The disaster-corruption connection

Tim Eaton

Good evening, everyone, and welcome to this Chatham House members’ event on The Disaster-Corruption Connection. Following on from the release of a recent MENA paper, which looks at “Rethinking Political Settlements in the Middle East and North Africa.” My name is Tim Eaton and I’m a Senior Research Fellow within the Middle East and North Africa Programme here at Chatham House, and one of the authors of that paper. And what we plan to do, over the course of this hour or so, with our great panel, is talk through some of the challenges that that paper has brought up and connect it to some terrible events that we’ve unfortunately witnessed within the Middle East and North Africa.

And I think, starting out, it’s worth noting that our paper was timely in the worst possible way, because a lot of what we had been looking at was how political settlements in the Middle East and North Africa had become increasingly extractive, used to the benefit of the elites, at the expense of their populations. We’re seeing a decreasing number of public goods and an increasing level of private profit in which the populations are, kind of, getting left behind. And whether you look at the terrible events in Derna, the awful events of the Beirut blast or hospital fires in Iraq, we’re going to see and hear, I think, that there are some very similar dynamics at play within those contexts. And within the paper, what we’ve tried to do is look at the policy frameworks that underly and appraise these situations and seek to craft policy approaches towards either creating new political settlements or maintaining the existing ones.

So, for this discussion, I’m delighted to be joined by Asma Khalifa, who is a Libyan Activist and Researcher at the Khalifa Ihler Institute and has worked extensively on gender and youth issues since 2011. And in the aftermath of the Derna crisis, has been working with local activists extensively to cover and understand the extent of the damage, the – and identify people.

I’m also delighted to be joined by Dr Christine Cheng, who’s a Senior Resear – Senior Lecturer in War Studies at King’s College London. Christine’s authored a fantastic book, “Extralegal Groups in Post-Conflict Liberia,” which won the 2019 Conflict Research Society’s prize. And importantly for this discussion, is a co-author on a major publication that looks at securing and sustaining elite bargains that reduce violent conflict.

And last, but certainly not least, my colleague, Dr Renad Mansour, is a Senior Research Fellow and the Project Director of the Iraq Initiative here at Chatham House, and he’s the Lead Author of the Rethinking Political Settlements in the Middle East and North Africa paper.

So, with that brief introduction, let me explain how this will work. Effectively, what we’re going to do is go to the panel to hear their thoughts on some of the key topics. So, we’ll have Q&A following that for about the last 20 minutes or so. And so, with that, I’ll go through this round of questions, but as you hear responses from our panellists and it sparks ideas or questions, please do put them in the Q&A box and we’ll get to them after this round of questions.

So, let’s get started, then. Asma, welcome to this webinar. Thank you very much for joining us. Just made it into your hotel room in time, we saw. And now, this has been a really difficult time for Libya. There’s been an outpouring of grief and anger from across the political spectrum and particularly a lot of anger directed at the authorities for their failings before and after the tragedy that befell Derna and the surrounding area. From your perspective and from the discussions that you’ve had, what connections do Libyans draw between the tragedy and the failings of the post-2011 system of government? And then, perhaps once you can expand on that little, we’d be very interested in hearing what your thoughts are regarding the implications for the scale of this tragedy on the current political situation within the country.

Asma Khalifa

Thank you, Tim, for having me and good evening, afternoon, everyone. So, people in Derna, the Dernawis, have been warning for years on the condition of the dams. In fact, a couple of weeks before the storm hit the city, there was a webinar organised by a civil society organisation in which a famous Dernawi Poet has – was speaking about the dams and the valley and their – and the potential for risk. There’s also been a paper released a year before that by Sebha University.

So, it’s clearly that people have been speaking about it, but because there is no early warning systems established, none of these warnings, or none of these calls – there is no mechanism to speak about it. So, when the storm started to hit and people were quite afraid, because of the years of prioritising security and funnelling funds into more military operations and war and conflict, the response is securitisation. They were told to stay at home, to remain at home, and then, there would be no evacuation, which led to the catastrophic death of thousands.

And then, you have a delay of at least two days, where first respondents is the civilians from Derna itself and the surrounding areas, in civil society organisations, the Libyan Red Crescent and the Libyan Scouts. And so, it’s – it was quite bewildering to see in Dern – to see people in Derna in that situation, and no-one – and no authority coming to help. And when the authorities does come to help, well, to – does arrive at the scene, it arrives when things are calmer, on the third day, and it arrives for – with checkpoints, with military cars. And it’s – it was quite jarring, also, that they could – that there was no response as – no statement from the government in the West. And when the Parliament issued a statement, they said they’ll have a meeting on Thursday, that’s four days after the disaster, and that’s what they called an ‘urgent meeting’.

So, it was very much a feeling that the lives were – they don’t matter, and there was no serious co-ordination of rescue missions. We had to call out to international and regional teams to assist, because the government was not prepared – is not prepared to deal with a catastrophe of such a size. And there was also an – a complete ignoring of the surrounding towns to Derna, there’s more than 11 little villages that were affected by the floods, that hardly received any help until almost five/six days later, that people gotten any sort of assistance.

And so, it was quite a lot of anger that resonated in the rest of Libya, because two years ago, we had floods in the South of Libya. We’ve had issues, of course, before, with severe old, updated infrastructure that it is not able to cope with even a little bit of rain in winter, whenever it rains. You had years, even in major cities, where electricity is cut on a daily basis for hours, internet is not functioning properly. So, it’s – it, sort of, I think, resonated within every Libyan to see this massive failure, but to see it resulting in the deaths of the thousands is – was quite – was – had led a lot of people to want to go out and protest.

