Libyan strongman Khalifa Haftar is no democrat - UN envoy

Ghassan Salamé makes strongest attack yet on military leader hoping to seize power

Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editor
Mon 29 Apr 2019 17.17 BST Last modified on Mon 29 Apr 2019 17.18 BST

The UN envoy for Libya has made his strongest attack yet on the military strongman Khalifa Haftar as his forces intensify their assault on the capital, Tripoli.

In comments in Paris, where the French president, Emmanuel Macron, is seen as Europe’s biggest supporter of Haftar’s attempt to control Libya after eight years of chaos that followed the toppling of Muammar Gaddafi, Ghassan Salamé said Haftar was no democrat and had little support in Tripoli.

In an unusually forceful judgment for a UN mediator, Salamé said: “He is no Abraham Lincoln, he is no big democrat … Seeing him act, we can be worried about his methods because where he is governing, he doesn’t govern softly, but with an iron fist.”

Salamé’s reference to the former American civil war president may have been attempt to jolt the US to issue stronger warnings to Haftar, the leader of the self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA).

The US is opposed to any UN security council resolution criticising Haftar’s assault on Tripoli, and despite the accusations of war crimes by his forces, the Trump administration still believes he is, as part of a wider package, the right man to lead a unified national army.

-snip-