Over a week on from the devastating flash floods that washed whole neighbourhoods into the sea in eastern Libya, killing thousands, Libya is in dire need of assistance. Years of war and political division mean the country is badly ill-equipped to coordinate the international help that has been offered. On top of that, says Tarek Megerisi, Libya expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations, years of neglected infrastructure coupled with historical mistreatment of the residents of the devastated city of Derna, mean last Sunday’s flash floods were "a natural disaster that became a man-made catastrophe".
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NewsTranscript
00:00 It's time now for perspective.
00:02 Over a week on from the devastating flash floods
00:05 that washed whole neighborhoods to the sea in eastern Libya,
00:08 killing thousands, Libya is in dire need of assistance.
00:11 Although years of war and division
00:13 mean the country is badly ill-equipped even
00:15 to coordinate the international help that's been offered.
00:18 And similar criticism has been directed at Morocco
00:21 after it chose not to accept all of the international aid
00:24 on the table following its massive earthquake
00:26 a week and a half ago that killed some 3,000 people.
00:29 My guest today is Tarek Megharisi,
00:32 Libya expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
00:35 Thank you so much for speaking to us here on France 24 today.
00:38 I'd like to start by talking about Libya.
00:40 How would you characterize the situation on the ground
00:43 right now in the east of the country?
00:47 Thank you very much for having me on, firstly.
00:49 It's still chaotic.
00:51 I mean, I was thinking today it's
00:52 been a full week since the catastrophe first occurred.
00:58 The first half of that week, the survivors
01:00 were spent alone trying to deal with the magnitude
01:03 of the catastrophe which befell them.
01:05 And the second half of the week, they've
01:07 been fighting their own government, their own army,
01:10 to try to continue the aid and the relief effort,
01:14 despite the efforts of these institutions to exert control
01:20 and to look good, which is quite a horrible thing.
01:25 What would you say is the greatest risk to survivors
01:28 on the ground right now, Tarek?
01:31 Well, there's a magnitude of threats coming towards them.
01:36 I mean, firstly, you have the threat of disease
01:40 from stagnant water.
01:42 Wells and reservoirs have been corrupted by the floodwater.
01:45 There are insects which can spread disease.
01:48 People are still burying bodies a week later.
01:50 There's the risk of aid not reaching
01:52 people who are cut off, who are starving, who are thirsty.
01:57 Then there is the kind of medium-term threats.
02:00 If these people are not rehoused appropriately,
02:03 then when future rains come in the winter,
02:07 landslides could come.
02:08 The ground under their feet remains
02:10 unstable after the events of the last week.
02:12 So unfortunately, these poor survivors
02:15 are still surrounded by a plethora of threats.
02:19 Now, European countries say they want to help.
02:21 They say they're ready to deploy help.
02:23 How, at this stage, when the political situation in Libya
02:26 is so fragmented, so tense, should aid from Europe
02:29 into Libya be managed?
02:32 That's ironic, actually, because of the political situation
02:36 in Libya and because of the chaos on the ground,
02:41 I think the best vehicle for assistance
02:44 is nation-to-nation assistance.
02:46 Now, I know that this brings its own difficulties for countries
02:49 because countries engage with other countries.
02:51 They engage with governments.
02:53 And in Libya, government does not
02:56 control the territory in which the catastrophe happened.
03:00 So there are coordination problems within Libya.
03:02 There are political jealousies and rivalries that take place.
03:05 But if you look at the teams that
03:07 are working on the ground now, you
03:09 have search and rescue teams from a number
03:11 of different countries.
03:12 You have field hospitals being set up
03:14 by a number of different countries, including by France.
03:17 And as the Libyan National Army, the forces
03:21 in control of the region, try to take control of the aid effort
03:26 and actually end up hindering the efforts of local aid
03:29 and response workers, it seems more and more
03:32 that unless you have the backing and the protection of a nation
03:35 state behind you, you simply won't
03:37 be allowed to work effectively.
03:40 Now, you've talked about it already, of course.
03:42 Libya governed by two rival administrations,
03:45 one in the West, one in the East,
03:47 and has been, it's fair to say, at war for years now.
03:51 How did this-- sorry, how did this situation
03:54 pave the way for last Sunday's disaster?
03:59 Well, in a number of ways.
04:02 I mean, firstly, it's the years, if not the decades,
04:06 of negligence, of contempt from the government to the--
04:12 from the governments to the governed.
04:14 And this comes from Gaddafi's era, even.
04:17 The dams which broke had not been maintained for decades.
04:21 And of course, this became more acute in the last few years
04:24 as politicians across Libya, whether they're
04:28 in the Eastern government or the Western government,
04:30 they have no accountability.
04:32 They have no local constituency.
04:34 They feel as if they cannot be moved.
04:36 And so they have no compunction to care for their people
04:40 or to provide anything for their people.
04:44 And so there were warnings last year
04:47 that this dam could break.
04:49 They were essentially ignored.
04:51 Money was appropriated to repair the dam.
04:53 The project was never carried out because of these issues
04:56 of political rivalry.
04:59 As the storms approached, meteorological experts
05:03 tried to warn the local military authorities
05:06 that this storm is coming, and it could be disastrous,
05:08 especially for the city of Damna, but other places as
05:11 well.
05:11 And what did these military authorities do?
05:14 They ordered a curfew.
05:15 They locked the people in the homes which
05:17 would become their graves.
05:19 And by the time they realized the gravity of their mistake,
05:22 it was far too late.
05:24 And the only reason why this happened
05:25 is because the city of Damna, the local people
05:29 are not allowed to have political representation that
05:32 actually represents their views, their desires,
05:35 and their needs.
