Libya: 'The Fall and Purge of Tawergha'

Πηγή: libyancivilwar
Sep. 18 2011


The City

Tawergha (Arabic: تاورغاء)‎ lies about 30-40 miles south of Misrata/Misurata, along the western coast of the Gulf of Sirte. Its population is unclear (10,000?) and recently changed (to zero?). From the Wikipedia entry (which uses a different and common spelling - "Taworgha" - and the Arabic cited), it's a town that's occupied by an unstated number of people of unknown type. [1] A Euronews dispatch filming a clash there in May called it a "no man's land" between rebel and loyalist areas. [2]

Wiki says its name means "the green island" in Berber." [1] But another source, the rebel outreach site Free Misurata says rather "the name of Taworgha was used by Misrataies to describe the black population in that area, because of the dark skin they have just like the real ancient Tuareg." [3] Indeed, it's inhabited mostly by black-skinned people originally from further south, apparently a remnant of the slave trade, a significant factor considering known anti-black sentiments in the rebel camp. As they explain:

The origin of this black population in North Africa gos back to the roman empire days , when the slavery trade was a good businesses by bringing the blacks from meddle Africa to export them from Misratah port ( was known as Kayvalai Bromentoriom )* to old Rome.

The sick who can not make it to the port and the long trip by ship was left behind at that spot, which is known for its swamps and jungles ( Libya was called the “Bread Basket of Europe”, because of the moderate climate and fertility of soil during the Roman time, and was one of the main exporters of grains to Rome ) [3]
Otherwise, the Wikipedia entry desribed Tawergha as "a city in Libya that followed the public administrative jurisdiction of the city of Misrata [...] during the rule of Muammar Gaddafi." It also noted that "control of Taworgha helped the Romans coordinate control of Libya." [1] By this, Tawergha is strategically important, and that's basically part of Misrata/Misurata anyway, fit to be done with as the people in charge there like.

Misrata - the nation's third largest city and a major regional port - had been under at least partial rebel control since February. But loyalist elements hung on in and around the city, putting it famously under a state of deadly prolonged siege. Some of this came from the black "Taureg" town that also served as a "green island" of government support.

The Preludes / Priming the Hate Machine

Now, there is a danger in examining this of placing too much emphasis on race. The tactical threat alone is cited, and does seem compelling. But racism emerges, time and again, in unsettlingly blatant ways. Free Misurata explains the back-story of how the black Tawerghans became a wicked race (again, [sic] implied throughout. It's perfectly readable):

... Gaddafi started to give them power by using them as personal body guards and brain wash them so they over estimated them selves ,their resources and abilities. [...] because Gaddafi just used them and never improved their live style, there was always some kind of jealousy when they compare them selves to prospers Misratah. [3]Patronizing suspected jealousy is nothing new for lynch mob types. As Misratan rebels see it, this envy, the regime brainwashing, and whatever other factors led to a fall from grace by their neighbors. This was testified to repeated rocket attacks from their hamlet, occasional raids into the city with their black troops featured, sometimes re-taking portions of Misrata in bloody battles. This is to be expected as the government tried to restore order, but as it was remembered anyway, the Tawerghans' actions stepped far beyond the norm. Again, Free Misurata:

When Gaddafi asked them to attack Misratah……they did what evil is ashamed to do. [...] When Gaddafi forces entered Misratah from the eastern part with the help of residents of Taworgha , whom are of a black descent, they made what evil is ashamed to do, killing, loathing, rape, and destroying the homes by bulldozers.

After they entered the eastern part of Misratah they have forced the families to flee eastward but not to westward, because they want to use them as a human shield.

”Taworgha stabbed Misratah in the back”It might seem understandable to many - you can't leave crimes like that unanswered. The systematic mass rape aspect in particular is frequently called on, supported by various evidence like alleged cell phone footgae seized from Gaddafi troops. But the only evidence shared with the outside world was the clearly coerced verification of two young captives taken, apparently, on one of their raids on Tawergha.

It was in late May this was broadcast by the BBC, from prisoners still wearing "the same filthy, bloodstained army fatigues they were captured in two weeks ago." [4] Amnesty international's team spoke with both of these kids and found their stories inconsistent and unreliable, so probably coached by their captors. [5] Going out of one's way to create a myth that will enrage the fighters in advance and encourage war crimes, if that's what happened here, is highly unethical to say the least.

The Misratans also suspected the invaders from the south had help from within their walls, and their revenge started close to home. A neighborhood was purged, as the Wall Street Journal reported

Before the siege, nearly four-fifths of residents of Misrata's Ghoushi neighborhood were Tawergha natives. Now they are gone or in hiding, fearing revenge attacks by Misratans, amid reports of bounties for their capture. [6]In early-to-mid-May, they started making public vows against Tawergha itself. Sam Dagher reported for the Wall Street Journal, in a now-famous and rare article, how regional rebel Commander Ibrahim al-Halbous eerily said that "Tawergha no longer exists. There is only Misrata," while encouraging the residents who oppose them to all leave. With less authority but greater menace Dagher noted some rebel graffiti left out on the road to Tawergha - "brigade for purging slaves, black skin." [6]


A mid-May discussion between rebel fighters and tribal elders was filmed in the desert, posted later by VSMRK. Elderly black men in traditional garb listened with worry and muted disgust as young Arab thugs in baseball caps explained things [in Arabic of course, so I can't follow], with hand gestures of leveling and totality indicating that Halbus' prescription was for real. At the end, an ominous dust storm blew in and the video stopped. [7]

Would they help the people "liberate themselves," or purge the whole town? A bad sign was the NATO bombings of reported Gaddafi sites around Tawergha in the following weeks, likely phoned in by Misrata rebels. In late June one strike at least killed many civilians in the usual unconfirmed way. According to some reports, sixteen were killed, including a whole family, when a NATO bomb hit the public market. Video shared there shows at least one baby was among the dead. [8]

But still the question of the town's continued life was allowed to hover through July and beyond, as Misrata both absorbed and dished out more attacks.

Libya: Democracy by design

It was meant to be done.