And the Dernawis went to out to protest, only to have a complete crackdown and repression as elect – the electricity and internet were allegedly cut off. International media was surrounded and kept in one hotel and told not to go out unless they were escorted by the security forces. There were – a couple of the organisers of the protests got arrested, some were released, and there was an intentional systematic – ‘cause at the time, I was mapping, with my colleagues, the crisis, meaning we were mapping the number of deaths and missing, taking them from the Ministry of Health and trying to overlap – clean the data. And there was intentional blocking of access to numbers of deaths and until today, actually, the number is really not confirmed. None of the people from the authorities have spoken about the missing and what is happening in terms of what is being set up for forensic teams.

What was immediately, though, done, is that the Parliament set up a big budget of over 100 billion for reconstruction, similar to what happened to Benghazi and Derna after the defeat of ISIS. That they’ve set up this large number – this large budget of reconstruction, headed by the same person who swallowed up the first budget of reconstruction, Aguila Saleh, the Head of the Parliament. And there were – and then, there were security forces from Egypt assist – aiding, construction companies from Egypt coming to me to talk about the reconstruction, and then, they were establishing walls within – between the East and the West side of the town, saying that they are trying to contain the damage of what was happening.

And people from other towns and cities were all try – were all – all want to go out in protest and in help, but it’s been quite, I think, scary to see how they completely blacked out this – the information and how there was so much, also, misinformation about what was really going on in terms of internal, also, conflict within the security forces of Haftar. And I, earlier this – well, last week, then, you had a – you had [inaudible – 12:01], the religious figure from the Western Government, come out and calling for removal of Haftar for – and the Eastern government for what they’ve done to the people of Derna. And so, Benghazi now has been blacked out for three days, where there’s no internet or phone connection to the city, and there are wide mass arrests of anyone who’s related to [inaudible – 12:27], who is still – was connected to the Shura Council, in a, sort of, berge campaign to take out anyone who is in opposition of the Libyan Arab Armed Forces.

So, there – I think there are – we still have to see the repercussions unfolding in the coming weeks and months, politically speaking, because they are all try – vying to see how they could make use of it first, of course, by corruption and embezzlement of more funding. But secondly, how they could consolidate more power because that’s, yeah, that’s the focus of the actors, especially in the East.

Tim Eaton

Thank you very much, Asma. A bleak picture that’s painted and certainly, in fact, the events over recent days in Benghazi have been difficult to follow because of this blackout. And this also seems an increasing tactic of rival forces to, effectively, you know, give themselves a cover for what they’re about to do in these circumstances.

Renad, I want to bring you in here. I mean, from the paper that we’ve recently released, we’ve, kind of, tried to delve into explaining how a political focus on conducting elite bargains is quite literally killing citizens in the MENA region. And could you draw this out for us, what are the parallels between the dynamics that Asma’s mentioned in Derna, in comparison to other tragedies in the region, such as those in Iraq and Lebanon? And then, secondly, if you could then take us through why you feel that the violence that is clearly manifested in these political settlements is not given greater prominence in Western policy frameworks?

Dr Renad Mansour

Sure. Well, I think, clearly, in the last few years, the Middle East and North Africa, the countries where we work and spend a lot of time in, have been, sort of, considered by policymakers in Europe/North America as stable, as post-conflict, as almost peaceful. You know, unlike a civil war, of course, what’s happening in Israel and Gaza, shows you, as well, that, you know, the region continues to be volatile because of some more foundational issues.

But in general, we, sort of, came about writing this paper and doing this research in countries like Iraq and Libya or Lebanon, where policymakers were saying, “This is post-conflict, so we’re doing post-conflict policies now.” And something didn’t quite resonate with our experiences speaking to people, spending time in these countries. The conflict never left many people and so, we wanted to, sort of, understand, how do we square that? How do we make sense of almost a move away from the Middle East, as if mission accomplished, once again? And yet, for many people, that mission hasn’t been accomplished.

And we found in particular, a very influential paradigm for UK, in particular, but also, I would say, European and American policy in the Middle East, to be this idea of elite bargains and political settlements, and Christine, along with others, wrote this paper for the Stabilisation Unit, which outlines the logic of this stance. And the logic being these are countries in civil wars. You know, let’s move away from this idea of liberal peacebuilding. Let’s move away from the idea that just having elections, or just promoting democratic principles, will bring about peace.

We need some pragmatism, and we need to inject pragmatism into these conflicts, and what that pragmatism is, ultimately, is bring everyone to the table and give them economic incentives, primarily economic incentives, to all split the pie, right? So, all the groups should come together, whether it’s Libya or Iraq or Lebanon, and have them share the, you know, the spoils of the war and the spoils of the state. And, of course, the paper does outline some consequences, you know? This may mean that violence gets embedded into the system, so their system might repress people. It may mean that certain armed groups are – have their own access to arms and some premise of violence. So, the piece outlines different types of violence.

But something we find – we found something missing and that became the, sort of, point of structural violence, this point of corruption, exactly as Asma outlined. Corruption as not just an, sort of, externality that – you know, of the elite bargain, but corruption as itself a killer and corruption as itself producing harms in these countries in a number of ways. Of course, in the example, the tragedy in Libya, corruption meaning that health and safety isn’t there. So, when you have dams, as you see, they’re not fit for purpose.

