Africa Speaks Reasoning Forum

Just received this update from a Libyan bredren of mine:
Gaddafi is now sending police in plain clothing to hospitals in Tripoli Libyas capital and is killing off survivors injured previously.

All Libyan defence forces and armed forces have layd down their positions and sided with the people!.

Now its Gaddafi and his mercinaries Vs the People of Libya

The african mercinaries are on the borders of tripoli stopping any Libyans from other cities from getting in and joinging the big battle in Green Square in tripoli.

All fone lines and internet and communications in the country have been cut off.

Cant get through to any of the family in Libya!

Inshallah Khair and God watch over those slaughtered, fighting for the freedom of their ppeople on their land.

Ameeeen!!!!

 La Illaha Ila Allah   Allahu Akbar

Tunisia Seeks Ben Ali Extradition (http://www.onislam.net/english/news/africa/451146-tunisia-seeks-ben-ali-extradition.html)
Tunisia has asked Saudi Arabia to extradite ousted President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, who fled the country last month, to face charges of ordering a deadly crackdown on anti-regime protests.

Live Blog - Libya (http://blogs.aljazeera.net/middle-east/2011/02/17/live-blog-libya)

Libyan Air Force pilots defect; rift between Gaddafi and military growing (http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/114661/20110221/libya-air-force-defect.htm)
Two Libyan Air Force pilots have defected to the Mediterranean island of Malta, reported Reuters, citing Maltese government officials. These soldiers said they were ordered by the government to bomb protestors; however, they decided not to and defect to Malta instead.

Libyan UN deputy ambassador speaks to Al Jazeera
Libyan UN deputy ambassador speaks to AJE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_lyQbYlIH0#normal)
Libya's deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Ibrahim Dabbashi, spoke to Al Jazeera. Dabbashi distanced himself from the regime of embattled president Muammar Gaddafi, saying he is "with the people".

Libya protests spread and intensify (http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/02/2011221133557377576.html)
More than 60 people reported dead in the capital, as anti-government demonstrations escalate across the country.

Report: Libyan protesters fired on (http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/02/201122116042447579.html)
Reports say live ammuntion is being used against protesters marching on the compound of Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader.

On the run: Gaddafi flees Tripoli as protesters set the Libyan parliament building alight and crowds celebrate victory in Benghazi (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1358972/Libya-protests-Gaddafi-flees-Tripoli-parliament-building-set-alight.html)
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is believed to have fled the capital Tripoli after anti-government demonstrators breached the state television building and set government property alight. Protesters appear to have gained a foothold in Tripoli as banks and government buildings were looted while demonstrators have claimed they have taken control of the second city Benghazi.

Europe plans for Libya evacuation (http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2011/02/20112211491484169.html)
EU foreign ministers discuss plans to transport citizens out of Libya, as violent unrest spreads.

Libyan Muslim leaders order followers to rebel (http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/grouping-of-libyan-muslim-leaders-says-rebelling-against-libyan)
A coalition of Libyan Muslim leaders has issued a declaration telling all Muslims it is their duty to rebel against the Libyan leadership.

BP suspends operations in Libya (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/bp-suspends-operations-in-libya-2221107.html)
Oil giant BP said today that it was suspending operations in Libya and evacuating expatriate staff and their families amid the escalating violence.

Gaddafi regime: We will fight to the end (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/gaddafi-regime-we-will-fight-to-the-end-2220638.html)
In a sign that the first cracks are starting to show in the Libyan regime, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's son warned in a lengthy and rambling address broadcast live last night that the overthrow of the regime would lead to civil war and the break-up of the country.

Dozens reported killed in Tripoli unrest (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/dozens-reported-killed-in-tripoli-unrest-2221170.html)
Dozens of people were reported killed in Tripoli overnight as anti-government protests reached the Libyan capital for the first time and the building where the country's parliament meets was ablaze today.

Libya: UK revokes arms export licences as violence grows (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/feb/21/uk-revokes-arms-export-licences-libya)
Decision taken amid escalating violence against protesters emerges as David Cameron condemns 'vicious' response to protests in Libya

Libya protesters set fire to government buildings in Tripoli (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/21/libya-protesters-fire-government-tripoli)
Anti-Gaddafi demonstrations spread to capital from Benghazi as some soldiers reportedly switch sides to aid activists

Bahrain grand prix cancelled due to protests, organisers announce (http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2011/feb/21/bahrain-grand-prix-cancelled)
Organisers of the Formula One season-opening grand prix in Bahrain have announced that the race has been called off due to the civil unrest sweeping the country.

Robert Fisk in Manama: Bahrain - an uprising on the verge of revolution (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/robert-fisk-in-manama-bahrain-ndash-an--uprising-on-the-verge-of-revolution-2220639.html)
The protesters who are calling for an end to royal rule are in no mood to compromise

Inspired by Egypt, thousands protest on Moroccan streets (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/inspired-by-egypt-thousands-protest-on-moroccan-streets-2220643.html)
Thousands of people flooded on to the streets of cities across Morocco yesterday, hoping to wrest some powers from the ruling monarchy in the first large protests inspired by events in Tunisia and Egypt.

Morocco riots leave five dead (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/21/morocco-riots-five-dead)
Initial protests pass off peacefully but bank blaze kills five with scores injured and detained as trouble flares in deprived suburbs

Yemen's president refuses to quit (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/yemens-president-refuses-to-quit-2221513.html)
Yemen's embattled leader today rejected demands to step down, saying widespread demonstrations against his regime were unacceptable.

Yemen: President's offer of talks is rejected by political opposition (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/yemen-presidents-offer-of-talks-is-rejected-by-political-opposition-2220644.html)
Yemen's embattled President yesterday sought a way out of the political crisis gripping his impoverished nation, offering to oversee a dialogue between the ruling party and the opposition to defuse the stand-off with protesters demanding that he go.


Security forces stop rallies on the streets of Tehran (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/security-forces-stop-rallies-on-the-streets-of-tehran-2220641.html)
Thousands of Iranian security personnel were deployed on the streets of Tehran and other cities yesterday to prevent protesters rallying in spite of a ban.

Mary Ann Sieghart: The dawning of Arab democracy (http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/mary-ann-sieghart/mary-ann-sieghart-the-dawning-of-arab-democracy-2220683.html)
Most Jordanians don't want a revolution of the French kind; they just want a king who reigns rather than rules

I don't have time to link articles right now but it should be noted that the military and police equipment being used to try to crush the people of Libya (as in Bahrain, Egypt and elsewhere) has been largely provided by the U.K., and that David Cameron is presently touring the middle east along with a contingent of arms dealers attemtping to sell even more deadly weaponry to other repressive regimes in the region, after a lucrative arms fair this past weekend in Abu Dhabi where various dictators and their henchmen perused British, U.S. etc. weaponry "to a pounding hip hop soundtrack" according to the Guardian. I wonder which hip hop artists had their songs used at this arms fair? Could they sue the organisers for using their music without permission? (Probably only if they're Immortal Technique or one of the few other artists who actually own the rights to their music..)

Cameron says UK prejudiced for believing Muslims cannot manage democracy

By Nicholas Watt in Kuwait
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 22 February 2011

Britain has been guilty of a prejudice bordering on racism for believing that Muslims cannot manage democracy, David Cameron will say as he recasts foreign policy in light of protests across the Arab world.

