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Oil-rich eastern Libya pulls away from central government, declares semiautonomous state
BENGHAZI, Libya (AP/CBS News) – Tribal leaders and militia commanders declared oil-rich eastern Libya a semiautonomous state, a unilateral move that the interim head of state called a “dangerous” conspiracy by Arab nations to tear the country apart six months after the fall of Muammar Qaddafi.
Thousands of representatives of major tribes, militia commanders and politicians made the declaration at a conference in the main eastern city of Benghazi, insisting it was not intended to divide the country. They said they want their region to remain part of a united Libya, but needed to do this to stop decades of discrimination against the east.
The conference declared that the eastern state, known as Barqa, would have its own parliament, police force, courts and capital — Benghazi, the country’s second largest city — to run its own affairs. Foreign policy, the national army and oil resources would be left to the central government in the capital Tripoli in western Libya. Barqa would cover nearly half the country, from the center to the Egyptian border in the east and down to the borders with Chad and Sudan in the south.
Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, head of the Tripoli-based interim central government known as the Transitional National Council, warned the declaration “leads to danger” of eventually breaking up the North African nation of 6 million. But he also said it was to be expected because the east played a pivotal role in ending Qaddafi’s rule.
“Some Arab nations, unfortunately, have supported and encouraged this to happen,” he said, without naming any specific countries. “These nations are funding this kind of unacceptable strife,” he added at a news conference in Tripoli. “What happened today is the beginning of a conspiracy against Libya and Libyans. “
Fadl-Allah Haroun, a senior tribal figure and militia commander, said the declaration aims for administrative independence not separation.
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Moves towards greater autonomy for Cyrenaica — the birth-place of the anti-Gaddafi revolt — may worry international oil companies operating in Libya because it raises the prospect of them having to re-negotiate their contracts with a new entity. A member of staff who answered the phone at Benghazi-based Arabian Gulf Oil Company (Agoco), Libya’s biggest state-owned oil firm, said the 3,000 employees had been deliberating about whether or not to back the autonomy declaration.
More on Cyrenaica …
Cyrenaica stretches westwards from the Egyptian border to the Sirte, half-way along Libya’s Mediterranean coastline. The province enjoyed prestige and power under King Idris, Libya’s post-independence ruler, because the royal family’s powerbase was in the east.
But when the king was toppled by Gaddafi in a military coup in 1969, eastern Libya was sidelined for the next four decades. Residents complain that they have been denied a fair share of the country’s oil wealth.
The rebellion last year which overthrew Gaddafi gave new impetus to calls for local self-determination in the east. These became even more vocal as frustration grew with the slow pace at which the new leadership in Tripoli was restoring order and public services after the revolt.
Ahmed El-Senussi, the head of the self-declared Cyrenaica council, is the great nephew of King Idris. Gaddafi put al-Senussi in jail after he tried to stage a coup d’etat in the early 1970s. He stayed in prison until he was pardoned in 2001.
Last year the European Parliament named al-Senussi, now a member of the NTC, as one of the winners of its annual Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
