Joint Statement by Human Rights Organizations Regarding the Ongoing Aggression on the City of Derna – Libya
We, the human rights organizations signatories to this statement, express our grave concerns at the serious military escalation and the threat of invasion of the city of Derna by the armed groups loyal to Khalifa Haftar. This escalation threatens the security and safety of nearly 100,000 residents of the city. We also deplore the suspicious silence of the internationally recognized government, the Presidential Council of the Government of National Accord, vis-à-vis this escalation.
The responsibility to protect the population from war crimes[i] is primarily the responsibility of the National Government, in respect of the Principle of National Sovereignty. Since the Presidential Council represents the internationally recognized National Government[ii], we consider the failure of the Presidential Council to assume responsibility for intervening to protect civilians within its territory as a dereliction of duty and hence bears legal responsibility for all the consequences of this armed escalation.
Since the Presidential Council has made no effort to end the suffocating siege imposed on the city of Derna by the armed groups of Haftar since the summer of 2016, and remained silent[iii] for the past two years, we call on the international community to assume responsibility for the protection of civilians, in accordance with the Principle of Responsibility for the Protection of populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity[iv]. We also call upon the UN envoy to Libya, Mr. Ghassan Salama, in his capacity as Special Representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, to assume his responsibility and to call for an emergency meeting of the Security Council to protect civilians and the immediate end the siege on the city.
The siege and aggression against the city of Derna is not a war on terrorism[v], it is terrorism itself[vi], and the international community must protect civilians by putting an end to this terrorism.
[i] Paragraph (138) of UN General Assembly Resolution (A/RES/60/1) in the World Summit 2005, New York, 16th September 2005.
[ii] The UN Security Council endorsed the Rome Declaration of 13 December 2015, which “calls for the support of the Government of National Accord as the sole legitimate government of Libya and stresses the urgent need for a national accord government based in the capital Tripoli to provide Libya with the means to manage governance, economic development” and expressed “its intention in this regard to support the Government of National Accord”, paragraph 2 of Security Council Resolution 2259 (2015) of 23 December 2015.
[iii] The Presidential Council’s inaction & silence, vis-à-vis, we believe amounts to complicity and participation in the siege and aggression.
[iv] Paragraph (139) of UN General Assembly Resolution (A/RES/60/1) in the World Summit 2005, New York, 16th September 2005.
[v] After the legitimate legislative institutions of the transitional phase, the National Transitional Council and the General National Congress, refused to appoint the retired Maj Gen Haftar as Commander of the Libyan Military, and his failed military coup of 14th February 2014, he [Haftar] resorted to using force and repelled against the elected legislature. This action of resorting to violence to attain political goals is Terrorism as defined by the UN’s General Assembly and the Security Council.
[vi] United Nations General Assembly: “Criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public, a group of persons or particular persons for political purposes are in any circumstance unjustifiable, whatever the considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or any
other nature that may be invoked to justify them”, Article 3, A/RES/49/60, 9th December 1994.