In a speech at the national assembly in Kuwait, the prime minister will abandon decades of so-called "camel corps" diplomacy by saying Britain was wrong to prop up "highly controlling regimes" as a way of ensuring stability.

Cameron – who is facing anger in the UK for placing defence exports at the heart of his long-planned visit to the Gulf – will use the speech to show that Britain is promoting political reform in the region.

The prime minister, who attended a ceremony in Kuwait with Sir John Major to mark the 20th anniversary of the first Gulf war, said: "Now, once again, this region is the epicentre of momentous changes, but pursued in a very different way. History is sweeping through your neighbourhood."

Cameron, who on Monday visited the scene of the demonstrations in Tahrir Square in Cairo that toppled President Hosni Mubarak, said the protests had highlighted a hunger for freedom across the Middle East.

He depicted the protests as "movements of the people" that were not ideological or extremist.

But he indicated that the demonstrations presented a challenge for Britain as he dismissed as a "false choice" the old calculation that authoritarian regimes needed to be supported as the price of ensuring stability.

"For decades, some have argued that stability required controlling regimes and that reform and openness would put that stability at risk," Cameron said.

"So, the argument went, countries like Britain faced a choice between our interests and our values. And to be honest, we should acknowledge that sometimes we have made such calculations in the past."

He added: "But I say that is a false choice. As recent events have confirmed, denying people their basic rights does not preserve stability – rather, the reverse."

The prime minister said Britain and other western countries cannot impose any democratic model on the Arab world, but stressed: "That's not an excuse, as some would argue, to claim that Arabs or Muslims can't do democracy – the so-called Arab exception.

"For me, that's a prejudice that borders on racism. It's offensive and wrong and it's simply not true."

Cameron's speech has been designed to lay to rest decades of British foreign policy which held that authoritarian regimes in the Gulf must be supported to guarantee stability. The strongest example is Britain's close relationship with Saudi Arabia.

The prime minister will not be visiting Saudi Arabia during his three-day tour of the Gulf. This is because King Abdullah is in poor health and not because Cameron wants to distance the UK from the kingdom.

He is also distancing himself from US neocons who believe democracy can be imposed.

Cameron outlined his thinking on this issue on Monday in Cairo, when he said: "Democracy is an important part of our foreign policy.

"But I am not a naive neocon who thinks you can drop democracy out of an aeroplane at 40,000ft or that, simply by holding an election, you have satisfied the needs of democracy. You have had plenty of elections in Egypt, but that does not mean you have had a functioning democracy."

He developed this theme in his speech at the Kuwaiti national assembly in which he said the "building blocks" of democracy – an independent judiciary, free media and a "proper place" for the army – had to be laid with care.

"Democracy is the work of patient craftmanship – it has to be built from the grassroots up," he said. "It can't be done overnight."

The prime minister outlined his approach to foreign policy in Kuwait because Britain believes its national assembly is a strong example of democracy in the Gulf.

Its 50 members are elected by universal suffrage, though the majority of the population, many of whom come from the Indian sub-continent, do not have the vote. There are four woman members.

The Kuwaiti prime minister, Sheikh Nasser Mohammed al-Ahmed al-Sabah, who was summoned for a grilling last year, only survived a confidence vote by 25 votes to 23.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/feb/22/david-cameron-uk-muslims-democracy (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/feb/22/david-cameron-uk-muslims-democracy)

What sickening hypocrisy from Cameron. Apart from the fact that he (and his predecessor) have been enthusiastically supporting and propping up every vicious regime in the middle east (well, apart from Iran of course :) , and are continuing to sell arms to regimes just as repressive as those that are now facing the wave of protests, and invited the murdering king of Bahrain to see his fellow royal parasite prince William get married in the coming months, this speech also comes on the heels of his speech castigating "multi-culturals" (ahem) in general, and Muslims (the new Jews when it comes to the main scapegoat for all problems in the UK tabloid readers' minds) in particular, which was delivered on the same day as the "English Defence League" (a thinly disguised fascist group that claims to be against "militant Islam" but which in fact engages in violent attacks on all Muslims or anyone who might look like one and who aspire to "ban the Koran" - hey! It rhymes!) staged their so-called "homecoming march" in Luton, U.K.
Hopefully the big march on London on March 26th, where there are calls to occupy Hyde Park for at least 24 hours Tahrir Square style, will be the beginning of the end for the evil "democratic" dictator David Cameron and co...

Muammar Gaddafi remains defiant

February 22, 2011

In a lengthy televised address, Muammar Gaddafi variously blamed the media, the US, the UK, Italy and hallucinogenic drugs forced on young protesters for causing the trouble in his country.

The Libyan leader tried his hardest to appeal to anti-colonialist sentiment in the country but behind all the anger there seemed to be one key message - he has created Libya, and will never leave.

But pressure on Gaddafi is mounting. Several major cities across Libya are under the control of the opposition and the deadly crackdown on protesters seems to have been hardening the popular resolve.

Al Jazeera's Laurence Lee reports.

Muammar Gaddafi remains defiant (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wElsHiTcz-4#normal)

Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, has vowed to fight on and die a "martyr", calling on his supporters to take back the streets from protesters demanding his ouster, shouting and pounding his fist in a furious speech on state TV.

Gaddafi, clad in brown robes and turban, spoke on Tuesday from a podium set up in the entrance of a bombed-out building that appeared to be his Tripoli residence hit by US air raids in the 1980s and left unrepaired as a monument of defiance.

"I am a fighter, a revolutionary from tents ... I will die as a martyr at the end," he said.

"Muammar Gaddafi is the leader of the revolution, I am not a president to step down ... This is my country. Muammar is not a president to leave his post."

"I have not yet ordered the use of force, not yet ordered one bullet to be fired ... when I do, everything will burn."

He called on supporters to take to the streets to attack protesters. "You men and women who love Gaddafi ...get out of your homes and fill the streets," he said. "Leave your homes and attack them in their lairs ... Starting tomorrow the cordons will be lifted, go out and fight them."

Gaddafi said "peaceful protests is one thing, but armed rebellion is another".

"From tonight to tomorrow, all the young men should form local committees for popular security," he said, telling them to wear a green armband to identify themselves. "The Libyan people and the popular revolution will control Libya."

The speech, which appeared to have been taped earlier, was aired on a screen to hundreds of supporters massed in Tripoli's central Green Square.

At times the camera panned out to show a towering gold-coloured monument in front of the building, showing a fist crushing a fighter jet with an American flag on it - a view that also gave the strange image of Gaddafi speaking alone from behind a podium in the building's dilapidated lobby, with no audience in front of him.

Speech highlights

Shouting in the rambling speech, Gaddafi declared himself "a warrior" and proclaimed: "Libya wants glory, Libya wants to be at the pinnacle, at the pinnacle of the world".

Among the other points made by Gaddafi in his speech:

He called on the people to catch what he called drugged young people and bring them to justice.

He called on the people to "cleanse Libya house by house" unless protesters on the streets surrendered.

He warned that instability in Libya "will give al-Qaeda a base".

