By Ahmed Elumami.
Tripoli, 6 November 2013:
Despite an unprecedented three consecutive days of sittings – on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday – General National . . .[restrict]Congress has reached no decision has yet on the future of the Libyan Revolutionaries Operations Room (LROR). Nor is there any agreement so far on the whether to strip the Congress President, Nuri Abu Sahmain, of his security powers. Final decisions on both may be made next Sunday.
Congress did agree, however, last Sunday, to set up two committees, one to investigate last month’s abduction of Prime Minister Ali Zeidan which the LROR has been accused of masterminding, and the allocation of LD 900 million to the LROR.
“The discussions are still ongoing and we may make the final decision at the next Sunday sitting,” Zintan independent Congressman Abdulsalam Abdullah Nassiya told the Libya Herald.
Many members, he said, were split between simply cancelling of LROR’s assignment to secure Tripoli and repealing the decision to form it.
Claiming that Abu Sahmain had had no right to form LROR under his own control, he said that the main reason for the delay in making a decision was attitude of members of Al-Wafa bloc. A grouping of most members of the Justice and Construction Party (J&C) and other like-minded Congress members, the bloc has raised concerns about security in the capital if the LROR’s power were curtailed
“If you get rid of it, who will deal with security in Tripoli?” Benghazi Congressman Mohamed Amari Ziyad said to this paper. The capital could become like his city, he warned.
He claimed that Congress had been about to vote yesterday on cancelling the LROR’s assignment in Tripoli but that the 94 Congres members who boycotted the GNC sittings recently started “shouting and causing trouble” when they felt that the vote was not going to go their way.
Yesterday’s debate on the issue was certainly acrimonious, with shouting and threats, and many members deciding to leave.
However, according to the Chairman of Congress’ National Security Committee, Abdulmonem Al-Yaser, Congress is now moving towards a compromise under which the LROR would be removed from the control of the President of Congress and putt it into the hands of the Chief of Staff. The plan, he said, was that it would be reorganised and de-politicised. Although there were some Congress members that were against any change in its status, negotiations were well under way to hand it over, he stated.
According to Zayed, Al-Wafa bloc has agreed to the LROR coming under the control of the Chief of Staff.
The two committees to investigate the Prime Minister’s kidnapping and the LD 900-million allocation are still to filled, Nassiya said. Each would have seven to nine members, elected by Congress as a whole.
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