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By Hadi Fornaji.
Tunis, 30 June 2017:
In a move designed to display the extent of the interim Beida-based government’s sway in the country, its labour minister yesterday laid the foundation stone for a new social welfare centre in Rujban, 200 kilomtres south west of the Tripoli.
Massoud Belgassem and others from the interim government flew in to nearby Zintan and carried out the small ceremony attended by Rujban’s mayor and councillors, as well as other officials, members of the mountain town’s business community and local civil society leaders.
The ceremony was followed by another in the town commemorating those from the town who has died fighting with the Libyan National Army (LNA). Again this was attended by the mayor and councillors as well as the deputy LNA commander of the western military region, the town’s member of the House of Representatives, Salah Bilhoug, other local military and civic officials martyrs plus families of those who had died.
Like Zintan and a number of other Jebel Nafusa and west Libyan towns, Rujban has remained basically loyal to the House of Representatives and its government since the time of the takeover of Tripoli by Libya Dawn militants in July 2014. Like Zintan too, it has nonetheless also supported efforts at mediation between the two sides of the current divide. Belgassem’s visit, however, is seen as an indication that, in Rujban at least, sympathy for deal with the internationally-backed administration in Tripoli is waning.
