At the January national conference of the Association of the Families of the Abu Salim Prison Massacre in Tripoli, I saw the Libyan legislator Abdel Wahab Mohamed Qaid lead a chant in support of the country\u2019s proposed \u201cPolitical Exclusion Law.\u201d<\/p>\n
The law, which Parliament has accepted in principle, will disqualify anyone associated with the regime of Muammar el-Qaddafi from holding public office in Libya \u2014 not just senior regime officials, but potentially the country\u2019s upper- and mid-level bureaucracy as well.<\/p>\n
In the expansive auditorium in Tripoli, victims\u2019 families responded in unison, cheering Qaid and calling on him to push the law.<\/p>\n
I had heard similar sentiments two days earlier when speaking with former revolutionaries protesting in front of Parliament. They told me that the Political Exclusion Law must be approved and strictly enforced if Libya is to protect the revolution and head off corruption in the country\u2019s new government.<\/p>\n
Libya\u2019s revolutionaries and the families of victims of the Abu Salim massacre are sincere and well-intentioned in their efforts to both build a new Libya and keep those who contributed to Qaddafi\u2019s rule away from any form of authority.<\/p>\n
The emotions at the People\u2019s Auditorium in central Tripoli were high; victims\u2019 mothers and sisters cried, while men chanted \u201cAllahu akbar\u201d (God is great). They had come to the conference for answers \u2014 to find out what really happened to their 1,270 loved ones, executed without trial by Qaddafi\u2019s secret police.<\/p>\n
Qaid himself spent 16 years in Abu Salim prison; \u201cI grew up in prison,\u201d he told The New York Times<\/em> last October. He is the brother of Abu Yahya al-Libi, who was described in the article as Al Qaeda\u2019s \u201cbrightest star and second in command\u201d and was later killed in an American drone strike in Pakistan. Qaid is now a moderate member of the Libyan Parliament, advocating tolerance and pluralism. Part of his mission is championing the Abu Salim families.<\/p>\n For their part, the revolutionaries protesting in front of Parliament underwent their share of suffering under Qaddafi. In addition to serving long years in prisons, many were either wounded or lost loved ones during the fighting to oust Qaddafi. Now the revolutionaries believe their mission is to defend their victory. They must protect Libya from a counterrevolution they see as beginning with the penetration of state institutions by Qaddafi loyalists.<\/p>\n These impulses to hold former regime figures accountable and build a Libyan state based on good governance are what motivate calls for the Political Exclusion Law. The law\u2019s advocates should be careful, however: Societal division, instability and the regrouping of Qaddafi loyalists could be among the unintended consequences of the law as written.<\/p>\n The advocates must be mindful not to repeat the Iraqi experience of \u201cde-Baathification.\u201d In attempting to strike all members of Saddam Hussein\u2019s Baath Party from public life, the Coalition Provisional Authority essentially wrecked Iraqi reconstruction, marginalizing large segments of society and fueling sectarianism.<\/p>\n The first, direct outcome of enforcing the Libyan Political Exclusion Law would be pushing smart, influential former officials \u2014 some with access to key resources \u2014 toward a not insignificant segment of Libyan society unhappy with the revolution\u2019s outcome.<\/p>\n There are currently around one million Libyan refugees in neighboring countries, particularly Tunisia and Egypt, in addition to tens of thousands of internally displaced persons all throughout Libya.<\/p>\n One of the grimmer aspects of the Libyan revolution was that it labeled entire towns (including Sirte and Bani Walid) and entire tribes (including the Warfalla) as pro-Qaddafi, thus excluding them from Libya\u2019s rebuilding process. These marginalized communities \u2014 refugees, displaced people and ostracized tribes and towns \u2014 are a ticking bomb. The Political Exclusion Law will push a new group of powerful former officials to join these excluded communities. Together, they can regroup to mount a challenge to the revolution and the stability of the country.<\/p>\n The officials targeted by the Political Exclusion Law are also the ones with governing experience and the knowledge of how to actually run the country, including the state\u2019s education, economy and oil bureaucracies. Libya has a shortage of judges, for example, and almost every working judge had some role in the former regime. So the Political Exclusion Law would leave Libya with a paralyzed judiciary, with devastating consequences.<\/p>\n Equally important, the Political Exclusion Law is an arbitrary and ineffective defense against corruption. Corrupt bureaucrats who were not part of the Qaddafi regime would be able to occupy senior positions in the new government, while honest individuals forced to work in the old system for lack of an alternative would be ousted.<\/p>\n The frustration of victims\u2019 families and revolutionaries is understandable and must be addressed. The solution to their grievances is a transitional justice law that targets individuals \u2014 not communities \u2014 based on their actions under the old regime. The law should hold accountable individuals who are guilty of real crimes, not guilty by association.<\/p>\n Instead of the Political Exclusion Law, Libyans should be investing their efforts in building a thorough and transparent transitional justice law. It would provide a real, fair accounting for those guilty of offenses under the previous regime while allowing victims\u2019 wounds to heal. At the same time, it would avoid further dividing Libya, and spare the country from another wrenching conflict.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":26952,"template":"","class_list":["post-18738","opinion","type-opinion","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","entry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/opinion\/18738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/opinion"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/opinion"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}