By KARLOS ZURUTUZA | Saturday, November 9
2013 at
18:29
“Oil tankers won´t get crude from this port until
Tripoli finally meets our demands,” says Younis, one of the Amazigh
rebels today blocking one of Libya´s largest gas and crude oil plants.
Located 100 kilometres west of Tripoli, the
Mellitah complex is a joint venture between the Italian oil and gas
multinational ENI and Libya´s National Oil Corporation (NOC).
The plant remains blocked since a group of armed
activists took over the docking port for oil tankers, on October 26.
Younis provides IPS with the details:
“We arrived at night by sea from Zwara [the city
near Mellitah] and we’ve been organising ourselves in shifts of 30 men,”
explains the activist under the tent that hosts the command centre for
this strategic location.
“We are the true guardians of the revolution” reads a banner displayed next to the tent.
“In 2011, we Amazighs took up arms against a
regime that had treated us like dogs for decades. But two years later we
are still struggling for our rights against the new Libyan government,”
laments Younis, as he helps to unload supplies from a small boat that
has just arrived.
Also called Berbers, the Amazigh are indigenous
inhabitants of North Africa with a population extending from Morocco´s
Atlantic coast to the west bank of the Nile, in Egypt. Touareg tribes
deep in the Sahara desert share the same common language.
The arrival of the Arabs in the region in the
seventh century was the starting point of a gradual process of
Arabisation that was sharply boosted during Muammar Gaddafi´s
four-decade rule in Libya. Estimates put the number of Amazighs in this
country at around 600,000 – about 10 percent of the total population.
“The government does not recognise us and we do
not recognise the government,” reads another of the banners displayed
throughout the complex. Most of them are written in three languages:
Arabic, English and Tamazight, the Amazigh language which also has its
own alphabet.
“We´re strongly against the committee in charge of
writing the new constitution, as we have literally no chance to achieve
our rights as a people through it,” says Ayub Sufian, another member of
the rebel group controlling the port.
Tribal lines
He is referring to the 60-member constituent
assembly set to work on the draft of Libya’s post-Gaddafi constitution.
The crux of the matter seems to be the six-seat quota given to the
country´s minorities.
“Two for the Amazigh, two for the Touareg and two
for the Tubu [a group living in the far south of the country],” the
rebel tells IPS.
“It is a system that will rule on majorities of
two-thirds plus one, so you basically need 41 votes out of 60 to reach
an agreement. What are our choices as non-Arab Libyans? We want our
language to be co-official, and we want to be able to decide on key
issues concerning the country,” says the rebel spokesman, who would
favour an agreement “based on consensus, not on majorities.”
Today Sufian wears a camouflage uniform and a gun
at his waist. But he is also one of the members of the Amazigh Supreme
Council, an umbrella organisation for every Libyan Amazigh town.
Most of the towns are distributed across the
Nafusa mountain range, in the country´s northwest, but Zwara is an
unexpected yet compact enclave on a flat coastal spot bordering Tunisia.
The lack of an effective central government in the
country has led to a fragmentation of power along regional and tribal
lines. The former insurgents against Gaddafi have turned into a myriad
of militias, each one in control of their places of origin and who only
pay loyalty to their local councils. And the Amazigh rebels blocking the
plant are no exception.
“Our weapons and uniforms as well as the rest of
the supplies come from Zwara´s local council. The whole city is with
us,” Sufian proudly claims.
The reasons behind the alleged “unconditional”
support are detailed by Fathi Buzakhar, a senior Amazigh activist today
working for the Libyan Centre for Strategic and Future Studies, an NGO
with offices throughout the country.
“So far we have conducted many peaceful protests
and we have also met several times with United Nations representatives,
but it has simply not worked. The action in Mellitah takes it a step
further,” Buzakhar tells IPS from his home in Tripoli.
“Our region in the Nafusa mountains played a key
role in the takeover of Tripoli during the war. They used us and now
they reject us under the ridiculous pretext that we are working under a
foreign agenda,” laments Buzakhar, who recently visited the oil pipeline
south of Nalut, 250 km southwest of Tripoli, which has also remained
blocked by the Amazighs, since September 29.
Protest
IPS also visited the complex, a cluster of pipes
and solar panels under the control today of Amazigh militias from the
Nafusa mountain range, Libya´s main Berber stronghold southwest of
Tripoli.
“People are coming from every corner, even our
Tuareg brothers from the south. They followed suit and blocked the Ubari
plant [a complex run by Spain's Repsol company, 700 km southwest of
Tripoli], “ Jadu militia spokesman Omar Srika told IPS.
The rebel had a message to convey: “All this
started as a move to get language recognition, but today we also want to
tell all those interested in setting foot on Amazigh soil that they
will have to take us into account from now on.”
So far the government has not made any military or
political move on Mellitah and the Libyan parliament also decided not
to address the issue in its last session, on November 5.
In the meantime, blocking gas and crude oil
complexes has seemingly turned into a trend to pressure the government
across the country.
The crews of the anchored tugboats in Mellitah
kill time fishing until a solution comes, while similar protests across
the country have knocked down Libya´s crude production by 90 percent.
Workers at the Mellitah plant confirmed to IPS
that while the country’s oil shipments -around 160,000 barrels of crude a
day – remain interrupted, neither the complex nor its staff have
suffered any damage, aggression or threats by the occupants.
However, the rebels say they are willing to take new steps in their protest.
“So far we have only cut oil supplies. Gas is
flowing at 40 percent. But if our demands are not immediately addressed
in the next few days we will also block the underwater gas pipeline
completely,” a rebel spokesman told IPS at the port.
Collateral victims of the dispute between Tripoli
and the Amazigh would then be the Italians, who would see their gas
supplies on the brink at the gates of winter.
SOURCE: IPS