The spirit of freedom and democracy won again a harsh battle against a blood-thirsty dictator. The West powers including US and NATO have implemented their obligation of preventing a massacre of innocent civilians who faced death from tanks, helicopters operating heavy machine-guns, chemical weapons, snipers, battle planes, anti- aircraft machines, rapes after usage of Viagra and well paid mercenaries.

Well, not exactly... It seems that some of those threats were rather a part of propaganda.
The (in)famous Viagra usage and the subsequent rapes were a "404 error" screen shot as Amnesty Internationa testified, the usage of chemical weapons is rather dismissed and the actual indiscriminate air-bombing of protest civilians being the most crucial element for the imposition of the regime change to protect civilians operation remain largely unproved. Even the thousands mercenaries lastly is believed that there were not so many...

But lets have a glimpse at the future. Ironically, Sharia will be the new law foundation in the democratic Libya, while back in US, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is striving to convince people that the Sharia law is not a threat to the US secular legal system.

Meanwhile, the democratic rebels have already twice brutally abused by any means every dark skinned African move around betraying a well established racism that was suppressed under the regime's iron fist.
Now that Gaddafi elapsed, there is no unifying element as a common cause between the rebels. Obviously there are many different views and conflicting interests inside the self-appointed interim government and the final outcome is unknown.

There are many different armed militia and one can safely assume that most of them are youngsters at the age of 23 which are not hesitant to use the power of gunpoint for looting. Finally there are two issues that have already disappeared form the news spot-light, namely the number of civilians that have died under the UN operations combined with the rebels' retaliations as the fate of the regime's supporters. 

Experience shows that in identical situations the accusation of "regime supporter" is often used to serve personal interests or antagonisms. On top of this the possibility of random unauthorized executions covered under the smoke screen of the dark skinned Africans sufferings should not be excluded. Squeakers are plenty after a war.

Libya conflict: Black African migrants caught in backlash

There are probably fewer mercenaries than the anti-Gaddafi fighters suspect

Πηγή: BBC
By Ian Pannell

Sep. 18 2011

A BBC investigation has found allegations of abuse against African migrant workers in Libya by fighters allied to the new interim authorities.

Hundreds of men have been imprisoned, accused of being mercenaries for Col Muammar Gaddafi, and there are claims that homes have been ransacked and looted, and women and girls have been beaten and raped.

It was a visit the Nigerian family had been dreading.

They had been hiding in their tiny slum home in a Tripoli suburb since Col Gaddafi had been swept from power, fearing the knock at the door. Earlier this month 20 rebel fighters came, demanding to be let in, shouting "murtazaka".

It is the word every black African in Libya knows too well. Murtazaka is Arabic for "mercenary", the armed men allegedly employed by the former regime to carry out some of the worst excesses of the conflict.

The fighters forced their way into the Nigerian family's home. They beat the couple living there. They stole their possessions and money, abducted the father of the house and turned on his 16-year-old daughter. She told us what happened:

"A group of armed men came to our house. They started knocking, they came in saying 'murtazaka'. They locked my mother inside a toilet. Six of them raped me. They took our belongings and money. My father tried to stop them but they hit him and carried him away."

That was nearly three weeks ago and she has not seen or heard of her father since.

Violent campaign


This is the African continent, I am an African, this is my land - is it because of my colour, because I am a black man?”Alleged victim

When rebel fighters moved into Tripoli last month, an immediate hunt began for former regime loyalists and African mercenaries accused of working for Col Gaddafi.

Evidence has emerged in a series of interviews that suggests that some engaged in a violent campaign of abuse and intimidation against the black immigrant community in Tripoli.

Hundreds of men have been arrested with little or no evidence, homes have been pillaged and people beaten up. Most victims are too afraid to be identified but they contacted the BBC to air their grievances.

One man showed us around another home that had been ransacked. A thick iron bar in the corner of the dark room had been used to beat the men and the women there as the rebels made off with their money and few possessions.

He told us he was glad when Col Gaddafi was overthrown, expecting a better life. Instead he and hundreds of others black Africans have become victims, a soft target.

"This is the African continent, I am an African, this is my land. Is it because of my colour, because I am a black man? We don't have a voice. Who would you to turn to?"

On the outskirts of the city we were invited to film a truck-load of men from Niger who had just been picked up. They too were accused of being mercenaries while being made to chant anti-Gaddafi slogans by leering fighters before being put to work hauling boxes of documents and weapons found in the woods.

This man said 20 men raided his house

Casual manual labour

There are no figures for how many foreign mercenaries Col Gaddafi employed.

It is almost certainly far fewer than the rebel fighters suspected. Most black Africans in Libya have been living here for years doing casual manual labour.

But just as it was easier to suspect foreigners (rather than Libyans) of doing the Colonel's bidding throughout the course of battles for cities like Benghazi and Misrata, so it is now easier to round up those who can be easily distinguished by the colour of their skin.

The transitional council has told its fighters to avoid revenge attacks and there has been far less violence than many had feared. But the city's jails are still full of men detained with little or no evidence, with no access to lawyers or even their families. One woman showed us the black eye she received for arguing with the fighters as they dragged her husband away:

"There has been no communication. I am scared of everything happening in this country. I am now begging them to just leave my husband, he's innocent, he's very quiet, he couldn't even fight me," she said.

The leadership of the National Transitional Council has repeatedly called for restraint from its fighters, urging them to avoid revenge attacks. But it is clear that some appear to have ignored this.

Libya's new leaders will have to distinguish themselves in many ways, not least how they guarantee the freedom, dignity and justice that so many have fought and died for.

But if it is to mean anything it must apply to all.

Libya: Rebels 'execute 85 mercenaries, including 12 Serbs'

Πηγή: Adnkronos
Sep. 13 2011

Belgrade, 13 Sept. (AKI) - Libyan rebels who control most of the country after defeating Muammar Gaddafi's military, have executed 85 foreign mercenaries, including 12 Serbs, in the city of Misrata alone, Serbian media reported on Tuesday.

