Tribal War Simmers in Libya's Desert
By <
http://www.ipsnews.net/author/rebecca-murray/> Rebecca Murray
ZWEILA, Southern Libya, Oct 11 2012 (IPS) - A group of Tabu fighters with
mud-splattered trucks rest on the outskirts of Zweila, a small historic
slave-trade stop in Libya's southwest Sahara.
Far from their home base of Kufra, hundreds of miles to the east, these men
belong to a desert border patrol loyal to charismatic Tabu commander Issa
Abdel Majid Mansour.
They police the country's vast and seemingly impenetrable southern frontier
with Sudan, Chad and Niger - an arduous off-road trek over towering sand
dunes, volcanic rock and scattered minefields - using smugglers' markers and
the stars as a guide.
The indigenous, semi-nomadic Tabu, marginalised by Muammar Gaddafi under his
'Arabisation' campaign, staked out a leading role during the 2011 revolution
with a goal to secure their civil rights.
Combining their intimate knowledge of the Sahara with a tribal network
spanning both sides of the borders, they forged a successful blockade
against pro-regime reinforcements.
When the revolution was won, a grateful transitional government
controversially awarded Mansour oversight over vital desert crossings to the
detriment of Kufra's majority Arab Zwai tribe.
The Zwai, whose ties stretch over oil-rich territory to Ajdabiya, 150km
south of Benghazi, previously benefited from Gaddafi's divide-and-rule
tactics.
Besides securing national oilfields, Mansour says their priority is to
prevent extremist militias, including Al Qaeda, from the lucrative business
of smuggling subsidised fuel and food out of Libya, and ferrying weapons and
drugs in.
"I worry about terrorists," he says intently. "They are dangerous - we need
to stop them getting more power in the desert."
Security is a critical concern for the Libyan government, especially in the
aftermath of the deadly attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi by a
suspected Islamist militia last month.
Jolted into action by a subsequent outpouring of public outrage, the
government now faces an uphill battle to integrate or disarm poorly trained
armed groups loosely affiliated with the state security apparatus along
Libya's coastal belt.
But often overlooked is the volatile, less populous south, home to
significant oil reserves, rare minerals, Gaddafi's man-made river project
which feeds water to the north, and the profitable cross-border smuggling of
illicit goods.
The Tripoli-based government has failed to address tribal and economic
grievances at the heart of this year's deadly clashes between Tabu and Arab
tribes in the southern trade hubs of Kufra and Sebha, now governed by
fragile ceasefires.
On an international level, competing regional interests have reduced
information-sharing between foreign embassies and a cohesive approach to
government ministries.
The U.S. believes Islamic extremist groups, including Al Qaeda, are trying
to forge supply lines through southern Libya to its neighbours. It appears
poised to introduce a more robust role for the U.S. Africa military command,
AFRICOM, in its expanding 'war on terror'.
Meanwhile, the French strive to retain a monopoly on the mineral-rich
region, which they traditionally regard as their post-colonial backyard.
Navigating east across the steep, Saharan sand dunes, a surreal concrete
enclave looms in the distance. This is the remote Kufra oasis, once a
welcome sight for tired desert travelers.
When Kufra's violence ended in an uneasy ceasefire last June, the Zwai
erected the barrier, encircling the bitterly divided town and its population
of 44,000.
The Zwai are convinced that the town's Tabu community is mostly foreign, and
is seeking to carve out an autonomous homeland. Their other concern is
control over the south's most profitable livelihood, smuggling.
Victors in the revolution, Tabu smugglers eek out a subsistence living quite
freely, crisscrossing the borders in small Toyota pickup trucks loaded with
cheap fuel and migrants.
But the large commercial trucks owned by Zwai businessmen - who until
recently made small fortunes from illicit border trade - currently stand
idle.
"The Zwai, economically speaking, want to control the area from Kufra
towards the Egyptian and Sudanese border because of smuggling. They call it
trade, but it's actually smuggling," says Fathi Baja, professor of political
science at Benghazi University.
"There are also Islamist groups that want to control borders," he adds.
Tabu and Zwai residents now stick to their heavily guarded neighbourhoods in
Kufra.
Small numbers of official army troops guard the town's invisible borders,
having replaced the Shield of Libya auxiliary forces initially dispatched as
a neutral buffer after clashes in February.
"The Minister of Defence gave orders to Islamists to go down, control the
borders and sort out the issue," says Rami Al-Shahiebi, one of the few
journalists who travelled to Kufra in February.
The undisciplined Shield soon turned their weapons on the Tabu, Al-Shahiebi
says. Convinced by the more media-savvy Zwai and Libyan broadcasts from
Tripoli that 'foreigners' were invading, fighters trekked from as far as the
coastal town Misrata for battle.
After hundreds were killed and the Tripoli government was sufficiently
embarrassed by the role of their appointed 'peacekeepers', a ceasefire was
brokered between the Shield and Tabu in June.
Fawzia Idris, an outgoing 37-year-old Tabu nurse in Kufra's Shura district,
is part of a volunteer effort to plant one-foot-tall saplings amongst the
piles of rubbish. "To make the neighbourhood beautiful," she explains.
"Racism and control of the border are the big things," Idris says. "We are
Muslim, but maybe because we are black and not white they think we are not
Libyan. The same people who are working with Gaddafi are still in charge.
There is no change."
The Tabu maintain close familial ties in Chad, Niger and Sudan. Although
many don't own Libyan citizenship papers, first issued under King Idriss in
1954, they can trace family ancestors back to the same Libyan tracts of
land.
The Tabu bore the brunt of Gaddafi's rage over the defeat of Libya's war
with Chad over the mineral-rich Ouzou Strip in 1996. Many were stripped of
citizenship, deprived of education, health and work, and had their homes
demolished.
An estimated 4,000 of Kufra's Tabu residents are now hemmed into the
impoverished ghettos of Gadarfa and Shura. Rotting piles of garbage surround
shacks built with sticks, cardboard and jagged pieces of corrugated iron.
Homes, schools and the makeshift clinics are pockmarked or blackened by
mortar rounds from the recent fighting.
The Tabu talk with deep bitterness about what they see is the transitional
government's betrayal of promises to grant them equal rights after their
revolutionary role, and the prognosis for a Libyan constitution inclusive of
minority rights appears dim.
Hassan Mousa, a Tabu military spokesman from Kufra, is direct. "The
stability of the south depends on Tabu rights. And Libya's stability depends
on the south's stability," he warns.
Related IPS Articles
*
<
http://www.ipsnews.net/2012/07/voting-for-peace-in-the-distant-desert/>
Voting for Peace in the Distant Desert
* Saving Libya From its Saviours
<
http://www.ipsnews.net/2012/09/saving-libya-from-its-saviours/>
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Received on Thu Oct 11 2012 - 18:42:11 EDT
