant than what we have been let on so far. Well, Anish, I believe this has also led to some discussion at least in the US about the issue of racism in the military itself. So what is being talked about there? Well, the discussion is quite muted, to be very honest. There was definitely reports about it, but nobody really wants to make a statement, a very categorical statement so far. From what we can assume is that in a few days we might see extensive extrapolation of his criminal records, the fact that he was detained in South Korea for two months for assault charges and was awaiting to be sent back to the United States to be court-martialed. All of that aside, we are also looking at a system which is quite a bit racial disparities pretty much system. We are looking at, despite the fact that more than 20% of US military personnel are African-Americans. There is a significant concentration of these African-Americans or even colored personnel at the lower ranks of the soldier ranks of the US military, almost very rare for them to reach into specialized professions like being a pilot or getting into air force or Navy, and the higher ranks almost completely dominated by white men. Like the fact that they are now talking about getting a new African-American or black general and the black chief of staff in the coming months shows that in this almost 200 years of history, there was pretty much no attempt for them to be, to actually elevate to that position. Apart from that, we have also reports, like past reports, and this is before even travesting actually happened. This was in 2017 when there were reports of how black soldiers were more likely to be court-martialed and convicted of their court-martial charges by the military than white soldiers. We have seen the rates are quite stark. Like you see 70% chances of them being court-martialed in the air force where they're already a smaller percentage of the personnel, about 60% in the Army. They are far more likely to be court-martialed, like more than twice as likely to be court-martialed in the Marine Corps, which is the fourth integrated force that mostly operate outside of US. In all of these cases, the discussion from them has not really significantly moved forward and changes have not happened. Even though multiple statements have been made by political leaders, the Senate members, and even the military about trying to diversify the diversification is pretty much happening on the lower runs of the military, where you have more and more likelihood of your average soldier being a non-white person than then becoming an officer who actually takes charge of this equation. So this is something that is very rarely talked about and the fact that it came out like that is pretty much a big massive damage to US military's reputation, not just because of the racial disparity, but also the fact that it clearly shows that it has created a situation where somebody had to defect to another country, seek a refuge in a country that is considered a US enemy in all sense of the word we can think of. And that really damages this reputation to that great extent, I believe. Right. Thank you so much, Anif, for speaking to us. And that's all we have in today's episode of Daily Debrief. 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