Of course, in Mosul, peop – as well, there’s a dam that many people are worried about, and if there’s ever a tragedy in Iraq, as well, there will be – something similar will happen, and people do warn about these things. You know, as Asma said, there is research happening in these countries on these things, but also corruption in the pharmaceutical sector means most of the medicine these citizens are taking is fake or expired. Corruption in the hospitals means that people don’t use the health – hospitals there, and sometimes, the hospitals we found catch on fire. Sometimes corruption in trade means that ports could blast, like we saw in Beirut, and kill.

So, although the Middle East seemed more stable from one notion of violence, that is these elites killing each other, it wasn’t stable for many people who were dying in numbers that you can’t quite quantify, you can’t quite count. Because, you know, you can do Human Development Index, and that’s what we did, to show that people’s age – life expectancy is on high, child mortality is high. These are all deaths, but this is not the ACLED kind of data, the, sort of, direct violence of civilian casualties from an explosion.

So, it becomes difficult, and I think this is the way where we want to take the conversation. Is there a way to try and incorporate these people’s voices and the everyday conflicts that they continue to face, in this? And put, you know, simply, can corruption be included in this conversation? Can corruption – and, you know, be part of political settlements work? So, in a country like Iraq, or somewhere else, we’ve seen that elite bargains work. They work in terms of reducing direct violence. There is no longer a civil war in a country like Iraq or Libya or Lebanon, to some extent, of course, but it doesn’t work in stopping people from dying. It doesn’t work from making people’s lives better. It just changes the nature of violence in a typology that we think wasn’t quite captured in the political settlements work.

And so, this is the contribution that we’re looking to do, partly because studies have found that elite bargains, based on this idea of where the elites get to benefit, there’s an assumption that these elites are representative of society and you have demographic changes over time that strain, of course, those elite bargains. But, of course, they’re founded on these systems of corruption that mean that they’re twice as likely to go back to civil war at some point, or to burst out in direct violence.

So, very briefly, then, to answer your second – so, that’s, the kind of reason why we went for it. To answer the second question, it’s complicated, right? Because effectively, what we’re saying is structural violence needs to be part of a conversation, and for a policymaker based in the UK or the US, it’s impossible to tackle all of corruption in all of these countries, right? It’s a lot easier to say, “Ah, let’s stop two militias from fighting with each other, right? That can be – we can check the box, we can go home and celebrate a peace, celebrate post-conflict. Okay, maybe the people there don’t feel it, but at least in our prism, it works.

So, what we’re saying is that’s not enough, right? The people deserve more than that, and so, what we’re saying is, yes, it’s a trade-off, but that trade-off needs to be made explicit. There needs to be an explicit trade-off made, you know, with all the information available. So, our understanding of violence needs to be expanded and I think a lot of feminist research in IR and, you know, Mandy Turner and others, Cockburn and others, have been making these cases that violence is a continuum. And understanding the continuum of violence has to be part of the conversation to understand what exactly a trade-off is, right?

So, in Iraq, a political settlement isn’t just a trade-off of bringing elites together, but it’s a trade-off saying that we know at some point there will be a disaster where potentially tens or twen – ten/20,000 people might die. But that’s okay, because that’s down the road and the trade-off is where they’re reducing violence now. So, I think that’s the conversation that we’re trying to do and what we’re trying to put forward is this idea of how to inject a bit more accountability and a bit more transparency into these bargainings.

Tim Eaton

Thanks very much, Renad, and I think we’ll certainly get into some of the challenges of doing that a bit later in the discussion, as well. I think, as you point out, the system, or the agreement that’s put in place to stop fighting between rival elites, is very difficult to transform into something more lasting and sustainable that can produce public goods. I think, in a way, what we’ve seen is that the nature of that deal has, basically, been a forewarning of the nature of the way that that system will evolve. And we’ve spotted that at different levels within Iraq, within Lebanon and Libya, and we know that that system is ill-equipped to respond to challenges like those of maintaining infrastructure in Derna or stopping illicit trade and the collapse of health systems. So, I think that’s a really good challenge.

But I think, at the same time, I want to bring you in here, Christine, there’s also a recognition that these are really wicked policy problems, very difficult, as Renad says, to solve all of these elements. Renad mentioned some of the discussion around elite bargains and, you know, I think the paper that you wrote with Jonathan Goodhand and Patrick Meehan, and noted that they can reduce violence, but you also mentioned some things about “Not all good things can come together.” I wonder, firstly, if you could give us a bit of a background to that work and how that connects to policy frameworks? And then, also, we’d be really interested to hear, I think, your thoughts of the argument made by the Chatham House paper, that more structural forms of violence should be factored into these frameworks in order to negotiate or renegotiate political settlements.

Dr Christine Cheng

Thanks so much for having me, Tim, and yeah, this is a really enjoyable conversation and it’s one that I’ve been having with friends and colleagues for almost 20 years now. So, I’m particularly appreciative that you guys have decided to bring it out in this way. I think it’s very important when an institution like Chatham House decides to make it a thing.

So, first off, I thought the paper’s really interesting and it actually addresses something that’s super important, and it’s something that’s often lost, right? So, these conversations around war to peace transitions have been happening for a long time. The conversations around corruption have been happening for a long time, but there was a period where it was very difficult to talk about these things. Policymakers didn’t want to do it because it raises all sorts of red flags about how we spend our overseas development money, and so, people stayed silent for a long time. And it’s helpful to actually be able to talk about things just out in the open like this. So, I think this is part of a project to change the conversation.

