Front Burner - How politics made Libya’s flood more deadly

Episode Date: September 20, 2023

The port city of Derna, Libya, has been devastated by flooding, with thousands of people killed. Mediterranean Storm Daniel brought torrential rain to the region last week, but it was the collapse of two dams that caused some of the worst damage, with entire sections of Derna washed away. Now, as rescue turns to recovery, we speak with Anas El Gomati, director of Sadeq Institute, a Libyan think tank, about the political situation in Libya since Moammar Gadhafi was ousted, and how that may have contributed to the scale of the disaster. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Tamara Kandaker. This entire city has been annihilated. There are victims still under the rubble and some are in the sea. There are bodies buried in mass graves because the cemeteries are full.

It's been just over a week since Storm Daniel hit Libya, causing catastrophic flooding. Thousands are missing, and the UN says close to 4,000 people are confirmed dead after torrential rains blasted the country's northeast and took out two dams, decimating the port city of Derna. Other groups put the death toll at well over 10,000. Cars, people, entire buildings and neighborhoods were swept into the sea. The disasters also raised a lot of questions about whether the extreme death toll could have been avoided and what led to it. The quantity of rain that came down is just off the charts. That's one thing.

The other problem was, of course, the infrastructure in Libya in the past 10 years, you know, has had divided governments, has been intermittently at war. Protests have erupted in Dirna, with survivors of the disaster calling for top officials to step down. And demonstrators have burned down the mayor's house. Today we'll be talking about the political failures behind the devastating flooding in Libya, but first we'll get a sense of what's happening on the ground. Anas Algomati is the director of SADC Institute,

a Libyan think tank, and he joins me now from Istanbul. Hi, Anas. Thank you so much for doing this. Appreciate you making the time for us. Thank you. Thank you for having me. So the destruction in the photos from Derna from last week was just unbelievable. Half a year's rainfall fell in just 24 hours. In daylight, as much as a quarter of the port city of Derna is revealed to be gone. This is a catastrophe from God. We've lost families, brothers.

The figures are massive. Roads gone, entire neighbourhoods gone, barely anything left standing. So what can you tell me about what we've learned since then about the damage that's been done? Well, the death toll has regretfully carried on rising in the last week. We have different numbers because there is a lot of within the chaos of those trying to coordinate on the ground, the Libyan Red Crescent, which is doing an outstanding job, the Libyan Boy Scouts that have volunteered, volunteers from across all walks of life in East, West and South Libya, volunteers from across all walks of life in East, West and South Libya, but also the Libyan National Army, Khalifa Haftar's own frontline workers who are also risking their lives,

despite the fact that their authority is really hampering not only the aid operation, but also the counting of numbers. So amidst the chaos, there's a little bit of authoritarian camouflage and they're trying to bring down those numbers. So we've heard there could be up to 11,200, maybe much, much more, according to estimates from people that I've spoken to, doctors on the ground, lawyers that I've spoken to. They still believe that it could be up to 20,000 to 25,000, given the demographics of the neighborhoods that were hit. The Libyan authorities themselves and the Libyan rival government in the east are now reporting a much lower figure, 3,200.

Right. We'll explain sort of the political context in a bit. But before we get to that, thousands of people are still missing and workers are still looking for survivors. What can you tell me about the search at this point for people? for survivors. What can you tell me about the search at this point for people? There's a remarkable level of optimism, despite how bleak things are. I already lost six people. We managed to take out three and we did not find the other three people. We're searching for the bodies here. We could not find them. How difficult is this rescue operation? A lot of dead bodies are buried under almost three meters of dirt.

Some bodies are buried under almost a building. So it's really difficult. I mean, it's testimony to the character of the city and the city's residents that they still found survivors you know that have been battling against the elements with their food water sanitation light barely any oxygen to breathe under the rubble but i think we're getting to this point in the search where there are now more dead bodies emerging from the sea and the diving teams and the search and rescue teams that are recovering bodies from there tells you a little bit a bit more about where the operation now is in the week. It's very unlikely that we're going to find more survivors.

