Libya almost a failed state - journalist
Press TV has conducted an interview with Johnny Miller, a freelance journalist, about Libya.
- Johnny, I know that you are quite familiar with post-Gaddafi Libya. Let's start off with the security situation there at the moment. First, this high-level kidnapping, and the crisis of this high-level kidnapping and then a crisscross of blames and reasons coming from every direction as to why and how this happened.
What are your thoughts on today's developments?
- Well, it is a very strange story that has come out this morning but then again this is the new Libya, it is the kind of thing that quite frankly we could expect.
We do not know the full facts of what happened this morning yet, but apparently the armed group was affiliated with the government. They said that they were acting on behalf of the Chief Prosecutor’s Office, that the Chief Prosecutor’s Office has then come out and denied that.
So, we do not quite know yet why this group has kidnapped him. But as you alluded to in your [introduction], many suspect that they were doing [it] in protest of recent government actions, in particular the idea that the Libyan government allows the American special forces to come in and launch this operation on their soil to capture this alleged al-Qaeda leader.
Some say that the Libyan government is doing similar things to what the Pakistani government sometimes does and that they work with the American military behind closed doors but in public they will criticize the Americans.
So, you do not quite know why they have done it yet, he has been released now. What this, the story really highlights is just how chaotic Libya is at the moment.
I have been back a couple of times since the fall of Gaddafi and it really is close to being a failed state. I mean you have this situation where the government is very, very weak. You have the streets ruled by militias, affiliated with the government; they are also acting unilaterally by themselves.
You have the east of the country, Benghazi, which the government has no control over whatsoever and is ruled by other armed groups. You have the Americans launching special forces raids on alleged terrorist in the country and now we still have the situation where militias, armed groups are in control of most of the oil refineries of the country.
The government wants the control of these oil refineries but the militia has taken control of them.
So, you almost have got a failed state here and Libya is very much in chaos.