 Recently, I spoke to two experts about the situation in Libya. For over 10 years, the people have been suffering from cycles of conflict and political instability. Our experts will go in-depth about the situation. Welcome everyone. Today, we'll be talking about Libya with Stephanie Williams. She's the former Special Advisor to the Secretary General of the United Nations and the former Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary General, Political and the Acting Special Representative of the Secretary General in Libya. Welcome Stephanie. Thanks Andrew. It's great to be here. We would love for you to talk to us today about how you characterize the fragility in Libya, the instability and how it uniquely manifests itself in that country. I think one of the ongoing factors that has contributed to Libya's fragility and the inability of Libya to move forward to a state of stability and prosperity is the lack of implementation of DDR, that's demobilization, disarmament and reintegration of armed groups, which is really something that should have happened in the 2012 and 2013 period following the fall of Mr. Gaddafi's regime. As we know, during the uprising against Mr. Gaddafi, there was the establishment of literally hundreds of armed groups and following the downfall of the regime, instead of a serious effort towards DDR and security sector reform. What we saw was the tendency of the Libyan authorities to really engage in the sort of payoff of many of these armed groups and soon what you saw was as the state was trying to establish itself, the armed groups sort of turned the tables on them and what emerged in this is throughout the country, this is not isolated to one geographic area in the country, what you've seen now is the emergence of, whereas in Lebanon, Hezbollah is the state within the non-state, in Libya you have multiple armed groups who are the many states within the vast non-state who engage in extortion and threats and for whom perpetuation of the conflict is something that they strive for because that's the way they sustain themselves in combination now with a post-2011 ruling class, which includes them, the business elite and the political elite and none of these constituencies have any interest in seeing the country actually move forward progressively towards a democratically elected government. And what's their relation with the political class, these armed groups? Well, look, it's quite a symbiotic relationship now and you can see it in the continuing desire for power sharing arrangements because let's face it, who benefits from power sharing arrangements and who doesn't benefit? So those who are already within the ruling circles can use these exercises, which are non-democratic, where you are basically just rearranging the chairs, or you are in some kind of redistributive manner bringing more people into the circle. So the armed groups benefit because they put pressure on the political actors who then somehow have to mollify the armed groups, whether it is through promises of further payments or in fact giving them more authorities, and in fact giving them a solid place at the table. And then the political actors and the business elite similarly delight in the patronage gain because they can bring in their associates into the government and into powerful positions. So who doesn't benefit, of course, are the 2.8 million Libyans who registered to vote and who have the inherent right to democratically elect those who represent them. And against this sort of atomized picture of security that you paint and the most basic element of a state, the monopoly on security, what is the governance structure that we see? We still have, as I understand, a divided government. It's complicated in Libya. And one of the things that makes forging peace in Libya quite unique, particularly in comparison with some of its neighbors is the fact that Libya is a rentier economy. It's a one-crop state. The revenues of the state derive from one resource, basically, and that's oil. And something like 80% of Libya's working population derives its salary from the state. So what you have, you had sort of Mr. Khadafi's very unique and often brutal style of governance, but it was sort of, it could be chaotic in its own way, although you could argue he had monopoly over the use of force. But what we have seen since then is an overly centralized model. And in the grinding conflict that has characterized Libya since 2011, you've seen a terrible deterioration of basic infrastructure, water treatment plants, electricity grids, and so that the average Libyan has seen their way of life deteriorate markedly from the previous era. And then on top of that, you have this huge bureaucracy. Something like more than 900 people work in the Prime Minister's office. What do they all do? I mean, nobody really knows. They're all taking a salary from the state. They have hundreds of embassies overseas. And so they drain the resources of the state. It's overly centralized. This in a country which is geographically huge, three times the size of France where I live now. And you have municipalities that are a thousand kilometers from the capital that are under resourced. And so this builds into this resentment towards the center. This is one of the primary drivers of the conflict. Although there is a law on the books, Law 59 on decentralization has never been implemented because the ruling class isn't interested in this. So what is the picture for reconciliation and transitional justice look like and accountability for these bad actors? So far, the lack of amendment, let's say, of the