But I think it's, you know, it's testament to the character of Libyans that are always viewed as being divided. But they've come together in a really beautiful moment. The international teams have been outstanding, working tirelessly day and night. But, you know it's bleak it's really bleak i mean i think if you focus on the rubble and you forget the names the families the individuals that are behind them and underneath them regretfully but also those left behind i mean there are children that are you know looking at the shoreline finding artifacts of their family finding dead bodies, where they used to play and where they used to swim.

And it's harrowing, honestly, to see. At half past two, my auntie called my mum and I could hear the little girl, my friend, crying. Then the building fell down and then the connection went and then we couldn't reach them and that's it. Do you know much about the challenges that these search and rescue workers are facing and what makes it difficult to find bodies and survivors at this point? Well, it's mainly out of coordination, which has been the major problem here, because this operation has been militarized by the Libyan National Army, which is the authority that has been in control of Dabna since 2019,

when they came as the conqueror, according to Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. There was multiple human rights abuses that were committed in that city, and they have a very tight control over the way that things operate. So there's a lack of coordination. There's a lack of translators, regretfully. There are Spanish teams that were without translators.

There were Greek teams without translators working alongside Libyan teams that are finding it very challenging to work on such a multinational level. There is red tape, an enormous amount of red tape. There are journalists that have been blocked from entering. They've had to arrive in Benghazi along with the rest of the international community. That's 300 kilometers away. In today's terms, given the access problems, that's a six and a half hour

drive away. This region is more like a police state than an open state. There's been a lot of activists and voices that are trying to film what is happening. There have been attempts to try to block them. There were activists that have been arrested. So it's making it an incredibly difficult operation to conduct when the very people that need to work together need to communicate and they're being ganged. Yeah, sounds like it. And again, we're going to get into this in a second. But right now, around 40,000 people have been displaced, according to the International Organization for Migration. And what do survivors need the most right now?

Well, they certainly need more help in terms of aid. We need a solution. Bring machines, bring equipment. We are using our hands with hammers and simple equipment. This is a disaster. Please bring equipment. More people. People are in need.

This is my situation. Where will I live. I mean, you know, there is this kind of pat yourself on the back approach to the Libyan authorities who are saying the aid situation is good there, we don't need anything. What is your feeling when you view this? It's destiny, this Libyan minister tells me. There are videos circulating on social media today of residents of Darna putting their phone at streets they live in and finding just heaps of clothes disorganized on the floor, finding children ravaging through them

to try to find something that fits. There are reports of homes that have been collapsing in the aftermath of this and people without shelter and without access to water and sanitation because the water system is destroyed. And so there's a major issue with infectious diseases. They desperately need expertise that can continue to work on search and rescue efforts. But what I think they really need is supply chain management. I mean, the city is isolated. The roads around it are so bad that there was a massive car accident between the Greek international team that had arrived in a Libyan family, and it's killed five people and injured seven more. So there was a real issue with the roads around it. They need to be able to get

a very agile supply line that changes according to the needs on the ground. Yeah, they desperately need translators. They just need more of the expertise that they don't have on the ground. But when you take a level step up, the international community, which the UN was locked behind red tape for five days, they need to take control of this operation because there was a rescue part, there was a relief part, and then there's a reconstruction part. And right now the rescue part has been gaffed by the local authorities. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections.

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Let's talk a bit about the context in which this happened. This is a major natural disaster, but experts say that it was made much worse by infrastructure that was already falling apart and an inadequate warning system, among other things, what do you think could have been done to avoid the level of devastation that we ended up seeing? If we start in the days leading up to this, meteorologists had warned for 72 hours that there was going to be an extreme weather incident, the rainfall would be much higher than, you know, than Degna had ever experienced, than eastern Libya had ever experienced. Logistically, Degna is south of a lot of the valleys where most of the rainfall would end up flowing into these two dams. The dams were not

