Ghwell complains to Ban Ki-moon about Leon

By Saber Ayyub.

Tripoli, 8 September 2015:

The head of the internationally-unrecognised administration in Tripoli, Khalifa Ghwell, has complained to UN Secretary General . . .[restrict]Ban Ki-moon about his special representative, head of the UN Support Mission in Libya Bernardino Leon. He accused him of tearing Libyan apart.

In a letter, signed on 31 August but only just published, Ghwell said he backed the idea of the Libya Dialogue, chaired by Leon. However, he criticised the UN envoy for not accepting the amendments demanded by the continuing General National Congress (GNC) in Tripoli. This was destroying the Dialogue, he claimed.

The nine amendments (below) were made public last weekend. In contradiction to what Ghwell said in his letter, the new GNC Dialogue team, when it returned to Tripoli from Geneva on Saturday, announced that the talks there had been constructive and that Leon had accepted around half of the amendments.

Ghwell also protested about contacts and meetings made by Leon with military factions, municipal councils and women’s organisations. They had been done without the permission or the knowledge of his government, he complained.

He called on the UN Secretary General to rein in Leon and prevent causing any further damage to Libya.

GNC proposed amendments to the Draft:

1. All institutions stipulated in the Agreement shall receive their legitimacy from it [the Agreement] based on a constitutional amendment, provided that no subsequent constitutional amendments are carried out unless with the agreement of the State Council and House of Representatives.
2. Stipulate that the Supreme Commander of the Army (Presidency Council of the Council of Ministers according to the draft Agreement) shall re-appoint new military and security commands concurrently with the formation of the Government.
3. Stipulate clearly in this Agreement a mechanism for the selection of the Prime Minister and his two deputies.
4. Stipulate explicitly that members of the State Council are only the members of the GNC who enjoy sound membership on the day of the signing of this Agreement, through a list endorsed by the Presidency of the General National Congress.
5. Stipulate that the review, appointment and dismissal of occupants of sovereign posts shall not be carried out unless with the consensus of the Supreme Council of State and House of Representatives via voting with a majority to be agreed and stipulated clearly in this Agreement.
6. State explicitly that procedures for the vote of confidence and the vote of no confidence shall not be valid unless with the consensus of the Supreme Council of State and the House of Representatives through voting with a majority to be agreed and stipulated clearly in this Agreement. Where a minister is dismissed by the Prime Minister and his two deputies, he shall be replaced via the same method through which he was dismissed.
7. Exclude all military personnel involved in coups, who declared their rebellion against the political process as manifested in the Constitutional Declaration.
8. All contents of the Political Agreement on commitment to the principles of international legality, international human rights law and international humanitarian law as well as decisions of the International Criminal Court and the pertinent United Nations Security Council resolutions shall not contradict with the current Libyan legislations.
9. Final signature on the Political Agreement shall be after the GNC votes on and endorses it.

Leon has said that there can be no amendments to the text of the Dialogue Draft approved in July, but that the GNC’s concerns could be addressed in the annexes to it.

It is difficult to see GNC amendments Nos. 4, 5 and 6 being incorporated into the annexes. They would require the text to be amended. [/restrict]