So, before I get into Tim’s question, I think I have to actually maybe correct an – a slight misunderstanding about the paper and also, what we are trying to say in the paper around elite bargains. So, just as a note, Jonathan Goodhand, Pat Meehan and I, we’re not normatively endorsing the elite bargains approach. I think what we were trying to do was to actually say to the world that this is actually what was happening, right? That we were trying to observe and say, “You say that you’re doing this liberal peacebuilding, but in fact, what you are actually doing is something really different. What you are actually doing is elite bargaining, and you say that you’re doing this.”

And we aspire for these things, and our narrative was about, for these things, around human rights, gender equality and all of these good things, democracy, elections and so forth. But in fact, what we were actually doing behind the scenes was something really different. So, we were not saying that this is either good or bad. We were actually just trying to describe the thing that we saw was actually happening and trying to unveil a hypocrisy that we thought was going on within the system.

Having said that, understanding that I thought – you know, from how we were trying to deal with the situation, was really to map out what the possibilities were of, “If you do this, these are the consequences,” right? So, if you actually choose to make an elite bargain, part of what you are giving up, effectively, is you’re trading off a sense of stability, often, in order to give the other side something that they want. And typically, that will involve some kind of political incentive, material incentive, representational, symbolic, incentive, something that the other side wants to hold that deal together. And often, those deals are quite ugly and not something that we would publicly endorse, but this is what you need to do in order to get to the end, right?

So, to go back to Tim’s question. When we were thinking about this, kind of, “All good things don’t go together,” we were thinking about a place like Afghanistan and thinking about our policies on counternarcotics in dealing with corruption, but also in trying to achieve electoral stability and political stability, gender equality, human rights, you know, on and on and on. This, kind of, long laundry list of all of the things that a typical, kind of, stabilisation, liberal peacebuilding version of the world, would have us do, and in fact, you know, we did try to do that for decades. You know, you look at any UN peacekeeping mission, you will see that kind of pattern happen and it’s always the same set of elements that we aspire to.

But the reality is those things don’t go together, right? It’s very, very difficult then to convince, say, you know, Hamid Karzai, who was in power at the time. He needed to do particular deals with, say, Warlords in different parts of the country, some of whom had to deal with their own militias. And, you know, abominable things were happening on the ground all over the place, to which we turned a blind eye to, which there were long-term consequences, which is part, I think, of this disaster-corruption connection that we’re all talking about, right? So – but in order to get to the point where you could even have a conversation, those deals had to be done.

And so, these trade-offs around, say counternarcotics in Afghanistan and counterterrorism, we were pushing forward a certain set of policies and it, yes, it came at the expense, often, of the things that we wanted to do on human rights and gender equality. Nobody wanted to acknowledge those things. We pretended as if those things all went together, right? So, this is the all good things don’t come together part of this conversation.

On the second question that you were asking, just thinking about structural forms of violence and thinking about it in development terms, if you look at folks who work on the development side of things and then, folks who work on the conflict side of things, they would say, “Look, there is a space for post-conflict and then, there’s this space for development. And some people would say, actually, you have to do all of those things together at once and they have to, kind of, move along together in tandem. And other people would say, “No, it has to be sequential,” and other people would say, “Deal with the institutions first and then, get that right and then, everything else will follow,” right?

So, there are, kind of, lots of different frameworks and theoretical ideas about how we should do this. I don’t think there’s a right answer to this and I think part of what I think Renad was getting at is absolutely right, and I don’t think there’s any disagreement on this. You know, we put out – I put out a book with Dominic Zaum on “Peacebuilding and Corruption.” We started working on that project in 2006, and the special issue of a journal came out in 2008 and then, I think, you know, we put out the book a year later. And basically, it does deal with exactly these kinds of, you know, structural problems around corruption. I think there is absolutely, you know, zero disagreement on this amongst us, that we can see what has happened in a place. Like how Asma has described the situation in Derna’s so heartbreaking, really, right? This is a result exactly of this kind of trade-off.

And, you know, what I’ve figured out over the years, I don’t know if this is figuring out, but just realising that actually, a part of what gets lost is we move onto the next conflict. We stop paying attention. The pressure, you know, gets released as people just shift onto the next conflict and then, the thing that whatever was in place, this version of the elite bargain or the political deal, that stays in place, but without, kind of, a clamping down and making sure that those people who are in power, we just – we let that corruption grow a little bit rampant. And then, it festers, and it grows and becomes embedded in the system.

And the trick is actually for us to not turn our attention away, but it – politically, it’s so difficult not to do that, right? So, there are a whole bunch of, kind of, you know, geopolitical winds of change that lead us, then, to stop paying attention. As soon as the media stops paying attention, the Ministers stop paying attention. As soon as the Ministers stop paying attention and that shift, kind of, goes down the Civil Service chain, then, you know, nobody wants to make a big fuss of things if the possibility is you disrupt that bargain and then, you end up with, actually, a real return to competitive, direct violence, right?

So, nobody wants to upset the apple cart and so, the trick is, actually, trying to keep that pressure maintained whilst still trying to get the kind of political change that you want, and it’s so hard to actually get that calibrated correctly. And if we’re able to do that, I think if there is leverage here where, you know, there is some kind of power influence, or frankly, like, trying to do right by the people, right, then, you know, that is the magic, kind of, fine line that we can try and walk and help civil society actors, like Asma, to try and support them when they are pushing for change and accountability in these ways.