monitored to be able to understand whether or not the rainfall and the level of those dams was getting dangerously high. We had warned the authorities since last week, no for years, that the dam had cracks and needs to be maintained. We said it and nobody listened to us. And now the whole of Derna is flooded. Given that they had failed to monitor it, given that there had been disputed claims now of partial evacuations, they warned them and said, in maybe two neighbourhoods, and said leave because of the rain., and said, leave because of the rain. They didn't say leave because of the dam. But on the fateful night of September 10, in the

hours ahead of that disaster, the Libyan National Army's security director in Dardna called for a lockdown. And so countless people were locked inside their homes. Residents that I speak to in Dardna have corroborated this. Many of those that have even heard that there were calls for them to leave had said, in 2018, you forced us from our homes with guns. If you knew the threat was that dangerous, why didn't you tell us? And why didn't you force us from our homes? Because we wouldn't be looking at up to 25,000 dead if they had done in a proper evacuation plan but there is a structural issue to the way in which governance is conducted in that part of the country and particularly across eastern libya there is a there is a disastrous relationship between the governor and the governed descent is

silenced at all parts the intelligence and monitoring is not on the dams it's on the people themselves to gag them and muzzle them from speaking about the issues that they face. Mustafa Trabelsi, a famous poet from Dada, went to the Dada art house and culture house and gave a poem about the neglect, the corruption, and the problems that Dada would face specifically from this dam. I mean, it's an indictment of the political class in eastern Libya that, I should remind you, you know, had blocked local municipal elections. So there was a real disastrous issue of that relationship between the governor and the governed. understand about the political struggle that's been fought in Libya since 2011, when Muammar Gaddafi was ousted in a NATO military intervention and then killed. It was Muammar Gaddafi, Obama said, who was the main reason for war. He was about to launch a massacre of his own people.

It was not in our national interest to let that happen. The questions about Libya keep coming. Who are these rebels? Are they really pro-democracy? Could Libya's civil war drag that country into Somalia-style chaos? There is Gaddafi, dazed, gravely wounded, but still alive, dragged through the streets after his convoy was bombed and he was shot. We came, we saw, he died. But the new Western-backed government proved incapable of uniting Libya.

And in the end, the strongman's death led to chaos. What's happened since then, and who are the two different governments that have come to power? Well, in 2011, as you said, there was a revolution. They overthrew Muammar Gaddafi with NATO's support. There was national elections that came out in July 2012. The electorate turned up for those elections, hugely popular. I think it was a sign that Libyans had wanted and desired

this change for a long time. I am celebrating today. I always prayed to God to give me the chance to experience this day. He's 82 years old. The last time he voted was when Libya was a monarchy before Colonel Muammar Gaddafi came to power in 1969. I'm very happy. This is freedom. There was an elected government. There was many, many challenges on the ground at that time, including the challenge of governance and challenge of repairing and rebuilding the country after decades of neglect.

But there was a functioning political movement. There was a peaceful exchange of power. And in 2014, Khalifa Haftar, a dual American-Libyan citizen who came to notoriety in 1969 for launching a coup alongside Mohammed Gaddafi, but came back in 2011 to try to aid the revolution, launched his first of several coups since 2014. So he tried to overthrow the government in the east of Libya, sided with the new parliament's chief, Agha El-Assalah, who was

elected in 2014. And then since then, Libya has been divided between rival administrations and rival governments. But to make it very simple, these two rival factions, irrespective of their names and how they change, they're very well known to Libyans, known as being either vastly corrupt and incapable as they are in Western Libya, war criminals as they have been investigated by the ICC in Eastern Libya. And in Southern Libya last year, we saw the return, or a year and a half ago, we saw the return of Mohammed Gaddafi's son, Saif al-Islam,

backed by Russia, as is Khalifa Haftar, and calling for a return to the former regime that neglected those very dams since 1982. So it's a really nasty testimony to the fact that

none of these individuals that are in charge of Libya or have major influence right now in Libya because of their guns came to Libya through the ballot books. Libyans themselves have been starved from a voice of choosing who represents them. So we've come to this kind of weird dichotomy where we say, well, Eastern Libyans want this and Western Libyans want that and they're divided. It's not true. I mean, if you look at the videos emerging from the first hours after the disaster

