Watching Libya March 3, 2011

The situation in the east of the country – where the opposition to Gheddafi is strongest and most entrenched – is fluid and uncertain. This morning (Thursday, March 3) Gheddafi’s air force is reported to have bombed the airport at Marsa El Brega, about 247 km driving distance towards the east along the coast to Benghazi. A similar air strike took place yesterday (Wednesday, March 2), when a raiding force of Gheddafy loyalists appears to have been chased out of the town, its airport and the university campus. The town has a population of only around 7000 but is an important oil hub. The Sirte Oil Company, a subsidiary of the National Oil Company (NOC), owns and runs a refinery there. In addition to refining and exporting oil, Marsa El Brega produces industrial chemicals such as ammonia and urea. It powers electrical substations in the area, Benghazi included.

This follows an earlier reported airstrike against rebel held Ajdabiya, between Marsa Brega (80km to its west) and Benghazi (160 km to its east). The air raid seems to have been aimed at a weapons depot on the outskirts. The town of Ajdabiya itself has a population of around 170,000, including a large number of foreign workers from Egypt and sub-Saharan Africa. It is considered to be a stronghold of Sunni religious conservatism in Libya. Ajdabiya is reported to have been starved of funds for essential services and infrastructure by central government in Tripoli. Press reports say that its hospital owns only one CT scanner to serve the 250,000 inhabitants of the town and its 1,000 square km hinterland.

Benghazi (population 1 m), the second most important Libyan city, ‘capital’ of the country’s north eastern region and seat of Libya’s oldest university, is now the seat of the opposition’s ‘National Council’ led by former justice minister Mustafa Mohamed Abdel Jalil. Media statements by the Council indicate that it considers itself as a provisional body and that it has no secessionist aims. Benghazi has its own harbours and an airport (Benina International), now unusable because its runways are reported to have been destroyed during the uprising. Well before the revolt, Benina was earmarked for an expansion valued in excess of LD 1.1 bn but it was never implemented. Benghazi is presently quiet although neighbourhood committees have erected street barricades fearing incursions by loyalist forces. Yesterday, British frigate HMS York delivered medical supplies to Benghazi and evacuated British and other eligible expatriate workers.

200 km to the east of Benghazi and also in the hands of the opposition is Al Bayda (population c. 207,000). The third largest Libyan city, it was the centre of the Senussite movement prior to the Italian occupation and the country’s administrative capital under the monarchy. It has an airport (Al Abraq), a harbour and an established university. Like other eastern coastal cities, it also hosts a large expatriate community, mainly Egyptian and from sub-Saharan Africa. Al Bayda has a proud tradition of resistance; during the Italian period, insurgents moved south to Al-Jaghboub and Kufra. The port towns of Darnah (population c. 50,000), a further 90 km east of Al Bayda along the coast, and Tobruk (population c. 300,000), situated 430 km from Benghazi and 150 km from Egypt, are also reported to be controlled by the opposition.

Shifting our attention back to the westernmost reach of the eastern zone under opposition control, we come across a no-man’s area about 70 km wide between opposition held Brega (see above) and Ras Lanouf, the latter reportedly defended by regular troops loyal to Gheddafi. In Ras Lanouf are situated a petrochemical complex, a major oil terminal and two oil pipelines. Also in this small but economically strategic town is the refinery belonging to another NOC subsidiary, Ras Lanuf Oil & Gas Processing Company, with a crude oil refining capacity of 220,000 barrels a day. As late as yesterday expatriates from several countries were being evacuated by sea from Ras Lanouf to Malta.

A recurring observation made by reporters from Libya’s eastern provinces, is that people there complain that the central government in Tripoli has neglected them for decades. Gheddafi, they claim, has discriminated against them, allowing essential services and infrastructure to deteriorate. Tripoli, they allege, has consistently failed to invest sufficiently in a part of the country that makes a major economic contribution to the national income, principally through oil exports. Whichever plausible scenario we may wish to consider for Libya’s future, it is difficult to imagine any future government not to commit itself to massive investments in the areas we have referred to in this brief look at the north eastern urban centres and industrial hubs.