Eye on the Libyan General National Congress: Fifth Report

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Apr 1, 2013 Libya
Eye on the Libyan General National Congress: Fifth Report

Eye on the Libyan General National Congress: Fifth Report

By : Jadaliyya Reports

[The following report was issued by Bokra Youth Organization and H2O Team on 9 March 2013. This is the fifth in a year-long series of reports covering the actions of Libya`s General National Council. This issue focuses on the period from 15 February to 1 March 2013. Click here to access the previous report.]

Eye on the General National Congress: Fifth Report

Introduction

These sessions preceded the second anniversary of the February 17 Libyan Revolution. The level of General National Congress activity was notably higher than the previous monitoring period; the GNC held four meetings followed by complementary sessions, and also issued a number of statements, resolutions, and laws. The main topics that the GNC addressed included: the political isolation law, the storming of the Congress`s main hall, providing grants to Libyan families, and forming a constituent committee to draft the constitution.

Summary of GNC Sessions

66th Meeting:

On Thursday 19 February 2013, the GNC discussed the GNC president`s proposal to provide reparations to families on the occasion of the second anniversary of the revolution. Some members objected to the presentation of the proposal to the people before other options had been considered. They argued that the Libyan people deserve more than grants, and that the government should direct its efforts to funding development projects and providing loans to young people rather than giving grants to those who may not deserve it.

GNC member Shereef Alwaddi explained that GNC President Mohammed Maqrif made the proposal with the support of only seventeen GNC members, without considering the opinions of the rest of the members of the GNC. Alwaddi pointed out that the members` refusal to approve the grant resulted from the lack of a clear design to implement the proposal as well as more in-depth research, and he contended that the effort would be a waste of public money. He reiterated that the money should be used for development projects and to provide job opportunities to young people. Asma Sreeba, a GNC member from the Alliance of National Forces, stated that she supports providing the Libyan people with decent livelihoods, but does not advocate fabricated solutions that act as tranquilizers.

Some members of the GNC who may be impacted by the political isolation law, including both Mohammed Maqrif and Mohammed Swayhli, stated that they are ready to apply this law to themselves, as it is part of the continuing struggle towards advancement. GNC member Zeinab Haron El-Targui of the Alliance of National Forces asserted that taking time to discuss the political isolation law hinders national reconciliation, and noted that it would have been better to discuss the Local Government Act instead because it is more critical for ordinary citizens. El-Targui felt that it would have been more worthwhile to reunify the Libyans by achieving transitional justice rather than discuss the law of political isolation.

The session on 23 February 2013 was dedicated to concluding discussion of the draft political isolation law so voting may begin. The law articles will be voted on individually, paragraph by paragraph, and each needs to be ratified by 120 votes. After the completion of the voting the GNC will discuss the issue of exceptions.

67th Meeting:

On Wednesday, 20 February 2013 the GNC agenda included continued discussion and reactions to the draft political isolation law (GNC No. 2 of 2013). A copy of the law was published on the official GNC webpage.

GNC vice president, Selah El Makhzoum, presided over the session. He took note of the resentment and annoyance of GNC members at working in a rented conference room in a hotel hall, and mandated they return to the main conference hall.

El Makhzoum added that the GNC was forced to rent the Rixos Hotel hall to conduct their meetings owing to the presence of handicapped revolutionaries protesting at the GNC hall. He explained that the GNC communicated with the protestors via GNC delegate Abdulrahman Al-Shater, and that the government has already pledged to fulfill their needs and has signed two agreements with them that fulfill their demands. El Makhzoum commented that they were surprised after Abdulrahman Al-Shater stated in a press that the protestors rejected these agreements and refused to leave the hall. El-Makhzoum remarked upon the confusion of some GNC members at the fact that the protestors did not demonstrate in front of the government given that their demands were executive rather than legislative. GNC member Mohamed Lamari noted after the evening session that the GNC had authorized security to clear out the main conference hall after the government agreed to protestor demands. Lamari concluded by saying that there is no reason now for protestors to remain inside the conference hall and security will begin to remove people in the next two days.

Journalist Mahmoud Shammam commented on the political isolation law, stating "We need two, not only one, in order to build a modern and a fair state." He explained that protection of the state requires political action, not legal action, in order to cleanse the state; both from those who transgressed in the forty-two years of the previous regime, and those who have transgressed against the state in the past two years, should receive fair judicial punishment.

Shammam pointed out the need to develop a clear apparatus for disciplining wrongdoers that addresses the constitution and elections. He suggested that they begin with the political isolation law and target GNC, government, and security leaders, military leaders and diplomats, media, and financial officials. Shammam warned of the dangers of engaging in an all-out battle without establishing a clear mechanism to prevent the political isolation law from turning into a tool for political revenge.

