TRANSITION IN LIBYA: THE NEXT

STEPS

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2012

WASHINGTON, D.C.

WELCOME/MODERATOR:

Marina Ottaway

Senior Associate

Middle East Program

SPEAKERS:

Azza Kamel Maghur

A Partner in a Law Firm in Tripoli

Fadel Lamen

President

American Libyan Council

Transcript by Federal News Service

Washington, D.C.

[00:01:35] MARINA OTTAWAY: Good afternoon, and welcome once again to the Carnegie

Endowment. Today’s event is the – in many ways the continuation of a conversation that we had earlier on in the summer and then again in the fall about the transition in Libya. You – as you – some of you may remember, we started discussing what might – could happen, might happen after Sadat had – (laughter) – I am not – I’m in the wrong country altogether let’s go back – (laughter) – after Gadhafi’s demise in – long before – long before his capture.

And we – and we were very impressed, at the time, by the fact that it was quite clear

that the National Transitional Council, other people in Libya were really focused on how the transition should unfold after Gadhafi had left. In other words, that there was not – there was probably more advance planning, more advance discussion of this transition than you often find in similar situations. That does not mean that the transition is easy. It’s – despite all the advanced discussions, clearly there are now both legal problems – for example, in the nature of the – informal problem, because of the nature of the election law – and as well political problems, because of the way in which Libya was liberated, essentially, and because of the way in which multiple centers of powers emerge.

So we are very, very lucky to have with us two very good speakers to highlight these

problems. The first one is Azza Kamel Maghur, who is a partner in a law firm in Tripoli, which she co-founded with her father in 1990. She is a graduate of Benghazi Universtiy and the Sorbonne, and she has worked on a number of high-profile cases, from representing political prisoners. I guess that’s the right word. She – even before Gadhafi was overthrown, she was calling for a new constitution. And she has been for a long time an advocate of democracy and human rights in postrevolutionary Libya.

The second speaker is going to be Fadel Lamen, who has spoken here before. He is

the president of the American Libyan Council and has, as far as I can tell, lived on a plane going back and forth to Libya – (chuckles) – ever since the uprising started in that country. And once again, he is going to bring us his insights about the current situation. So without further ado, please, you want to start?

AZZA KAMEL MAGHUR: Thank you very much, Marina. Thanks to the Carnegie Endowment for inviting me today, and thanks for everybody who is present here. My talk will – is titled the difficult – “Libya: The Difficult Transition to Democracy.” There’s a quote that I would like you to share with me, which says: When all of Libya is liberated, and the dust settles, the National Transitional Council – which is known as NTC – will face the reality that the long struggle for democracy has just started.

[00:05:24] I don’t want to go too much into the history of Libya, but it’s of relevance to

understand that Libya was granted or was – obtained its independence by U.N. General Assembly resolution in 1949. In 1951, Libya adopted its first and only constitution at the time. Then, in December 1951, Libya was declared an independent state, the United Kingdom of Libya, with a federal system at the time.

As you all know, in 1969 Gadhafi took power in Libya by a coup d’etat. Actually we

have to say that, during the period between 1951 up to 1969, there was – we can describe it as an aborted democracy. There was the grains of democracy, but democracy never grew up in Libya during this period. Why? Because of lots of reasons. One of the reasons: that there were three treaties of military bases in Libya, which really was heavy on the Libyan sentiment. It’s also because the political parties were banned in Libya in 1951 – very early. Libya was granted independence, 1951; 1952, ban of political parties. There was also constitutional crisis that made the – affected the judiciary in Libya for not being independent.

[00:06:42] Since then, there was declaration of state of emergency in ’54; lots of uprising in the

’60s. As you know, Nasser revolution was – or whatever – and I cannot call it revolution anymore, after these revolutions – (chuckles) – but anyway, the Nasser system of pan-Arab was in Egypt, and this affected Libya, as in other states in the – in the region. So of course restriction on freedom of press, corruption and nepotism, all of these things made the democracy – the grain of democracy that didn’t really grow up in Libya at that period. So after that, as you all know, the dark decades of Libya – (laughter) – just in brief, not to go very far, I can say that what Louis Quatorze said – “L’etat, c’est moi” – it’s as easy as this.

OK, then the uprising in Libya – the uprising in Libya, of course, started with the

Tunisian Bouazizi’s self-immolation. But this really didn’t catch the eye of Libyans, the immolation itself, the self-immolation itself. What caught the eyes of Libyans at the time was the departure of Ben Ali. This affected Libyans. Libyans were whispering: They made it; the Tunisian made it. So can we. And then of course the uprising in Egypt – people in Libya gave up their work. They sit at home watching TV all day, until of course Mubarak declared that he – his resignation. And there we received all in text – all text messages saying congratulation. So we knew then that Libya is going to be next.

Libya of course, as you know, upraised on the 15th of February, not on the 17th.

The date was set on the 17th on Facebook, but the uprising took place two days before the setting date.

So if we are – want to talk about the democratic process in Libya today, there are

certain dates that we have to really focus on. First is the end of February 2011, self-proclaimed National Transitional Council. It’s a self-proclaimed national council; it’s – it was formed upon consensus somehow.

The second date of importance is in August 2011: A constitutional declaration was declared by NTC, which is the National Transitional Council.

[00:08:51] The third date of importance is on October 23rd, 2011, the declaration of liberation.

It’s where the NTC declared that all Tripoli, all Libya is independent – is liberated, and

therefore this date is very decisive for other democratization process that I’m going to show later on.

Now I can describe the period we’re living on as like this exactly. We are in a bottle

of glass. So it’s a transitional period; it’s a period between two periods, as you know. Any transition is something in between. So before that, we had dictatorship, human rights abuses, corruption, injustice, unemployment, military conflict and international intervention, as you all know. Then of course the uprising resulted to what we call it today, the transitional period. We’re looking forwards to go into the rosy circle, which is democracy, political participation, multiparty system, all of these kind of nice and rosy words that we dreamt of and never been realized.

[00:09:55] However, if we are stuck, if we don’t skip this period, and we’re stuck there – there

are lots of alternatives, which are all negative, in my opinion. Either we’re going to be returning to a tyranny, or probably maybe a civil war, or foreign intervention. And these three events are very – are very bad, and really we have to avoid them. So we have to really skip this period and – into the next democratic period. But the – through this period, we have to go through democratization process in order to arrive to the next period.

So in my opinion, the transitional period can be split into three phases. First phase,

as you see, there isn’t much in it. It was a war; it was a struggle, a military struggle. There was only NTC, executive office, constitutional declaration. It ended on the 24th of October, when NTC declared that all Libya is free.

The second phase is a very important phase. This is the phase what we are in now. Libya is going through the second phase. You can see it’s full of events, full of steps to be taken. So in accordance with the constitutional declaration which is governing this period, the second phase you’re going to have – we’re going to have elections in June 2012, elections for a constituent assembly. And we’re going to have – we’re going to draft the constitution and put it – or put it into referendum and then adopt it later on.

So upon of course the adoption of the constitution, the third phase will start. The

third phase is going to be governed by the constitution. So first and second phase are governed by the constitutional declaration, which is a temporary constitution, but the third phase will be governed by the constitution itself. And in the third phase, as you see, we’re going to have a general election for the parliament.

So this is, as I can explain – this will be the three phases of the constitution of the transitional period in Libya. So as you see, NTC with 67 members – we don’t know exactly the number up to date – this is still a big mystery in Libya, and we don’t know why it’s a mystery, actually. So we’re still at this phase with NTC. And then NTC will be dissolved.

[00:12:12] We’re going to have a general national congress, which is the constituent assembly.

It’s going to be the first constituent assembly elected in Libya, because the first one, 1951,

was appointed. But this one is going to be elected. This – the major function of this general or – general national congress, GNC, will be of course the drafting of the constitution. Then the general national congress will be dissolved again. We’re going to have a parliament.

