British FM stresses need for unified Libya to combat terrorism

British foreign secretary Boris Johnson has urged Khalifa Hafter to stick by the Paris agreement he made with Presidency Council (PC) head Faeiz Serraj, to enforce a ceasefire and work with UNSMIL towards agreed amendments to the Libyan Political Agreement (LPA).

Johnson was wrapping up his two-day Libya visit by meeting the armed forces commander-in-chief in Benghazi. It was the first time a British government minister has been in the city since 2011. Yesterday he was in Tripoli before moving on to Misrata.

Johnson insisted that Hafter had a role to play in the political process. A stable and secure Libya could, he said,  deal with the threat of terrorism and tackle the challenges of migration.

“The Libyan people need a stable state that can meet their fundamental economic and security needs” he said, “That requires all sides to compromise and work together. Only a united Libya can defeat the terrorists and smuggling networks who are exploiting the instability”

Johnson said that the UK would be working intensively ahead of the UN General Assembly’s week-long September meeting to galvanise international support for a renewed effort to break the political deadlock. Britain was also backing the new UNSMIL chief Ghassan Salamé’s efforts to revitalise talks on amendments to the LPA .

The British politician did not see House of Representatives (HoR) president Ageela Saleh during his visit to the east. UK diplomats explained that the two men had met this May in Tobruk when Johnson paid his first visit to Libya.

On the other hand, officer Mahmoud Al-Warfali took to the streets of Benghazi yesterday to protest the ICC’s arrest warrant for him. In a statement issued by the organisers rejecting the arrest warrant, they accused the ICC of a range of wrongdoings from bureaucratic incompetence, to imperialism and support for terrorism.

“We, the sons and tribes of Benghazi, direct this message to the so-called International Criminal Court for being a colonial political institution that serves the interests of world imperialism and the Zionist movement and not an international human rights organisation,” the protestors’ statement read.

Welcoming Warfali’s willingness to take part in a Libyan military investigation into his actions, they accused the ICC covertly continuing to support terrorists after they had been defeated on the battlefield by Libyan military forces. They also accused the ICC of hypocrisy for taking action against Warfali but not pursuing militant Islamists who been responsible for killings and other crimes. Where, they asked, had the ICC been for the last six years when judges and others were assassinated or people crucified in Sirte.

The protestors expressed appreciation for those who supported Warfali who has been accused of summary executions of some 33 Islamist militants.

The ICC has attracted considerable criticism over its lack of success in prosecuting war criminals. The court has only convicted three individuals in its 15-year history despite spending more than $2 billion. ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda has previously blamed its shortcomings on a lack of resources and continued instability in Libya.

In January, Human Rights Watch (HRW) sharply criticised the ICC for not launching investigations into war crimes in Libya. They argued that militias continued to “flout international law with impunity”, and that both the Libyan criminal system and the ICC were unable to hold criminals accountable.

Lawyers for Justice in Libya (LFJL), which welcomed the ICC arrest warrant for Warfali, has called on the LNA to cooperate with the court and deliver Warfali to The Hague immediately.

While agreeing that justice was best administered “as close to the crime as possible”, it questioned whether any trial in Libya of Warfali would be properly conducted. In any event, under international law, Libya was duty bound to surrender him unless it successfully challenged the order in court, it noted.