Freed of Gadhafi, Libya's instability only deepens

A large map of Libya hangs on the wall in the home of Idris al-Rahel, with a line down the middle dividing the country in half.    

Al-Rahel, a former army officer, leads a movement to declare virtual autonomy in eastern Libya, where most of the country's oil fields are located. The region's top tribal leaders meet Tuesday in the east's main city Benghazi to consider unilaterally announcing an eastern state, linked to the west only by a tenuous "federal union."       

Opponents fear a declaration of autonomy could be the first step toward outright dividing the country. But some easterners say they are determined to end the domination and discrimination by the west that prevailed under strongman Moammar Gadhafi.          

Al-Rahel points to the capital Tripoli on the map, in the west. "All troubles came from here," he said, "but we will not permit this to happen again."      

The move shows how six months after Gadhafi's fall, the central government in Libya has proved incapable of governing at all. Other countries that shed their leaders in the Arab Spring revolts  Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen  are going through rocky transitions, but none has seen a collapse of central authority like Libya. The collapse has only worsened as cities, towns, regions, militias and tribes all act on their own, setting up their independent power centers.            

After liberation from the rule of Gadhafi, Libyans dreamed their country of 6 million could become another Dubai  a state with a small population, flush with petro-dollars, that is a magnet for investment. Now they worry that it is turning more into another Somalia, a nation that has had no effective government for more than 20 years.         

Libya may not face literal fragmentation, but it could be doomed to years of instability as it recovers from four decades of rule under Gadhafi, who pitted neighbor against neighbor, town against town and tribe against tribe. The resentment and bitterness he incubated is now bursting forth in general lawlessness.            

"What Gadhafi left in Libya for 40 years is a very, very heavy heritage," said Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, head of the National Transitional Council, which in theory rules Libya but doesn't even hold sway in the capital Tripoli. "It's ... hard to get over it in one or two years or even five years."           

Signs of the government's weakness are everywhere.          

Tripoli remains under the control of various revolutionaries-turned-militiamen, who have resisted calls to integrate into a national army.             

The violence highlights the weakness of the National Transitional Council, made up of representatives from around the country. The Council is overseeing the transition to democracy after Gadhafi's fall, including the organizing of elections set for June. But besides having little ability to enforce decisions, it has been mired in its own divisions.        
The Council's attempts to put together a law governing the election are weeks behind schedule. It has put forward three drafts, each met by a storm of criticism from various factions that forced a rewrite. The election is to choose a 200-member assembly tasked with writing a new constitution and forming a government.             

The drafts allocate about 60 seats for the east, compared to 102 for the west, because the drafters say the breakdown reflects the larger population in the west. But for angry easterners, it smacks of the years of discrimination under Gadhafi, who focused development in the west while largely neglecting the east and its main city, Benghazi.           

The east was long a center of opposition to Gadhafi, the source of failed coups and assassination attempts against him  and Gadhafi punished it by depriving its cities of funds for services, health care and schools. However, the east, with its oil fields, is also the source of the vast majority of Libya's revenue. 

AP