Belgrade daily Press said the executions took place in the state insurance building in Misrata after it was taken by the forces loyal to rebels’ National Transitional Council (NTC). Among the killed mercenaries, who fought on Gaddafi’s side, were also nine Croats, 11 Ukrainians and ten Colombians, the paper said.

The report was also confirmed by Zagreb daily Vecernji list whose correspondent in Misrata, Hasan Hajdar Dijab, said many mercenaries had been killed in fighting, but those arrested were shot in the head.

It quoted a rebel commander in Misrata Abdelaziz Madini as saying “those killed weren’t soldiers but executioners who came here to kill for money”. He said other mercenaries who surrender would have a fair trial.

Balkans military analysts said they were not surprised by the report, because hundreds of veterans of 1990s Balkans war have sought engagement abroad after the end of the Balkan wars in 1995 and fought for money in various African and Asian countries.

In a related development, the human rights organization Amnesty International (AI) said in its latest report that both sides in the Libyan conflict committed crimes, especially Gaddafi’s forces, but “crimes committed by rebels weren’t negligible either”, it added.

Amnesty International has called on Libya's National Transitional Council to take steps to prevent human rights abuses by anti-Gaddafi forces.

Libya: 'His arms bore marks of torture – inflicted at the hands of the rebels'

Khalid Mohammed served in the Libyan army for five years

Πηγή: The Independent
By Portia Walker

Monday, 12 September 2011

The prisoner's thin arms were the first giveaway. They were pocked with fresh, round scars – the distinctive marks of cigarette burns. Cuts criss-crossed his arms and his left wrist was swollen.

Tortured prisoners are a familiar sight in Libyan jails but the captive at Jdeibah prison in Tripoli was no victim of Colonel Gaddafi's regime, but a prisoner of those who now control the Libyan capital. His wounds serve as a grim warning of the challenges the country faces as it emerges from four decades of institutionalised brutality. The man with the burn marks, Khalid Abdul Jalil Mohammed, 25, served as a soldier in Muammar Gaddafi's army. He was arrested a week ago at a checkpoint in Tripoli and was accused of killing people as he fought for the old regime.

Mr Mohammed hails from the town of Sabha, deep in the southern desert hinterland. It is one of few places in Libya which is still held by forces loyal to the former dictator. He said he joined the army five years ago because he was motivated by a lack of other opportunities. "I was bored," he added. He was paid 532 Libyan dinars a month, which he gave to his family to support his five younger siblings.

The young fighter spent the first part of the war in the east of the country between Ajdabiya and Brega, where Colonel Gaddafi's loyalists battled rebel forces along a front line that shifted backwards and forwards during weeks of fighting. From there, he went to Zawiya, a town near Tripoli in the west which was the scene of some of the fiercest fighting. When rebel forces attacked Zawiya last month, Mr Mohammed's commander told him to surrender. He abandoned his gun and ran away, travelling with a friend to Tripoli where he spent the last month hiding at his friend's house in the suburb of Tajoura.

The guards at the Jdeibah prison insisted that they were not the ones who had tortured him. "I swear – in the prison no one touched him," said one – a 27-year-old man dressed in civilian clothing. Mr Mohammed disagreed, insisting yesterday: "They hurt me here."

However, none of the guards – a trio of 20-something civilian volunteers – denied that their captive had been tortured since he was arrested by rebel forces. "They did it because he was a liar and we couldn't get any information", explained one of them. When Mr Mohammed pulled up the legs of his dirty blue jeans to show the welts and bruises to his calves and bony knees, the guards made me put away my camera and asked me to leave.

Other prisoners interviewed at the compound said they had been treated well and were being fed. During the interviews, prisoners were taken off to be served meals.

Mr Mohammed eventually admitted that he had killed people during fighting on the eastern front. "I was given orders and I had to follow them because I am a soldier," he said. "But I feel guilty now."

Asked what he thought the rebels would do to him, Mr Mohammed looked downcast.

"I will die," he said with bleak resignation. "I killed people. They have to kill me now."

Walter Fauntroy, Feared Dead in Libya, Returns Home—Guess Who He Saw Doing the Killing

Πηγή: Afro
By Valencia Mohammed
September 07, 2011


Former U.S. Congressman Walter Fauntroy, who recently returned from a self-sanctioned peace mission to Libya, said he went into hiding for about a month in Libya after witnessing horrifying events in Libya's bloody civil war -- a war that Fauntroy claims is backed by European forces.

Fauntroy's sudden disappearance prompted rumors and news reports that he had been killed.

In an interview inside his Northwest D.C. home last week, the noted civil rights leader, told the Afro that he watched French and Danish troops storm small villages late at night beheading, maiming and killing rebels and loyalists to show them who was in control.

"'What the hell' I'm thinking to myself. I'm getting out of here. So I went in hiding," Fauntroy said.

The rebels told Fauntroy they had been told by the European forces to stay inside. According to Fauntroy, the European forces would tell the rebels, "'Look at what you did.' In other words, the French and Danish were ordering the bombings and killings, and giving credit to the rebels.

"The truth about all this will come out later," Fauntroy said.

While in Libya, the former congressman also said he sat down with Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi for a one-on-one conversation. Gaddafi has ruled Libya since 1969, when he seized power in a military coup.

Fauntroy said he spoke with Gaddafi in person and that Gaddafi assured him that if he survived these attacks, the mission to unite African countries would continue.

"Contrary to what is being reported in the press, from what I heard and observed, more than 90 percent of the Libyan people love Gaddafi," Fauntroy said. "We believe the true mission of the attacks on Gaddafi is to prevent all efforts by African leaders to stop the recolonization of Africa."

Several months ago, Gaddafi's leadership faced its biggest challenge. In February, a radical protest movement called the Arab Spring spread across Libya. When Gaddafi responded by dispatching military and plainclothes paramilitary to the streets to attack demonstrators, it turned into a civil war with the assistance of NATO and the United Nations.

Fauntroy's account could not be immediately verified by the Afro and the U.S. State Department has not substantiated Fauntroy's version of events. Fauntroy was not acting as an official representative of the U.S. in Libya. He returned to Washington, D.C. on Aug. 31.

