Eye on the Libyan General National Congress: Sixth Report

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Apr 30, 2013 Libya
[Eye on the GNC logo. Image from ignc.net.ly] [Eye on the GNC logo. Image from ignc.net.ly]

Eye on the Libyan General National Congress: Sixth Report

By : Jadaliyya Reports

[The following report was issued by Bokra Youth Organization and H2O Team on 22 April 2013. This is the sixth in a year-long series of reports covering the actions of Libya`s General National Council. This issue focuses on the period from 1 March to 15 March 2013. Click here to access the previous report.]

Eye on the Libyan General National Congress: Sixth Report

Introduction 

The General National Congress held two sessions in this period and primarily discussed the political isolation law and the finance committee’s report on the state budget. The discussion of the political isolation law was induced by pressure from some individuals demanding approval of the law in a late evening session; one GNC member was assaulted after rejecting the proposition. The GNC Information Bureau also published a photo of GNC chairman Mohamed El-Magrief`s car following an assassination attempt by protestors demanding the political isolation law move forward as he was leaving the GNC session.

Summary of GNC Sessions 

70th Meeting:

On Monday March 3, 2013 the GNC met at the main office of the Industrial Research Center in Tajoura (east of Tripoli) to review the finance committee report on the Libyan state budget for fiscal year 2013, and discuss the draft political isolation law, among other pieces of legislation. GNC member Nadiya Rashid mentioned that members of the GNC had received a letter from the Information Bureau stating that GNC sessions would commence once again in the previous location.

It is worth mentioning that the GNC had to change locations once again due to sit-ins of handicapped revolutionary protestors who refused to leave the main GNC conference hall. The GNC was subsequently forced to clear the protestors from the hall after drafting legislation that addressed their demands, including financial recompense (ranging from 300 to 3,000 dinars), as well as other disability benefits, such as discounted travel fares. However, they did not leave the hall until the GNC issue a decision to clear the hall without using force on the evening of March 2, 2013.

71st Meeting:

On Tuesday March 5, 2013 the GNC held a hearing of the political isolation committee on the draft political isolation law, which was presented by 21 members. Continued discussion of the security situation in Tripoli, the draft transitional justice law (presented by the constitutional legislative committee), and the amendment on formation of the constituent committee also took place.

At noon supporters for the draft political isolation law broke into the GNC hall during the discussion of the draft and demanded that the law be voted on and approved. GNC members stated that the move was unjustified and violated the principles of democracy, and GNC members were prevented from leaving the hall of the meteorology center in the El-Karamiya district of Tripoli where they were meeting.

GNC member Fatima El-Majbery blamed GNC members Abdurrahman El-Sawehly and Salah Bady for the violence that took place during the session. She said GNC members were not informed of the session location until late in the morning, and as they prepared to commence they were informed of protestors striking outside the hall as the session began. Surprisingly, Mr. El-Sawehly stated that they would not vote on the isolation law due to the security situation. Mrs. El-Majbery also stated that when GNC members asked how the strikers knew the session location, Mr. Bady claimed he was responsible. Mrs El-Majbery apologized that strikers attacked GNC member Gumaa Elsaieh, and expressed her dismay that such things were happening in the new Libya. She pointed out that she felt as insulted and threatened as the rest of the GNC. It is also worth mentioning that some protestors were attempting to pressure GNC members to sign the political isolation law by force through detaining them inside the hall.

GNC member Ibrahim El-Gheryany announced the resignation of the Coalition of National Forces from the political isolation committee, as he is in full support of the draft law in its current state; it values the loyalty of the martyrs and affirms the Libyan revolution as an initiative of the nation rather than political elites. Mr. El-Gheryany confirmed his support of the law and requested it be quickly approved by the GNC.

In a statement issued by the press bureau GNC chairman Mr. El-Megarief confirmed that “the congress never carries out its duties under threat, nor permits the use of arms by outsider groups as a means to exert pressure on the GNC agenda.” He emphasized that there are formal avenues for demonstration and expressing opinions beyond aggression, abuse, or detention of GNC members, unlike what took place in the meteorology center hall. He also pointed out that “chaos or use of force is unacceptable and of no benefit, but disappoints people and inhibits moving forward in building the constitution and the state. He also added, "we shall continue to work diligently to enforce order and maintain the legality of the state that our people paid for in blood, which requires all joining together on behalf of the state and nation to maintain the homeland; we shall not permit anybody to shatter the strength of the homeland.”

The GNC chairman and some GNC members were threatened by assassination during the session by some group of demonstrators who broke into the hall. One assailant aimed his weapon at the chairman and threatened him as the members left the meeting hall after many hours of detention. The car of the chairman was exposed to continuous firing of shots while he was inside it, which caused significant damage to the car.

Mr. El-Megarief pointed out that until that point the GNC had dealt patiently with the assailants, with good judgment and professionalism had listened to their demands, and had been considering the possibility of voting on the political isolation law, the previous night, but that legislative procedures could not be commenced. He also stated that the detention and threat of violence of the previous night, was disrespectful of elderly and female GNC members. Preventing them from leaving and depriving GNC members of food is an immoral, illegal act that should not be repeated as they do not serve the public national interest. He called all Libyans to join together and speak out against those who disregard laws and prevent Libya from progressing.

The GNC decided to suspend meetings until security could be assured and tragedies such as those that took place on Tuesday would not be repeated. In his press conference Mr. El- Megarief explained that the suspension of meetings “was due to many considerations such as the lack of a secure hall for meetings, a rejection of meeting under pressure, threat of arms, or terrorism,” and that the GNC intended to continue carrying out its mission that the nation had assigned to it during the July 7, 2012 elections. Mr. El-Megarief added that "the GNC committees would continue to meet and prepare draft laws, firstly the general budget draft for the state.”

Sources:

  • Live broadcasts of GNC sessions
  • Official website of the GNC
  • GNC Facebook page
  • Libyan News Agency
  • Altadamun 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 :
Jadaliyya Reports

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