He cited the examples of attack on Russian parliament and China's crushing of the 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising, saying that the international community did not interfere.

He said he could do the same in Derna and Bayda.

He offered a new constitution starting from Wednesday, but this would come with dialogue, not by collaboration with the enemy.

He blamed the uprising on Islamists who wanted to create another Afghanistan, and warned that those in Bayda and Derna had already set up an Islamic Emirate that would reach Benghazi.

He said that the country's youth was drugged and did not know anything; they were following the Islamists' leader and their leaders would be punished with death in accordance with the Libyan law.

Just minutes after his speech, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Cairo reported that Amr Moussa, Arab League chief, had decided to discontinue the participation of the Libya delegation in the meetings of the council and all its institutions.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/02/201122216458913596.html (http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/02/201122216458913596.html)

A crude mercantilist doctrine stands exposed

The Prime Minister is deluded if he think he can preach democracy while bolstering autocrats

Wednesday, 23 February 2011

David Cameron made a speech in the Kuwaiti parliament yesterday calling for governments across the Arab world to meet their people's legitimate aspirations for freedom. The Prime Minister also conceded that Britain had been wrong, in the past, to support repressive regimes for the sake of stability.

But actions speak louder the words. Mr Cameron's address cannot conceal the fact that he is seeking to arm those very Arab leaders who would deny the people of the region their liberty. Senior executives of the British defence industry have accompanied the Prime Minister on this regional tour. And while Mr Cameron was hailing freedom in Kuwait, his Minister for International Security Strategy, Gerald Howarth, was attending an arms fair in Abu Dhabi, where 100 UK companies are exhibiting their wares.

Full Article : independent.co.uk (http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-a-crude-mercantilist-doctrine-stands-exposed-2222648.html)

My Libyan brother in H.I.P.H.O.P. has managed to touch base with his fam and they are OK so far. According to him well over 1000 people have been killed so far. A former Libyan army person who he's been in contact with has said that Gadaffi is using the same F-16 fighters that the U.S. supplied to Israel to bomb protesters. Many in the army and the police have come over to the side of the protesters but according to my friend many from Gaddafi's particular tribe are still loyal to him. Mercenaries from various countries in Africa have apparently been promised large sums (from their point of view) plus bonuses for how many people they kill. The people are armed and have the former soldiers and police on their side in Benghazi and other areas, but not in Tripoli. Some mercenaries have apparently been lynched (which I would do too if I was in the Libyan peoples' shoes), but there are also reports that innocent Black African people residing in Libya have been presumed to be mercenaries and attacked. There are also reports that some of the mercenaries are Eastern European and/or white "south african".
Gaddafi is obviously going down but shows no signs of giving up.
Cameron is worse than Gaddafi in my opinion. Gaddaffi is evil but clearly insane. Cameron is equally evil but knows exactly what he's doing.

Check my bredren spitting against Gaddafi:
Anti Gaddafi Rap (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABWYpMqI9GI#normal)

Gaddafi addresses Tripoli crowd (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vg-2ZD1EYe0#normal)

February 25, 2011
Al Jazeera and agencies (http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/02/2011225165641323716.html)

Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, has appeared in Tripoli's Green Square, to address a crowd of his supporters in the capital.

"We can defeat any aggression if necessary and arm the people," Gaddafi said, in footage that was aired on Libyan state television on Friday.

"I am in the middle of the people.. we will fight … we will defeat them if they want … we will defeat any foreign aggression.

"Dance … sing and get ready … this is the spirit … this is much better than the lies of the Arab propaganda," he said.

The speech, which also referred to Libya's war of independence with Italy, appeared to be aimed at rallying what remains of his support base, with specific reference to the country's youth.

His last speech, on Thursday evening had been made by phone, leading to speculation about his physical condition.

The footage aired on Friday, however, showed the leader standing above the square, waving his fist as he spoke.

Tarik Yousef, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute in Washington, told Al Jazeera that most of the individuals on Green Square are genuine Gaddafi supporters.

"Most of these people have known nothing else but Gaddafi. They don’t know any other leader. And many of them stand to lose when Gaddafi falls," Yousef said.

"I am not completely surprised that they still think that he is the right man for Libya. What is striking is that [Gaddafi] did not talk about all the liberated cities in his country.

"This was a speech intended show his defiance and to rally against what he calls foreign interference. But even his children have admitted that the east of the country is no longer under the regime's control."

Anti-Gaddafi protesters shot

Gaddafi's speech came on a day when tens of thousands of Libyans in the capital and elsewhere in the country took to the streets calling for an end to his rule.

As demonstrations began in Tripoli following the midday prayer, security forces loyal to Gaddafi reportedly began firing on them. There was heavy gun fire in various Tripoli districts including Fashloum, Ashour, Jumhouria and Souq Al, sources told Al Jazeera.

"The security forces fired indiscriminately on the demonstrators," said a resident of one of the capital's eastern suburbs.

"There were deaths in the streets of Sug al-Jomaa," the resident said.

The death toll since the violence began remains unclear, though on Thursday Francois Zimeray, France's top human rights official, said it could be as high as 2,000 people killed.

Dissent reaches mosques

Violence flared up even before the Friday sermons were over, according to a source in Tripoli.

"People are rushing out of mosques even before Friday prayers are finished because the state-written sermons were not acceptable, and made them even more angry," the source said.

Libyan state television aired one such sermon on Friday, in an apparent warning to protesters.

"As the Prophet said, if you dislike your ruler or his behaviour, you should not raise your sword against him, but be patient, for those who disobey the rulers will die as infidels," the speaker told his congregation in Tripoli.

During Friday prayers a cleric in the town of Mselata, 80km to the east of Tripoli, called for the people to fight back.

Immediately after the prayers, more than more than 2,000 people, some of them armed with rifles taken from the security forces, headed towards Tripol to demand the fall of Gaddafi, Al Jazeera's Nazanine Moshiri reported.

The group made it as far as the city of Tajoura, where it was stopped by a group loyal to Gaddafi.

They were checked by foreign, French-speaking mercenaries and gunfire was exchanged. There were an unknown number of casualties, Moshiri reported, based on information from witnesses who had reached on the Libyan-Tunisian border.

Special forces

People in eastern parts of the country, a region believed to be largely free from Gaddafi's control, held protests in support for the demonstrations in the capital.

"Friday prayer in Benghazi have seen thousands and thousands on the streets. All the banners are for the benefit of the capital, [they are saying] 'We're with you, Tripoli.'" Al Jazeera’s Laurence Lee reported.

In the town of Derna, protesters held banners with the messages such as "We are one Tribe called Libya, our only capital is Tripoli, we want freedom of speech".

Al Jazeera's correspondent in Libya reported on Friday that army commanders in the east who had renounced Gaddafi's leadership had told her that military commanders in the country's west were beginning to turn against him.

They warned, however, that the Khamis Brigade, an army special forces brigade that is loyal to the Gaddafi family and is equipped with sophisticated weaponry, is currently still fighting anti-government forces.

The correspondent, who cannot be named for security reasons, said that despite the gains, people are anxious about what Gaddafi might do next, and the fact that his loyalists were still at large.

"People do say that they have broken the fear factor, that they have made huge territorial gains,” she said. "[Yet] there's no real celebration or euphoria that the job has been done."

