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Libya Prepares to Deploy Local, Int’l Observers to Monitor Ceasefire

A photo distributed by the unity government of the meeting chaired by Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh in Tripoli
A photo distributed by the unity government of the meeting chaired by Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh in Tripoli
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Libya Prepares to Deploy Local, Int’l Observers to Monitor Ceasefire

A photo distributed by the unity government of the meeting chaired by Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh in Tripoli
A photo distributed by the unity government of the meeting chaired by Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh in Tripoli

Libya's warring parties are preparing for the first time to deploy local and international observers to monitor the ceasefire.

A committee was formed along with the Joint Military Commission (5 + 5) to oversee the monitoring of the ceasefire concluded last year, according to a military source.

The source told Asharq Al-Awsat that the committee included five officers of the Libyan National Army (LNA), led by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, and five other soldiers from the forces affiliated with the unity government.

He indicated that international observers of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) were selected to join the monitoring process.

Last April, the UN Security Council approved the proposal of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, to deploy 60 observers in Sirte to monitor the ceasefire.

On Wednesday, the 5+5 Commission condemned hostile acts that aim to undermine the unity of the country and its stability on the Coastal Road between east and west Libya.

Some fans of sports clubs put photos of Khalifa Haftar on the highway so cars can pass over them before removing them after a match last Sunday.

The Commission warned in its statement that the chaos on the coastal road was a hate act aiming to destabilize Libya. It condemned all kinds of unrest and division on the highway or any other area in the country.

The statement added that the JMC calls on all relevant authorities to follow up on this issue and bring the perpetrators to justice so that the road remains safe and secure for all Libyans.

Meanwhile, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aguila Saleh, said that the High Council of State in Tripoli will not discuss the presidential elections law, stressing that it was up to the parliament to issue laws.

"The State Council is an advisory body, and we demand its participation within the limits of its powers," stressed Saleh.

The House of Representatives suspended its discussions on the draft law. However, the draft budget law amended by the unity government headed by Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh was referred to a special parliamentary committee for review.

In a letter to Dbeibeh, the head of the council said: "Since the budget bill has not been approved, you are required to spend from the previous year's budget, until the new general budget law is issued."

The clauses of the government's budget, estimated at LD111 billion, show that LD186 million have been allocated for the armed militias in Tripoli.

The Stability Support Apparatus, led by Ghneiwa al-Kikli, will receive LD40 million, and the Special Deterrence Forces of Abdel Raouf Kara, will get about LD146 million.

Local media outlets warned that such funds could enhance the influence of the militias and increase the country’s chaos.

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Arab World

At Syria Cemetery, People Search for Missing Loved Ones

File photo: People searching for bodies in a trench believed to be a mass grave on the outskirts of Damascus in December (AFP)
File photo: People searching for bodies in a trench believed to be a mass grave on the outskirts of Damascus in December (AFP)
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At Syria Cemetery, People Search for Missing Loved Ones

File photo: People searching for bodies in a trench believed to be a mass grave on the outskirts of Damascus in December (AFP)
File photo: People searching for bodies in a trench believed to be a mass grave on the outskirts of Damascus in December (AFP)

Weeping, Fairuz Shalish grasps the red earth at an unmarked grave in Syria that she believes may hold her son, one of tens of thousands of people who vanished under ousted president Bashar al-Assad.

Thousands poured out of the country's web of prisons in the final days of Assad's rule and after the opposition factions toppled him on December 8.

But as the weeks go by, many families are still desperately searching for news of relatives who were detained or went missing during years of his iron-fisted rule.

Shalish, 59, has not seen her 27-year-old son Mohammed since military security personnel stormed their home near Homs around dawn in early November, just weeks before Assad's ouster.

"I was screaming," she said at the Tal al-Naser cemetery near Homs.

"They shot him in the leg, he fell on the ground and two of them came and opened fire" repeatedly before taking him away, she said, a foul smell lingering in the crisp winter air.

"He has four young children... he has a son who is two," she told AFP.

"I tell him that (his father) will be back tomorrow."

The fate of detainees and others who went missing remains one of the most harrowing legacies of Syria's conflict, which started in 2011 when Assad's forces brutally repressed anti-government protests.

Arbitrary arrests, violence and torture were all part of a paranoid state killing machine that crushed any hint of dissent.

"There were people who accused (Mohammed) of being in contact with revolutionaries in the north," Shalish said.

Her other son, detained at the same time, was later released, but she was told unofficially that Mohammed had died, without receiving any formal notification.

'Need to be certain'

At the sprawling cemetery, pieces of construction blocks serve as makeshift headstones in the dirt where Shalish sits.

At an earlier visit, she learnt that an individual buried there had the same date of death as her son.

But she has been unable to obtain authorization to exhume the body, which was identified only by a code.

"If I have to go to the end of the Earth, I will go. I need to see if it's my son or not," she said.

"I need to be certain, so my heart can be at rest."

Adnan Deeb, known as Abu Sham, who is in charge of burials at the Tal al-Naser cemetery, sorts through ledgers containing the names of people who are interred there, leafing through worn, handwritten pages of records, organized by date.

He said that after the uprising started, authorities began bringing bodies from the military hospital to be buried at the cemetery.

"Some had codes, while others were identified by name," said the towering man in a long black robe, his head wrapped in a traditional keffiyeh.

"Sometimes we'd get 10, sometimes five... They'd bring them in ambulances or in pick-ups or military vehicles," he said, adding that some bore signs of torture.

"It was an atrocious sight. Atrocious. But we had no choice but to do our job," he added.

Still looking

Deeb estimated several thousand former detainees could be buried at the cemetery.

He expressed hope that the military hospital's computer systems would eventually reveal the names of the bodies identified only by codes.

People need to "know where their children are buried", Deeb said.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has said determining the fate of the missing will be a massive task likely to take years.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, has said more than 100,000 people have died in detention from torture or dire health conditions across Syria since 2011.

Rafic al-Mohbani, 46, from Homs, has been searching for answers for more than a decade.

His eyes flash with rage as he recounts how his brother Raef and brother-in-law Hassan Hammadi disappeared on their way home from work in June 2013.

"They told us they were at the military security branch in Homs. We went and asked, and they said they transferred them to Damascus. After that, we don't know what happened," he said.

"We paid several sums of money to several people" secretly, he said.

"We got a lawyer, and still couldn't find out anything."

After prisoners began streaming out of Assad's jails last month, "we posted the photos again, we've been looking at cemeteries and hospitals", Mohbani said.

He also visited Tal al-Naser cemetery, with no success.

But the gaunt man, who works as a mechanic, said he still had hope of learning the two men's fate.

"God willing, justice will prevail for us and everyone in Syria."