So this is the transitional period, if I can – we’re going to have, as I said, two

elections. First election is to elect a constituent assembly. Second election is a general election to elect the parliament. A third election may be presidential. We don’t know; it depends of course on the system the constitution will adopt that regard.

[00:13:04] Now the second part of my speech is about the challenges to the democratization

process. What are the challenges? You can imagine all the challenges of a country that’s out of war. We have everything. (Chuckles.) But I’m going to speak about specific things that could be of relevance to this – to this talk.

So first is security. Security, as you can see, as the chain of this car shows you, the

feeling of insecurity that Libyans are living in. So this probably will – (chuckles) – show a lot to you. But we can say that this stage – at this stage now, there are only promises of security. We don’t have security. Security is still on the promises stage. Of course, as you know, it’s – unlike the Tunisian and an Egyptian uprising, Libyan uprising was full of blood and atrocities.

Therefore, I think it’s very – up to now, I think NTC failed, to date, to establish securities. Securities mean, in my – in the views of lots of Libyans, first of all, the integration of freedom fighters. They should be integrated within the state institutions. There are plans, but it’s not realized yet. Control over proliferation of arms – arms are everywhere. It’s true that it’s not visible as it was before, but it’s still there. And by the way, it’s not in the hands of the freedom fighters only. So now we talk about arms in the hands of others, who we don’t know. (Chuckles.) And then we have to build up our proper police and military forces – still on the planning phases.

Also, we have to plan for getting back all the prisoners of common law, who were

released by Gadhafi at the beginning of the uprising, and they are everywhere. They’re – we’re talking about thousands with very serious crimes who are on the run – so how to bring them back to prison. Some of them, by the way, fought beside the freedom fighters in the war. So it’s very difficult to deal with this matter, unless really it should be done in a very proper and very intelligent way.

[00:14:58] Now the second, of course, problem, as you all know, in any country that’s out of

war, is the national reconciliation. Now this is – this is a subject that NTC is trying very hard to avoid. They don’t want to go into this. They think – or the strategy of NTC is to leave this to the leaders – to religious leaders, to political leaders, to tribal leaders. They think that we will not intervene unless we’re asked to. This is very dangerous, in my opinion, and it’s not proper, because it’s important to have leaders to go into the

reconciliation matter. But you still need the frame; you still need law, legislation. There is a draft legislation on transitional justice that was submitted to NTC last October – never been adopted up to date, and we don’t know why.

So a problem here is that the recurrence of clashes and spread-out of clashes, especially on the – on the western side of Libya, undermined actually the efforts of these leaders – because you see them every day on TV, you see them every day on gathering – and this really can undermine and make their presence a bit less importance as it should be.

Human rights violations also is really making the national reconciliation even harder,

because lots of problems and lots of clashes are taking place because of human rights violations – especially the latest one in Bani Walid. It was because of human rights incident.

The third hurdle or the third challenge, in my opinion, is the dysfunctional judiciary. We have a judiciary that is not functioning very well. It’s barely functioning. All the criminal judiciary is not functioning at all because of lack of security. We have almost 7,000 prisoners – we don’t know actually – they’re not under even the state’s control. We have makeshift prisons under the militia control, militia are operating outside of the law framework. Reports, very serious reports, on human rights abuses – the late one was of Amnesty International; before that, Human Rights Watch. Amnesty International was talking about torture and death under torture. It’s very serious, and it’s very credible, these things. So this is also another challenge to the democratization process in Libya.

[00:17:17] Now there is another, very legal, and I want you to wake up here – (chuckles) – to

understand a bit. It’s a bit difficult, but it’s about the constitutional declaration itself. The constitutional declaration itself need to be revisited and need to – and need to be amended, to really (inaudible) – realize and being able to let us go through the democratization process. Otherwise, it’s going to be very difficult.

Now as you all know, NTC holds most of the power in Libya. It’s not the government. We have to differentiate between the government and NTC. NTC is the holder of most of the power. It has legislative power and executive power. This could be understood before the liberation of Libya. This could be – it – we were in the state of war, freedom fighters, struggle, et cetera. But after the liberation of Libya – and NTC now is representing Libya as a whole – I think NTC should have really managed split power – to hold, for example, the legislative power, but give executive power to the government. So the fact that it’s holding all of the powers is not helping in the democratization process.

If I – just to make it easier for you to understand, if you see here the – for example,

the Egyptian example, you have three – the triangle. You have the parliament, the government and the military council. So the power is split between three. The same thing in Tunisia: You have the national constituent assembly, which is mainly a legislative power; and then you have the government and the president, who holds somehow the executive power. In Libya, you have only two. Just forget about the general national congress and imagine it’s NTC.

But afterwards, when the general national congress, which is the constituent assembly, will take place and will be elected, it’s going to have the same power NTC has. And this is dangerous. Even if a constituent assembly is an elected body, it should not be accumulated with lots of powers. It should only, in my opinion, be functioning on the legislative side, and let alone the executive side for other – maybe we need something else here. Maybe we need a presidential committee, or anything else. But the fact that we’re continuing with the accumulation of power is not very comfortable and is not helping the democratization process, in my opinion.

[00:19:35] Now the other problem and the other challenge Libya is facing is NTC. Is NTC

acting democratically? NTC is the body that’s going to take us through the transitional period to democracy. But is it acting democratically? Now my response is, bluntly, no. They’re not acting democratically. NTC, as I said – accumulation of power, too much power, legislative and executive. They are not respecting the core constitutional declaration. NTC issued a constitutional declaration for this period, but they’re not respecting it.

I’ll just give you one example. The constitutional declaration states that NTC chief,

or president, should be elected with two vice presidents. This election has never taken place. So you can see that they are breaching the constitutional declaration itself.

There’s an absence of transparency. Everybody’s talking about this. It’s – I’m not

saying something new here, but there’s a complete absence in transparency. Not one law has been issued in a – in a booklet or on their website; so we don’t have the laws – we don’t really have them printed so that you can – you can use or you can understand what’s happening. Decisions – we don’t know – we don’t know much about the decisions which are issued. We just get them from a source or another. So there is an absence of transparency.

[20:59] Absence of dialogue. There is no dialogue. There is no dialogue between NTC and

the people. There’s complete rupture between the two. For example, if you want to issue an election – a law on elections – you have to talk to people. What are the conditions of running for election, for example? The just conditions – what do you think?

We have people from the ex-regime. How are we going to deal with this? We have

national reconciliation, but there is no dialogue. They just act – they put – they issue acts and legislation, and we just receive them. This is how the relation is.

There is also an absence of participation. You have – we have the sense that there is

a policy of exclusion somehow. They don’t really involve experts, NGOs much, though they did it on the election – latest election law that’s where – I’m going to talk about later on. There is also a lack of self-confidence. There is also some information about corruption that we’re not – we don’t know until now if it’s right or not.

[21:57]

Now, the other challenge, which is a very important one, is the election, where we

are – we are in a year of election. We are going to elect our first constituent assembly. Why this election is important? It – because we didn’t have elections since 1965. I’m from a generation that have never elected anybody in my life. This is my first election at that age. It’s very important for us.

The second is it’s the first elected constituent assembly, as I said. But the third thing

is that there is a very tight time – deadline in the constitutional declaration that we have to follow. And this is very, very important. And you can feel now, with this tight deadline that we said we have to reamend – and never reamend it, we see – we see now that NTC is breaching it voluntarily, without even regretting such breaches.

So this – what happened with the election, preparation for elections, is people went

out with this. It – we’re – it says “I am angry” in a Libyan dialect. I’m angry. Everybody is angry of how NTC is dealing with all of these issues, especially the election – the preparation for election. Everybody is angry.

Of course, the latest crisis, as you – as you remember, on the 19th of January, the

vice president of NTC was attacked personally, and he was – he submitted his resignation. And then on the 21st, as you all know, protesters in Benghazi stormed NTC offices, and this was it. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and so the election law was stopped because of what happened.