Pro-democracy protesters attacked

On Friday morning, our correspondents reported that the town of Zuwarah was, according to witnesses, abandoned by security forces and completely in the hands of anti-Gaddafi protesters.

Checkpoints in the country's west on roads leading to the Tunisian border, however, were still being controlled by Gaddafi loyalists.

In the east, similar checkpoints were manned by anti-Gaddafi forces, who had set up a "humanitarian aid corridor" as well as a communications corridor to the Egyptian border, our correspondent reported.

Thousands massed in Az Zawiyah's Martyr's Square after the attack, calling on Gaddafi to leave office, and on Friday morning, explosions were heard in the city.

Witnesses say pro-Gaddafi forces were blowing up arms caches, in order to prevent anti-government forces from acquiring those weapons.

Clashes were also reported in the city of Misurata, located 200km east of Tripoli, where witnesses said a pro-Gaddafi army brigade attacked the city's airport with mortars and rocket-propelled grenades.

They told Al Jazeera that pro-democracy protesters had managed to fight off that attack. "Revolutionaries have driven out the security forces," they said, adding that "heavy machine guns and anti-aircraft guns" had been used against them.

Mohamed Senussi, a resident of Misurata, said calm had returned to the city after the "fierce battle" near the airport.

"The people's spirits here are high, they are celebrating and chanting 'God is Greatest'," he told the Reuters news agency by telephone.

Another witness warned, however, that protesters in Misurata felt "isolated" as they were surrounded by nearby towns still in Gaddafi's control.

Government loses oil terminals

Protesters and air force personnel who have renounced Gaddafi's leadership also overwhelmed a nearby military base where Gaddafi loyalists were taking refuge, according to a medical official at the base.

They disabled air force fighter jets at the base so that they could not be used against protesters.

Soldiers helped anti-Gaddafi protesters take the oil terminal in the town of Berga, according to Reuters.

The oil refinery in Ras Lanuf has also halted its operations and most staff has left, according to a source in the company.

Support for Gaddafi within the country's elite continues to decline. On Friday, Abdel Rahman Al Abar, Libya's Chief Prosecutor, became one of the latest top officials to resign in protest over the bloodshed.

"What happened and is happening are massacres and bloodshed never witnessed by the Libyan people. The logic of power and violence is being imposed instead of seeking democratic, free, and mutual dialogue," he said.

His comments came as UN's highest human-rights body held a special session on Friday to discuss what it's chief had earlier described as possible "crimes against humanity" by the Gaddafi government.

Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights, urged world leaders to "step in vigorously" to end the violent crackdown.

The United Nations Security Council was to hold a meeting on the situation in Libya later in the day, with sanctions the possible imposition of a no-fly zone over the country under Chapter VII of the UN charter on the table.

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies (http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/02/2011225165641323716.html)

100 3096 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esZJlr2rHTg#normal)

Protesters defend a disarmed mercenary from their fellow protesters:
Tripoli (2/25) - Protesters defend a disarmed mercenary from other protesters (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4hmIwVxxpk#normal)

A video my friend made of his song for Libya:
Libya United - MC Banks - Produced by Jah Jah Bless. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPDbEUwlyUA#normal)

African migrants targeted in Libya

Rights groups fear dozens killed in violent backlash against supposed Gaddafi-hired mercenaries from sub-Saharan Africa.

February 28, 2011
Al Jazeera and agencies (http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/02/201122865814378541.html)

As nations evacuate their citizens from the violence gripping Libya, many African migrant workers are targeted because they are suspected of being mercenaries hired by Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader.

Dozens of workers from sub-Saharan Africa are feared killed, and hundreds are in hiding, as angry mobs of anti-government protesters hunt down "black African mercenaries," according to witnesses.

About 90 Kenyans and another 64 citizens from South Sudan, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Zambia, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone and Burundi landed in Nairobi on Monday, according to officials.

"We were being attacked by local people who said that we were mercenaries killing people. Let me say that they did not want to see black people," Julius Kiluu, a 60-year-old building supervisor, told Reuters.

"Our camp was burnt down, and we were assisted by the Kenyan embassy and our company to get to the airport," he said.

Rights organisations say that thousands of workers are stranded in camps and private homes, protected by their colleagues as their governments fail to evacuate them from the chaos.

"But why is nobody concerned about the plight of sub-Saharan African migrants in Libya? As victims of racism and ruthless exploitation, they are Libya's most vulnerable immigrant population, and their home country governments do not give them any support," Hein de Haas, a senior fellow with the International Migration Institute, writes in his blog.

Al Jazeera’s Nazenine Moshiri met Seidou Boubaker Jallou, a Malian citizen, who said he fled Libya after many black migrants came under attack.

"The most dangerous situation is for foreigners like us - and also us black people - because Gaddafi brought soldiers from Chad and Niger who reportedly killed Arabs," he said.

Experts say that Gaddafi has had a long relationship with African fighters who now came to his assistance.

Low-paid labourers

Hundreds of black immigrants from poor African countries, who mainly work in Libya’s oil industry as cheap labourers, have also been injured in the violence. Some were unable to seek medical treatment for fear of being killed.

Saad Jabbar, deputy director of the North Africa Centre at Cambridge University, confirms Africans have become targets.

"I tell you, these people, because of their scheme, they will be slaughtered in Libya. There is so much anger there against those mercenaries, which suddenly sprung up," Jabbar said.

About 1.5m Sub-Saharan African migrants work in Libya as low-paid labourers in the oil industry, construction, agriculture and service sectors.

Rights organisations say some anti-Gaddafi protesters wrongly associate African workers with state-sponsored violence.

"African immigrants are now linked to state-orchestrated violence and mass killings, and we may therefore fear the worst about the violent backlash that may follow particularly after Gaddafi is ousted," said Haas.

Ignored by their governments, African workers are one of the most vulnerable groups in Libya right now. Analysts say unless a preventative measure is taken, a massive bloodletting is feared.

"I think it is urgent to do something about it now, otherwise, a genocide against anyone who has black skin and who doesn't speak perfect Arabic is possible," said Jabbar.

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/02/201122865814378541.html (http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/02/201122865814378541.html)

As Libyan rebels close in on Gaddafi, US and Europe ramp up intervention

By Barry Grey
28 February 2011
http://wsws.org/articles/2011/feb2011/liby-f28.shtml (http://wsws.org/articles/2011/feb2011/liby-f28.shtml)

With dictator Muammar Gaddafi’s control over the country ebbing, the United States and its European allies are stepping up their intervention into the Libyan crisis. Their aim is to ensure that any new regime will be equally subservient to their economic and geostrategic interests.

Behind the rhetoric about democracy and humanitarian concerns, Washington and the European powers are seeking to exploit the brutality of Gaddafi to condition public opinion to accept a colonial-style intervention and the reassertion of imperialist control over the country’s oil fields.

Over the weekend, Gaddafi’s hold on power was further eroded by the defection of additional political and military figures and the capture of more key cities by the opposition. Most significant was the fall to the rebels of Zawiyah, an oil port and refinery city thirty miles to the west of the capital, Tripoli. The capture of Zawiyah signified the spread of the rebellion, heretofore centered in the east of the country, to the west.

