Posted on 03/06/2012 4:31:30 PM PST by SJackson
Tripoli, Libya (CNN) -- Leaders of oil-rich eastern Libya declared it Tuesday to be a semi-autonomous region and voted for a 79-year-old former military man to lead it.
"We're talking about the whole eastern region of the country," said Ahmed Zubair al-Senussi, a member of the ruling National Transitional Council, in a telephone interview with CNN from Benghazi. Speaking through an interpreter, he said he wanted the central government in Tripoli to continue to run such matters as defense and the treasury, but to leave health, education and "social things" to be managed by local governance in the region, once called Cyrenaica.
"We are not looking to split the country," said al-Senussi, 79, who said he was jailed for 31 years during the regime of former Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi for leading a failed coup d'etat in 1970. "We are not looking for division at all. Our target is to keep Libya united. We are hoping to run our region. ... We have the federal government, and we have the local government."
Al-Senussi said he was elected by 4,000 to 5,000 tribal leaders, politicians, activists and academics who met Tuesday in Benghazi. "All of them agreed on my leadership to lead the region for the time being," he said.
But a video posted Monday on YouTube indicated his support was less than unanimous. In it, scores of demonstrators chant, "Federalism is the path to divisions," "Oh, great, Libyan, do not accept divisions!" and "Tripoli is the capital!"
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
..................
Arab spring. 4,000 to 5,000 tribal leaders, politicians, activists and academics, who else matters.
Autonomy? My @ss.
This is just a nation organizing itself along the lines of a Federal Republic, ie: just like ourselves.
So, naturally, the press is horrified.
No, along old tribal lines.
No necessary contradiction between organizing federal and tribal. Look at Switzerland, with a different language in each Canton. If these guys can get away with it, whatever central government the Libyans end up with will be a lot less powerful than Daffy was.
The problem is going to be oil. In every nation in which the government (pardon me, "the people") owns the oil, it becomes a curse. There's always a fight over division of the revenues. We haven't had that problem in the US because oil is privately owned, by the owner of the land under which it lies. (Yes, there are problems arising from horizontal boring, and with one landowner draining the oil out from under someone else, but we usually manage to settle them according to law.)
We are going to regret having had anything to do with "freeing" Libya. We should have let them fight it out for themselves.
The new civil war has begun.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.