The draft peace plan that the United Nations’ Special Representative to Libya, Ambassador Bernardino Leon, wants signed by next week is a desperate last throw of the dice in a peace process that is going nowhere.
Months of shuttle diplomacy from Morocco to Berlin and points in between have produced three rejected peace plans and this fourth one, announced only yesterday week, is maybe his last shot.
This desperation to get agreement from Libya’s factions before June 17 explains the most ridiculous aspect of the whole plan – the offer to make the delegates he has invited to negotiate the deal into lawmakers.
Until now, the delegates were just delegates, dutifully reporting back on progress of the talks; now Leon wants to give them jobs and power, proposing to appoint them as Libya Dialogue, a sort of supreme council, whose members he appoints and who would help run the country. No wonder many of these delegates seem ready to sign Leon’s deal.
But other Libyans are not so sure. Leon’s plan is complicated enough already, committing Libya to have two power sharing governments – one the existing recognised government in Tobruk, the other the State Council, which would be led by the Islamist-led rebel militias of Libya Dawn, who hold Tripoli.
Libya Dialogue, which would oversee their work and choose the prime minister, is meanwhile chosen by Leon himself, a massive departure from his original purpose as a simple envoy.
It is a constitutional and legalistic nightmare, starting with the proposal that Leon, a humble envoy, will now become chairman of an important governing institution
Diplomats complain that Libya is tearing itself apart with war, and that, while political rivals fight each other, Islamic State grows stronger. And they are right.
Where they are wrong is in demanding that this particular remedy, cooked up at great speed by the UN, not the Libyans themselves, should be forced down Libya’s throat. It is a constitutional and legalistic nightmare, starting with the proposal that Leon, a humble envoy, will now become chairman of an important governing institution.
The Leon plan calls for a one-year unity government and is subject to consensus from all rival groups, in other words, both governments and Libya Dialogue. All three groups will have to sign-off on choosing the prime minister and on big decisions, a recipe for gridlock if ever there was one.
It also marks a huge U-turn for the UN which originally supported the elected parliament, the House of Representatives, granting it international recognition. Now that same UN is pressuring it to share power with an unelected militia army that has seized Tripoli.
But Leon is under pressure himself. He has been promising peace since last September, telling his bosses at the UN Security Council that talks are making progress, that peace is close, that he has only a couple more hurdles to cross.
It is Leon’s bosses who demanded a month ago that he make good on his promises, and have a deal ready by June 17 – the onset of the holy month of Ramadan.
The EU are just as desperate; political pressure in Europe demands they do something about the thousands of migrants pouring out of Libya and they have promised military action against the smugglers. But fearful of the consequences of it, they have delayed the decision until late July, hoping Leon would by then have produced a Libya unity government that could crack down on the smugglers.
But the signs from Tobruk are that none of this will happen, with its spokesman already accusing Leon of being forced into the plan by the Brotherhood. Without Tobruk’s signature, the deal is dead, and Leon must sense it despite his cheerful demeanor.
Strolling around Berlin, he is the smiling, confident, modern-day equivalent of Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister who sold out Czechoslovakia to the Nazis, returning home to wave a piece of paper bearing Hitler’s signature as proof he had a deal.
There is rich irony on display in Berlin – the Muslim Brotherhood, to whom Leon wants to deliver power in excess of anything they won in last year’s elections, were delighted.
Meanwhile, all the diplomatic pressure for a deal is being poured onto the elected Libyans, the ones the UN once supported.
Finally most Libyans have now given up hope that the UN can resolve anything.
Richard Galustian is a security analyst.