[23:33] Why this process of law – do you still have time? Why this process of election law is

so confusing? Why is it so confusing? It’s just a law. We’re issuing an election law that needs – what? Needs more participation, dialogue, and then you need – you need experts to draft this law. But why is – it’s taking that much problem and creating that much anger in Libya?

Because NTC dealt with it in the following way. First of all, NTC decided to launch

the law to the public for the first time. People were very happy, actually, to receive copies of the law. But they did it on the Internet. Now, not everybody has access to the Internet, and we had problems with electricity in Libya. So it was – it was – it was the wrong approach. It was on the Internet. And again, for you to give your comments, you have to follow these very – how do you say – rules of technology that not – and I couldn’t even follow it.

You have to go and write down your comments, which was not helpful. So at the

end, they took all the comments and they gave people 10 days. NTC said you have 10 days for you, Libyan people, to give your comments. OK, within 10 days they received lots of comments. Then the law was adopted and, of course, they declared the adoption of the law. The law was even more disappointed – more disappointing than the draft law. And they declared the adoption of the law – just the word “adoption,” that’s what they used. “We adopted the law.”

[25:07]

They took the 10 percent quota for women – just took it off, cancelled. They stick

with the – with the electoral system of first past the post. They stick to this. Even people said this is not possible; we’re – (inaudible) – this is a very – this is the worst election system that you can really, you know, choose; you have to ask people about what is the convenient electoral system for Libya. They didn’t listen. So the draft – the law that was adopted was very bad, and it triggered all of these, as I said, confusion and anger and demonstrations and violence. It triggered violence. So then NTC stopped the law and didn’t publish it.

Afterwards, there were some experts in Libya – various respectful people,

independent people with NGOs – they drafted an alternate law on elections. NTC was obliged to receive them and to call upon them and to work with them on the alternate law. People were appeased and relaxed and everything was going smooth, suddenly.

NTC declared that it’s going to adopt this law, and it adopted the alternate law. It adopted that. Second day, some NTC members showed up and said, no, we weren’t present. This alternate law is not acceptable for us. So the last word was NTC’s word, and they stopped the law. They said we adopted another law.

So three adoptions you have, three adoptions of the same law – first, second, third –

and, up to date, we don’t have the law yet published. And I think they’re still – actually, after the adoption – they’re still making some changes on the law that we don’t know. We people don’t know. So at the end, who has the last word? It’s NTC and not the people.

[26:53] What’s the positive and the negative results of this crisis? This crisis is very

important, in my opinion, and it’s really the crisis that can summarize the democratization challenges in Libya. There are lots of positive things, which is, first, the election law that was drafted in the beginning was not adopted. So the resistance of the people, the – even if it went violent – yeah, and I’m sorry to say that; it wasn’t – we don’t want any violence at that stage – but it stopped this law to be – to be issued.

Libyan legal experts and civil society took the initiatives. First time, they took the

initiatives and they drafted another law, which is the alternate law. It’s also the first time that civil society feels, somehow, self-confidence. We can make it. We can draft our own law, and we can be participants and be stakeholders of democratic process.

The law – even now, it’s taking some amendments and changes; I think it’s going to

be still better than the first draft. (Chuckles.) Whatever the consequences, we are expecting something not that good, but it’s going to be best than – better than the one we had – the NTC drafted by its own in the beginning.

[28:00] But of course, as you all see, that there are negative sides. Violence – it triggered

violence. A breach of the article of the – breach of the constitutional declaration because the constitutional declaration gave 90 days, so we are – the NTC exceeded the 90 days

without issuing the law. So now, is there a violation of the constitution? And when you issue important laws, you don’t want to violate the constitution – (chuckles) – because you want this law to be sustained. And therefore, I think that this law may be taken to the court and said that it’s unconstitutional. And it’s a very – it’s a very important issue.

The third negative thing is that NTC has the last word. Whatever people did,

whatever they screamed, they – whatever the banners they had – “I am angry” – at the end, it’s NTC’s word that was put on the table. So it’s a difficult – it’s a very difficult process. However, it’s still operating. It’s still functioning. (Chuckles.) The transition is taking its own course. So we can’t say that it’s controlled. We cannot say that it’s overseen. It’s taking its own course, and I don’t know where it’s going to lead us. This – are we going to the rosy, nice circle, or we’re back to the – to the black box? I don’t know.

There are strange – not – a strange relationship not only between NTC, as it

appeared to us, and the freedom fighters. No, there are also strange relationship between NTC and the people, NTC and the nongovernmental organizations, the NGOs of Libya. So it’s not that easy. It appears that NTC is not experienced and inefficient. It’s as simple as that. To issue such kinds of laws that people are – have the ability to criticize – means that these laws are not at the level of this very sensitive period.

So women and young people cannot be – not be longer ignored. NTC still has the

last word, as I – as I mentioned before. There is the emergence of new forces in Libya. This is the last part of my speech.

Before, we always thought that there is either NTC or the militias. No, now we discovered there is NTC, the militias, but there are also NGOs and there are political parties in Libya, which are emerging. Therefore, there are other factors and there are other forces emerging in Libya.

[30:26] And that’s why I would like to say to the – to the international communities, it’s not

that you only can deal with NTC or with the militia in Libya. No, there are other forces that we wish the international community give more credit and concentrate more upon. The – we have a new civil society in Libya, but this civil society is growing very fast and maturing very fast.

The crisis of the election really made people understand much about democracy. It

was a very intensive course, if I can say, in democracy. And people understood what is the electoral system, how many kinds of electoral systems? We never knew about these things. So we started – it was a very good – a very good comprehension of the democratic process.

They’re – NGOs are playing a very, very good role on awareness in Libya. They’re

also leading the peaceful protests in several cities in Libya. Though there is no, yet, legislation on political parties, but political parties are emerging in Libya. We know that, of course, there’s also the Muslim Brotherhood, since ages in Libya, as in any other countries of the region, but also, there are other political parties that are emerging in Libya.

[31:41] And they’re – after – actually, during the crisis of the election, if I may say, they

emerged suddenly. They start to talk openly about their existence. For 42 years, it was shameful to be part of a political party. This was the feeling. It was a crime. It was a crime with a capital punishment to be – to take part in a political party. So imagine, for 42 years, you feel, at the end, it’s shameful to say that I belong to a political party.

However, after what happened with the – with the election crisis, lots of political

parties went out and said, yes, we are – just because of one thing: just because our Libyan experts chose a very convenient, in my opinion, electoral system, which is the mixed system. So the mixed system means that you have the proportional representation, and you have the majority system. And this allows, of course, and needs, and requires the existence of political parties. So this, really, was a very positive approach.

As a conclusion: seizing the momentum. Now, the transitional period is a precious

opportunity to establish democracy. This is the period where either we establish democracy, or we don’t. So it’s a very precious, very important period. We have to – we have to say that a real democratic transition is taking place in Libya, despite all of these hurdles, all of these problems, all of these challenges.

But we have to say that NTC itself is representing a hurdle in the democratization

process. It’s not helping, actually. It becomes, like, a problem, a challenge, a hurdle to the democratization advancement in the country.

The ongoing preparation for election is the real test for Libya. This is the test. If we

say that Libya is going on the right path or not, it is by the fact that if Libya really managed to succeed the test of the elections – preparation of the elections, and the elections itself, but also the preparation of elections. The framework, the law, the appointment of the commission, of the election commission – it should not be appointed. It should be on a – by a democratic process. Anyway, so this is the real test today to evaluate where we are, and whether we are doing fine or not. It is the election process that’s going to take place in Libya.

[34:11] NTC should learn the lesson. Its members do not know more than the people.

They don’t know more than us. They have to know that. They have to know that we are all in the same boat. We all lived under Gadhafi, and we all have to emerge out of this era together. But we have our own experts and we have our own people. It doesn’t mean that we don’t need international help. We do need international help, of course, but we have to count on ourselves and feel confidence.

