Abstract
The chapter examined the phenomenon of Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALWs) proliferation in post-Ghaddafi Libya. Towards understanding the Libyan conundrum, the chapter examined the concepts of authoritarian resilience, rentier politics, and probed the domestic contestations, external threats, and the amassment of SALWS in Libya under Ghaddafi, and after the Libyan revolution of 2011. It noted that under the regime of Muammar Ghaddafi, Libya imported huge amounts of weapons for defence against external threats and also with a view to retaining and enforcing his power internally. This strategy paid off with the authoritarian regime surviving in power for almost forty-five years. The bush-fire effect of the Arab Spring in Libya, produced a coalition of anti-Ghaddafi actors, locally driven by the National Transitional Council (NTC), and externally backed by the Western coalition led by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). This led to the killing of Ghaddafi and destabilization of Libya. The power vacuum created following his exit created a chaoti situation that degenerating into the 2014 civil war, and internally created an environment for the proliferation of small arms within and beyond Libya. The chapter also discussed the impacts of SALWS proliferation from Post-Ghaddafi’s Libya on other Africa states, with specific focus on Mali and Nigeria. It concludes that the existence of global and regional legal instruments is not enough to curtail the proliferation of SALWs in fragile regions of the world. Even though Libya as a member of the UN is a signatory to a number of international instruments, the control of SALWs in Libya in post-Ghaddafi proved to be very complex. The paper recommends that SALW control in Libya requires internal regulation, security sector reforms, and implementation of an arms buyback initiative, the role regional and international cooperation as well as strong border control.
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Abubakar, D., Wapmuk, S. (2021). Libya: The Proliferation of Small Arms Post-Ghaddafi. In: Tar, U.A., Onwurah, C.P. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Small Arms and Conflicts in Africa. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62183-4_35
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