68th Meeting:

On Sunday, 24 February 2013 the GNC: ratified minutes from sessions 63-65, reviewed the constitutional amendment draft submitted by the constitutional and legislative committee on the political isolation law, reviewed a draft law on the establishment of the electoral commission submitted by the legislative and legal committee, and twenty-four members presented a bill demanding equitable distribution of a financial grant of the Interim Transitional National Council (what became the GNC). Discussion also took place over the suspension of sending GNC members on foreign missions until the completion of the formation of the constitution committee.

A big debate followed, and Prime Minister Ali Zaidan, Minister of State Moez Khoja, and Major General Yussif Almngosh were summoned to discuss the deteriorating GNC security situation regarding the continuation of break-ins which have hindered the progress of the GNC, as well as attacks against GNC members. It should be noted that GNC security is the responsibility of the president. The government and their departments are not responsible, except in the case of a decision issued by the government to secure the headquarters of the GNC to enable them to continue their work, which has yet to happen.

69th Meeting:

On Tuesday, 26 February 2013 the GNC met to discuss recommendations of the foreign affairs committee to appoint ambassadors to Panama, Bahrain, Germany, Oman, and Austria. The social justice draft law was also presented, and the finance committee submitted a proposal regarding the disbursement of grants to Libyan families on the occasion of the approaching Eid al-Adha holiday. The finance committee also reported on the state budget for fiscal year 2013.

GNC spokesman Omar Hmaidan held a press conference and talked about the social justice draft law project. Some of its provisions address rights violations suffered by the Libyans under the previous regime during the revolution and during the transition. The law would also require the creation of a fact-finding committee as well as a fund to provide compensation to victims. An administrative department will also be charged with ensuring accountability.

Kamal Bashir Al-Dahan, president of the higher court, announced the constitutional chamber of the higher court`s ruling that amendment No.3 (2012) because article 30 of the provisional proclamation is unconstitutional. The verdict will be published in the official newspaper. As constitutional amendment No. 3 (2012) was nullified, it will no longer impact the GNC`s selection of a committee to draft a constitution.

Decisions issued by the General National Congress

  • Decision No. 16 (2013) enables presidential security to take all necessary measures to clear the GNC hall of protestors.
  • Decision No. 17 (2013) temporarily prohibits GNC members from being sent abroad until the election of a constituent committee to draft a constitution.

Laws issued by the General National Congress

  • Law No. 2 (2013) ratified the International Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities (issued in 2006), with a provisional stipulation; the first paragraph of article 25 of this convention cannot violate Islamic law.
  • Law No. 3 (2013) is an amendment of some provisions of the Criminal Procedure Act (2/24/2013) and regulation articles (187 a and b). 
  • Law No. 4 (2013) addresses the needs of handicapped revolutionaries. The law defines handicaps and classifies victims in different categories based upon the type of disability, and provides a range of monetary and non-monetary benefits, including healthcare and transportation, and disability insurance. The law also mandates the formation of a temporary committee in charge of implementation, affiliated with the Ministry of the Welfare of the Families of Martyrs and Missing.

Statements from the General National Congress

The GNC issued a statement on 20 February 2013 which addressed the continued occupation of the GNC hall by wounded revolutionaries. It stated that there were numerous attempts by several parties to end the sit-in. It also noted that the GNC had heard the demands of the protestors, and passed a law that guarantees their rights and meets their demands. The statement added that the GNC feels several parties are seeking to disrupt their work, especially given that the GNC had made a decision to initiate the election of a constituent body, as stated in the constitutional proclamation. The statement also discussed the political isolation law; the lack of passage will hinder the extraction of corruption and spoil political, economic, and social development.

Sources:

  • Live broadcasts of GNC sessions
  • Official website of the GNC
  • GNC Facebook page
  • Libyan News Agency
  • Libyan Newspapers
  • Various Facebook pages of members and parties in the GNC

[Click here to download the full report.]

[Click here to download the report in Arabic.]
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Jadaliyya Reports By :
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Past is Present: Settler Colonialism Matters!