Now, after all of what you heard, what’s happening today? The law, the election law,

was not issued. People are still angry. And the vice president of NTC is back to office – though he, as you know – he submitted his resignation. (Chuckles.) But he’s back to office. So we are somehow back into square one. And the question is, are we going to seize the momentum? Thank you very much for listening. (Applause.)

[35:08] MS. OTTAWAY: That was a presentation that I could not possibly have forced you

to shorten. (Laughter.) MS. MAGHUR: Thank you very much. MS. OTTAWAY: But I’m going to be stricter with you, Fadel. (Laughter.) FADEL LAMEN: There’s much, much I can say to that. I would like to thank Carnegie for the – this opportunity, for hosting this event, and

I would like to thank myself for bringing Azza to town. (Chuckles.) She was in Canada. She was freezing there in Ottawa, and I said, come here. It’s better weather here in Washington, D.C. And she – because the presentation was excellent. I think she captured almost everything that’s going in Libya, so it kept me – I feel like there is not much I can say.

But I will say some headlines, because I look at things from a practical point of view.

So we have all these problems; can – how can we solve them – the problems? Let’s start with the first headline. Of course, we’re talking about Libya in transition.

Transitions are very, very important. They can lead to a better future, or they can be, you know, a recipe for disaster. Another headline is – Gadhafi, as somebody said, booby-trapped Libya before he left; so really, the country is full of so many problems that he left behind.

[36:33] His – he casted a shadow over the country, and Libyans, even though he was a man

who ran the country – there was no actual system – as it was created, Gadhafi has created the centralized authority without a central government. And now we have to create a central government without a centralized authority. That’s why people are pushing back and resisting in Libya, because they don’t want to go back to that central authority that controls everything in their lives. And that will make it very difficult for anybody to govern. But, you know, people who govern Libya – they have to live with that reality.

The third thing is, over 40 percent of the countries who went through a civil war –

they end up back in a civil war within 10 years. That’s a very, very dangerous proposition. A fourth thing is, I was in Libya in December, and I was trying to get a few things done – getting my flight cancelled and I was trying to get back here – and I was dealing with some mid-level officials there, who are that – the middle-level bureaucrats. They can be very dangerous.

[37:40] So one of them, he said, Gadhafi’s not dead; Gadhafi’s still alive in Libya. I said,

yeah, I can see that in you, because – (chuckles) – because he couldn’t do anything for me.

And as a matter of fact, he resisted. The way – the reason he said that is to make sure that I – my expectation of him, as a government official or as a bureaucrat, would be the minimum possible.

So don’t expect anything from me, he said – that’s what he was trying to say. And

others may say the same thing. So I think it’s another challenge for anybody who wants to rule. So anybody who wants to say, oh, come back to Libya and try to join the government and do this and do that – you know, people who know better, they become very hesitant to think about this possibility.

But what is the new Libya, and how can we get there? Transition, the transition

period is very, very important. Thank God that Libya went through a civil war and came out OK – with the help of NATO and the allies and the United States – avoided real revenge killing and civil war and fragmentation of the country. It still overcame a possible shutdown of services and chaos.

These are – and these things happened not because of the NTC, of the national

transition – because people at the local level were able to take the responsibility to run their own affairs at the local level, which is great. Gadhafi, for 42 years, was preaching the idea of civil – of self-governance and a form of local democracy, but he never allowed democracy to happen.

But the idea worked that, in the people’s minds, they felt that they can do that

themselves if they get the opportunity, and I think they approved. And throughout the war of liberation in Libya, cities and localities – they worked very hard. They were the one who fought and liberated themselves and established the basic services. So from that point, I think that where should – the building should start. I think a lot of people look at the NTC, look at the central government and they think, OK, if they can make this decision, if they can issue this law, if they can make a declaration of here and there, they can solve the problems. Most of the problems that we have to start solving them from the bottom up, not from the – from the top down.

I had a conversation with the – with one minister – I don’t want to say which

ministry – when I was there. And he said: You know what? I look around me. It’s like a mafia – (chuckles) – around me. People are – he is talking about the kind of whatever left – the system that is left, that is ready to eat him. He said: They even want to decide who should be my chief of staff for me. (Chuckles.) I said: Well, I’m glad that you are – (chuckles) – you are awake enough.

So you’re talking about challenges. Let’s talk about the people who participated in

the revolution. They were united in fighting Gadhafi. Can they be united in building the country? I think that’s challenge that we have to think. Challenges like security, like economic challenges, like unemployment, incorporation of the military or the freedom fighters – these are challenges that we have to – we have to look at. Gadhafi used what he called a – he used collective punishment in certain regions. These regions now they feel that they resist any central authority, because they feel they don’t want to go back through the same process of being excluded. And that causes another challenge. How – can they see a bigger picture? Can they look at the country and generally where they fit?

So it’s a problem of vision, still, that needs to be – the NTC or the central

government, they have not been able to articulate their real vision. The constitution document is just a document that shows a very primitive way forward, that was designed and was thought of and was written during the war of liberation, did not envision the challenges after liberation, didn’t – did not envision the reality of Libya after the fall of Gadhafi. So it’s coming short and it fall on its face, as we can see. So people have problem with that.

[00:42:32] The freedom fighters of the militias or the people who were instrumental in – I’m

not talking about the foreign powers here, but we may include them too – who fought in bringing the regime down. They are facing a challenge themselves – cashing in now or cashing in later? Some of them, they want to cash in now, and they want to get the reward. Some wants to be ambassador somewhere. Some wants a piece of land. Some even – in Tripoli, they took over some public parks, and they took over these and divide the land. And they want to build their houses, and they don’t want to go back to their own villages. Others took over major installations of the government – the airports, certain areas – and they refuse to leave.

Why? Because it goes back to the same old thinking that Gadhafi – and so if you

cannot grab wherever you can grab, you can never get a chance to be rewarded or equality within the system of the – within the – within the country to the treasurers of the countries or the – that will not be available to you. So people have this let me grab whatever I can grab, let me cash in, do I want to be in what area. And there is a trading going on. There is a business. There is a bazaar of some sort going on. And I think that’s expected up to a point.

[00:44:06] But the major problem is the question of legitimacy. And that goes back to is the

NTC, as the highest authority in the country, is it legitimate? From what we see and what we continue to see, there is a challenge to that body’s legitimacy, rightfully so, because it came not as an elected body. It does not – did not represent everybody. It was as the former prime minister in Libya, Mahmoud Jilbril, said, the NTC’s like a bus. It stops at stations, and people will leave and others will get in. So we see that revolving door. And why are people coming in? And who is leaving? Why are they leaving? Why the others are coming in? That’s what pissed a lot of younger generation and younger people who are not part of the process. Who – and they start questioning.

The inability of the NTC to reinvent itself after the liberation – it is a major problem.

So the question of how can the NTC as a body, not as a group of people, regain its legitimacy and then help reshape the transition period is very, very important. A lot of people say: Who controls the militias in Libya? The NTC tried to control the militia for a long time, but they were not able for a simple reason – the militias are local militias. NTC does not control local councils, localities. It is – it is just – they struck a deal because a lot of the members of the NTC, they really do not truly represent the local regions. So the NTC

cannot project its power at the local level, thus cannot project its power on the local militias. So the solution can be – has to be from the bottom up.

[00:46:09] The executive conflict between the – between the NTC and the transition

government is a major problem. What isn’t this body? Is it an executive? Sometimes we see Mr. Jalil acting like a president, issuing his own decrees. If there is a problem, he would be going there somewhere negotiating without evening turning to the NTC. He’s not, you know, the first among equal. He is the only game in town, and that reminded people of somebody who came before him. And they wanted to make sure that will never happen again. And I think that is – that’s why his, you know, you know, popularity has suffered a lot – was damaged. And it will continue to damage. And that’s something I warned members of the NTC a few months ago. I said: People are very angry. This is a revolution. This is not a coup. If you don’t, you know, communicate with the people, they will come and they will attack you when you’re in the headquarters. And then they will attack you at home, probably they will attack you personally. And unfortunately, few of these things happen.

