WORLD WORLDWIDE FRANCE News Journal Update - (en) France, OCL CA #334 - Libya: Story of a predicted flood (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 

A "natural" disaster, September 11, 2023, similar to so many others
around the world, revealed the incapacity of the Libyan political class
to take care of anything other than its business and its interests .
Despite the scale of the human and material damage, this caste of
capitalists has not questioned itself in any way; on the contrary, it
takes advantage of the situation to consolidate its areas of power. ----
Two months after the passage of Cyclone Daniel in northeastern Libya,
the Cyrenaica region has still not recovered from this expected
disaster, which left behind thousands of dead, missing and displaced,
devastated neighborhoods and destroyed cities. The population left to
its own devices, seriously affected physically and psychologically,
finds itself faced with bankrupt institutions in a country fractured
between two governments which absolve themselves of all responsibility
in the face of the tragedy. That of the West, recognized by the
international community; and that of the East, contested, of Marshal
Haftar - both having their own administration, military forces and
international allies, which makes the coordination of relief to deal
with the consequences of flooding. The geography of the North-East in
Libya, one of its rare lands to have a forest cover, presents an advance
on the Mediterranean with the Jebel Akhdar, a mountainous plateau which
peaks at 900 m, intersected by several wadis along the coast for 330 km.
Due to erosion, this plateau is sometimes located 16 km from the coast,
but in other places it forms a coastal cliff. It is the region that
receives the most precipitation, 600 mm per year, which justified the
construction of two dams in Derna. This city was in fact hit by a series
of significant floods caused by flooding of the wadi, notably in 1941,
1959 and 1968. However, Cyclone Daniel was of a power out of all
proportion to the most severe episodes. harsh conditions that the city
had previously experienced. It marks the shift of this region into the
uncertain future of climate change.

After hitting the metropolis of Benghazi, the storm hit the eastern
coast of Libya towards cities like Shahat (Cyrene), Al-Marj, Al-Bayda
and Soussa (Apollonia), but especially Derna - leading to the rupture of
two dams upstream and causing a flood of extraordinary magnitude which
swept away everything in its path, including the city's four bridges.
Around 100,000 people lived in this coastal city, 43,000 of them were
displaced. The exceptional phenomenon that was Daniel was described by
specialists as "medicane", a contraction of Mediterranean and hurricane.
In one night, the equivalent of 365 days of rain fell on this border
region with Egypt, accompanied by extremely strong winds.
Most of the dead, whether buried or considered "missing," are condemned
to anonymity - an unbearable and traumatic blur for the living. We had
to wait several days before scientific teams arrived from Tripoli to
take DNA samples and carry out possible recognition of the victims by
their families.
The number of these victims exceeds 11,000 in Derna, and to this figure
must be added 10,100 people still missing, while 170 others died in
other towns in eastern Libya. But a precise toll of human losses may not
be known for months, or perhaps never.

Among the survivors, 43,000 had to take refuge in schools or surrounding
towns; 250,000 people need humanitarian assistance according to OCHA,
the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian action.

Derna

It is not known exactly in what year this city was founded, but some
historians believe that it was inhabited before the arrival of the
Greeks, who named it Darnis. Located between Jebel Akhdar, the
Mediterranean Sea and the desert to the south, at the mouth of the Wadi
Derna, it is known for its medina and its natural environment. Its
population is mixed, as Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs and Turks
have passed through it over the centuries. The creation of public
schools during the Ottoman era and during the Italian occupation has
made Derna, since the 1940s, the center of cultural and scientific
influence. And it was one of the first centers of protest against
Gaddafi's power during the events of 2011 which caused the fall of his
regime.

Historically, it is a city marked negatively by all successive powers.
Many jihadists returning from Afghanistan settled there in the 1990s. In
1996, it was besieged and subdued by the Gaddafi army after what was
called "the mountain rebellion". In 2011, during the Islamist coup
d'état described by some as the "Arab Spring", Derna was the first city
in Libya to be "liberated" from Gaddafi's regime by armed Islamist
groups. It came under the control of jihadists from the Abu Salim
Martyrs' Brigade, founded by former members of the Islamic Group
fighting in Libya. After the fall of Gaddafi in 2011, Derna became the
refuge of a coalition of Islamists and insurgents opposed to the
authoritarianism of Marshal Haftar. The latter subjected it to a
two-year siege from 2016, and invested in 2018 with great brutality -
with the help of France, whose soldiers then rubbed shoulders with
Wagner's Russian paramilitaries. Derna is therefore marginalized and
abandoned, like many other cities: as the cradle of Libyan jihadism, it
suffers from a bad image.