Tim Eaton

Many thanks, Christine. Sir John Jenkins was supposed to join us, I should’ve mentioned earlier, the Former Ambassador to Iraq, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and held many posts in the Middle East. We were somewhat unfairly going to turn to him at this point and ask him for the solutions, now that we’d identified the problems, or at least some pathways. But in lieu of John being here, I think what everybody’s recognised here is that these are deeply challenging problems and on top of, of course, the challenges of very complex societies and entrenched conflicts that manifest in many different ways, of course, there are also the bureaucratic challenges of Western governments, such as the UK. You know, just the practicalities of being able to have a sustained approach, a strategic approach in a country like Libya, where the majority of people are cycling in and out every couple of years. Very difficult to get that continuity, even, you know, that institutional memory.

And I think, Renad, we can sum up some of the pushback that we’ve got from policymakers, as well, “This is all really hard. It’s hard enough to get the sun – the guns silenced, so how can we do these other things?” And I think worth pointing out, here, then, if I could just pull – come back to you briefly to say, you know, what are the options that practically could be pursued to address some of these things once – you know, I think you’ve mentioned one already, which we certainly agree on, I think, across the panel. That making these trade-offs more explicit, and to make it clear why one course of action would be pursued over another, rather than to, kind of, pretend that incompatible things are somehow working in synergy. But what other kinds of things do you think policymakers could look at to address this, kind of, you know, mismatch between programming and development policies, on the one hand and some of the political strategies that we see being quite reactive, on the other hand?

Dr Renad Mansour

Sure. I mean, the elite bargain, as Christine says, is very convenient to policymakers because it ends a problem. In a way, it says, “Okay, there’s now a deal and let’s move onto the next crisis.” But, you know, what we’ve seen in these countries that, you know, are so-called post-conflict, like Iraq or Libya, or Lebanon, is that international policymakers are not only, sort of, seeing success in elite bargains, but those elite bargains are entrenching and further entrenching corruption. The support of these leaders is further exasperating corruption and supporting corruption. I mean, living in London, you go around and you see properties and you see many of them are owned by some of these leaders across the region, right?

So, I think a) there’s that connection, which is really important, to say that the UK, the US, European countries, there are – there is a connection to supporting these systems and supporting elite bargains is exasperating the problem. But in any case, we know that, also, there’s a lot of development money still going to these countries under programmes like stabilisation and support, but it’s still not meeting the mark. It’s still not addressing this question. So, while the Minister, of course, his attention has gone elsewhere, and there’s still a lot of money being spent by governments in Europe and in North America on stabilisation in these countries. We’re talking about millions each year.

And so, the question is how can we make them a) address some of these issues and these conflicts that people still experience, but make the systems – and, as I say, inject accountability into these elite bargains? And beyond just having, you know, European, you know, policymakers, British policymakers, Americans, put the issue of corruption up front and centre, which I think it’s right, Christine, in saying, it is good that this is becoming an important issue, but beyond that, we think public pressure still matters in these countries. Ideologically, these elites have to say that they’re not corrupt, which means that triggering and, you know, and putting these things on the issue through the public is important.

There’s also people in these bureaucracies who’s not corrupt. These are not completely corrupt systems. There are senior bureaucrats who we know, who, you know, we speak to and who – you know, they’re there partly, primarily, because they’re the only ones who know how to get things done, but also, they’re connected. And what they all tell us is they feel isolated. They feel like they wish they could change things, but they’re surrounded by these systems. They’re surrounded by these elite bargains that’s inhibiting their attempts to reform.

And finally, you know, there are also – you know, these countries do have – the legal infrastructure in these countries is there. You know, these countries have legislations and institutions for accountability, for transparency, for integrity, but again, they’re ineffective and they’ve been captured. Accountability mechanisms have been captured by the elite bargains. So, the elite bargain, again, is impeding accountability and so, what we’re proposing in the paper to do is how do you connect all of this? How do you connect the public pressure, which we think is still effective, those bureaucrats who are isolated but want to do something different, and strengthen through this some of those legal mechanisms that do exist in these countries for accountability?

A lot of effort has been made on, for example, technical support. So, let’s train Judges, right? Let’s teach ‘em how the law works, but that’s not going to be helpful in a system of state capture where they need to have impunity. The key has to be not just the technical capacity building, whether it’s in the security sector or the legal sector, or any of these elite bargain sectors. The key has to be on, parallel to that, a sidetrack, a Working Group of these types of actors, strengthening the connective tissues of reform between them to push forward some of the anticorruption work and funds that is already being spent.

Tim Eaton

Thanks very much, Renad. Now, let me start bringing in some of the questions from the audience. Asma, I want to come back to you and ask you a couple of things. I want to get to Peter in the chat’s, question. But in a way, as you answer, I want you to, kind of, explain where the Libyan people are supposed to be in the current iteration of the political process in Libya, because that – their absence is so notable. And I wonder if that may change or has a possibility to change after the terrible events in Derna and the surrounding region?

But on top of that, in terms of supporting reformist voices, I mean, I’ll boil down Peter’s question, you can see it in the chat, but, you know, how can international actors support civil society or reformist voices when, you know, there is such real pressure on the ground from armed factions or vested interests that will place those people in danger? How might internationals try and balance or thread that needle?

Asma Khalifa

Thanks. That’s a very important question and we get asked that a lot by – when we do advocacy, or when we did advocacy on the various processes, and it’s always – it always boils down to two main issue. And first, the design is often one that it actually enables these activists, if they come to the table already with a perception that they will leave with a share of win – of some sort of winnings, and in Libya it’s often, usually, a ministry this or a Minister that, or a position here and a position there. So, it’s – I think that sort of format, the communication around the conversation and the design, is quite problematic, and it’s really an outdated UN, especially because the – Libya takes with – is designed by the UN is then a really outdated UN system of negotiations between people who they perceive being in power and position.