But are they ambivalent? Are they stupid? Don’t they understand? I think it’s lack

of experience is one thing. But I think it’s the default setting. These are people are product of the old regime. It’s very hard to change them. Can a nondemocrat really build democracy? That’s a major question. They can fight. They can bring down a regime. And that’s why we have to – we have to work with the NTC as a body to help with – to reinvent itself to people who understand what democracy building is, what transitional period is, and how we can help build the trust and create the legitimacy that is needed.

That’s one of the major – legitimizing the government and the government bodies

will continue to be one of the major hurdles. And without it, there is no moving forward. Every law – the NTC, as a governing body, whenever they make any move, they – the situation gets worse. So – and if they don’t move, people will ask them, why can’t you move? So they move. Question is they move always in the wrong direction. Somebody asked me one day, he said: Well, you know, Putin was a democrat then he changes, and he became non-democrat. I said: No, no. Putin was never a democrat. He tried to democratic, but he failed. It’s like somebody tried to quit smoking or drinking, but it didn’t work.

[00:48:56] I think we are looking at the product of an old regime who cannot be democratic.

They cannot. Just – it’s tough. I mean, there is nothing where – with its – we are not showing any disrespect, but it’s just the way it is. Their default setting is not democratic. It was mentioned few times that some of them, they don’t believe in the – even in the – in the – in the party system, the multiparty system. So how can they build democracy? How can they work toward democratization of the society. I think it’s very tough. That’s why it is – it is – it’s very, very, very important to look at changing these bodies and make them a little bit democratic, fill them with people who are democratic, understand the process.

And the other thing is we have to revisit the roadmap itself and the timetable that we have. Those things were adopted during the time of the liberation. They’re completely irrelevant to the process to what Libya is going through right now. It – they are not implementable, and that’s a major problem. You cannot implement when it cannot be implemented, which is the declaration of – or the constitution, declaration that, as I was talking about, it gave absolute power to the NTC, that they have the right to interfere or to do anything they want in any way they feel like. Look at the decision of accepting the vice president of the – the vice – the chairman of the NTC, and then after a week, just to appease the public. Then after two weeks, they reinstated him back. What kind of a message? Would that make people angrier or happier? And I think it creates more problems.

[00:51:03] The way they were dealing with problems is the way that Gadhafi used to deal with a

problem. Whenever there was a bit of a problem, the – (inaudible) – or somebody who was – would say to – with those people: What can we do for you? How can we help you? OK. Is it a matter of cash? Can we buy you? Or can we pay for you? Can we offer you some positions? It’s like let’s strike – let’s, you know, make a deal of some sort. And that’s what Gadhafi used to do. And that’s with the tribal leaders used to do. But it’s not a way to build democracy. And I think that’s where the problems, as major problems, were never touched.

That’s why few months ago, more than two months ago, I offered a solution to this

problem, which is starting by electing the local councils. All the local councils and the localities, they should be subject to an election. They should election their own little local councils. And the local councils, once they’re elected, they will choose two members of these elected councils to be their representative at the NTC. And that way we legitimize the NTC with members who were elected.

Number one, we will create a legitimate partner for the transitional government to

work with that is elected by the people. Then, we develop a new NTC with a new member that is legitimate, that represents the people of the localities, as it was designed to be. And this new NTC should go back and review all the decisions that were made after the liberation of the country, including the constitution document, including the roadmap, including the timetable, and give the government at least 24 months; give the people a longer, better time to think and to – for the country to stabilize, for the economy to get better, and for the security to be established; give the, you know, political party, the civil societies organization the time to develop and evolve and establish themselves; give the Libyan people time to relax and think about what they will be voting about.

[00:53:32] And during that time, they can redesign the roadmap itself. And they can look at the

way forward, including election within – by doing this, we’re creating a safety net for people in terms of political participation at the local level. We’re creating a local partner so the government can tap into these local councils – they become the local governing bodies – so they can – they can fuse the money, they can provide oversight, they can run the country. At the same time, giving the NTC, as a legislative or governing body, a time to go through and be legitimate in the eyes of the people so whatever decision – they are – the NTC right now

in Libya, they have two choices: either become an honorary institution – they cannot make any decisions at all, they can be sit there and look pretty and be fine for a while – God knows for how long – or they have to legitimize themselves, then they will be able to make decisions and lead the country. They cannot have it both ways.

And this idea will help control the militias, because the militias are local militias.

Nobody at the national level can control the militia of Zintan or the militias of Misurata. But the local council of this – of this militia can control that. And if the militia does not subject itself to the control of the local council, that you can be declared outside the law and it will be dealt with as such. And the national council, at that level, where the members – they can control the political situation and the military situation and the security situation at the same time.

[00:55:27] Unfortunately, the NTC was not interested in adopting this proposal. But the local

councils, they start, you know, implementing it. Yesterday, the council – local council of Misrata, which is – (inaudible) – third largest city, they decided that they will have an election – local election on the – February 7th. It will be – the election itself will be on the 15th, I believe.

MS. : (Off mic.) MR. LAMEN: The 27th? MS. : (Off mic.) MR. LAMEN: The 20th, as a matter of fact. (Name inaudible) – is the – (inaudible).

And the last day for people to – for candidates to present themselves is on the 7th of the – of the month. So this is a major change. If this change is taking place, then Benghazi can be next, Tripoli can be after that. Then we’ll see a shift in the political structure in Libya. And we can see some kind of a light at the end of the tunnel. Without that, I think if you rush into elections and trying to force things, I think it will be resisted.

The way the TNC right now is operating – I will give it maximum three months. It will not even lead Libya to the – to the election in the end of June or July. If the NTC collapses, all the weight will fall onto the transition government. If the transition government collapses, then we’ll have chaos in the country. So the situation is very, very serious. And I think we are looking at a serious challenges here. I will stop right here. And thank you very much. (Applause.)

[00:57:25] MS. OTTAWAY: Thank you. Thank you very much for two very interesting – just

one sec – for two very interesting presentations. I just make very quick remarks. One is that I think what we are seeing more and

more in all these countries that are undergoing transition – Tunisia, Egypt, Libya now – how

the transitional period itself is crucial to what happens. And how well the transition is handled really determines very much what happens next. We have an example in Tunisia where the transitional period was – sure, it had a lot of hiccups, but it was handled well by and large. We have a different situation in Egypt where the transitional period has been handled very badly, and the country is really facing huge problems right now in trying to decide how to move forward, because it – almost any choice they make is wrong under the – under the circumstances.

What we have heard today here is essentially two different concepts, perhaps, of how

Libya could move on in this very difficult transition, which was bound to be a very difficult transition. No country comes out of a period of war like that with an easy transition. But there are two different – two different ideas. One that I think the first speaker represented that pointed to all the problems of the present transition that, if I understood you correctly, still indicated that, you know, there is nothing to be done but pushing through and trying to – civil society to push back against the NTC, to come up with a better election law. But essentially, let’s move on to the elections because that is when – then the problems are going to be solved. And then we have another view that says, you know, that this transition cannot be salvaged the way it is. And we really have to rethink drastically the process of transition itself and move to sort of a totally different concept of how that transition is taking place. Both very interesting ideas. And with that, I’m going to open – I’m going to open the floor.

[00:59:35] Yes. Here. Yes. Wait for the – excuse me – wait for the microphone and identify

yourself. Q: Thank you so much. My name is Lee Tucker, and I’m with the Public

International Law and Policy Group. Thank you to both of the panelists very much. Just starting out, I think that it is a very difficult transition in Libya. But one thing that makes it different is that there’s so little there that Libya really does have a chance to move forward with almost a clean slate, too.

My question is, kind of, two parts, and it’s for both of the panelists. First, for Fadel,

you mentioned this really creative proposal of a way that the NTC could kind of diminish its lack of capacity and become more representative and more legitimate – but the NTC rejected that idea. So I’m wondering, do they have any other alternative – do they recognize the fact that they have this kind of lack of legitimacy?

