Link to Article: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/10/6/un-head-guterres-urges-libya-ceasefire-warns-its-future-at-stake
Analysis: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres claims that Libya’s future “is at stake” and world powers and those with interests in its long-running civil war should stop sending arms to the country’s rival governments and keep working towards a lasting ceasefire.
Guterres implored those at the virtual ministerial meeting on Monday, co-hosted by the UN and Germany, to support peace efforts “not only in words but in actions”. This would entail immediately backing a widely violated UN arms embargo against Libya.
Germany, an intermediary, said the virtual meeting was a chance to review what had already been established at the previous summit, hosted by Berlin, last January. At the summit participants from both sides agreed to respect an arms embargo and push Libya’s warring parties to reach a full ceasefire.
This agreement has been repeatedly violated by all parties involved.
Acting UN special envoy Stephanie Williams told a news conference after what she called “a very candid dialogue” among the major players that weapons, mercenaries and equipment “are still pouring into Libya … on both sides”.
“There are nine countries that are intervening in the Libyan conflict,” Williams said. “They all need to stop the breaches of the arms embargo.”
Repeated violations of the UN arms embargo is adding fuel to an already raging fire. International backers and warring parties are squandering the peace efforts made by the UN and rendering them ineffective. As long as weapons flow freely into Libya the war will continue.
Continued participation from both sides of the conflict and the additional nine intervening countries reveals that the previous peace negotiations, that occurred last January in Berlin, were fictitious at best. It’s clear that both sides had no intention of engaging in a lasting ceasefire.
In the hopes that Libya will not become another Syria, international backers such as Turkey need to forego there preference for drilling rights and instead emphasize the needs of Libya’s people.
Libya’s standing and current status is dependent on numerous global actors including international states and an IGO. Though Libya is currently a sovereign state, the country has splintered and been divided into competing political and military factions based in Tripoli and the east. The IGO involved in Libya’s current affairs is the UN. Though the UN fits into all four categories for IGO’s (political, economic, cultural, and military), regarding Libya it plays the traditional roles of a political IGO.