Tripoli -

The announcement of the departure of the head of the United Nations mission to Libya, Stephanie Williams, came to re-controversy in the Security Council over the appointment of a new UN envoy, and to postpone the end of the transitional stages and access to elections in the country until further notice.

After her success in pushing the political parties to announce a date for presidential elections for the first time since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi, before she stumbled due to a dispute over her laws, Williams decided - according to UN spokesman Farhan Haq - to leave her position.

The spokesman explained that the discussion has not yet opened about the person who will head the mission or the position of advisor to the Secretary-General in Libya.

He stressed the inability to agree in the Security Council to nominate a new envoy to this country.

Secretary General @antonioguterres expresses his gratitude to Ms. Stephanie Williams who has just completed her assignment as his Special Adviser on #Libya.

It renews the commitment of the United Nations to support a Libyan-led and owned process to address outstanding challenges. https://t.co/mHejk5MIG9

— United Nations News (@UNNewsArabic) August 2, 2022

The beginnings of international intervention

Since the overthrow of the regime of the late Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, the messengers and envoys of the United Nations and its initiatives have not stopped in Libya, which witnessed armed conflicts that have not yet found their end point.

During the Libyan revolution against the Gaddafi regime, specifically on August 26, 2011, former Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon called for the help of the new Libyan authorities in establishing a democratic transitional phase after the overthrow of Gaddafi.

Moon said that his Jordanian diplomatic special envoy, Abd al-Ilah al-Khatib, and his special adviser on post-conflict planning, Ian Martin, met with the Libyan National Transitional Council in Doha to discuss needs after the fighting between regime forces and rebels backed by international coalition forces ended.

At that stage, the United Nations did not appoint an official envoy, and was satisfied with assigning al-Khatib to monitor developments.

But in September 2011, it decided to appoint the British Ian Martin as head of its new mission in Libya.

Martin previously served as Secretary-General of Amnesty International and served as the United Nations Special Envoy for Post-Conflict Planning in Libya.

After his appointment, he formed a mission of about 200 employees whose main task was to train security personnel to prepare for the country's first parliamentary elections.


Failed between two wars

After the first legislative elections and the National Congress officially receiving its duties from the Transitional Council led by Mustafa Abdel Jalil, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced in September 2012 the appointment of the Lebanese Tariq Mitri as his representative and head of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya, succeeding Ian Martin.

With the intensification of the Libyan disputes and the gradual spread of armed militias and the accompanying assassinations and extrajudicial arrests, the situation erupted and culminated in two devastating wars, the first “Libya Dawn” war in Tripoli, and the second “Dignity Operation” in Benghazi, which further complicated the Libyan crisis. And failed the mission of the new envoy.

Bernardino Leon took over the head of the UN mission to Libya in 2014 (Anatolia)

The crisis deepens

In succession to Mitri, Bernardino Leon was appointed in August 2014 as the Special Representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations and head of the UN mission in Libya, to work to bring the parties together at the dialogue table, and to address the country's crisis with a political solution away from the language of weapons.

After the crisis of handing over power between the National Congress and the newly elected Parliament at the time, Lyon was able to persuade members of both parties to meet in Ghadames, the far west of Libya, and from there he tried to gather the conflicting parties in more than one place and on more than one path, leading to the Skhirat meeting in Morocco, where rounds took place. New Dialogue sponsored by Leon.

And in October 2015, after leaving his position, the British newspaper, The Guardian, revealed that Leon had negotiated a job with a salary of 35,000 pounds per month ($53,000) with the UAE.

Kobler in the footsteps of Lyon

After the uproar over Lyon's lack of impartiality and his relationship with the UAE in particular, in November 2015 the Secretary-General appointed German Martin Kobler as a Special Representative and Head of the United Nations Mission in Libya.

Kobler, who has more than 30 years of experience in the United Nations system and the diplomatic corps, faced one of the most difficult periods when the conflict and fighting was intense between the Libyan regions in what looked like settling accounts.

The same period witnessed the takeover of the city of Sirte by the Islamic State and the official declaration of its mandate in Libya.


The Lebanese experience again

Despite the agreement signed between the Libyan parties in Skhirat with the efforts of Bernardino Lewin and his successor Martin Kobler, the United Nations announced the appointment of the Lebanese Ghassan Salame as Special Representative of the new Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and head of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya, specifically on June 22, 2017.

At the time, Guterres emphasized that his choice of Salameh was due to the great experience "which enabled him to play a decisive role in bringing the Iraqi parties together", before working on the Committee on Rakhine State in Myanmar, which was chaired by former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

However, neither the Lebanese experience nor the personal presence of Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to Libya succeeded in stopping the war between the Libyan parties, which erupted on the outskirts of the capital, Tripoli, with a surprise attack by Khalifa Haftar’s forces in April 2019 at a time when everyone was enthusiastic to go to the national gathering. In Ghadames days later, Salameh also announced.

The head of the Libyan High Council of State, Khaled Al-Mashri, during a meeting with the former head of the United Nations mission, Jan Kubis (communication sites)

The civil war deepened the crisis

After a tug of war between Russia and China on the one hand and the West on the other, the Security Council gave the green light to appoint the Slovakian Jan Kubis to lead the mission in Libya in mid-January 2021, after Bulgarian Nikolai Mladenov apologized for the mission for personal reasons a month ago.

Kubis held the position of former Slovak Foreign Minister, and headed the United Nations mission in Iraq.

In Afghanistan, he was supposed to sponsor talks between the Libyan parties led by the United Nations to name an interim government, before the elections in 2021, but he made no significant progress.

After a long struggle in the corridors of the UN Security Council and the opposition of Russia, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appointed the former acting head of the UN mission in Tripoli, Stephanie Williams, as his special advisor on Libya only 18 days before the presidential elections.

With the support of US diplomacy, Williams succeeded during the past months in developing a road map with members of the Libyan Political Forum, which resulted in the formation of a new presidential council and a government of national unity, and setting a date for elections on December 24, 2021, but it stumbled.

After disputes that led to the Libyan House of Representatives withdrawing its confidence from the government and assigning a new government, the Libyan dispute returned to square one, despite what was achieved on the ground in unifying the sovereign institutions and advanced discussions between military leaders in the east and west under the name of the “5 + 5” committee under the auspices of the United Nations.

The controversy over the appointment of a new envoy has also returned.