On 5-6 March 2011, the Palestine Society at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London will hold its seventh annual conference, "Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine." This year`s conference aims to understand Zionism as a settler colonial project which has, for more than a century, subjected Palestine and Palestinians to a structural and violent form of destruction, dispossession, land appropriation and erasure in the pursuit of a new Jewish Israeli society. By organizing this conference, we hope to reclaim and revive the settler colonial paradigm and to outline its potential to inform and guide political strategy and mobilization.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is often described as unique and exceptional with little resemblance to other historical or ongoing colonial conflicts. Yet, for Zionism, like other settler colonial projects such as the British colonization of Ireland or European settlement of North America, South Africa or Australia, the imperative is to control the land and its resources -- and to displace the original inhabitants. Indeed, as conference keynote speaker Patrick Wolfe, one of the foremost scholars on settler colonialism and professor at La Trobe University in Victoria, Australia, argues, "the logic of this project, a sustained institutional tendency to eliminate the Indigenous population, informs a range of historical practices that might otherwise appear distinct--invasion is a structure not an event."[i]

Therefore, the classification of the Zionist movement as a settler colonial project, and the Israeli state as its manifestation, is not merely intended as a statement on the historical origins of Israel, nor as a rhetorical or polemical device. Rather, the aim is to highlight Zionism`s structural continuities and the ideology which informs Israeli policies and practices in Palestine and toward Palestinians everywhere. Thus, the Nakba -- whether viewed as a spontaneous, violent episode in war, or the implementation of a preconceived master plan -- should be understood as both the precondition for the creation of Israel and the logical outcome of Zionist settlement in Palestine.

Moreover, it is this same logic that sustains the continuation of the Nakba today. As remarked by Benny Morris, “had he [David Ben Gurion] carried out full expulsion--rather than partial--he would have stabilised the State of Israel for generations.”[ii] Yet, plagued by an “instability”--defined by the very existence of the Palestinian nation--Israel continues its daily state practices in its quest to fulfill Zionism’s logic to maximize the amount of land under its control with the minimum number of Palestinians on it. These practices take a painful array of manifestations: aerial and maritime bombardment, massacre and invasion, house demolitions, land theft, identity card confiscation, racist laws and loyalty tests, the wall, the siege on Gaza, cultural appropriation, and the dependence on willing (or unwilling) native collaboration and security arrangements, all with the continued support and backing of imperial power. 

Despite these enduring practices however, the settler colonial paradigm has largely fallen into disuse. As a paradigm, it once served as a primary ideological and political framework for all Palestinian political factions and trends, and informed the intellectual work of committed academics and revolutionary scholars, both Palestinians and Jews.

The conference thus asks where and why the settler colonial paradigm was lost, both in scholarship on Palestine and in politics; how do current analyses and theoretical trends that have arisen in its place address present and historical realities? While acknowledging the creativity of these new interpretations, we must nonetheless ask: when exactly did Palestinian natives find themselves in a "post-colonial" condition? When did the ongoing struggle over land become a "post-conflict" situation? When did Israel become a "post-Zionist" society? And when did the fortification of Palestinian ghettos and reservations become "state-building"?

In outlining settler colonialism as a central paradigm from which to understand Palestine, this conference re-invigorates it as a tool by which to analyze the present situation. In doing so, it contests solutions which accommodate Zionism, and more significantly, builds settler colonialism as a political analysis that can embolden and inform a strategy of active, mutual, and principled Palestinian alignment with the Arab struggle for self-determination, and indigenous struggles in the US, Latin America, Oceania, and elsewhere.

Such an alignment would expand the tools available to Palestinians and their solidarity movement, and reconnect the struggle to its own history of anti-colonial internationalism. At its core, this internationalism asserts that the Palestinian struggle against Zionist settler colonialism can only be won when it is embedded within, and empowered by, the broader Arab movement for emancipation and the indigenous, anti-racist and anti-colonial movement--from Arizona to Auckland.

SOAS Palestine Society invites everyone to join us at what promises to be a significant intervention in Palestine activism and scholarship.

For over 30 years, SOAS Palestine Society has heightened awareness and understanding of the Palestinian people, their rights, culture, and struggle for self-determination, amongst students, faculty, staff, and the broader public. SOAS Palestine society aims to continuously push the frontiers of discourse in an effort to make provocative arguments and to stimulate debate and organizing for justice in Palestine through relevant conferences, and events ranging from the intellectual and political impact of Edward Said`s life and work (2004), international law and the Palestine question (2005), the economy of Palestine and its occupation (2006), the one state (2007), 60 Years of Nakba, 60 Years of Resistance (2009), and most recently, the Left in Palestine (2010).

For more information on the SOAS Palestine Society 7th annual conference, Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine: www.soaspalsoc.org

SOAS Palestine Society Organizing Collective is a group of committed students that has undertaken to organize annual academic conferences on Palestine since 2003.

 

[i] Patrick Wolfe, Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology: The Politics and Poetics of an Ethnographic Event, Cassell, London, p. 163

[ii] Interview with Benny Morris, Survival of the Fittest, Haaretz, 9. January 2004, http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/art.php?aid=5412