By Libya Herald reporters.
Malta, 2o January 2015:
The former president of the expired General National Congress (GNC), Nuri Abusahmain, met the military heads . . .[restrict]of the GNC/Libya Dawn coalition in Tripoli yesterday, in an effort to coordinate their message to the outside world.
Abusahmain, who is still referred to as the Supreme Commander of the Libyan Army by his supporters, had talks with militia chiefs and former GNC members to ‘’coordinate ways of creating suitable conditions for the success of the forthcoming national dialogue through defining specialisations and naming official spokespersons for each state authority’’, the GNC statement reported.
Those at the meeting agreed to ‘’provide all media outlets with the names of the official spokespersons for military and field authorities through official letters from the GNC, the Supreme Council for Defence and the General Staff of the Libyan Army’’.
This clarification comes after a series of contradictory statements emanating from various GNC/Libya Dawn factions during and after the Geneva dialogue on the issue of the ceasefire. This, said the GNC, gave the impression that there were splits in the coalition and no structure of leadership nor command.
Dawn’s position became very unclear as the various local municipalities also joined the political process by declaring their views on the ceasefire/Geneva peace process. This threatened to weaken the GNC’s position in terms of the Geneva/UNSMIL talks.
There are clear tensions and divisions between the moderates and the hardliners in the GNC/Libya Dawn coalition, as well as between the civilian and military wings of the coalition.
The meeting to sort out the coordination of the Libya Dawn message was attended by:
President Nuri Abusahmain, the president of the rump of the GNC, who is the supreme commander of the military forces under Libya Dawn’s control.
Abdul-Hameed Yarboa, chairman of the Interim Security Committee of GNC.
Abu-Al-Gasem Al-Dibriz, deputy chairman of the Interim Security Committee of GNC.
Hamid Alhatta, member of the Interim Security Committee of GNC.
Masoud Abaid, member of the Interim Security Committee of GNC.
Mohammed Al-Gawail, First Deputy Prime Minister and Chairman of the Supreme Council for Defence.
Also present were Libya Dawn militia commanders described as chiefs of the army, air force, air defence and navy. These attended in addition to the commander of the “General Staff” operations room, its spokesman and the Office Manager of the Supreme Commander of the Libyan Army. [/restrict]