And the second thing is that they – that even though there is – you have – we have conversations with them and there is space for that design to change, and some of it has changed, and I have to admit for the second political process, there is no space for consultation, even on how to, you know, frame these conversations, how these actors can be included. We often hear about things happening a week before. I know a lot of Libyans who were asked to come in second tracks and third tracks at night, before. They were – we texted on WhatsApp, by a UN staff, saying, “Well, are you able to fly to Tunis in the next couple of days because we’re having this conversation?”

And so, it’s really – there is really no space and not – it’s not just a security issue. It’s also that it’s not seen of any value. But if you look at the [inaudible – 42:16] and if you look at the politi – the LPA later, both of whom – of them address structural issues. They address rehabilitation, disarmament. They address distribution of wealth, economic reform, and the economic track is not part of the discussion, but there is a political group. There’s an economic group, but it’s not part of the discussion of power. And then, you have a women’s group. I was presenting the recommendations of the women’s group, the second peace process, and yeah, and so, they – all of these people who meet, so many of people meet, even from local governance, and give concrete ways of how to go about things. And they are part of the agreement, that’s great, but they’re not part of the power conversation, and that means that they – those actors could agree, and they can go home and do nothing about it.

The third thing, and I think is the – is also a crucial thing, is that there is no conditional or accountability established within these processes. So, Libyan actors can promise whatever you like that they would promise in a negotiation, but there is nothing to hold them to not to do so. And they know it, they know that they can get away with it and they will be invited, within a couple of years, in three years, to another round of conversation. But as long as they are – they feel that they’re not going to be part of the future status quo, they’re not interested in continuing any of – in doing any of the processes. So, they sabotage, often, such processes.

So, it’s – yeah, it’s, sort of, a chicken and an egg situation, but there are ways of making these processes more rigorous, inclusive, without jeopardising anybody’s safety. It’s just that it’s not being done that way.

Tim Eaton

Thanks, Asma. I think it’s also important to note that international actors have an important shaping role on some of these relations in a place like Libya. We’ve seen that the local armed actors will look for international responses to see what happens if they push the envelope a little bit or crack down in a certain way. And if there isn’t condemnation or there aren’t consequences, then that will also work to normalise some of those behaviours. And I think a key example here, and there’s a question about the inclusion of armed groups, but the UN convening groups in Libya a week after a report released by the UN criticised the same armed groups of widespread human rights violations. Not a great look in terms of sequencing or even very obvious what the objectives are of that kind of engagement.

Let me group a few other questions together, and I’ll put them to the panel. So, there’s a question that’s there from Trisha, saying – asking about Karzai. You know, Karzai, was he really just the West’s man? So, who is really “turning a blind eye” where, there? And there’s also a question from Mazoon about how “armed groups could or should be involved in these processes.” And then, perhaps finally, here, there’s an in – really interesting question from Marcel about the, you know, the formulation of the “elite bargain.” And so, let me just ask those questions first. Christine, let me allow you to come in on those and we will definitely come back to Ann-Kristin’s question in the next round, as well.

Dr Christine Cheng

I will try. These are hard questions, right? So, the first question from Marcel that I see on my screen, “Is there a connection between post-colonialism and post-conflict, especially in the view of elite bargaining?” And so, I looked at that and I was actually thinking quite hard about it, and there’s quite a good bit of context below it. And I think – you’re going to laugh at this, but I actually think we can learn more from post-conflict to deal with post-colonialism than the other way around. And I’m really thinking about that with my UK hat on. I don’t think that this country has dealt with the post-colonial period very well or thought very hard about it or dealt with a lot of things around it.

And actually, interestingly enough, I feel like the thinking and the imagination and the space for creativity in dealing with post-conflict issues, in the UK at least, has been far more expansive and a little bit more free. And I think if anything, that the learning actually goes the other way. The way in which we think about post-conflict context and the way it’s been done in this particular country, the Stabilisation Unit being a core part of it, and how DFID thinks about things through all of the conflict advise – advice that it has given over the years, for better or for worse, right? There is a lot of learning that takes place in these processes and there’s a lot of deep regional expertise. And there seem to be blinders, actually, when it comes to dealing with the same set of issues, but thinking about it with the colonial hat on. And I think actually, if there’s anything to be done here, it is actually thinking about, you know, the post-conflict work and what we could – how we could learn from that for dealing with post-colonial issues.

That Warlord issue I think is very fascinating, and I think that the question is, you know, is maybe right. So, the question was, I think it was from Trisha, but on Afghanistan, “Were we turning a blind eye to Hamid Karzai himself, because he was the ultimate dealmaker?” right? So, yeah, yeah, I think we were, but part of this is thinking about what your objective is in the immediate moment of, say, the – you know, when the guns fall silent and you’ve got something of a ceasefire and something that looks semi-stable, what are you trying to achieve in that immediate aftermath? And that goes back to what Tim was saying in the pushback from policymakers, because the hardest thing is actually to get people to put down their weapons and for that, kind of, peace to hold long enough for it to look at least a little bit stable.