Although Gaddafi’s army has reportedly surrounded Zawiyah, as of early Monday it had not attempted to retake the town of 200,000 people. The areas remaining under the dictator’s control have reportedly been reduced to Tripoli and Gaddafi’s hometown of Sirte.

Gaddafi’s dwindling domain has only accelerated the imperialist drive to intervene, including by military means. Over the weekend, the British military carried out two raids into the Libyan desert to transport British nationals out of the country. The first, carried out Saturday by SAS special forces using Hercules planes, rescued 150 people, mostly British oil workers, and flew them to Malta. The second, on Sunday, involved three Royal Air Force planes and picked up another 150 civilians.

On Sunday, the German military carried out its own raid. Two military planes landed on a private runway belonging to the Wintershall AG company, evacuating 22 Germans and 112 others and flying them to Crete.

These raids mark the first open use of military assets in the Libyan crisis, but they are likely to be followed by more aggressive actions. There are growing calls in the US and Europe for the imposition of a no-fly zone over Libya, to be policed to US warplanes, and other military measures to aid the anti-Gaddafi forces.

The main concern in Washington is the prospect of either a protracted civil war, which would further inflame world oil prices and destabilize other oil-producing dictatorships in North Africa and the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia, or a political vacuum over which the US would exert little influence.

The New York Times published a front-page article Sunday under the headline “The Vacuum After Qaddafi.” The article noted that the US exerts far less control over the Libyan army and other institutions than it does in Egypt and Tunisia, and ended by suggesting the possibility of a military occupation under the cover of humanitarian needs.

“Some experts,” the Times wrote, “wonder if Libya might become the first experiment in the use of the ‘responsibility to protect’—the idea that a United Nations force would be deployed to prevent civilian deaths in the event of widespread violence…

“With the country now split badly between east and west, an outside protection force would lend time for Tripoli to reassert itself as the capital and establish control.”

A raft of measures have been taken over the past several days by the US and Europe to isolate Gaddafi and pave the way for a major military intervention. After announcing Friday the closure of the US embassy in Tripoli and the imposition of unilateral US sanctions, President Obama on Saturday for the first time called for Gaddafi to resign. The White House published an account of a telephone call to German Chancellor Angela Merkel in which Obama called for Gaddafi to “leave now.”

Obama is to meet Monday in Washington with United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to discuss further actions against the Libyan regime. Secretary Hillary Clinton is to speak in Geneva before the UN Human Rights Council, which over the weekend voted unanimously to suspend Libya’s membership.

The United Nations Security Council on Saturday unanimously passed a resolution imposing economic sanctions on Libya and referring Gaddafi and his key aides for prosecution by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, NATO secretary general, held an emergency meeting of NATO ambassadors on Friday to discuss possible military assistance for evacuation efforts.

The British Guardian newspaper on Saturday cited unconfirmed reports that former Prime Minister Tony Blair had telephoned Gaddafi warning that NATO troops might be sent in. The claims were made by one of Gaddafi’s sons, Saadi, in a telephone interview from Tripoli.

The New York Times on Saturday quoted Tom Malinowski, the director of the Washington office of Human Rights Watch, as saying, “Even if people aren’t explicitly talking about no-fly zones, the fact that NATO met today suggests there is more on people’s minds than diplomacy… I sense military contingencies are on the table.” Malinowski has participated in White House meetings on the Libyan crisis.

The Financial Times on Saturday wrote that European officials have raised the possibility of armed rescues of the thousands of EU nationals still stranded in Libya. The newspaper quoted a “senior EU official” as saying: “It’s one of the possibilities we’re working on. We are in contact with EU member states to see whether their facilities, civilian and military, can be deployed for this.”

In taped interviews from Cairo broadcast on Sunday’s television talk shows, Republican Senator John McCain and Independent Senator Joseph Lieberman—who was the Democratic vice presidential candidate in 2000—attacked Obama for not going far enough in Libya. They called for a no-fly zone and military aid to the opposition.

The two noted that while the US had sent only a ferry to collect American civilians, Britain had sent a warship and Hercules aircraft.

Later on Sunday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton suggested the administration was open to such moves, declaring that it was “reaching out” to opposition groups and was prepared to offer “any kind of assistance” to Libyans seeking to overthrow the regime.

The crocodile tears being shed by the US and its European allies over Gaddafi’s atrocities against protesters are utterly cynical. For days Obama and his European counterparts were silent over the massacres carried out by Gaddafi in Benghazi, Tripoli and other cities. Having established the closest relations with the regime over the past decade, which had allowed them free rein to once again exploit Libya’s oil resources, they hoped that Gaddafi would be able to quickly crush the uprising and restore order.

Only when it became clear that was not about to happen and the crisis began to seriously disrupt oil production and spark a panic rise in global market prices did they shift gears and denounce their former ally. Obama, Clinton, Sarkozy and company had all feted the dictator in recent months, following Tony Blair’s 2004 “deal in the sand” with Gaddafi and the Bush administration’s restoration of full diplomatic relations in 2008.

They had conveniently dropped the issue of Gaddafi’s role in the 1988 terrorist bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, which crashed in Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 innocent civilians, mainly Americans. Exposing the fraud of the “war on terror” and its function as a cover for the aggressive pursuit of US imperialist interests around the world, Washington converted the former “mad dog” and “rogue” into an ally in the anti-terror cause and force for stability in the region.

Only last November, the International Monetary Fund issued a glowing report on Libya, praising the regime for its aggressive pursuit of neoliberal, pro-market policies. The IMF praised Gaddafi’s “continued efforts to modernize and diversify the economy,” commending in particular “efforts to enhance the role of the private sector in the economy.” These very policies led to mounting economic hardship for the working class and rural poor, fueling the social anger that erupted earlier this month.

Gaddafi is a criminal who deserves to be brought to justice, but none of the imperialist leaders currently denouncing him have any standing to point the finger elsewhere. They are all complicit in wars of aggression and colonial-style occupations that have killed hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq and Afghanistan and are implicated in all of the attendant crimes, including torture, rendition and indefinite detention.

The staggering hypocrisy of the US government is summed up by the fact that it supports bringing Gaddafi before the International Criminal Court, but refuses to sign on to the court and rejects its authority over Americans. It asserts the right of US officials to commit war crimes with impunity.

In the UN Security Council resolution against Libya passed Saturday, the US insisted on a clause declaring that people from countries not signed up to the International Criminal Court could not be punished by it for crimes in the Libyan attacks. American officials insisted on the paragraph to prevent setting a precedent for prosecution by the ICC of American soldiers and officials.

http://wsws.org/articles/2011/feb2011/liby-f28.shtml (http://wsws.org/articles/2011/feb2011/liby-f28.shtml)

Any idiots in Libya targetting people because of the colour of their skin and/or ability to speak Arabic or Berber (as opposed to because of direct evidence that they are mercenaries) ought to bear in mind that the enemy could just as well look like them and speak the same language, as Libyans are not immune from being bribed to be mercenaries too. My friend's relative was one of those murdered last Friday in Tripoli, by an Arab or Berber Libyan Gaddafi "loyalist", or rather "mercenary", as they are certainly being paid, who sprayed the crowd coming out of the mosque with Uzi fire before they had even had the chance to join the protest.
Hopefully Libyans (which includes black-skinned people as well as brown-skinned Arabs and Berbers) will resist the temptation to vent anger on easy scapegoats.
According to my friend his people will never accept U.S./British etc. military forces coming to "save them" (or rather to save those oilfields) but will fight to the death to defend their land against both Gaddafi and any foreign powers who try to intervene for their own ulterior motives. Hopefully he's right....