I mean, they must recognize it, given the events of the past month or so, but do they

have any other plans, alternatives, for getting past that? And then the second part is, for Azza, is this proposal that Fadel proposed – is that

something that would help this problem with the NTC right now? Because even given the current transition timeline, the NTC is still going to be around for a while. So is that something that would help things along? And then this idea of revisiting the transition timeline – is that something that the Libyan people would be amenable to, or are they really attached to the current transition timeline as it is? Thank you so much.

MS. OTTAWAY: Please keep your questions short. I’m going to take two more

questions. Let’s see – back there, and then over here. Yes, the gentleman there? Q: Good afternoon. My name is Abi (sp), and I’m a student at American

University. And my question is concerning, basically, the means to democracy. Many of you guys have spoken about how democracy – there needs to be a transition into democracy.

[1:01:41] But my question is, since Libya has not really been into a democracy for the past 50

years, and even before that, its colonial past, we do need to consider the fact that the population itself needs to understand the principles of democracy.

Is democracy only a means of elections, or is it more – as I would say, there’s a

process of, I believe, constitutional liberalism that should come beforehand, meaning that there are certain principles of civil liberties, certain principles of democracy, that the population itself needs to understand, and also that the political elite in Libya needs to understand. Do you think that the population is ready for that, or will it take some time – or you might have said 24 months for that process to wait – but do you even think that’s enough? Because we don’t want to return to illiberal democracy in Libya.

MS. OTTAWAY: OK, there was another one. Q: Stanley Coburn (sp). There is a saying that history does not repeat itself, but it

rhymes. In that spirit, Crane Brinton wrote one of the classic books on revolution, “The Anatomy of Revolution,” that there are patterns to revolutions. My question to the panel: The situation in Libya is like – fill in the blank with a historical precedent – because of – if you could provide two or three reasons. What is the model?

MS. OTTAWAY: OK. Azza, do you want to start? MS. MAGHUR: Yeah. I didn’t get the last question. I’m sorry, my English is not

very brilliant. If you could just rephrase it for me? [1:03:15] Q: If you were to look for a historical precedent for the situation in Libya now, what

would it be? And if you could provide two or three reasons why you think it looks like the French Revolution, American Revolution, any other precedent?

MS. OTTAWAY: (Off mic, inaudible.) MS. MAGHUR: Somewhat easy, though, but I will answer you. Now, with the

amendment of the constitutional declaration, the problem with NTC is that every time they draft a law – the constitutional declaration is a law, at the end of the day – but they don’t have any dialogue before. When you start any transitional, any transitional period, you need to talk to people. You need to know the general tendency of the country.

I’ll just give you an example. We appreciate that NTC, in Article 30, put very tight

deadlines. It was good because it showed people that it’s not striving for power. However, there is no problem if the election is adjourned for another six months, for example. This happened in Tunisia. This happened in Egypt. So we are not – we are not really dying for elections, but we want things to be done properly.

[1:04:30] It would be a disaster if the election turned out to be a failure. It would be a disaster

in the country. The country is really on the edge of anarchy. And maybe it’s not the time, but you have to tell people why you’re adjourning the elections. You have to give them the reasons. And you have to tell them, we want you to talk more about the elections.

Just for one thing to tell you – if you put conditions on the running for elections, this

is something that we have to talk about. Pro-Gadhafi, or people who were with Gadhafi – do they have the right, don’t have the right? How – what are the criteria? How can you define someone and say you cannot run for elections?

The Tunisians did it in their law. They just put one small phrase. Libyans are

putting three or five or six conditions. It’s not possible. You can’t – we don’t want the Iraqi model.

However, we need to talk about it. How can we find the consensus on how –

dealing with people who were working with – who somehow had links with the previous regime? People lived there for 42 years. Some way or another, there is a link. So we have to deal with it in a sensitive way and an intelligent way.

With regard to the – now, I am – as all Libyans, we don’t know much about

democracy. But we’re learning, believe me. It’s very promising. We are learning a lot in a very short time. If you imagine, for example, me or Fadel – well, Fadel was living in the States, so it’s different – but I lived in Libya all my life. So you have others, actually, who are learning.

[1:06:03] For the first time, I heard that there is something called the different 200 electoral

systems – just reading, reading, reading – and then trying to give lectures in Libya, all over Libya. It was – it was fantastic, because it makes people go back and go to the Internet and read about it. So it’s a learning process. We cannot say we adjourn democracy until we learn. No, no. You learn democracy while it is going on. And I think we can make it, if we just have the elements that help us.

And one of them – the big, maybe the most important element is the security issue –

how you can deal with freedom fighters. This is not people who can deal with it; it’s the government that has to deal with it. They have the money. They have the vision. They have the way to deal with it; they have the international expertise.

So we are not the only country that had a revolution. Just to go to your question –

and I hope that I’m going to answer it properly – I always say in Libya, we are not the only revolution in the world. Because sometimes we feel big, you know? We did something; we toppled Gadhafi. It’s big, yes. It’s important; it’s good. But still, we have to put our foot on the – our feet on the ground.

We – as any country in the world, we went through a revolution, an uprising – call it

whatever – which changed the regime – with the help of others, that’s true, but we did the major work. People suffered in this country a lot. But we have to keep going on. And I think we can only go on and we can only realize the aspirations of people who sacrificed themselves by gaining democracy.

So this is the right – this is the momentum for us, to gain democracy. I hope I

answered your question. [1:07:44] MR. LAMEN: Very quickly, do they have an alternative? No. What they want to –

because it goes back to dealing with them being replaced. Even though in my proposal, I said they can go back to their locality and they run. If these people elect them, then they come back. Maybe they will all come back. I don’t know. But I think subjecting themselves to the process itself – it’s a vote in their own conscience that they are willing to take the steps to what we call democracy and the right of the people to choose their leader.

The problem is that they – as I said, their default setting is implementing the old

regime’s solution to the new sets of problems and challenges. They just think that if we just push on these people, if we just – those people have been subjected to – been subjugated to pressure. And if we have to do that, because we know what’s best for them. They don’t have to tell us what’s best for them. And I think that’s an old mentality that does not fly and it will not work.

Is democracy is – an election? No, but a lot of people think so. Is the Libyan people

are ready for that? At some levels, they are learning, as Azza is saying. I think giving them a little bit of time to grow, and not to rush everything – I think that way, Libyans will make better-informed decisions, and I think the stability will be the good outcome – more stable, where democracy can take its roots.

If people understand what they want and how they want it, then the whole, you

know, issues or fear of – the Islamists are taking over, or this is going to be – people would be informed, you know, citizens, and informed voters. And I think they would do a better job.

[1:09:30] Is Libya – can it be compared to – I don’t think so. I think Libyans have their own –

it’s a mix of a number of things. And I think it’s just a fact that there were – that there are challenges, in terms of there was no old system, in the system itself, that they had to rely on

fixing in itself, like what happened in Egypt or Tunisia. It’s a challenge and it’s an opportunity in itself.

But deprived of the – of being exposed to the world and exposed to democracy

makes the situation in Libya – it’s very tough for the Libyans and for the other – the rest of the world to help them.

MS. OTTAWAY: OK, thank you. Let me have – yes, don’t talk to the speaker at

the same time. Back there? [1:10:21] Q: Thank you. Alain Gauthier (sp) at the Wilson Center. It sounds marvelous,

Fadel, your policy of starting with local councils. As you might say, al-lijen fiqul maken (ph). But how are the militias and freedom fighters in those areas to be brought under control? You say blithely, they will accept the authority of an elected council. I doubt it. So my question for both the panelists is, what arguments will you use to persuade freedom fighters, militias – those with the guns – to acquiesce in any form of democratic process? How can you have democracy without security?

And if I can trespass very quickly on the good will of the chairman, I will ask a

second and unrelated question, which is, what degree of external intervention and help would you regard as necessary, desirable and acceptable?