When rumors spread about Fauntroy being killed he went underground, he told the Afro in an interview. Fauntroy said for more than a month he decided not to contact his family but to continue the mission to speak with African spiritual leaders about a movement to unify Africa despite the Arab uprisings.

"I'm still here," Fauntroy said, pointing to several parts of his body. "I've got all my fingers and toes. I'm extremely lucky to be here."

After blogs and rumors reported Fauntroy had been killed, the congressional office of Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) announced on Aug. 24, that she had been in touch with authorities who confirmed Fauntroy was safely in the care of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Inside his home, Fauntroy pulled out several memoirs and notebooks to explain why he traveled to Libya at a time when it was going through civil unrest.

"This recent trip to Libya was part of a continuous mission that started under Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. when he gave me orders to join four African countries on the continent with four in the African Diaspora to restore the continent to its pre-colonial status," Fauntroy said.

"We want Africa to be the breadbasket of the world," he said. "Currently, all the major roads in every country throughout Africa lead to ports that take its natural resources and wealth outside the continent to be sold to the European markets."

Jihadists plot to take over Libya

ASSOCIATED PRESS Rebel fighters celebrate in the desert outside a military base near Bani Walid, Libya, on Saturday. The U.S. has stepped up surveillance of elements of the rebel forces interested in setting up an Islamist state

Πηγή: Washington Times
By Bill Gertz

Sunday, September 4, 2011

U.S. steps up surveillance of suspects among rebels.

Jihadists among the Libyan rebels revealed plans last week on the Internet to subvert the post-Moammar Gadhafi government and create an Islamist state, according to U.S. intelligence agencies.

U.S. officials said spy agencies are stepping up surveillance of Islamist-oriented elements among Libyan rebels. A government report circulated Tuesday said extremists were observed “strategizing” on Internet forums about how to set up an Islamist state in Libya after the regime of Col. Gadhafi is defeated.

“Several forum participants have suggested that, following a transitional stage, the battle should turn against secularist rebels and members of the [rebels’] Transitional National Council,” the unclassified report stated.

Some U.S. officials sought to play down the remarks by noting that such Internet postings are not always accurate measures of jihadist plans.

The report said the jihadists’ strength and influence on the ground “are uncertain at this time.”

However, the report said the jihadist plotting coincided with the high-profile emergence of Abu Abdallah al-Sadiq, a former leader of the al Qaeda-linked Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) and now a leading rebel. He is currently known as Abdel Hakim al-Khulidi Belhaj and led rebels in overrunning Col. Gadhafi’s Tripoli compound.

A U.S. official familiar with intelligence reports on the region said there are concerns that some LIFG members remain committed to al Qaeda and others may be temporarily renouncing their ties to the terrorist group for “show.”

“Some members of LIFG in the past had connections with al Qaeda in Sudan, Afghanistan or Pakistan, and others dropped their relationship with al Qaeda entirely,” the official said.

“It seems - from their statements and support for establishing a democracy in Libya - that this faction of LIFG does not support al Qaeda. We’ll definitely be watching to see whether this is for real or just for show.”

A defense official familiar with jihadist strategy said Islamists likely will emerge in power from the turmoil expected after the demise of the Gadhafi regime and the West will be partly to blame.

“We’re helping pave the way for them” through NATO airstrikes and other support, he said.

About 1,000 jihadists are operating covertly in Libya, Noman Benotman, a former Libyan al Qaeda member, told The Washington Times in March.

According to a translation of the forum exchanges, Libyan Islamists view the fall of Tripoli to rebels as the initial phase of a battle to take over the country.

Jihadists were urged to prepare for the next stage in the battle: taking on secular rebels and the interim National Transitional Council, sometimes called the Transitional National Council, the secular political organization that is mainly pro-democratic.

The jihadists want to set up an Islamist state ruled by Shariah law.

A jihadist writing as Asuli Mutatari, stated on the Shumukh al-Islam Network forum that “the real war will be fought after the fall of the tyrant [Col. Gadhafi] and after the establishment of a transitional democratic system.”

“After the awakening, we will fight those outside the [Islamic] law,” he stated.

Another forum posting urged Islamists to “quickly take control of cities with economic resources and strategic locations and establish Islamic courts there.”

A jihadist identified as Abu Abra’ al-Muqadas said the National Transitional Council must be neutralized because it will never allow anyone calling for an Islamic state to be part of the new government.

“They know that merely suggesting the application of Islamic law will cause Western countries to stop their support,” he said.

A posting by a forum member named Gullam Ashab al-Akhud said the National Transitional Council should be liquidated and replaced by a transitional council of Islamic Salafi jihadi scholars in Libya.

A second Internet forum, Ana al-Muslim, quoted Ayoub al-Jaza’iry as saying that thousands of Islamists in Libya have been trained by al Qaeda and are “working silently in sleeper cells.” He warned jihadists to keep a low profile to avoid alerting the United States to its power.

Some of the jihadists criticized NATO military support to the rebels and said post-Gadhafi Libya should not allow outside assistance. Some also urged the assassinations of secular National Transitional Council leaders.

Mohamed al-Jaza’iry stated on the Ana al Muslim Network that the next phase of the revolution should be the expulsion of foreign bases and reduction of foreign influence.

“The Libyan people must … turn their guns on the Crusader occupiers, along with collaborators and traitors,” he added.

The comments reflect an increase in Islamist rhetoric since the fall of Tripoli, but the number of hard-line Islamist and the extent of their influence or control is not known, the report said.

A Dec. 9, 2009, cable made public by the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks revealed that the Gadhafi regime released more than 200 jihadists, including half of the imprisoned LIFG members, after they publicly renounced violence and claimed to have adopted a new code for jihad. The move was an initiative by Col. Gadhafi’s son Seif al-Islam and the Gadhafi International Charity and Development Foundation.

Skeptics dismissed the effort as a temporary shift in tactics for the jihadists in exchange for winning their release from detention.