Russian military: "Airstrikes in Libya did not take place"

Voltaire Network (http://www.voltairenet.org/article168682.html)
March 2, 2011

The reports of Libya mobilizing its air force against its own people spread quickly around the world. However, Russia’s military chiefs say they have been monitoring from space – and the pictures tell a different story.

According to Al Jazeera and BBC, on February 21 Libyan government inflicted airstrikes on Benghazi – the country’s largest city – and on the capital Tripoli. However, the Russian military, monitoring the unrest via satellite from the very beginning, says nothing of the sort was going on on the ground.

At this point, the Russian military is saying that, as far as they are concerned, the attacks some media were reporting have never occurred.

Airstrikes in Libya did not take place - Russian military (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TncgsS0FDWg#normal)
The same sources in Russia’s military establishment say they are also monitoring the situation around Libya’s oil pumping facilities.

For further comments regarding Al Jazeera’s allegedly unreliable coverage see Libya: Are the US and EU Pushing for Civil War to Justify NATO Intervention? (http://www.voltairenet.org/article168588.html), by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, Voltaire Network, 25 February 2011, chapter "The Politics of Al Jazeera" :

"The Libyan government has shut down the internet and phone lines and an information war is underway. Although one of the most professional news network in the world, it has to be cautioned that Al Jazeera is not a neutral actor. It is subordinate to the Emir of Qatar and the Qatari government, which is also an autocracy. By picking and choosing what to report, Al Jazeera’s coverage of Libya is biased. This is evident when one studies Al Jazeera’s coverage of Bahrain, which has been restrained due to political ties between the leaders of Bahrain and Qatar.

"Reports by Al Jazeera about Libyan jets firing on protesters in Tripoli and the major cities are unverified and questionable. Here to, the reports that Libyan jets have been attacking people in the streets have not been verified. No visual evidence of the jet attacks has been shown, while visual confirmation about other events have been coming out of Libya.

"Al Jazeera is not alone in its biased reporting from Libya. The Saudi media is also relishing the events in Libya. Asharq Al-Awsat is a paper that is strictly aligned to U.S. interests in the Middle East-North Africa (MENA) region. Its editor-in-chief is now running editorials glorifying the Arab League for their decision to suspend Libya – why were such steps not taken for Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain, or Yemen? Inside and outside the Arab World, the mainstream media is now creating the conditions for some sort of intervention in Libya."

http://www.voltairenet.org/article168682.html (http://www.voltairenet.org/article168682.html)

...

Did Gaddaffi Bomb His Own People? NO!
Airstrikes In Libya Did Not Take Place - Russian Military (http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27594.htm)
The reports of Libya mobilizing its air force against its own people spread quickly around the world. However, Russia's military chiefs say they have been monitoring from space -- and the pictures tell a different story.

Unverified Misreporting on Libya

By Stephen Lendman
March 01, 2011

America's media, Britain's state-controlled BBC, other Western sources, and Al Jazeera are spreading unverified or false reports on Libya's uprising.

On February 25, writer Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, a Middle East/Central Asian specialist, based on reliable in-country contacts, headlined an important article, "Libya: Is Washington Pushing for Civil War to Justify a US-NATO Military Intervention?"

Access it through the following link: globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23375 (http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23375)

For greater readership, this article covers key information in it. Its entirety explains much about what's ongoing - what major media accounts misreport or suppress, especially television reaching large audiences, presenting distorted managed news. It shouldn't surprise. Representing powerful interests, carefully filtered sanitized reporting substitutes for the real kind.

Gaddafi indisputably is despotic, governing by "fear and cronyism," treating Libya as his "private estate," and spawning "an entire hierarchy of corrupt officials," disdainful of popular interests.

Nonetheless, something is "(r)otten in the so-called 'Jamahiriya' (state of the masses) of Libya." Popular anger is justified and real. At issue is whether it's spontaneous or externally generated, and, if so, by whom and for what reasons.

Western powers, especially America, gladly support despots. They only fall into disfavor by forgetting who's boss. Mubarak forgot. So did Gaddafi, long targeted for removal despite rapprochement with America and Western nations. As a result, in-country reports lack credibility without verifiable proof. Much of it is lacking.

At issue is removing an outlier while keeping his regime intact, one friendly to Washington and Western interests. Acquiescence assures support for the world's most ruthless tyrants. Straying gets them in trouble. Gaddafi strayed, leaving him vulnerable for removal.

Comparing Yugoslavia to Libya

In the 1990s, "pack (or) advocacy journalism" substituted for the real kind, including by promoting the 1999 US-led NATO war of aggression to complete Yugoslavia's long-planned balkanization, characterized as "humanitarian intervention," the same theme repeated now.

From March 24 - June 10, 1999, daily attacks were relentless. Around 600 aircraft flew about 3,000 sorties, dropping thousands of tons of ordinance as well as hundreds of ground-launched cruise missiles. Its ferocity to that time was unprecedented. Large numbers were killed, injured or displaced. Vast destruction was inflicted. Two million people lost their livelihoods, many their homes and communities, and for most their futures under military occupation.

Diana Johnstone's "Fools' Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Delusions" remains the definitive Balkan wars history, explaining what Western media reports suppressed. For America and European powers, it was about deterring Slobodan Milosevic's "Greater Serbia" ambitions, a gross mischaracterization about 1990s events, culminating in naked aggression.

Libyan turmoil appears headed for a similar resolution, driven by unverified misreporting of events on the ground. In Yugoslavia, it was about removing Milosevic for a more accommodative replacement. In Libya, Gaddafi appears headed for the same fate, again by raw force, Washington's alternate "diplomacy," the same kind used to "liberate" Iraq and Afghanistan, destroying both countries, causing millions of deaths as well as vast devastation and despair.

Libyan Analysis in Bullet Points

-- Unlike Tunisia, Egypt, and other regional allies, "upsetting (Libya's) established order is a US and EU objective," by replacing one despot with another.

-- the West "seek('s) to capitalize on the revolt" for new leadership it controls.

-- Heavy weapons are coming in.

-- Destabilizing Libya affects its vast energy reserves and neighboring states, perhaps the entire region.

-- Tensions among Libyan factions complicate matters further, including between Gaddafi's son, Saif Al-Islam, "and his father's circle of older ministers. Libyan ministers are generally divided amongst those (close to Said) and" member's of the "old guard."

-- Other tensions exist between Gaddafi and his sons, perhaps one generation against another, each with its own ideas incompatible with the other.

-- Gaddafi spent years purging opposition. Even so, "little loyalty is felt for (him) and his family." Fear alone gives them power. Now it's gone, denunciation of his regime openly stated. "Aref Sharif, the head of Libyan Air Force," renounced him. Ministers and ambassadors resigned, some going abroad. "Defections are snowballing amongst the military and government." Yet what's ongoing may differ significantly from unverified or willful major media misreporting, including by Al Jazeera.

