Challenging the country’s transitional leaders in the nation’s capital, Tripoli, the 3,000 people assembled in an old factory near the regional capital, also announced unilateral plans to begin establishing their own autonomous government.
Tensions are expected to mount, as the eastern region is crucial to Libya’s future because it contains much of the country’s oil, and the demands cast new doubts on the feasibility and credibility of the transitional leaders’ plans for elections in June to choose a national constituent assembly that would form a new government and draft a constitution.
Participants in the conference said their eastern state, known as Barqa, would have its own legislature, budget, police and courts, with Benghazi as its capital. However, they said the federal government would continue to control foreign policy, the national army and the oil.
Some intellectuals from eastern Libya have called the demands reasonable, as most of the fighters who freed the country from Gaddafi hailed from Barqa, and other nearby areas.
With more tensions mounting, analysts say that the leaders on the transitional council are likely to cave in to demands for more autonomy in order to avoid a complete splinter, which could happen if militias in the east continue to see less representation within a centralized government.
(아주경제 앤드류 이 기자)
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com