Operation Oil Theft: Month 12, Week 4, Day 1.

I have to start by saying that I am still having real trouble getting quality information about the situation in Libya. However it is obvious that the British agents who are still operating in the east of the country are having some success. Apart from putting pressure on the National Transitional Council (NTC) by desecrating British war graves they have also played a significant role in organising the anti-NTC protests that have been taking place in Benghazi pretty much since the fall of the Qaddafi government.

Despite those protests boiling over into violence in late January matters really came to a head last Tuesday (6/3/12) when around 5000 tribal and militia leaders came together in Benghazi, declared themselves to be the Cyrenaican Regional Congress (CRC) and elected the 79 year old Ahmed Zubair al-Sennussi as their leader. As is often the case in Libyan politics what the CRC wants isn't exactly clear and doesn't seem particularly well thought through. However they claim they want to set up some sort of federal form of government that would see the NTC is overall control but Libya's three main regions; Cyrenaica in the east, Fezzan in the south west and Tripolitania in the north west acting as largely independent states. Of course Cyrenaica has lots of oil, Fezzan has some oil and Tripolitania has none at all.

The main problem with the CRC's unilateral action is that Libya is just three months away from it's first elections since well possibly ever. Planning for these elections and the laws that govern them haven't considered a federal model at all and the CRC don't seem to have an concrete suggestions as to how the technical aspects of federalism would work in practice. Therefore I could go so far to suggest that rather then setting up a federal system of government the CRC want to use the issue as a way to promote a boycott of the upcoming elections. They will then set up something closer to the Saudi model which will see the nation divided into private fiefdoms run for the benefit of a variety of Princes. Highlighting his complete lack of understanding of what federalism actually involves al-Senussi is totally wrong in his assertion that the USA and Germany were able to achieve federalism without any problems. The federalisation of Germany following world war two led to the country being divided into East and West Germany for the best part of fifty years and America's attempts at federalism led to the American civil war.

The fact that the CRC's first act was to set up it's own army and the NTC has said that if need be it will use it's army to resist the plan suggests that Libya could be looking at a situation similar to the collapse of Yugoslavia in the 1990's. After almost a decade of war this saw Yugoslavia split into Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Serbia, Kosovo and Macedonia.

Fortunately at least 9000 Libyans are already aware of this staging protests in both Tripoli (5000) and Benghazi (4000) on Friday (9/3/12)