Libyans Turn Wrath on Dark-Skinned Migrants

Prisoners from sub-Saharan countries being held in a cell at a police station in Tripoli, Libya

Πηγή: New York Times
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
September 4 2011

TRIPOLI, Libya — As rebel leaders pleaded with their fighters to avoid taking revenge against “brother Libyans,” many rebels were turning their wrath against migrants from sub-Saharan Africa, imprisoning hundreds for the crime of fighting as “mercenaries” for Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi without any evidence except the color of their skin.

Many witnesses have said that when Colonel Qaddafi first lost control of Tripoli in the earliest days of the revolt, experienced units of dark-skinned fighters apparently from other African countries arrived in the city to help subdue it again. Since Western journalists began arriving in the city a few days later, however, they have found no evidence of such foreign mercenaries.

Still, in a country with a long history of racist violence, it has become an article of faith among supporters of the Libyan rebels that African mercenaries pervaded the loyalists’ ranks. And since Colonel Qaddafi’s fall from power, the hunting down of people suspected of being mercenaries has become a major preoccupation.

Human rights advocates say the rebels’ scapegoating of blacks here follows a similar campaign that ultimately included lynchings after rebels took control of the eastern city of Benghazi more than six months ago. The recent roundup of Africans, though, comes at a delicate moment when the new provisional government is trying to establish its credibility. Its treatment of the detainees is emerging as a pivotal test of both the provisional government’s commitment to the rule of law and its ability to control its thousands of loosely organized fighters. And it is also hoping to entice back the thousands of foreign workers needed to help Libya rebuild.

Many Tripoli residents — including some local rebel leaders — now often use the Arabic word for “mercenaries” or “foreign fighters” as a catchall term to refer to any member of the city’s large underclass of African migrant workers. Makeshift rebel jails around the city have been holding African migrants segregated in fetid, sweltering pens for as long as two weeks on charges that their captors often acknowledge to be little more than suspicion. The migrants far outnumber Libyan prisoners, in part because rebels say they have allowed many Libyan Qaddafi supporters to return to their homes if they are willing to surrender their weapons.

The detentions reflect “a deep-seated racism and anti-African sentiment in Libyan society,” said Peter Bouckaert, a researcher with Human Rights Watch who visited several jails. “It is very clear to us that most of those detained were not soldiers and have never held a gun in their life.”

In a dimly lighted concrete hangar housing about 300 glassy-eyed, dark-skinned captives in one neighborhood, several said they were as young as 16. In a reopened police station nearby, rebels were holding Mohamed Amidu Suleiman, a 62-year-old migrant from Niger, on allegations of witchcraft. To back up the charges, they produced a long loop of beads they said they had found in his possession.

He was held in a segregated cell with about 20 other prisoners, all African migrants but one. “We have no water in the bathroom!” one prisoner shouted to a guard. “Neither do we!” the guard replied. Most of the city has been without running water to bathe, flush toilets or wash clothes since a breakdown in the water delivery system around the time that Colonel Qaddafi fled. But the stench, and fear, of the migrants was so acute that guards handed visitors hospital masks before they entered their cell.

Outside the migrants’ cage, a similar number of Libyan prisoners occupy a less crowded network of rooms. Osama el-Zawi, 40, a former customs officer in charge of the jail, said his officers had allowed most of the Libyan Qaddafi supporters from the area to go home. “We all know each other,” he said. “They don’t pose any kind of threat to us now. They are ashamed to go out in the streets.”

But the “foreign fighters,” he said, were more dangerous. “Most of them deny they were doing it,” he said, “but we found some of them with weapons.”

A guard chimed in: “If we release the mercenaries, the people in the street will hurt them.”

In the crowded prison hangar, in the Tajura neighborhood, the rebel commander Abdou Shafi Hassan, 34, said they were holding only a few dozen Libyans — local informers and prisoners of war — but kept hundreds of Africans in the segregated pen. On a recent evening, the Libyan captives could be seen rolling up mats after evening prayers in an outdoor courtyard just a short distance from where the Africans lay on the concrete floor in the dark.

Several said they had been picked up walking in the streets or in their homes, without weapons, and some said they were dark-skinned Libyans from the country’s southern region. “We don’t know why we are here,” said Abdel Karim Mohamed, 29.

A guard — El Araby Abu el-Meida, a 35-year-old mechanical engineer before he took up arms in the rebellion — almost seemed to apologize for the conditions. “We are all civilians, and we don’t have experience running prisons,” he said.

Most of the prisoners were migrant farm workers, he said. “I have a Sudanese worker on my farm and I would not catch him,” he said, adding that if an expected “investigator” concluded that the other black prisoners were not mercenaries they would be released.

In recent days, the provisional government has started the effort to centralize the processing and detention of prisoners. Abdel Hakim Belhaj, the leader of the Tripoli military council, said that as recently as Wednesday he had extended his protection to a group of 10 African workers who had come to his headquarters seeking refuge.

“We don’t agree with arresting people just because they’re black,” he said. “We understand the problem, but we’re still in a battle area.”

Mohamed Benrasali, a member of the provisional government’s Tripoli stabilization team, acknowledged the problem but said it would “sort itself out,” as it had in his hometown, Misurata.

“People are afraid of the dark-skinned people, so they are all suspect,” Mr. Benrasali said, noting that residents had also rounded up dark-skinned migrants in Misurata after the rebels took control. He said he had advised the Tripoli officials to set up a system to release any migrants who could find Libyans to vouch for them.

With thousands of semi-independent rebel fighters still roaming the streets for any hidden threats, though, controlling the impulse to round up migrants may not be easy.

Outside a former Qaddafi intelligence building, rebels held two dark-skinned captives at knifepoint, bound together at the feet with arms tied behind their backs, lying in a pile of garbage, covered with flies. Their captors said they had been found in a taxi with ammunition and money. The terrified prisoners, 22-year-olds from Mali, initially said they had no involvement in the Qaddafi militias and then, as a captor held a knife near their heads, they began supplying the story of forced induction into the Qaddafi forces that they appeared to think was wanted.

Nearby, armed fighters stood over about a dozen other migrants squatting against a fence. Their captors were drilling them at gunpoint in rebel chants like “God is Great” and “Free Libya!”

