Libya

Stephen Gethins Excerpts

Monday 8th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Gethins (North East Fife) (SNP)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the situation in Libya.

[The Minister for Asia and the Pacific (Mark Field)]

Yet again, this is a dangerous moment for Libya. The UK has wholeheartedly supported the UN’s tireless work under its own action plan to prepare the ground for the national conference due to take place in Libya on 14 April. The UK has warned that any Libyan national army advance on Tripoli would be catastrophic for this political and diplomatic process and risks a descent into more widespread violence. I am afraid I have to tell the House that this scenario appears to be developing, following the LNA advances towards the west and south of Tripoli and the subsequent mobilisation of forces loyal to the internationally recognised Government of National Accord, headed by the Libyan Prime Minister Fayez al-Serraj, to oppose that advance.

General Haftar, who is the leader of the Libyan national army, and his aligned forces retain control of Gharyan, which is only 75 km from Tripoli, and have taken the international airport to the south of the capital. I should say that that is not the central Mitiga airport, which is more usually used by those travelling to the city. It was reported only yesterday that some 21 people were killed, and I understand there is ongoing fire almost as we speak.

General Haftar appears to show no sign of stalling his advance, despite urgent diplomatic efforts to urge de-escalation, including a meeting with UN Secretary-General Guterres last week in Tripoli. We continue to focus our diplomatic lobbying on key international partners, and I know that the Foreign Secretary—he is at the Foreign Affairs Council in Brussels today—has worked together with the other G7 nations, which have come out with a notice on this matter. We therefore call on regional counterparts, in particular in Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, to have an eye on the peace plan that has been proposed.

There of course remains a severe risk of escalation between pro-LNA and anti-LNA armed groups. For our purposes, political staff in post have been withdrawn for some time to the Libya office in Tunis in neighbouring Tunisia. The House will appreciate, I hope, that we will not go into great specific detail about exactly what remaining diplomatic staff we have in that country. Obviously, we are keeping these matters under review.

All Libyan parties need urgently to pursue de-escalation to avoid further miscalculation and to recommit unashamedly to the UN-led initiative and political process. There is still time to prevent further violence and to find a political solution. Any party whose actions precipitate violence and bloodshed should now be held accountable by the international community. I call on all our international partners to send the strongest possible message to the LNA commander, Haftar, to back down and to re-engage with the UN process. Indeed, it was at the instigation of the UK, as the penholder at the UN Security Council, that a special session was held at the Security Council in New York on Friday.

The UN reports that the violence has caused the displacement of more than 2,800 people in recent months, which has meant that emergency aid cannot reach casualties, including civilians. It is imperative that all parties respect international humanitarian and human rights law. The UK will continue its concerted diplomatic efforts to urge de-escalation in Libya. We will work in the UN Security Council, the European Union and all other international forums to urge all parties in Libya to re-engage with the political process.

[Stephen Gethins]

I thank the Minister for his answer, and I thank officials in his Department in particular for their ongoing work.

Despite everything else that is going on in Government, I am sure the Minister agrees that the UK has a special responsibility to Libya after the military intervention under the coalition Government. In the aftermath of that conflict and the overthrow of Colonel Gaddafi, Libya has indeed joined the list of failed and fragile states around the world, and, as during the current violence, it is the people of Libya who have suffered the most.

Back in 2011, before the military action, Mr Cameron warned at the Scottish Conservative party conference that if we did not take action,

“Libya will become once again a pariah state, festering on Europe’s border, a source of instability, exporting strife beyond her borders”.

My concern is that the lessons of Iraq clearly were not learned in Libya, with spending on military action far outstripping spending on rebuilding. One UN official described the UK’s efforts as

“paltry bone-throwing from a European country whose bombers reaped so much destruction”.

What lessons have been learned from Iraq, and from Libya previously, as we respond to this latest crisis? More specifically, What bilateral support are the UK Government providing for the UN peace process, good governance in Libya, and internal and external security measures in that country?

[Mark Field]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution. I think the whole House recognises, as he does, that despite all the other excitement there are a number of areas where the Foreign Office and other elements of Government still have a very active role to play. I think we can be very proud of the work we do. He will know that we are also a penholder at the UN in relation to Yemen, and of course I answered an urgent question on that matter in the House only 10 days ago.

The hon. Gentleman is pretty robust in his views about what happened in 2011. He will remember that, although the intervention was international—it was called for by the Arab League and authorised by the UN Security Council—this Parliament voted in support of UK involvement to prevent attacks on civilians. However, he is correct that after that intervention, although the UK played a role in trying to ensure that there was further planning for a Libyan-owned, UN co-ordinated stabilisation effort, that did not come to pass in the way we would have liked.

There were clear early successes in the immediate aftermath of 2011 that were not sustained. As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, General Haftar, who was himself in exile for some 20 years, having fallen out with the Gaddafi regime at the beginning of the 1990s, returned and was regarded as an international operator, with close connections with the US Administration. Obviously, he was not able to make as much progress as he would have liked immediately in 2011, and then, when the civil war broke out in 2014, he had a part to play.

The concern one has about the Haftar regime is whether another strongman is what Libya requires. I think Libya requires democracy. It requires the sort of work the UN will continue steadfastly to do and try to bring about. My biggest concern is that it is very evident that General Haftar does not regard democracy as an important way forward for Libya. Clearly, a number of other groups associated with him are working in a rather negative way, not least given their religious connotations, whether they are from Egypt, the UAE or elsewhere. As a result, I do not think that is the right way forward.

I wanted to give a full answer to the hon. Gentleman, who requested this urgent question. Please be assured that the UK continues to work with international partners in this regard. We take very seriously our responsibilities in that part of the world. As the hon. Gentleman is well aware, the implications of Libya becoming a failed state in terms of migration flows, which have already been fairly substantial over the last three or four years since the civil war broke out, are obviously very worrying. It is evident that the international contingent will need to work together for quite some time to try to bring stability to that country.