05:36 They are instead run by a military administration, who
05:38 none of them asked for, who are essentially
05:41 prioritizing their sense of control
05:43 and their sense of looking good over the well-being
05:47 of their people.
05:48 And so what was a natural disaster
05:50 became a man-made catastrophe.
05:52 And you cannot articulate enough the scale of this catastrophe,
05:58 especially on a human level.
06:00 Would it then, in your opinion, be extremely naive
06:02 to even hope there may be some accountability
06:05 on the part of the Eastern Libyan authorities,
06:08 considering the sheer scale of the destruction in Derna
06:12 last Sunday?
06:14 I mean, you would hope so.
06:15 And alongside the grief, there is a huge feeling
06:18 of anger and frustration, not just
06:20 towards the Eastern Libyan authorities,
06:21 towards all of the Libyan authorities, because none of
06:23 them have done their jobs.
06:25 None of them have governed their people.
06:27 And they have spent a massive amount of money
06:29 to not govern their people.
06:31 But unfortunately, all of them, from the parliament
06:34 to the governments to the military,
06:36 who are more political than military,
06:38 they are already shirking any responsibility.
06:41 The speaker of the parliament told off the Libyan people
06:43 for daring to blame him and the other politicians
06:45 for the disaster which befell, claiming it was an act of God.
06:49 Meanwhile, the army is out in the streets, the LNA, sorry,
06:52 arresting people and trying to clamp down
06:55 on any would-be dissenters.
06:57 So they already feel like this pressure could come.
07:00 I think now, unfortunately, as always over the last 10 years,
07:05 if the desires of the Libyan people are to be felt,
07:08 and we will get some accountability,
07:10 and they will have to be supported in their cause
07:14 and in their push by the international community,
07:16 from the UN down to all the nation-states that
07:19 are involved in Libya and have been involved
07:21 for the last 10 years or so.
07:23 I'd like to switch our conversation now
07:25 to a discussion of what happened in Morocco a week and a half
07:28 ago, widespread accusations of mismanagement
07:30 of the aftermath of Morocco's 6.8 magnitude earthquake.
07:34 Do you think that that growing anger
07:36 could pose a threat to local and national government in any way?
07:41 I think in Morocco, much like in Libya,
07:44 the authorities are well used to riding
07:46 the waves of public discontent and emerging
07:49 on the other side.
07:50 I mean, even remember as far back as 2011,
07:53 when the Arab Spring swept everywhere else,
07:56 Morocco was the state or were the authorities that most
08:02 effectively rode that wave.
08:03 And so I think like in Libya, the dispossessed, the victims
08:08 will rail against the authorities,
08:11 but at the end of the day, they will weather that storm.
08:14 Now in Morocco, aid was accepted from four countries,
08:18 including the UK, Qatar, the UAE, also Spain,
08:22 but not from other countries, including France.
08:25 Do you think that was a mistake on the part of authorities
08:28 in Rabat?
08:31 I don't think that they see it as a mistake.
08:33 I think it's a very calculated and manicured decision
08:36 on their behalf.
08:38 You know, it's these four countries you list,
08:40 they all have two things in common.
08:43 One is that they are all kingdoms,
08:45 like the Kingdom of Morocco.
08:48 And secondly, they have all been quite close to Rabat
08:51 on their Western Sahara policy.
08:53 And the Moroccans have said time and time again
08:56 that all of their foreign policy comes
08:58 through the lens of the Western Sahara issue.
09:00 And this is another example of it.
09:02 So perhaps it's not the best thing for survivors
09:07 and those on the ground, the victims,
09:09 will see it as a mistake.
09:11 But from the state's position and from the state's
09:14 perspective, I think they had the luxury of choosing
09:16 who they would like support from.
09:18 And they picked very carefully to ensure
09:20 that it made their position seem more effective
09:26 and it kind of expanded on their current base.
09:31 And do you think there's any chance in the weeks and months
09:34 to come, European countries who want to offer aid to Libya,
09:38 to Morocco, this is a chance for European countries
09:41 to, to a certain degree, repair strained relations
09:44 with both countries?
09:46 Absolutely.
09:47 I think it will take some effort for them to do so,
09:49 given the political obstacles in both countries
09:53 that we just discussed.
09:54 But if you go on the street in either Morocco or in Libya
09:58 or elsewhere in the region right now,
10:00 what is the opinion of Europeans?
10:02 It's usually that, you know, they will come and talk
10:06 with their heart on their sleeve about Ukraine.
10:09 But when it comes to us, to North Africans, to Arabs
10:13 and so on, we are just an arena to corral migrants in
10:17 and to fight terrorists in and to always be kept
10:20 at an arm's length.
10:21 You know, the European values do not apply here.
10:24 So please don't discuss them.
10:25 But this is an opportunity to show why that's incorrect,
10:29 to show that, you know, Europe can build relations
10:32 or people to people relationships
10:34 and what they can offer the people.
10:37 And to start a new, yeah, a new platform
10:39 for a new relationship that will actually get the people
10:42 on their side, which in turn will become more helpful
10:45 for future economic relationship building
10:48 for when Europeans need support on crises like Ukraine
10:51 and in general, expanding the European circle.
10:56 Nice to be able to end on at least a slightly
10:58 optimistic note.
10:59 Tarek Megharisi, Libya expert at the European Council
11:02 on Foreign Relations.
11:03 Thank you so much for speaking to us on France 24 today.
11:05 Thank you very much for having me on.
11:07 [BLANK_AUDIO]