MS. OTTAWAY: OK, let me have one – yes? Q: My previous experience with a country that did not have – MS. OTTAWAY: Can you introduce yourself? Q: Oh, Hugh Grindstaff (sp). (Inaudible) – for diplomats. My previous experience

with a country that did not have a democracy when I first went there was Taiwan in 1970 – ’68, ’67, ’70. But Taiwan today is a thriving democracy, as we saw by the recent election. That’s 40 years.

In Tunisia, you had a country that had a little bit of an open door. In Egypt, you had

a country that had more of an open door. In Libya, you had a shut door. So then you had the war, and the war had people fighting brothers, almost. Reconciliation, to me, would be the hardest thing you’d have to have. And trying to get that reconciliation into people’s minds first – am I a Libyan, or am I from Benghazi? How do you deal with that?

[1:12:26] MS. OTTAWAY: OK, let me just have one more. Let’s see. Let’s take one here, in

front. Q: Thank you. My name is Dimiter (sp). I’m with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce,

and I want to ask you about the people on the ground. And you know, we talk about the

transition, and long-term – medium-term and long-term. But at the end of the day, when you go home, you have children to feed. And, you know, you have to live your life. How are the people on the ground managing, and what are they doing on a day-to-day basis today? And what are their prospects in the next three months, six months?

MS. OTTAWAY: OK. MS. MAGHUR: OK, I’ll just go into this. Thank you very much for bringing up

this question. It’s very heartening, because things are not working – things are not functioning in Libya. People are – prices are very high; queues are in the front of the banks, because there are limited possibilities to get your own money, actually, your own money from your bank account. It’s a bit difficult.

[1:13:35] So how people – maybe it’s a positive and a negative way, but we lived all our lives

like this. We are used to this. We had sanctions, international sanctions. So Libyans, like, got used to having these periods. It’s sad to say this. But if electricity goes off, we’re not shocked. We lit a candle. Fine, we can deal with it.

We sang all the night, because we used to do this when we were children. So I’m

doing the same thing with my kids now. So it’s just a situation that – we wished that it doesn’t happen. We wished that we get to a day where we say, how come that we don’t have electricity, and that we revolt for that. But we’re used to this for a long time, and this is an issue.

With the freedom fighters, it is a very sensitive issue. Let me start with, who is a

freedom fighter today? It was easier, six months ago, to say who was a freedom fighter. It’s difficult today. Everybody puts this nice scarf – and especially, you know, they’re young and happy and trying to impress others. So it’s confusing now. The whole situation is confusing. Who is a freedom fighter? This is what the government should deal with.

[1:14:48] And then I don’t think – I think the government lost lots of opportunities. I

remember when Gadhafi was killed, and I was in the streets celebrating with the others – I’m sorry to say that, but this is the truth – not because of what happened, exactly, but the fact that he just disappeared. This was the day. And I thought, like, why don’t they come and ask people to give their guns? It was a good opportunity, that day, to ask people to give their guns. It was an opportunity. I thought about it. But nobody moved.

So there are moments where you have to be clever and you have to act right away,

but it’s not. (Inaudible) – we see, for example, young are influential now. They’re coming out and giving money right and left, as if they are in an election campaign. These are some of the freedom fighters. So it is getting now political. Before, they didn’t have any political ambitions; now they have political ambitions.

Now they want to run for elections, and it’s difficult. How can you run for elections and you have a gun in your hand? This is the question you’re asking me.

How to deal with the problem of reconciliation? I’ll tell you something which is

good, actually – we are all Muslim Sunnis, so we don’t have these kinds of rivalries or differences. And it helps when you have one religion. And Libyans are – in general, they are religious somehow. So it helps, it heals. You have, always, these kinds of stories of the Prophet, how he dealt with – at that period – and it helps.

However, you need somehow – the people who lost their loved ones – you need to

compensate them. They need to see people who killed Libyans on that day – need to see them in a judgment, in a due process. We want to know what’s happening with Saif Gadhafi. Is he going to show up in court or not? Why can’t we have a courtroom or a court process like what happened in Egypt, like with Mubarak, Mubarak and his sons? Why can’t we have a proper one?

[1:16:45] It’s just these questions, so you – you have the elements for a reconciliation, but it’s

not used, because it doesn’t function. But we can do it. It’s not impossible; it’s not difficult. We still have neighbors – we know people who were with Gadhafi. We still deal with them. Because we think, if they didn’t go that far, then you still can have a dialogue with them. Thank you.

MR. LAMEN: Very quickly, your question is about the local councils and the militia.

Can they control it? I think they do. I think that’s the best chance to control these militias. The reason is, there is the web of social, family relations – those people coming from families, from localities – people know who they are – even if they have to shame them, or the family may even disown them – the social, local pressure has a lot to do in happening these conform to what is needed.

And if they don’t, then they will be seen as outside the law. But you cannot do it at

the national level. You cannot tell the militia of Zintan to do – issue a decree or a decision in Tripoli and expect that they will act, because they feel that their loyalty is still where they started, which is at their local level. And I think this is – in my opinion, my estimation, this is the best way to control the militias and to bring them back into the fold.

And why are the militias there? I think part of it is because there is a security

vacuum too. And I think that’s where the failure of the NTC and the government to bring enough police and military and security people to the streets to control and provide the security. So there is a problem.

International intervention – is it possible? Yeah, and I think if things don’t go the

way they should go, I think the United Nations should intervene and should play a role. People are always scaring themselves that the blue helmets are coming, and that’s one of the things that we are – use to scare them – to either get in shape and be responsible, or they are coming and they will take all the decisions away from you, will run your life to do the right things.

[1:19:11] And I think it works from time to time. But I think Libyans need a lot of assistance,

and I think the roadmap itself needs to be revisited, as I mentioned. The economic environment is dire, and I think that’s one of the challenges. People don’t have access to cash. The frozen money – it has not yet been unfrozen, because you don’t want to unfreeze all the money because you don’t know where it’s going.

The experience of Iraq is there. And there was so much money that we’re giving to

NTC that is still unaccounted for until now. We’re talking about billions of dollars. People need to know that. So I think Libyans feel that they can be living in a stringent budget right now, and their money and their wealth is not being squandered, that you have all the money flooded and will end up being in the banks of somebody else’s accounts.

[01:20:04] MS. OTTAWAY: OK, let’s have one more round. Back there. Q: Hello. Hi. Matthew Bank from the National Democratic Institute. And I was

wondering, if the NTC is a product of the old regime, and it’s set to a nondemocratic state, are there other actors, other forces out there that are able to overcome that heritage of the Gadhafi regime and that’ll be able to act in a democratic way in building consensus and getting a constitution together, that’ll be able to pass a referendum? And possibly, where do these people come from? Where do you – where do you see those forces being? Thank you.

MS. OTTAWAY: OK. The gentleman in the middle there, yeah. (Inaudible.) Q: Thanks. Chris Chivvis with RAND. Just to continue on the security issue, I

heard that there was a DDR – a disarmament, demobilization and reintegration plan – that was jettisoned. Is that the case? And if so, do we expect it to be, you know, restarted? And if not, who’s in charge of that?

MS. OTTAWAY: Yes. Q: Thank you. Ronna Freiberg with LSI Consulting. One subject that hasn’t been

touched on – and I realize it could easily occupy the entire 90 minutes that we have here – is education. When we talk about the lack of experience among the older generation with democratic institutions and when we recognize the role that youth have played in the revolution, is anybody looking at what reforms are needed in the education system? That’s question one.

And question two, when we talk about the role that other countries might play in

providing assistance, is there something more that the U.S. and others might do to increase the number of academic exchanges and professional NGO exchanges, as well as bringing students here to study and begin building that infrastructure necessary for democracy?