transitional justice law which was passed in 2013, let alone any implementation of transitional justice, again contributes to a feeling of insecurity and instability. It's hard to see how one moves so swiftly to national reconciliation, which let's face for many people just means compensation. So compensation without accountability I think only gets you so far. There are many people who just want to lift the carpet and sweep under the carpet. All of the abuses and there have been it's an epidemic of impunity in Libya with the commission of terrible crimes, crimes amounting to war crimes and forced disappearances, rape and other types of sexual violence. Of course, the terrible abuses that have been committed against the migrants and foreign population in Libya, which have been well documented by the United Nations. So this lack of accountability is this kind of, it's an open wound for Libyans and I think how this project moves forward and it must move forward in tandem with the political process will be very important. So what has the role been of of internationals, both the UN and other international actors within in Libya? Well, it's very much I think would say a mixed record with regard to the international communities engagement on the Libyan file. So of course, you know, you've had a United Nations, a political mission, you've had, you know, United Nations agencies on the ground since, you know, 2011 through thick and thin through all of these conflicts, you've certainly had, you know, USAID, the European Union, many member states engaged in bilateral assistance, you know, all of this helps particularly, you know, for those actors who are most marginalized. And that's your, you know, your civil society activists, political parties, human rights activists, you know, those who are, you know, not within the circle of the ruling elite. At the same time, you've seen a lot of negative foreign interference in the country, of course, in the form directly of supplying of, you know, weapons and systems, armed systems to Libyan actors of the proliferation of, you know, foreign mercenaries, all of this, of course, in direct contravention of the UN arms embargo. And in addition, of course, you've had this insidious relationship between, I would say, foreign intelligence services and Libyan political and military actors, all of it sort of under the surface of very seamy and non non transparent, which, you know, does make it very difficult for the UN mediator, you know, sort of the UN to run a more transparent peace process in the country. And of course, you know, that's, you know, not only are they in terms of the arms and the mercenaries contravening the arms embargo, they're also, you know, contravening the the Libyan ceasefire agreement, which the UN facilitated signing of on October 23, 2020, which explicitly calls for the departure of mercenaries and foreign forces from Libyan soil. So this all gets to, you know, where's, you know, what what role can the international, you know, community play? Of course, we we established the United Nations along with the then Chancellor Merkel established the Berlin process in 2019 and 2020. And I do believe that that process is still quite relevant and needed in Libya, because I don't see that the UN Security Council is necessarily going to come together and speak with one genuine voice and to use the leverage of the of the Council on on the Libyan actors as needed so that you need this broader, you know, international process so that you at least have some consensus and then a mechanism through the international working groups to engage on the on the various Libyan tracks where the political economic security military and the all important, you know, international humanitarian law and human rights track. The last question I have for you as the new special representative of the Secretary General takes up office, Mr. Abdullah Batili, from your time, if you could speak to what the best way forward might be in the face of all of this, what can what can be done? I think most importantly, a mechanism to to distribute the resources. And we know that that the access to the resources is one of the drivers of the conflict. So this is very good. And so I think that the constitutional project needs to be picked up swiftly and pushed and pushed towards a conclusion so that you can, you know, get back to, you know, the electoral project, which is what most Libyans want. I think that, you know, just another power sharing arrangement while, you know, I'm sure there are many who just want that. And certainly that's what the political class wants everyone to do because, you know, the more you just redistribute the cake, you know, they're still at the table. If there are elections, you know, I think it's one of our LPDF members, you know, famously declared turkeys don't vote for Christmas. So, you know, they are not, they don't want elections until the very end of this process. But I think that elections and having a wrote having a process that takes you to elections is actually part of the, the peace process in Libya. If you remove the specter of elections, and then you don't have any means to kind of manage the oil revenues, they will the ruling class will will quarrel over the executives forever. Right, whether they're called turkeys or dinosaurs, you know, it's this zero sum. This is zero sum game, I think. And this positive power sharing sounds like it is what is needed in large part. I really thank you for walking us through that. It really was great. And, and really thank you for your time, Stephanie. It really was great to see you.