When you get past that point, then you can start having some of these conversations that lead into the longer-term, but people are so worried and most ceasefires fall apart, right? So, that’s the other thing that we forget, because we look, we look at when a war ends and we say, “Oh, yeah, okay, it ended here.” Forgetting that there were, often, like in the case of Liberia, which I know best, there were 17 different ceasefires, different peace deals that were done, all of which fell apart until the 17th, right? So, every time you think that one is coming up and you think it’s going to hold, that’s not necessarily the case.

So, when we talk about things like turning a blind eye to the situation, part of it is because people are just so desperate to bring an end to that, actually, large-scale violence, to make those guns go silent. And so, you know, recognising that this is a solid piece, like enough so that you can actually rachet up the pressure a little bit to ask for the things that Renad was talking about in terms of accountability, like trying to just identify that kind of political leverage, is really, really hard. Like, you really have to know the context well, you have to know the political actors. You have to know when to put pressure on and you have to read the situation correctly. You also have to have the right kind of political backing, and the country can’t be consumed by something like Brexit, right?

So, there has to be enough political bandwidth in the system, at a high enough level, and we have to care enough and have enough interest and then the system actually has to work, too. And ideally, you don’t have any partners who are undermining you doing other things, or moving in opposite directions, or blockades in the Security Council and all sorts of other things that go wrong, right? So, there are so many things that are just really, really difficult. Karzai did the best he could, and I think we, kind of, did the best we could in that moment, and believe it or not, in that moment, like 2002/3/4, things actually looked reasonably good. People were very hopeful. It wasn’t until 2006 started to turn, 7/8, and then it started really deteriorating.

So, you know, things can look good for a while and then, they just turn around all the time. I’ll leave the other questions for Renad and you, Tim, actually.

Tim Eaton

Ah. Thanks, Christine, and, Renad, we’ve talked, I think, about the, you know, post-colonialism in this construct, I think, certainly in – also, you know, potentially, how some of these strategies or appraisals might effectively come up with a solution that would be good enough for this country that’s afflicted by conflict. I’d be interested in your take on that question from Marcel and also, you know – and we’ll come back to Christine on this, I think, a bit later, as well, Anna-Kristin asks, you know, “What’s an acceptable benchmark, or what should be the benchmarks for successful peacebuilding?” I think that’s a really interesting question.

Dr Renad Mansour

Sure, and I think part of the reason – you know, the study that we’ve all been doing, all of us on this panel, is trying to decolonise some of the ways in which conflict international relations works, right? So, we’re trying to bring in approaches from feminist theories, from other types of theories, to move past the, kind of – especially doing it at Chatham House is interesting, but the, sort of, colonial legacies of how the region was understood and for – and to what end?

So, one example of this type of attempt to decolonise is even in the definition of state and state building, right? So, you know, we talk about armed groups. The diff – you know, this idea of the state, people writing about the state, especially if you look at, sort of, Max Weber’s definition of “Monopoly of religion and violence,” but also Charles Tilly and these big Sociologists, who have really – who guide the thinking on state, we’re writing in the context of Europe, primarily, in the 19th Century. And so, what you have today is this attempt to take what is a very European centric understanding of history and an internal rise of these states, and top-down enforce them, kind of – and on – in a region.

You know, and so, we’re trying to pick that apart and so, it’s not just decol – it’s decolonising the way we think, right? We shouldn’t just be applying European 19th Century models to Iraq or Libya or Lebanon. We need to see what are these organic processes emerging from the bottom up? And I think it’s a tragic reality in these regions that armed groups have powers, right? But if we can move – if we can decolonise this a bit, what we understand is that these armed groups are the state, right? These armed groups are practising and performing the state in a way that Charles Tilly, you know, even says. You – “War” – you know, “Criminals and war” – you know, “armed groups become state builders,” right? So, that’s the transition we’re trying to get to.

We’re not – it’s not that we’re legitimising our going to war. What we’re saying is they’re there, how do we make them accountable? How do we make them stop killing? How do we make them stop using their arms for political negotiations, or for – you know, whether it’s exclusive or inclusive, just the violence that they’re putting forward? So, we – you know, we think that is where the conversation needs to go, because on all these countries, these armed groups will continue to fight back against these European, sort of, notions of what is a state and where – what social power really is. And I think, yeah, and that’s what we’re talking about. I mean, in a country like Iraq, having a militia, just like in Libya and elsewhere, is a currency, right? It makes you – gives you a seat at the table. It also means that in an election, if you don’t do as well, you can still keep your seat at the table, right?

So, it’s more powerful than these, sort of, liberal peacebuilding benchmarks, which, kind of, links to the second question, which is also – you know, it’s a tough one, what are the benchmarks? The – what we’re trying to say in this paper is, you know, in Iraq, there was this Iraq body count. It was – became very famous every year, how many people died. And, of course, the highest numbers, when it was in the thousands, was during the Civil War, you know, in 2006/7/8. And then, obviously, with the rise of Islamic State, ISIS, in 2014/15, again, you can see that benchmark shows that elite bargains and bringing peo – you know, bringing everyone together, in a way, can reduce that.

What we’re saying is to add benchmarks to that, one of which is corruption, right? And this is a very difficult thing to, sort of, benchmark, but add something like, perhaps, CPI, right, and be worried if corruption is high, right? So, if you’re seeing direct violence go down, but corruption remains high, be worried, because that means that there is an instability there that could – that is hurting people, but could certainly pop off, even in the perspect – from the perspective of Western policymakers, primarily interested in the short-termism.

