Civil War in Libya

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

* high fives Furunculus *




Louis - Thoroughly enjoys all of this imperialist powermongering. As apparantly do the natives. Somebody please remind me why we gave up on imperialism again?

Because the next bit involves the army.

Eh.

Anyway, if this new UN doctrine takes hold maybe we can stop shunting money into the army that should going in the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force. That would be better for Britain than acting as America's manpower reserve.

[PanzerJaeger]

They? One man?

I've documented the plight of black Africans under rebel control throughout this thread from multiple, well regarded sources over and over and over and over again, and it is hardly contained to a few isolated incidents. Libyans are an incredibly racist people, and have been long before this 'revolution'. They have long resented the presence of black Africans - abd, or slaves, as they call them - in their country, and have taken advantage of the situation - and NATO - to permanently put the blacks in their place.

This is not some rhetorical game I'm playing; it is the bitter reality we, the West, have imposed on millions of Libyans. The truth is that this is not a revolution for all Libyans, it is revolution for a very specific group of Libyans to the detriment of an already vulnerable minority. These people, declared war criminals, should not have Western backing.

And who; Got his ID? Would suck if he turned out to be a mercenary, eh?

Are you actually suggesting that there is any scenario in which such behavior is appropriate?

Also, your outrage at the unconfirmed use of foreign mercenaries is rather laughable. What do you think NATO is?

lol, you can't be serious. Firstly, a lack of evidence as seen by one person, does not debunk anything at all. Secondly, there is nothing in the first link nor the second to support such a confident conclusion (there are no obvious links between the two articles, either). One should not be surprised at the lack of captured mercenaries, why would a man getting paid by a tyrant to fight his people want to get captured by said people?

It was not a single person, it was one of a growing list of human rights organizations that have conducted the only actual (instead of anecdotal) research I've yet seen on the issue and found no traces of foreign mercenaries in Libya... or any of the other claims used to justify NATO intervention.

Human Rights Watch says it has seen no evidence of mercenaries being used in eastern Libya. This contradicts widespread earlier reports in the international media that African soldiers had been flown in to fight rebels in the region as Muammar Gaddafi sought to keep control.

In an interview with Radio Netherlands Worldwide in Libya, Peter Bouckaert from Human Rights Watch said he had conducted research and found no proof of mercenaries being used. Investigator Bouckaert, who has been in the region for two weeks, told RNW that he had been to Al Bayda after receiving reports that 156 mercenaries had been arrested there.

Here's evidence of mercenaries from Chad, ID papers shown to camera at 03:13 (from outside Adjabiya in March)

Have you ever heard of dual citizenship? It's rather common in Libya. Moving right along...

But not only sub-Saharan African countries are accused of providing mercenaries, there has also been claims that Algerians have been fighting for Gaddafi; and early on in the conflict, it was claimed that the pilots of a regime yet that was shot down had Syrian passports. A couple of days ago, they also claimed to have capture mercenaries from Ukraine in Tripoli. I cannot confirm any of this stuff, but of course it would be convinient for the opposition fighters to convince themselves that most of the men they are fighting are not countrymen, but rather foreigners - making their fight more noble.

Of course you cannot confirm any of it, because it is based in unsupported hysteria.

Way to miss the point. From the very start of this war, PJ has tried to discredit the opposition fighters, first by claiming that they were al-Qaeda sympathisers, and when that turned out not to be so efficient, they were racists instead.

Not at all. The rebels have discredited themselves with countless public lynchings, beheadings, and mutilations of innocent black workers. I will be glad to link to any and all of the above if the moderators OK it.


..........

A single youtube video in a different language is pathetic evidence for something you claim is wide spread. If this sort of thing happened on a large scale, do you not think the news agencies would have caught wind of it considering there is no real internal security to stop such information leaking? It's not like the Qaddafi era where journalists movement is restricted, in the East the journos could move freely.

Oh but they have... The New York Times, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, The Wall Street Journal.... If you choose to ignore the truth, that is between you and your conscience.

Yes, ISOLATED incidents of such attacks have been reported but it isn't widespread and more importantly orchestrated as you suggest. The coordination of affairs and the administrative functions of the NTC has been pretty impressive considering the lack infrastructure. Those rebels also seem pretty disciplined too, or would you care to explain why the "lynch mobs" you predicted haven't been seen on my tv screen yet? or is it some sort of NATO conspiracy?

There's my favorite phrase! Isolated incidents. If only.

I find it remarkable that you, an American, are trying to sing the praises of a regime which is directly responsible for the death of hundreds of your countrymen. I can't comprehend why you herald the death of the Desert Dog with almost a sense of remorse.

I could care less about what happens to Mr. Kaddafi. That being said, I would be willing to wager that many more Americans were killed by Eastern Libyans in Iraq than over Lockerbie - many are the same Libyans who the West is now supporting.

Sure, things could get worse, but is all of it not even a little bit worth it if in a decades time we can look at Libya and say yes, what happened here was a good thing?

But it wasn't. That's the thing. This was a horrible event for millions of innocent Libyans that has permanently altered their already vulnerable status in Libyan society. This was a good thing for a very narrowly defined group of disenfranchised eastern Libyan Arabs - at the expense of their black countrymen.