There are 16 dams in Libya, spread across different towns in the east
and west of the country, most of which have experienced sabotage,
neglect and theft of machines (pumps) and cables since the events of
2011. Studies have shown that the majority of water networks connected
to Libyan dams have been disrupted for nearly fifteen years, due to lack
of regular maintenance.
The two dams at Wadi Derna were built between 1973 and 1977 by the
Yugoslav (now Serbian) company Hidrotehnika-Hidroenergetika to create an
infrastructure network intended to irrigate surrounding fields while
supplying Derna and neighboring communities with water. Entered into
service in 1986, they were in poor condition by the mid-2000s, more than
50% silted up. These millions of cubic meters of silt contributed to
their weakening: the sudden release of this silt aggravated the effects
of the flood. The siltation of the city is largely due to the intense
erosion of the watershed, the exploitation of which had become an issue
of power. The affected areas were working-class neighborhoods where
people lived in precarious housing, most of which were built without
permits or town planning plans.

The Libyan dam management had reported cracks on the two structures as
early as 1998. Two years later, the authorities commissioned an Italian
design office to assess the damage, and it confirmed the cracks, even
recommending the construction a third dam to protect the city.
Successive inspections noted construction defects with weak materials
(earth and rocks) and poor maintenance of the dams. In 2007, Turkish
firm Arsel Construction Company was hired by the Libyan Water Authority,
then headed by Gaddafi, to maintain them. It said it completed its work
in November 2012, although it appears to have withdrawn in 2011 due to
the overthrow of Gaddafi and the resulting instability - including
violent attacks on its construction sites and thefts. of material.
Claims for compensation have been filed by the directors of this company
before a court in London - without action for the moment. A public audit
report in 2021 indicated that the two dams had not been maintained
despite the allocation of more than $2 million paid in 2012 and 2013.

When a disaster strikes, even the most clumsy or lame politician adopts
the following kind of scenario: consoling and calming the survivors,
congratulating the rescuers, the aid workers, vowing to rebuild as
quickly as possible; but for those who rule the eastern region of Libya,
this represents too great an effort. Khalifa Haftar, the warlord
marshal, only cares about giving power to his family. This catastrophe,
which could have been avoided, constituted a boon for him to consolidate
his power and ensure the continuity of his clan.

When Haftar was informed that the cyclone was approaching, his first
instinct was to strengthen his control over the territory. So, instead
of organizing the evacuation of the populations, he decreed a curfew to
freeze them in place. Furthermore, pushing aside the government and
technical services, he and his sons monopolized the image and
communication around the progress of the cyclone and the preventive
measures to protect against it. He made it a platform to praise his
management and his protective abilities. His speech was perceived by the
populations as yet another infamous political propaganda operation, so
they did not believe in the danger announced by this non-credible
statement which saturated the public space. At the same time, the
municipal authority led a campaign to encourage residents to evacuate
the dangerous area, but to no avail.

Libyan officials have faced widespread criticism from citizens,
particularly residents of Derna, who have demonstrated massively against
the current political authorities, demanding that they be held
accountable for the poor maintenance of the dams and the ongoing
catastrophic relief. On September 18, hundreds of angry protesters
gathered in Derna. They chanted slogans against Aguila Saleh, speaker of
Parliament and Haftar's accomplice, demanding his resignation. Some then
set fire to the house of the mayor (nephew of Mr. Saleh), who had been
dismissed by the Eastern government and whose municipal council had been
suspended because its members had allegedly misappropriated the millions
of dinars received to rehabilitate the dams. The next morning, telephone
and Internet connections to Derna were cut. Authorities blamed the
incident on the cutting of a fiber optic cable. Hichem Abou Chkiouat,
Minister of the East, said his government had ordered local and foreign
journalists to leave the city by 1 p.m. He said the measure was
necessary because a large number of journalists were hampering rescue
operations. Other politicians cited health reasons and fears of an
epidemic - a claim denied by the Tripoli-based National Center for
Disease Control.

Residents want an independent investigation into what went wrong, and
the city's reconstruction under international supervision. These claims
received widespread media coverage. Unusually, even national television
channels opposed to the military authorities were able to broadcast from
Derna. The crackdown on the media follows reports that police officers
in Derna arrested and questioned Libyan journalists over the weekend,
keeping them in detention for several hours. Libyan missions abroad
continue to issue visas, but local authorities controlled by the
military have stopped issuing permits to journalists. A United Nations
team scheduled to travel from Benghazi to Derna was barred from entering
the city. "Haftar and his men put Derna under strict control, nothing
and no one enters the city without their consent.» The residents of
Derna fear that Haftar is preparing to carry out violent repression, not
forgetting that the marshal has already besieged this city for months to
eliminate Islamist groups.