Another one is human development, right? I mean, these countries are very wealthy. Libya, Iraq, these are very wealthy countries, and they are, oftentimes, are much lower in their wealth category than comparative countries because of the violence and conflict that – and the corruption that people go through. So, we think human developments, sort of, corruption, these are some of the benchmarks that need to also be a part of the conversation.

Tim Eaton

Thanks, Renad. I think it was a bit of a lightbulb moment for us when we started to look at these measures against the reduction in violence, ‘cause you’re like, hang on a second, part of the reason for the stability is supposed to be that it allows for these other things to happen, you know, development of institution, greater production of public goods, because all those things are being destroyed by violent conflict. And then, you look, and you realise, well, actually, that’s not the product of this deal, because that’s not the basis of the deal.

Couple of minutes left. Asma, I want to bring you back in. Interested in your reflections on those elements, but there are also, kind of, a couple of direct questions from Salma and Dr Naji about accountability in the post-Derna floods. Certainly, something which I’m looking at quite a lot on the fund side. Be interested in your thoughts on that and also, really just in general, how those Politicians that are involved in these interminable processes, you mentioned Aguila Saleh earlier, what accountability could look like for those types of individuals. And then, I’ll circle back to Christine, finally, and take – get your take on the benchmark questions and then, I’m afraid, I think we’ll probably have to close there. But first, Asma.

Asma Khalifa

Thank you. I’ll try to be quick. It’s really difficult now, 12 years later, to talk about getting accountability inside Libya. The courts – well, the highest court was frozen for so many years and then, unfrozen by their Prime Minister of the Government in the west of Libya, with a lot of warning reports that he’s co-opting the Judges. For years, Judges and Lawyers have been under threat, whether physical or imminent threats and they have functioned under very difficult circumstances, and I know a lot of Judges and Lawyers have chosen to do a different thing. You also have an – a very complex dynamic in Tripoli, where armed groups control certain areas of the city. The courts within those jurisdictions, the Lawyers and the Judges have to have, sort of, relationships with these armed groups in order to be able to do anything. Otherwise, it’s not being done.

So, it’s extremely hard to bring cases, especially when it comes to corruption and especially if it’s a high-profile Politician, that’s almost not done. So, what the Government, both in the East and the West of Libya, are doing, they’re firing small, you know, middle management staff. They frame Ministers as the ones to be at fault. They sacrifice a lot of people and pawns to try to appease the public, but there is no accountability inside. I mean, they’ve ensured within this past decade that it’s really hard to protect judiciary in Libya in order to – for it to do its work. And so, there have to be avenues of pressure from abroad, from outside the country, using the different frameworks that Libya is already part of, and yeah, using targeted sanctions on these actors.

What is very worrying is that it’s – if there is just this constant response, especially when it comes to Aguila Saleh and the Parliament in the East, ‘cause it’s often the one that’s blocking a lot of – or a lot of the decision, is that they are the ones who have been elected. They were elected in 2014, but this is the constant response that we hear when we say, “Well, why don’t you make a condition for Aguila Saleh, to say, “You have to serve this term and then, you’ll have to resign and retire”?” But there is no – there is just – yeah, it’s exactly what Renad has said, it’s stubbornly holding onto this notion of government or states. Otherwise, it’s too complicated and so, they – it’s not to be addressed.

So, it’s, yeah, it’s an issue that certainly has to be addressed from different angles. Thanks, Tim.

Tim Eaton

Thanks very much, Asma, and Christine, final word to you.

Dr Christine Cheng

Yes, I wanted to recognise Ann-Kristin Triebert, who was actually a key part of putting together the whole elite bargains project, and she asked that question about benchmarks and successful peace-making. And I just have a couple of really simple things here. One is for us, in terms of controlling our own money and development aid spending. The thing that we can do is actually to look at outcomes and not just inputs, right? We look at what things are supposed to go into the system, but we actually never really call people to account in terms of what the outcomes are. Nobody is accountable for, you know, for actually making things happen in the end. And so, if we could make one simple change, that would probably be the one that I would suggest.

And then, the, kind of, corollary to that is to actually ask people on the ground what do they consider to be a successful piece? What does that look like, you know? Well, there’s a whole set of literature on everyday peace indicators, right? With friends of mine, you know, working on that kind of stuff, like Roger Mac Ginty, and these are really simple things, right? These are just, kind of, like, “Hey, I’d like to be able to walk and get water and come back safely, without feeling like I am going to be raped,” right? So, this is – these are day-to-day tasks. “I’d like to be able to go to school without worrying about,” you know, “being harassed or,” you know, “without my Teacher molesting me,” or – you know, these are, kind of, really basic, simple, simple things around security and just not – I don’t think we have to look very far in terms of thinking, you know, wildly and imaginatively.

You just have to ask the people on the ground what they want and a lot of the time, we don’t do that, and I think that’s the number one problem, we don’t ask. We have to ask. It’s not really up to me, it’s up to Asma. It’s not up to us. It shouldn’t be up to us, you know? It should be a conversation, right? And the conversations, a lot of the time, we just don’t make room for. And the other thing we need to do is support people like Asma, so that when she is in trouble, we back her up. That’s it.

Tim Eaton

Thanks very much, Christine, and thank you to all of our panellists for what’s been, I think, a really interesting discussion. Apologies to those in the audience whose questions we didn’t get to. Unfortunately, we just ran out of time. But thanks for those of you who have stuck with us and thank you for joining, and I’m sure you’ll be joining another Chatham House members’ event soon. I’ll just leave it and say bye from the panel and thank you – thank them very much, and wish you a good evening.

Asma Khalifa

Thank you. Good evening.