Libya rebels 'promised France 35% oil'

Πηγή: News 24

2011-09-01

Paris - Libya's rebels in April promised France 35 per cent of the country's crude oil in exchange for supporting the National Transitional Council in its fight against Muammar Gaddafi, a French newspaper reported on Thursday.

Liberation newspaper published a copy of a letter in Arabic from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Libya, the forerunner to the rebels' council, addressed to Qatar, in which the rebels apparently refer to a deal to give 35% of Libya's crude to France in return for supporting the rebellion.

The letter, which was dated April 03, two weeks after the start of the military intervention in support of the rebels that France had championed, said the deal was struck with France "during the London summit".

An international conference on the conflict in Libya was held in London on March 29.

France's foreign ministry told Liberation it had no knowledge of the existence of the letter.

An NTC representative was not immediately available to confirm the existence of such a letter.

French oil giant Total is one of several players in the Libyan oil market. The biggest oil producer in Libya is Italy's Eni.

Eni and Total have been tipped to emerge as the biggest winners in the post-Gaddafi era, given the strong support shown by their countries for the rebels.

Libya's spectacular revolution has been disgraced by racism

Men accused of being mercenaries fighting for Muammar Gaddafi sit in a rebel vehicle in Tripoli. Photograph: Youssef Boudlal/Reuters

Πηγή: Guardian

By Richard Seymour

Tuesday 30 August 2011

The murder of black men in the aftermath of the rebellion speaks of a society deeply divided for decades by Muammar Gaddafi

This is a bad time to be a black man in Libya," reported Alex Thomsonon Channel 4 News on Sunday. Elsewhere, Kim Sengupta reported for the Independent on the 30 bodies lying decomposing in Tripoli. The majority of them, allegedly mercenaries for Muammar Gaddafi, were black. They had been killed at a makeshift hospital, some on stretchers, some in an ambulance. "Libyan people don't like people with dark skins,"a militiaman explained in reference to the arrests of black men.

The basis of this is rumours, disseminated early in the rebellion, of African mercenaries being unleashed on the opposition. Amnesty International's Donatella Rivera was among researchers who examined this allegation and found no evidence for it. Peter Bouckaert of Human Rights Watch similarly had not "identified one mercenary" among the scores of men being arrested and falsely labelled by journalists as such.

Lurking behind this is racism. Libya is an African nation – however, the term "Africans" is used in Libya to reference the country's black minority. The Amnesty International researcher Diana Eltahawy says that the rebels taking control of Libya have tapped into "existing xenophobia". The New York Times refers to "racist overtones", but sometimes the racism is explicit. A rebel slogan painted in Misrata during the fighting salutes "the brigade for purging slaves, black skin". A consequence of this racism has been mass arrests of black men, and gruesome killings – just some of the various atrocities that human rights organisations blame rebels for. The racialisation of this conflict does not end with hatred of "Africans". Graffiti by rebels frequently depicted Gaddafi as a demonic Jew.

How did it come to this? A spectacular revolution, speaking the language of democracy and showing tremendous courage in the face of brutal repression, has been disgraced. Racism did not begin with the rebellion – Gaddafi's regime exploited 2 million migrant workers while discriminating against them – but it has suffused the rebels' hatred of the violently authoritarian regime they have just replaced.

An explanation for this can be found in the weaknesses of the revolt itself. The upsurge beginning on 17 February hinged on an alliance between middle class human rights activists and the working classes in eastern cities such as Benghazi. Rather than wilting under repression, the rebellion spread to new towns and cities. Elements of the regime, seeing the writing on the wall, began to defect. Military leaders, politicians and sections of business and academia sided with the rebels.

But the trouble was that the movement was almost emerging from nowhere. Unlike in Egypt, where a decade of activism and labour insurgency had cultivated networks of activists and trade unionists capable of outfoxing the dictatorship, Libya was not permitted a minimal space for civil society opposition. As a result, there was no institutional structure able to express this movement, no independent trade union movement, and certainly little in the way of an organised left. Into this space stepped those who had the greatest resources – the former regime notables, businessmen and professionals, as well as exiles. It was they who formed the National Transitional Council (NTC).

The dominance of relatively conservative elites and the absence of countervailing pressures skewed the politics of the rebellion. We hear of "the masses", and "solidarity". But masses can be addressed on many grounds – some reactionary. There are also many bases for solidarity – some exclusionary. The scapegoating of black workers makes sense from the perspective of elites. For them, Libya was not a society divided on class lines from which many of them had profited. It was united against a usurper inhabiting an alien compound and surviving through foreign power. Instead, the more success Gaddafi had in stabilising his regime, the more the explanation for this relied on the claim that "Gaddafi is killing us with his Africans ".

A further, unavoidable twist is the alliance with Nato. The February revolt involved hundreds of thousands of people across Libya. By early March the movement was in retreat, overseas special forces were entering Libya, and senior figures in the rebellion called for external intervention. Initially isolated, they gained credibility as Gaddafi gained ground. As a result, the initiative passed from a very large popular base to a relatively small number of armed fighters under the direction of the NTC and Nato. It was the rebel army that subsequently took the lead in persecuting black workers.

Under different conditions, perhaps, unity between the oppressed was possible. But this would probably have required a more radical alliance, one as potentially perilous for those now grooming themselves for office as for Gaddafi. As it is, the success of the rebels contains a tragic defeat. The original emancipatory impulse of February 17 lies, for now, among the corpses of "Africans" in Tripoli.

The headless corpse, the mass grave and worrying questions about Libya's rebel army

The five corpses floated disfigured and bloating in the murky bottom of the water tank. Wearing green soldiers' uniforms, the men lay belly down, decomposing in the putrid water.

Who the men were and what happened to them, close to the Libyan rebels' western front line town of Al-Qawalish in the Nafusa Mountains, remains unknown Photo: REUTERS

Πηγή: The Telegraph

By Ruth Sherlock, Al-Qawalish
7:00PM BST 20 Jul 2011


The streaks of blood, smeared along the sides of this impromptu mass grave suggested a rushed operation, a hurried attempt to dispose of the victims.

Who the men were and what happened to them, close to the Libyan rebels' western front line town of Al-Qawalish in the Nafusa Mountains, remains unknown.