-- Authentic opposition is real, but not organized. It's "been encouraged and prompted from outside Libya through social media networks, international news stations, and events in the rest of the Arab World." As a result, major media reports are suspect. Accept nothing from them at face value.

-- Internal opposition leadership comes "from within the regime itself." However, corrupt officials aren't populists. They oppose Gaddafi but not tyranny, corruption, and other trappings of power and privilege. Some of them, in fact, wish "to save themselves, while others" want to "strengthen their positions." It's also possible or likely that they've allied with Western powers for their own self-interest.

-- Major media reports, including by Al Jazeera, "about Libyan jets firing on protesters in Tripoli and the major cities are unverified and questionable....No visual evidence of the jet attacks has been shown." Gaddafi, in fact, controls cities reported to be occupied by opponents. Moreover, some accounts of violence are spurious. Stories are invented to "justify no-fly zones," perhaps heading for war led by America and NATO.

-- Corporate and Western interests in Libya, not despotism, explain what's ongoing. They're fueling civil war to replace one despot with another, one they control. "Chaos in the Arab World has been viewed as beneficial (to) Washington, Tel Aviv," and other Western powers. Balkanization may be planned, similar to Yugoslavia, culminating as explained above - "liberation" for control, not democracy America won't tolerate, including at home. If it happens, regional destabilization may follow, leaders everywhere wondering who's next.

-- Henry Kissinger once said: "to be an enemy of America can be dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal." If balkanization is planned, friends and foes alike may be targeted if thought unreliable. Libya's chaos also affects Europe and global energy issues, including price, for oil heading over $100 a barrel and maybe much higher, threatening fragile economies with deeper crisis.

-- Washington wanted Gaddafi replaced for years. Former NATO commander General Wesley Clark once included Libya among future targeted countries besides Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran. Divide, conquer and control, a game way pre-dating modern America.

-- Libya conducted secret negotiations with Washington in 2001. Formal rapprochement followed, but doing business with imperial powers is dangerous, and in Gaddafi's case perhaps fatal with no safe haven if civil war or NATO ousts him. Either "provides the best cover" for controlling Libya's "energy sector and to appropriate (its) vast wealth."

-- Libyans should be wary. America and Western powers play hardball against popular interests throughout the region.

-- "Actions of opposition to Gaddafi are strong, but there is no strong organized 'opposition movement.' The two are different." Moreover, no opposition force wants democracy.

-- Serious discussion suggests a Yugoslav-type "humanitarian intervention." A "no-fly" zone is mentioned, an act of war if imposed, giving Western powers the right to intervene militarily the way Iraq was bombed in the 1990s. Invasion and occupation, in fact, could follow to replace the already weakened regime. Libya's assets would be plundered, its people left with one despot replacing another.

A Final Comment

For decades, Gaddafi denied Libyans democratic freedoms. Imperial occupation, however, is worse, creating nightmarish conditions for Iraqis, Afghans, and others experiencing US-style rule, exceeding the worst of regional despots' harshness, making some look benign by comparison.

Under more populist leaders than Gaddafi and internal opposition forces, mobilized resistance may prevent it, but not easily or quickly. Libyans must now liberate themselves, independent of Western powers wanting to exploit them for their own self-interest.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.trinicenter.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2287 (http://www.trinicenter.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2287)

Robert Fisk: The historical narrative that lies beneath the Gaddafi rebellion

independent.co.uk (http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-the-historical-narrative-that-lies-beneath-the-gaddafi-rebellion-2230654.html)
Thursday, 3 March 2011

Poor old Libyans. After 42 years of Gaddafi, the spirit of resistance did not burn so strongly. The intellectual heart of Libya had fled abroad.

Libyans have always opposed foreign occupiers just as the Algerians and the Egyptians and the Yemenis have done – but their Beloved Leader has always presented himself as a fellow resister rather than a dictator. Hence in his long self-parody of a speech in Tripoli yesterday, he invoked Omar Mukhtar – hanged by Mussolini's colonial army – rather than the patronising tone of a Mubarak or a Ben Ali.

And who was he going to free Libya from? Al-Qa'ida, of course. Indeed, at one point in his Green Square address, Gaddafi made a very interesting remark. His Libyan intelligence service, he said, had helped to free al-Qa'ida members from the US prison at Guantanamo in return for a promise that al-Qa'ida would not operate in Libya or attack his regime. But al-Qa'ida betrayed the Libyans, he insisted, and set up "sleeper cells" in the country.

Whether Gaddafi believes all this or not, there have been many rumours in the Arab world of contacts between Gaddafi's secret police and al-Qa'ida operatives, meetings intended to avoid a recurrence of the miniature Islamist uprising that Gaddafi faced years ago in Benghazi.

And many al-Qa'ida members did come from Libya – hence the frequent nomme de guerre of "al-Libi" which they added as a patronymic. Natural it then was for Gaddafi, who once hosted Abu Nidal's Palestinian assassination groups (who never betrayed him), to suspect that al-Qa'ida lay somewhere behind the uprising in eastern Libya.

It is only a matter of time, needless to say, before Gaddafi reminds Libyans that al-Qa'ida was a satellite of the very Arab mujahedin used by the United States to fight the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Yet Libya's own ferocious resistance to Italian colonisation proves that its people know how to fight and die. In "Tripolitania", Libyans were expected to walk in the gutter if Italians were walking towards them on the same pavement and Fascist Italy used aircraft as well as occupation troops to bring Libya to heel.

Ironically, it was the forces of the British and Americans rather than the Italians that liberated Libya. And they themselves left behind a legacy of millions of landmines around Tobruk and Benghazi that Gaddafi's weird regime never ceased to exploit as Libyan shepherds continued to die on the old battlefields of the Second World War.

So Libyans are not disconnected from history. Their grandfathers – in some cases their fathers – fought against the Italians; thus a foundation of resistance, a real historical narrative, lies beneath their opposition to Gaddafi; hence Gaddafi's own adoption of resistance – to the mythical threat of al-Qa'ida's "foreign" brutality – is supposed to maintain support for his regime.

Unlike Tunisia and Egypt, however, the "People's Masses" of Libya are a tribal rather than a societal nation. Hence two members of Gaddafi's own family – the head of security in Tripoli and the most influential intelligence officer in Benghazi – were respectively his nephew, Abdel Salem Alhadi, and his cousin, Mabrouk Warfali. Gaddafi's own tribe, the Guedaffi, come from the desert between Sirte and Sebha; hence the western region of Libya remains under his control.

Talk of civil war in Libya – the kind of waffle currently emerging from Hillary Clinton's State Department – is nonsense. All revolutions, bloody or otherwise, are usually civil wars unless outside powers intervene, which Western nations clearly do not intend to do and the people of eastern Libya have already said they do not wish for foreign intervention (David Cameron, please note).

But Gaddafi went to war in Chad – and lost. Gaddafi's regime is not a great military power and Colonel Gaddafi is not General Gaddafi. Yet he will go on singing his anti-colonial songs and as long as his security teams are prepared to hold on in the west of the country, he can flaunt himself in Tripoli.

