{"id":71875,"date":"2021-08-06T08:00:09","date_gmt":"2021-08-06T06:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/central-africa\/central-african-republic\/mercenaries-and-related-private-contractors-must-leave-libya-to-pave-way-for-peace-elections-un-experts\/"},"modified":"2021-08-06T08:00:09","modified_gmt":"2021-08-06T06:00:09","slug":"mercenaries-and-related-private-contractors-must-leave-libya-to-pave-way-for-peace-elections-un-experts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/central-africa\/central-african-republic\/mercenaries-and-related-private-contractors-must-leave-libya-to-pave-way-for-peace-elections-un-experts\/","title":{"rendered":"Mercenaries and Related Private Contractors Must Leave Libya to Pave Way for Peace, Elections – UN Experts"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>
Download logo<\/a><\/p>\n

UN experts* today called for all mercenaries and mercenary-related private contractors to leave Libya, saying their departure is long overdue, and is a vital precondition to peaceful elections scheduled for later this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cNine months after the ceasefire agreement calling for withdrawal of foreign forces and mercenaries from Libya, mercenaries and private military and security contractors continue to operate in the country,\u201d said Jelena Aparac, chair of the UN\u2019s Working Group on the use of mercenaries.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir continued recruitment and presence in Libya impedes progress in the peace process and constitutes an obstacle for the upcoming elections.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well-trained and well-armed private contractors from Russia, Syria, Sudan and Chad operating in Libya, some of whom meet the criteria for mercenaries, could also negatively affect the security and stability of other countries in the region, the experts warned.<\/p>\n

The experts stressed that these mercenary and mercenary-related actors must leave immediately, and there must be an immediate end to the transfer of military weapons and materiel into Libya.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe appeal to the international community to take concrete steps to aid this process,\u201d Aparac said.<\/p>\n

In the UN-facilitated Libyan Political Dialogue Forum, participants agreed on a roadmap to credible, inclusive and democratic national elections, to be held on 24 December 2021.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf elections are to be held in December 2021 as scheduled, Libyans should be able to undertake that process in a safe and secure environment, and the presence of these actors impedes that,\u201d Aparac said.<\/p>\n

In June 2020, the UN Working Group\u00a0warned\u00a0that reliance on mercenaries and related actors since 2019 had contributed to escalation of the conflict in Libya and undermined the peace process, which was a breach of the existing arms embargo imposed by the UN Security Council. At that time, they urged governments to investigate all allegations of human rights violations and humanitarian law violations.<\/p>\n

\u201cA year on, and looking forward to elections, we remain concerned that any political process aiming to establish sustainable peace has to include a genuine commitment to human rights,\u201d the experts said. \u201cThere must be real accountability for abuses committed by mercenaries, mercenary-related actors, and private contractors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).<\/i><\/p>\n

Source<\/a>
\n
South Africa Today Africa \u2013 Central Africa Central African Republic<\/a> News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Download logo UN experts* today called for all mercenaries and mercenary-related private contractors to leave Libya, saying their departure is long overdue, and is a vital precondition to peaceful elections scheduled for later this year. \u201cNine months after the ceasefire agreement calling for withdrawal of foreign forces and mercenaries from Libya, mercenaries and private military […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":71876,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/6dd84b353a161fe.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[252],"tags":[258,256,302,5707,4696,4689,303,2141,821,5060,6775,4711,4405,257,6883,6157,5990,14884,254],"class_list":["post-71875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-central-african-republic","tag-africa","tag-africa-news","tag-car","tag-car-news","tag-central-africa","tag-central-african-republic","tag-central-african-republic-news","tag-contractors","tag-elections","tag-experts","tag-leave","tag-libya","tag-mercenaries","tag-news","tag-pave","tag-peace","tag-private","tag-related","tag-south-africa-today"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/6dd84b353a161fe.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}