The Road to Democracy in North Africa

Guest blog: Deputy Head of Mission Esther Blythe attended last week the start of a three-day workshop hosted by the Romanian Foreign Ministry for Tunisian and Egyptian officials on the experience of democratic transition – focusing in particular on the practical challenges of managing the first post-transition elections. Here is what Esther thought of the event:

It was impressive. As one of the UN Development Programme representatives at the event pointed out, Central and Eastern Europe’s history of rapid democratic change, combined with its proximity and people to people links into the Middle East, give this region a special role in sharing the lessons learned from transition with the newly emerging democracies of North Africa. Romania has begun to take a lead in making this transfer of hard-won experience happen. It’s not the only way in which Romania is on the front line in the effort to help democracy take root in North Africa.

The Romanian Navy is playing a vital role in NATO’s Operation Unified Protector – the military operation that underpins the UN Security Council’s arms embargo in Libya. And again, the experience of Eastern Europeans helps to put the effort into context. Remembering the massacre in Srebrenica, whose 16th anniversary was marked this month, helps to remind us why the NATO-led operation had to be launched to protect civilians in Benghazi and the rest of Libya. Mandated by the UN Security Council, with 18 countries including Romania and the UK taking part, the operation continues to express the will of a united international community to support the Libyan people’s right to pursue their bid for democracy in safety.

I have spotted a number of articles in the Romanian media recently that have highlighted the longevity of the operation, questioning why NATO’s forces are still in Libya. The operation has lasted over 100 days, and will continue. The length of time that it has taken is a direct function of Qadhafi’s refusal to heed the message of more than 40 countries and international organisations that he has lost all legitimacy and must leave. But as the British Foreign Secretary William Hague noted recently, we have seen real progress: across Libya, Qadhafi’s forces have faced reversals, the terrible suffering of the people of Misrata has been relieved, and the opposition has pushed Qadhafi’s followers out of the suburbs of Zawiyah and prevented the regime retaking the crucial border crossings to Tunisia in western Libya.

After his visit to Benghazi last month, William Hague wrote in the Wall Street Journal:

” During my visit I saw a different Libya from the one oppressed for years by Qadhafi.  I saw an alternative vision of an open, plural and democratic Libya which draws on the wealth of the country’s natural resources and strength of her people.  I saw a flourishing civil society born out of a desire for a better future.  I heard calls and witnessed an earnest ambition for Libyans to secure across the whole of their country a new way of life free from the tyranny of secret police, bunk political philosophy and a state directed economy.”

The UK and Romania are working together to keep alive the prospects of seizing this better future, through the NATO operation and through the EU’s efforts to provide diplomatic and economic support to the reformists in North Africa. The workshop last week helped me to understand why it is so important to Romania that it should use its role on the world stage in support of this aim.