1,295 dead and missing in the central Mediterranean for the year 2022;
667,440 migrants in Libya, including 43,000 asylum seekers and refugees.
15 migrants found burned in Sabratha; At least 20 people (18 Chadian
migrants and two Libyans) were found dead of dehydration on June 28 near
the Chadian border. Despite this, the European Union (EU) continues to
collaborate with the Libyan coast guard, providing material and
technical support as well as aerial surveillance to intercept and return
thousands of people to Libya. This summer, Libyan forces intercepted or
rescued 16,506 people at sea and returned them in abject conditions to
Libya. Migrants, asylum seekers and refugees arbitrarily detained in an
inhumane manner in facilities managed by the Ministry of the Interior in
collaboration with smugglers and traffickers, are subjected to forced
labor, torture, ill-treatment, extortion and physical and sexual assault.

In its obsession with keeping migrants and asylum seekers away from its
shores, Italy is financing the interception and return of tens of
thousands of people to Libya, where they face abuses that may constitute
crimes against humanity. On January 28, 2023, Italian Prime Minister
Meloni traveled to Libya to sign an important gas agreement; in
exchange, Italy would provide the Libyan coast guard with five "fully
equipped boats".

The EU has allocated EUR57.2 million for "integrated border and
migration management in Libya" since 2017; and it announced, in November
2022, its intention to further increase its support for Libya. Its
border agency Frontex also provides surveillance information used by
Libya to intercept migrants. Aiding the Libyan coast guard while knowing
that this will facilitate the removal of thousands of people who are
victims of serious human rights violations makes Italy, France and the
EU complicit in such crimes.

According to UN figures, there are currently 705,746 migrants in Libya,
representing just over 10% of the country's total population; 235,132
(33%) are in the East, with a strong majority of Egyptians, Nigeriens,
Chadians, Syrians and Sudanese. More than 100 Syrian refugees were
killed in the floods in Derna, while more than a hundred others were
missing, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Among the
victims were 145 Egyptians, 23 Palestinians, four Lebanese and three
Tunisians. More than 70 victims come from the same village of Al-Sharif
in Beni Suef, southern Egypt, according to a list of 84 names published
by the Tobruk medical center. There are in total at least 400 foreigners
among the victims, the majority of whom are Sudanese and Egyptians.

Many immigrants who came from Egypt, Sudan or Chad as seasonal workers
or to work longer hours have to overcome the trauma of the flood. There
are around 100,000 in the areas affected by the floods, including 20,000
in Derna. They are the ones who were most affected by the disaster,
because although they experienced the same scenes of horror as many
others, they are isolated, and we will never know how many actually died
and how much.