But the evidence of a brutal end were clear. One of the corpses had been cleanly decapitated, while the trousers of another had been ripped down to his ankles, a way of humiliating a dead enemy.

The green uniforms were the same as those worn by loyalists fighting for Col. Muammer Gaddafi in Libya's civil war. No one from the rebel side claimed the corpses, or declared their loved ones missing.

There was no funeral, or call to the media by the rebels to see the 'atrocities committed by the regime'.

Since the bodies were seen by the Daily Telegraph attempts to discover their identities have been unsuccessful, in part because of obstruction by rebel authorities in the area. Having highlighted the discovery to those authorities the area was subsequently bulldozed and the bodies dissappeared.

The find will add to concerns highlighted in recent days over human rights violations by rebel forces. Human Rights Watch last week said that had looted homes, shops and hospitals and beaten captives as they advanced.

The Daily Telegraph found homes in the village of al-Awaniya ransacked, and shops and schools smashed and looted. The town, now empty, was inhabited by the Mashaashia, a traditionally loyalist tribe that has long been involved in land disputes with surrounding towns.

Human rights groups fear that reprisals may get worse as the rebels advance on towns nearer the capital such as Al-Sabaa and Gheryan which are loyalist strongholds.

The author of the HRW report, Sidney Kwiram, last night called on rebel leaders to investigate the latest find. "It is critical that the authorities investigate what happened to these five men."

The bodies were discovered in a water tank just off the main road between Zintan, the main town in the area, and Al-Qawalish as the rebels consolidated their advance.

At the time, rebel commanders, including former government troops who had defected, claimed that the men were most probably killed by Col Gaddafi forces for trying to defect - a common allegation.

"The day of our first assault on Al Qawalish we found the bodies there, and they were already in bad shape," said Col. Osama Ojweli, the military coordinator for the region.

"This is not unusual in Gaddafi's army. In other battles we have found men, their hands tied behind their backs with dusty wire and executed – we found them shot in the head by the regime."

A colonel, who defected last month and cannot be named, said: "If they think you might leave, they will shoot you." His claim was backed up by loyalists captured and held prisoner in the nearby town of Yafran.

But suspicions have been raised after the rebel authorities disposed of the bodies and bull-dozed the site where they were found.

Drivers also said they had military orders not to take journalists to the site. "If you go there I will ditch you in the desert," the driver of another news organisation reportedly said.

The rebel army is aware that NATO intervention on their side was justified by concern at regime human rights abuses in western capitals.

The Libyan Transitional National Council has now flown officials, including Abdulbaset Abumzirig, deputy minister of justice, to the Nafusa to investigate abuse claims.

"From what I have seen they are treating prisoners very well," he said. "We have promised to hand them back to their families after the war."

But Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch both said there were documented cases of extra-judicial killings by rebel forces, including deaths in custody under torture.

In particular, in the early phases of the uprising, loyalists and sub-Saharan Africans accused of being mercenaries were lynched. Since then, men in rebel-held areas suspected of being members of Col Gaddafi's security services have been taken from the homes, and subsequently found dead with their hands tied.

Both organisations say these are not on the scale of the abuses perpetrated by the regime. "We have come across a number of cases of executions of suspected Gaddafi fighters in both the east and the west," said Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director of HRW.

"I does fit a consistent pattern, though I don't think these killings are authorised by the rebel authorities in Benghazi."

Diana Eltahawy, of Amnesty, said members of the Transitional National Council, the rebel government, had admitted to there being a problem with some of their troops but had not done enough to tackle it.

"There is no comparison with the Gaddafi side. But the concern is that there is not sufficient will to address this in the leadership," she said. "It needs to be stopped before it becomes worse."

Libyan rebels refuse to negotiate with Moammar Kadafi

Libyans in Benghazi mourn a rebel fighter killed during recent clashes with forces loyal to Moammar Kadafi near Port Brega. (Sergey Ponomarev, Associated Press / July 19, 2011)

Libyan rebels refuse to negotiate with Moammar Kadafi
Convinced that their battlefield strategy will work, the rebel forces are refusing France's demands that they negotiate with the Libyan leader to peacefully end their uprising.

Πηγή: Los Angeles times

By David Zucchino, Los Angeles Times

July 19, 2011

Reporting from Benghazi, Libya— As the Libyan war grinds on across three fronts and rebel forces find themselves pinned down on their own territory outside two strategic eastern oil cities, the rebels' most resolute European ally, France, is insisting that they negotiate with Moammar Kadafi to peacefully end their 5-month-old uprising.

Yet the rebels are sticking to their guns — literally.

They're convinced that victory is inevitable and adamantly refuse to negotiate directly with Kadafi even as the French government contends that the Libyan leader is seeking ways to relinquish power.

After the United States formally recognized the rebel Transitional National Council on Friday as the country's legitimate government body, the rebels again insisted that Kadafi must go before negotiations begin.

"Our position remains: no negotiations until Kadafi, his sons and his inner circle are gone," said Habib Ben Ali, media liaison for the council.

In the rebels' de facto capital, Benghazi, commanders lay out a battlefield strategy that seeks to allay concerns in Western capitals over the failure of the four-month NATO air campaign to topple the Kadafi regime. But the unorthodox approach relies more on faith and bluster than proven military tactics, and raises the prospect of a prolonged conflict.

Rebel commanders say they plan to strangle Kadafi by cutting off Tripoli, the capital, from three directions. They predict that government troop defections and low morale, combined with fuel and supply shortages, will open the way to the city soon.

But rebels on each front are devising their own strategies, with only limited direction from headquarters in Benghazi, said Abdul Jawad, a senior rebel commander.

"We are not a traditionally structured military organization," Jawad said, a profound understatement given the rebels' haphazard formations.

Rebel forces are poorly trained and equipped, with little central command and scant grasp of military tactics. For months, their commanders have promised the imminent "liberation" of Tripoli, only to find themselves mired in a protracted battlefield stalemate.

