Analysis // Libya disintegratingLibyan PM escapes country after assembly ousts him over oil tanker fiasco
Libya’s General National Congress has approved a no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Ali Zeidan and designated the defense minister as acting prime minister. Zeidan left Libya after the vote, in all likelihood for Italy. The no-confidence vote came after a North Korean-flagged tanker named Morning Glory managed to sail away from the port of al Sidra, carrying 234,000 barrels of crude oil from rebel-held oil fields. Last summer, armed militias in east Libya took over most of the country’s oil fields – and also three ports, with partial control of a fourth — bringing oil exports, which had amounted to 1.6 million barrels a day, to a halt. U.S. describes oil sale by the militias as “theft” from the Libyan people.
Libya’s General National Congress has approved a no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Ali Zeidan and designated the defense minister as acting prime minister.
Defense Minister Abdullah al-Thinni was named interim premier for the two weeks, until the assembly agreed on a permanent replacement.
Zeidan left Libya after the vote, in all likelihood for Italy. Following the vote, Libya’s top prosecutor has placed a travel ban on Zeidan because of his suspected involvement in the embezzlement of public funds, but Zeidan ignored the prosecutor’s orders to surrender his passport.
Al Jazeera reports that the no-confidence vote came after a North Korean-flagged tanker named Morning Glory managed to sail away from the port of al Sidra, carrying 234,000 barrels of crude oil from rebel-held oil fields.
Last summer, armed militias in east Libya took over most of the country’s oil fields – and also three ports, with partial control of a fourth — bringing oil exports, which had amounted to 1.6 million barrels a day, to a halt. The Libyan government ordered the army to re-take the oil fields and the ports, but the army refused to move against the militias.
A month ago the militias controlling the oil fields decided to begin and export the oil under their control, and the North Korean tanker was the first vessel to show up at al-Sidra, the location of Libya’s main oil terminal.
Observers noted that the situation along the coast of Libya is not unlike the conditions along the same coast two centuries ago, when Presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison sent the Marines and Navy to subdue the Barbary pirates.