Demonstration in Derna

Libyan society has experienced relative calm and stability over the past
two years, despite economic difficulties, the increase in the cost of
living, and the absence of a clear and stable future for young people.
The disappearance of armed violence has allowed excessive commercial
development, particularly in Tripoli, which is causing massive traffic
jams in the city. This wild economic boom was accompanied by a
deterioration of the health and education systems, electricity, water
services, etc. In Libya there is no public transport, no post office, no
daycare centers - in short, no infrastructure that allows a normal life.
Due to the fact that neither the telephone nor the Internet works, all
administrative procedures are carried out in person - a person can thus
spend an entire day to obtain a birth certificate, or to withdraw money
from their bank account when cash is needed. are available!
In Benghazi, it is still the Haftar family who calls the shots. The
marshal was received in Moscow on September 28 by Russian President
Vladimir Putin and his Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to discuss the
situation in Libya and in the entire region. Their previous meeting, at
Haftar's headquarters in Benghazi, dated September 17, a few days after
the floods.
For several years, Russia has been leading a diplomatic offensive in
Africa to supplant Western powers, notably France. Isolated on the
international scene and in search of allies, it has increased its
efforts tenfold since it attacked Ukraine in February 2022. Moscow
maintains close relations with Haftar, who used Wagner mercenaries when
he tried in vain to seize Tripoli, from April 2019 to June 2020.
It is impossible to talk about the political situation in Libya without
talking about Haftar, because he is the main cause of the political
impasse that has existed for years - and probably for a good while yet,
because the Libyans will have to choose one of his six son to succeed
him. All are in fact promised to the highest functions by this patriarch
(he will celebrate his 80th birthday on November 7). Siddiq, the eldest,
is an arrogant businessman who claims to represent Libyan youth and
announces from Paris his desire to run in hypothetical presidential
elections. Belkacem is commissioned for diplomatic negotiations. Khaled
is his father's favorite, as commander of his personal guard, but it is
the youngest who is the most worrying: general at 32, Saddam Haftar,
without diplomas or particular qualities, attracts so much attention it
gained importance after the terrible floods which ravaged the country.
He was promoted to "head of the Libyan emergency office" responsible for
search and rescue operations. On social networks, we can see him active
in military fatigues with humanitarian organizations, supervising
evacuation operations, or leaning over a map with Russian teams to
assess the situation... His very high visibility confirms this. in a
good position to inherit his father's military power.
Saddam Haftar's career has not always been tinged with this theatrical
humanism, according to the latest report from Amnesty International
which calls for a criminal investigation into him. He has in fact been
the leader of an armed group, Tariq Ben Zeyad (TBZ), since its creation
in 2016. Known for having repressed or even crushed any form of protest
in the east of the country, he has terrorized the population in the
areas controlled by the FAAL (Haftar's Libyan Arab Armed Forces) by
increasing the number of assassinations, kidnappings and disappearances,
acts of torture and other ill-treatment. During the events against
Gaddafi, when he was only 20 years old, he distinguished himself by
weapons and by pillaging and taking loot. In 2018, a UN report indicated
that he had appropriated part of the funds of the Libyan Central Bank,
via its branch based in Benghazi: in December 2017, Saddam ordered his
men to transfer to a destination unknown approximately 160 million
euros, 639 million Libyan dinars, 2 million US dollars and 6,000 silver
coins from the Central Bank branch in Benghazi - operation which has
been described as "one of the largest bank robberies Of the history ".
In December 2022, he attempted to take control of banking institutions
in Cyrenaica - which would have allowed him to finance his armed forces
and their operations, and possibly his future election campaign. He then
moved closer to Bashar Al-Assad's Syria while having attempted a
rapprochement with Israel, during a quick stopover in this country in
November 2021, armed with a message from his father proposing to join
the Abraham Accords, to recognize the State of Israel and to normalize
trade between Israel and Libya.
But, in Libya, the conditions of candidacy for the presidential election
and the formation of a new government constitute the most important
points of discord between the leaders of the West and the East for
several years: the Council of The state and the Western Libyan camp are
demanding an electoral law that prevents military personnel and dual
nationals from running for president of the country, while the
Parliament of Agila Saleh and Haftar are for everyone to be able to run
for office.

Despite the dramatic events that occurred in North-East Libya and the
political and social impasse which will last for years to come, we can
highlight one positive point: the outpouring of solidarity which
manifested itself spontaneously throughout the country at towards the
victims of the floods. In fact, it was on the shoulders of countless
volunteer civilians, coming from all over Libyan territory (notably
Tripoli, Misrata and the entire West) in convoys formed in villages and
towns, that the relief operations rested. . With only their bare hands
and their shovels, to search for survivors and the dead in the mud and
rubble, then makeshift boats to carry away the bodies. We saw convoys of
cars forming everywhere to bring food, blankets and drinking water to
the East; 550 doctors went there immediately; most of the surviving
families were accommodated with people in the surrounding area and
hotels took in others for free; all media outlets have established a
common program to collect financial aid and inform the population about
the relief efforts

The Tripoli government obviously took advantage of the opportunity to
assert its presence by sending technical teams to carry out a census of
the victims and DNA samples in order to identify them, before their
bodies were placed in mass graves outside. of the city, covered with a
concrete slab to prevent any risk of epidemic. He also released $2
billion for the reconstruction of the region. But, instead of taking
into account the wish expressed by the inhabitants of Derna for
international control for this reconstruction in order to avoid the
misappropriation of funds, Agila Saleh hastened to form a reconstruction
commission on September 17 in a manner to manage the allocated money.

Libya has suffered multiple disasters for more than twelve years: NATO
bombing of Tripoli, Haftar's war against Tripoli, Daesh offensive in the
east. All were caused by external military and political interventions.
No, the tragic floods of September were not natural, because the deaths
of thousands of people were avoidable. But they will be qualified in
this way so that no senior official or politician responsible for their
occurrence - through their negligence, incompetence and corruption - is
worried.

Saoud, OCL Toulouse,
October 21, 2023

http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article3978
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