On Libya: The UN and the Delphic Oracle

It was like grass on the plains from the very beginning of the Libyan revolution that the whole incident was a civil war. In Greece we have experienced the drama of this kind of situation short after the Second War. Hatred and retaliation are the common ground between the members of such a divided society when abuses on every aspect of human rights take place even between the members of same family.

In a declassified monograph titled "The Greek Civil War, 1947-1949: Lessons for the Operational Artist in Foreign Internal Defense" Major Frank Abbot uses the Greek civil war and the America's FID (Foreign Internal Defense) as a model to derive recommendations for the future being still useful despite the collapse of the USSR as: "... insurgencies will continue despite the fall of Communism. Groups such as Peru's Shining Path arestill active., Other narcotics-related organizations in Latin America and South Asia may incite insurgencies inorder to replace an existing government with a regime that will tolerate illegal drug activities. Additionally, despite the fall of the Soviet Union, there are approximately twenty Communist terrorist groups worldwide that could instigate civil unrest. Furthermore, the eruption of regional unrest throughout Eastern Europe, Africa, and the Middle East may create new nation-states with unstable governments. Insurgency threats to these new governments may emerge from ethnic, religious, or racial groups. In any of these scenarios, the United States may decide to support a threatened government, but may also determine that the use of US combat forces to restore order is unfeasible or unsuitable. A foreign internal defense mission, then, is a viable option in such cases". 

"The Creek Civil War: Lessons for the OA in FID" (pdf)

Well, even that the present Libya war goes to the opposite direction aka the support of rebels against the regime, the report is still valid in three of the conclusion key points to put under consideration by an operational artist in a FID mission. First is the great importance of the "appointment of the best indigenous leader for the military forces". That was accomplished by the enrollment of the experienced Khalifa Haftar - a CIA's asset - as chief of the rebel's army. Second is the subject of the legitimacy of the operation: "In addition, legitimacy in a FID operation may involve more than just the relationship between the indigenous people and their government, but also the peoples and governments of other nations." This was also accomplished by the (even superficial) participation of the Arab League. Third and most important is that "... the operational artist should consider methods to not only protect the local population, but also encourage the people to participate in the (counter) insurgency effort". To this point the ongoing operation is just a great failure. Despite the various claims coming from the TNC (Transitional National Council) officials or the regime's defectors truth is that Qaddafi enjoys a strong support from his own people, something that was strengthened by the sky - falling depleted uranium liberating bombs.

Recently the HRW reported abuses committed by the rebels on the regime's civilians. On Friday FRANCE 24 journalist David Thomson reported that he had witnessed events in Libya that confirmed the reports about looting, arson and abuse of civilians. The rebel's "Foreign Minister" Mahmut Jibril apologized to the EU stating (falsely) that the abuses were committed within the first fifteen days of the revolution and there is an investigation about them going on. But then why the HRW and the eye witness journal had to wait so long to report? Given the fragmentation of the Libyan society to rival tribes one can safely assume that this war is hatred driven. From one side there are the rebels with their informal army using NATO air force and (at least) against the UN imposed embargo delivered French weapons to topple dictator Qaddafi and destroy his deep rooted regime. From the other side there are his supporters watching the bombs of the foreign West coalition keep falling on their houses. Behind all this there are the leaders of the various tribes divided to the one or the other side. Qaddafi's forces have cracked on civilians. The rebels have brutalized the innocent immigrants, used even fifteen years old boys to their army and now this human rights abuses are reported. Meanwhile the bombs have also reportedly killed civilians. Furthermore it is obvious that if someone is in defense he is not the rebels anymore. It is Tripoli that is being under siege. 

Thinking about the UN resolution prompting for the protection of the civilians by "taking any necessary measures" and considering the above described situation one is reflecting the Delphic oracle and the contemporary Pythia who in a frenzied state induced by vapors rising from a chasm in the rock spoke now that gibberish mandate which the modern priests of war skillfully reshaped into an enigmatic oracle, namely the "no flying zone", which in practice leads to a regime change at any cost on human lives. Enough!

Libyan Rebels Accused Of Attacking Civilians

Πηγή: Outside the Beltway

By Doug Mataconis · Wednesday, July 13, 2011

According to The New York Times, Libyan rebels are being accused of attacking civilians in several captured towns:


Rebels in the mountains in Libya’s west have looted and damaged four towns seized since last month from the forces of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, part of a series of abuses and apparent reprisals against suspected loyalists that have chased residents of these towns away, Human Rights Watch said Tuesday.

The looting included many businesses and at least two medical centers that, like the towns, are now deserted and bare.

Rebel fighters also beat people suspected of being loyalists and burned their homes, the organization said.

The towns that have suffered the abuses are Qawalish, which rebels seized last week, Awaniya, Rayaniyah and Zawiyat al-Bagul, which fell to the rebels last month. Some of the abuses, Human Rights Watch said, were directed against members of the Mashaashia tribe, which has long supported Colonel Qaddafi.

The organization’s findings come as support for the war has waned in Europe and in Washington, where Republicans and Democrats alike have questioned American participation on budgetary and legal grounds.

They also raise the prospect that the NATO-backed rebel advances, which have stalled or slowed to a crawl, risk being accompanied by further retaliatory crimes that could inflame tribal or factional grievances, endangering the civilians that NATO was mandated to protect.

Rebel officials in the mountains have played down the looting and arson in recent days. In an interview on Sunday, Col. Mukhtar Farnana, the region’s senior commander, said that reprisals were not sanctioned and that he did not know any details about them.

But Human Rights Watch said the same commander shared details with its investigators and conceded that rebels had abused people suspected of being collaborators as towns changed hands.

“People who stayed in the towns were working with the army,” the organization quoted him as saying. “Houses that were robbed and broken into were ones that the army had used, including for ammunition storage.” The commander added, “Those people who were beaten were working for Qaddafi’s brigades.”

This isn’t the first time there have been rumors of attacks on civilians by the rebels, so this shouldn’t be a surprise. Considering that the United Nations Security Council Resolutions that authorized the intervention in Libya speak to protection of civilians, this would seem to create a conflict between NATO’s support of the rebels and its supposed enforcement of the UNSCRs.