[01:22:17] MS. MAGHUR: Thank you very much for bringing the question on education. It is

indeed a very – everything needs reform in Libya – (chuckles) – everything, everything, including of course education. But we have to also take in – put in mind that already we had private sector in education, which is OK. It’s – we already have, like, agreements with the outside world with – in the private – in private corporation, which is OK, let’s say. But you need of course to reform the public education, not only the private. The private is going fine, but you need also to – and I think this is – this is – this is a major issue.

And I think everybody is concerned, because you are all concerned, because we all

want to have our kids better than we are. We suffered a lot for that. The Internet was, like – I don’t know, it’s like something from God for us. (Chuckles.) It’s divine. It really – it really worked very important in the – it was a very important issue in the – in the revolution. That’s why the regime right away said, switch off the Internet; switch off the text messages. I remember all of these things happening to me. Everything was switched off, one after the other, one after the other. This is the threat for them. It’ s education, it’s knowledge, the threat for them.

[01:23:34] About your question – and when you said that NTC is the product of the past

regime – we are all the product – (chuckles) – of the past regime. We should not, you know – we can criticize NTC, but NTC is us, too. It’s part of us. It’s – we just asking them to change. Everything’s changing around us. We’re free, finally. We can say, we can criticize, we can talk. I wasn’t there talking about the Gadhafi regime in America like today, thanks to these people who sacrifice themselves for that.

However, we want them to change. They have to use Internet; they have to be –

they have to have dialogue with the – with the youth. We have to – we have to all feel that we can build our country. The frustration that we are not participating in anything is really hard for us to accept. Why can’t we participate in a – in the buildup of the country?

With the – actually, your question, I missed it, and the lady brought it up, which is

what do we need from the international community? What I think we need is that they don’t only deal with NTC. NTC does not represent us in a – in a way or another. You have other forces of Libya, have other fractions of Libya that you – that the international community should deal with. They should deal with the NGOs more – help to the NGOs actually more – awareness, education, workshops.

I’ll just tell you something. The presence of nongovernmental – non-Libyan

governmental organization in Libya is tremendously important. They – these are people who are stepping maybe more and more balance in Libya. When they come out with a report – everybody gets scared of these people who are misusing the arms now. Their presence is important for people in prison. One day ago I actually contacted them and said, look, there is a makeshift prison here and there. And they go and visit. It’s so relief for me when I hear that they visited these people, and they – and they managed to talk to them and put them on the list so the militia will not harm them, because – (inaudible) – they are in the

list of an international organization. This is great. They are doing great job, and I’m really happy that they are there.

[01:25:43] So we need the presence of foreign aid. Of course we need the presence of foreign

help. But I’m very worried that all – like, when I see the United Nations is more actually dealing with NTC as interlocutor, no. It’s not only NTC the interlocutor. It’s the Libyans; it’s the NGOs; it’s the political parties; it’s the experts, the Libyan experts who can help send a message. If you – if you give them more courses, if they’re up to the – to the – updated, then they can do a lot. But not only concentrated on NTC, because it’s not the interlocutor in Libya. Libya is bigger and diversified. Thank you.

MR. LAMEN: That’s great. What did you hear from Azza just a couple of minutes

– the NTC does not represent us. The NTC is not the only game in town. It is the issue of legitimacy. If that’s how the people feel about the NTC, that’s where the issue of lack of legitimacy. They have to have, you know, leadership. And if the leadership is viewed as it does not represent the people, then either it has to represent the people. It’s the whole saying: Lead, follow or get out of the way. And I think they refuse to do the three. (Chuckles.) And there is no fourth, unfortunately.

[01:27:00] And that’s why people in Benghazi – they went there, and they are frustrated, and

there are still demonstrations – and they should be. That’s the pressure that the people are bringing on these people. There is no way around it but to legitimize this body. And for us, even in the United States, I think the government here and other allies of Libya – they should put the pressure on the – this body to reform itself, to legitimize itself. We need it as a body. But we don’t need the bodies that are in it, because there is just – yeah. (Chuckles.)

She said, we are asking them to change. (Chuckles.) They can’t; a lot of them can’t.

Unfortunately, they can’t, because that’s – they are – she is – she lived in the old regime, yes. But she’s not – she wasn’t part of the old regime. A lot of these people at the – at the NTC – thank God for that they did; thank them for what they did – but they were part of the old regime. They are part of the system. But they split from that system, and I think they cannot think outside the way they were taught. It’s just – it’s – I have tried it. I have talked to them, have coached them and worked with them and spend hours over the phone with them and send them great memos, and they just can’t see it. And sometimes you can’t teach old tricks, you know? (Laughter.)

MS. OTTAWAY: You just can’t give – (inaudible.) MR. LAMEN: Yeah. So as far as who are the other interlocutor, the transitional

government is a very good interlocutor. I did not bring my proposal for the change in the NTC unless we – until we had this transition government, because we don’t want to create a political vacuum. Now we have a decent government of technocrats. They are people who – really, most of them understand democracy. They would like to solve problems. They are

really – some of them are expats. You can work with them. So we have, in the transitional government, a good partner.

That’s why my fire is focused on the – (chuckles) – on the NTC and all the support

that, you know, directing toward the transitional government, because it needs all the support – because it has – as a matter of fact, in my proposal I said, if the NTC refuses to call for an election, the transitional government should force, should take the lead and initiate local elections. Of course, they were still scared. But they didn’t.

[01:29:43] What are we talking about? The – withdrawing the arms – MS. : (Inaudible) MR. LAMEN: Right, demobilization of these forces and so on and so forth. I think

there are a couple of – few plans there. But there is a lack of funding, not enough money, and they don’t know how to do it. Do they want to ask them to join the armed forces or the police and security forces? Some of – some of them, they don’t. Some of them, they want to join the civil service. They want to be sent outside for – to study. Some of them, they want to work at different levels. And I think the government does not have a wide variety of possibilities. That’s number one.

[01:30:31] Number two is the conflict between the NTC and the government itself. There is

some kind of interference. And the lack of participation by the local councils that control the militias – you have to bring these people. Who controls the militia? The local people, because it’s a local militia. If you don’t include them in the process of the demobilization, there will be no demobilization. And I think it goes back to where do we start.

And I think that’s – expats are very important in Libya. Probably in most of the

countries, expats might be a problem to come in and fly in and probably feel the resentment and the anger toward them; you’ve been enjoying yourselves outside and enjoying all the freedom and, you know, economic success; now you are coming to tell us what to do.

I think in the case of Libya, they are – they should be part of at least 50 (percent) to

60 (percent), even 70 percent of the decision-making process, because they are not known to be corrupt, because Libyans, they look at each other, fairly or unfairly in Libya, that everybody who is there is corrupt somehow or is part of the corrupt regime. They don’t give anybody a chance because everybody has to deal with Gadhafi. (Chuckles.) He has the only game in town. Everybody works for their government – (inaudible) – the government. And so, if they all want to undermine each other, they’ll start accusing each other of that. So everybody is undermining each other.

So the least evil of all the Libyans are the ones still outside, in terms of that – in the

eyes of each other. And they have a little bit of leverage. They are not interested in stealing. They are not interesting in an – in political, you know, posts, and so on and so forth. They

can be used as a good bridge and a good, you know, fit. And they can – they should be also good interlocutors with the international community for Libya.

[01:32:33] MS. OTTAWAY: OK. I don’t think we have time for another round of questions,

but I want to – would you like to make some concluding remarks before we close it? And then leave us with some –

MS. MAGHUR: No, no. I’m done. I think – MS. OTTAWAY: You have told us what you had to tell us. (Laughter, applause.)

But I’d just like to conclude with a plea to Fadel, but also to you, Azza: Find other people who need to come out of the cold, to come down to Washington and talk to us. (Laughter.)

MS. MAGHUR: Yes. [01:33:07] MS. OTTAWAY: It’s always appreciated. MS. MAGHUR: Thank you. MS. OTTAWAY: Thank you very much. (Applause.) MS. MAGHUR: Thank you. MR. LAMEN: Thank you. Yeah, thank you.

(END)