And a warning: under UN sanctions, Iraqis were supposed to rise up against Saddam Hussein. They didn't – because they were too busy trying to keep their families alive without bread or fresh water or money. Saddam lost all but four provinces of Iraq in the 1991 rebellion. But he got them back.

Now western Libyans live without bread or fresh water or money. And Gaddafi yesterday spoke in Tripoli's Green Square with the same resolution to "rescue" Benghazi from "terrorists". Dictators don't like or trust each other; but unfortunately they do learn from each other.

Source: independent.co.uk (http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-the-historical-narrative-that-lies-beneath-the-gaddafi-rebellion-2230654.html)

http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/03/06/140425.html (http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/03/06/140425.html)
On Libyan front, zeal compensates for inexperience
Sunday, 06 March 2011
 
Ras Lanuf, LIBYA (Agencies)
 
Opposition fighters in east Libya regrouped on Sunday and moved back towards Bin Jawad after forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi had ambushed rebels and ejected them from the town earlier in the day, a Reuters witness said.

"We are just outside Bin Jawad. There are thuds of mortars landing near rebel positions, leaving puffs of smoke, and also the sound of heavy machine guns in the distance," Reuters correspondent Mohammed Abbas said in a brief report.

"There's a steady stream of rebels heading back west towards Bin Jawad," he said.

Earlier Gaddafi’s forces backed up by warplanes, pushed rebels away from the coastal town of Bin Jawad to stop their advance on Gaddafi's home town of Sirte.

Previously sky-high morale plummeted among the rebels after they were pushed back from the tiny hamlet of Bin Jawad near the Mediterranean, the furthest west they had advanced from their eastern bastion in their uprising against the Libyan strongman.

They said Gaddafi loyalists lured them into a trap, secreting themselves in homes, mingling with civilians and hunkering down on rooftops. As rebels drove on, oblivious to the hidden threat, they unleashed a massive salvo of fire.

"This is what pushed us back. This is what got us out of Bin Jawad," shouted one rebel, jumping out of a car with part of a shell cradled in his arms.

Those who spoke to AFP after fleeing the latest battle said they were powerless in the face of heavy machine gun fire and air strikes, despite having already captured much of eastern Libya.

Down the road in nearby Ras Lanuf, which cheering rebels endured heavy fighting to capture on Friday, young men argued and nerves frayed as medics in screeching ambulances rushed in casualties from the front.

Frustrated by defeat Libyan defected soldier (2nd L) explains how to use a rocket launcher One group stood round a pick-up truck filled with rocket launchers, arguing about what had gone wrong and how they should proceed.

"Whoever has a weapon should advance and fight," said one rebel.

"But we only have light weapons," interjected another.

"Well either that or we should all go back to Benghazi," insisted the first man. Another man just shook his head. "The problem is we have no leadership."

"What about Colonel Bashir," said someone else, referring to one of the rebel commanders most widely known in Ras Lanuf, particularly among reporters.

But the first man was unimpressed. "Who is this Colonel Bashir? I've never heard of him," he retorted.

Two others argued outside Ras Lanuf hospital as a loudhailer atop an ambulance yelled warnings to rebels not to gather in groups.

"They're hitting them in groups," one medic shouted.

"Whoever has a gun, go now and fight in Bin Jawad," said one rebel.

"No, no this is how we'll start the civil war," hit back the other.

Bloodied casualties stretchered into a small hospital shouted of betrayal.

His scalp grazed by a bullet, 21-year-old Abdul Ali Abdulkhair tried to lift himself out of bed and raised his fingers to flash the rebels' trademark V for victory sign as soon as he saw an AFP reporter.

"Really I'm very, very comfortable. I'm just perfect right now," he claimed, launching into a chant mocking the Libyan strongman's battle cry: "Alley by alley, room by room, we're going to come and get you Gaddafi."

"We were combing Bin Jawad and when we went on the main road, they hit us with the heavy machine guns," said Abdulkhair, a volunteer from Al-Baida, a town far to the east.

A French cameraman shot in the leg while travelling in a car with a group of rebels said his shattered camera saved his life.

When the bullet pierced his calf, he fell to the floor on his back. Despite the pain, he managed to take a quick photograph of a Libyan fighter lying on his stomach in a sand dune, shooting, and his own burning video camera.

"That was my camera. It saved my life," the journalist said.

Zeal and divine intervention Wreckage of a loyalist jet shot down the day before by Libyan rebels The opposition fighters lack training but not enthusiasm. They credit their success so far to a mix of revolutionary zeal and divine intervention.

"We are not an organized army. We don't use military tactics," said Bashir Abdul Gadir, a former colonel in Gaddafi's army now serving as an officer in the rebel force seeking to end his four decades in power. "Our tactics are revolutionary. We don't take death into account," he said.

Most of the fighters are young, with little military training. A few are armed only with knives. There appears to be little concept of discipline in their ranks.

"We don't take orders from anyone, only God, who will give us victory. We took Benghazi, Dirna, Tobrouk, and al-Bayda, without a military plan, it was God," said young rebel fighter Ali Faituri, sat in a pick up truck with a large machinegun.

Faituri is typical of many of the enthusiastic young men who appear to move without formal orders, instead advancing on plans passed between rebels by word of mouth or mobile phone, or simply joining in the action wherever they find it.

"You can't control it"  We watch the news, ask other youths to find out where the clashes are and go to help our brothers   
Civilian volunteer Abdullah Shouaib"We hear by phone from people in towns along the way that they need help. We come, free them, they join us, and we move on," said Alaadine Omran, 26, a rebel volunteer, who helps with logistics and the wounded.

Typically before opposition fighters’ movements, a group takes the lead ahead, and others then join without asking where they are going or what they are doing beyond "getting rid of the dog Gaddafi".

Tyres screech as vehicles spin round to join the charge, mostly pick up trucks loaded with men, rifles and machineguns. Most trucks are spray painted with slogans such as "revolutionary army" or "people's army".

"We watch the news, ask other youths to find out where the clashes are and go to help our brothers," said civilian volunteer Abdullah Shouaib, 27.

The collapse of Gaddafi's control in the east has left his opponents with access to abandoned military bases, vehicles and weapons.

Chaotic mix  We went to Benghazi and they registered our names and we formed a brigade   
Adem FarajThe pro-Gaddafi security forces are a chaotic mix of regular troops and fighters in mismatched uniforms and green bandanas, heavily armed and, analysts say, motivated by the fear of opposition fighters’ retribution if Gaddafi falls.

But they appear to be struggling to re-organize after units defected, and there is also a question mark over the loyalty of the air force, with revolutionaries saying most of their bombing runs in the east fall just short of the target.

Although the rebel forces include professional soldiers as well as volunteers who have registered at opposition-held bases and received some training, they appear to be in the minority.

In Benghazi, Libya's second city, rebels have formed a military council, from whom some fighters at the front line said they took orders.

"We went to Benghazi and they registered our names and we formed a brigade," said Adem Faraj, labelling others who had not registered "hangers on".

"There's not been enough time to include them formally. But our cause is the same," he said. Opposition officer Abdul Gadir said: "This is the nature of the people's revolution. You can't control it. Only 10 percent of us are professional soldiers."