in Dedna, you could find vehicles coming from west of Libya, east of Libya, south of Libya. Libyans haven't been divided, but their political class has created this illusion of division. Can we zoom in on the dams that you mentioned, the two dams that were protecting Libya's Mediterranean coast that ended up collapsing, which resulted to water entering the city and wiping away huge chunks of it? It was known for years that they were in danger

and that they needed repairs. So why hadn't they been repaired? What led to that? Well, Darna is situated geographically, but also politically in the marginalized part of the country. I mean, excessively marginalized for its resistance against authoritarianism. Muhammad Gaddafi built those dams in 1977 and then stopped giving a damn, literally and figuratively, about the people of Eastern Libya unless he was trying to crush dissent.

So in the years that have passed since the revolution, these political divisions, institutional divisions, mean that when they reconcile between them, they start divvying up budgets. They divvy up national budgets, billions and billions

of dollars that end up either getting spent or put through kickbacks. There was a Turkish company that was supposed to be contracted to rebuild that dam or to maintain part of that dam. Two million dollars were allocated. They were never spent by the authorities in eastern Libya who had opposed Turkey's intervention in 2020 when they brought in the rival side, Russia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates, until they all figured out their geopolitics. But the 2 million euros that could have been spent could have possibly saved the lives of 11,000 to 25,000 people as we know it. And how have the Eastern and Western governments responded to critics who say that it was their political failures that caused so many people to die?

the Libyan population. Any critical voice in eastern Libya, vloggers, for example, in the town of Sousse, like Jamal al-Ghmati, were arrested and detained by the internal security apparatus. You have protests that are emerging literally right now. There are plainclothes police officers that are moving around them. It's not only this east-west divide, which is causing a lot of problems for Libyans, and they're all unified unified against it but it's also the socio-political conditions and the securitization of the field in eastern libya i'm getting reports from journalists that they're being blocked from entering today i spoke to one several minutes ago that said that they're they're being barred from going to the protest themselves to be able to speak to anyone so there is a a very significant attempt on the part

of the Libyan National Army to suffocate the kind of dissent that will see them be camouflaged and just make sure that it looks like chaos on the other side. Can I ask, have you been personally affected by this do you have friends and family in the area um i was curious about how this has affected you i've been affected by that i honestly don't feel comfortable speaking about um that's okay people that i i love and i miss when all of us are uh all of us have faced this disaster. Libyans are a really close-knit population. They've, you know, we talk about it as if it's a distant, tribal, divided society.

I mean, it's not that way entirely. All people, people from all walks of life are affected by this. You know, it's, I don't feel, it's difficult to put it into words. When we look at Western societies, you know, we's, I don't, I don't feel it's difficult to put it into words. When we look at Western societies, you know, we feel American, we feel British. I'm also, I'm also British myself. I wear two hats when anyone is hurt in the UK, anyone is hurt in the West.

I feel their pain. I feel that as a, you know, as a son of someone, I feel it as a brother of someone, you know, and I feel the same way about everyone that has been affected and dead net irrespective of my, my own family there, my own friends there. But yeah, I mean, everyone in Libya has been affected. Yeah. And before we say goodbye, as Libyans face long and short-term consequences of this disaster, what's your message for Libya's two governments right now? Step aside. In fact, my message goes further than that.

To the international community that has propped them up, that has funded them with weapons, has given them money from across the world, that has given them a shield from any kind of diplomatic scrutiny at the level of the UN, at every single structural point,

the international community has failed to maintain their own responsibility. And it should be remembered, they gave themselves that responsibility in 2011, when they started the entire operation with UN 1973, the responsibility to protect. That started this episode and Libyans wanted it in 2011, but they desperately need it now from the international community's new friends, the unaccountable, unelected, filthy rich, criminally negligent and incompetent authorities across the country. Okay.

Thank you so much for your time. I really, really appreciate it. Thank you. Appreciate it as well. Cheers. All right. That's all for today. I'm Tamara Kandaker. Thank you for listening, and FrontBurner will be back tomorrow.

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