These things may take place in isolated incidents but you have to remember, this is war. Look what happened when the Russians swept into Germany..

Are you seriously citing the rape of Eastern Germany as an example of a positive occupation and outcome?

And speaking of war, why are proponents of this conflict so hypocritical in their suspension of morality? 'It's war'... 'These things happen'...

Well, you're right, the truth is, this was a war from the outset. Unlike Tunisia and Egypt, the Eastern Libyans immediately sought to violently wrest control of social buildings, police stations, and armories from the government, as they've been trying to do for years.

Here's another, somewhat less convenient truth. No Western nation would tolerate similar acts. The US, for example, has put down several violent rebellions with equally violent force. Here's what happens when you storm an armory in America with an intent to incite a rebellion.

So why then is it an atrocity when Kaddafi and the internationally recognized legitimate government of Libya resists an armed rebellion while the widespread, vicious ethnic cleansing of the nation's black population is written off as a few isolated incidents? Selective outrage?

If factions within Libya - most of whom were perfectly comfortable working for Kaddafi until it was convenient not to - want to engage in civil war and all the nasty excesses that go along with it, that is their business. I'll lament the dead and move on. However, I'll be damned if I'm going to be even indirectly implicated in such a mess, especially under the guise of protecting civilians from a nonexistent impending genocide when the closest thing to such an event is actually being carried out by our 'allies'.

Human rights organisations have cast doubt on claims of mass rape and other abuses perpetrated by forces loyal to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, which have been widely used to justify Nato's war in Libya.

Nato leaders, opposition groups and the media have produced a stream of stories since the start of the insurrection on 15 February, claiming the Gaddafi regime has ordered mass rapes, used foreign mercenaries and employed helicopters against civilian protesters.

An investigation by Amnesty International has failed to find evidence for these human rights violations and in many cases has discredited or cast doubt on them. It also found indications that on several occasions the rebels in Benghazi appeared to have knowingly made false claims or manufactured evidence.

...

Donatella Rovera, senior crisis response adviser for Amnesty, who was in Libya for three months after the start of the uprising, says that "we have not found any evidence or a single victim of rape or a doctor who knew about somebody being raped".

She stresses this does not prove that mass rape did not occur but there is no evidence to show that it did. Liesel Gerntholtz, head of women's rights at Human Rights Watch, which also investigated the charge of mass rape, said: "We have not been able to find evidence."

In one instance two captured pro-Gaddafi soldiers presented to the international media by the rebels claimed their officers, and later themselves, had raped a family with four daughters. Ms Rovera says that when she and a colleague, both fluent in Arabic, interviewed the two detainees, one 17 years old and one 21, alone and in separate rooms, they changed their stories and gave differing accounts of what had happened. "They both said they had not participated in the rape and just heard about it," she said. "They told different stories about whether or not the girls' hands were tied, whether their parents were present and about how they were dressed."

Seemingly the strongest evidence for mass rape appeared to come from a Libyan psychologist, Dr Seham Sergewa, who says she distributed 70,000 questionnaires in rebel-controlled areas and along the Tunisian border, of which over 60,000 were returned. Some 259 women volunteered that they had been raped, of whom Dr Sergewa said she interviewed 140 victims.

Asked by Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty International's specialist on Libya, if it would be possible to meet any of these women, Dr Sergewa replied that "she had lost contact with them" and was unable to provide documentary evidence.

The accusation that Viagra had been distributed to Gaddafi's troops to encourage them to rape women in rebel areas first surfaced in March after Nato had destroyed tanks advancing on Benghazi. Ms Rovera says that rebels dealing with the foreign media in Benghazi started showing journalists packets of Viagra, claiming they came from burned-out tanks, though it is unclear why the packets were not charred.

Credible evidence of rape came when Eman al-Obeidy burst into a hotel in Tripoli on 26 March to tell journalists she had been gang-raped before being dragged away by the Libyan security services.

Rebels have repeatedly charged that mercenary troops from Central and West Africa have been used against them. The Amnesty investigation found there was no evidence for this. "Those shown to journalists as foreign mercenaries were later quietly released," says Ms Rovera. "Most were sub-Saharan migrants working in Libya without documents."

Others were not so lucky and were lynched or executed. Ms Rovera found two bodies of migrants in the Benghazi morgue and others were dumped on the outskirts of the city. She says: "The politicians kept talking about mercenaries, which inflamed public opinion and the myth has continued because they were released without publicity."

Nato intervention started on 19 March with air attacks to protect people in Benghazi from massacre by advancing pro-Gaddafi troops. There is no doubt that civilians did expect to be killed after threats of vengeance from Gaddafi. During the first days of the uprising in eastern Libya, security forces shot and killed demonstrators and people attending their funerals, but there is no proof of mass killing of civilians on the scale of Syria or Yemen.

Most of the fighting during the first days of the uprising was in Benghazi, where 100 to 110 people were killed, and the city of Baida to the east, where 59 to 64 were killed, says Amnesty. Most of these were probably protesters, though some may have obtained weapons.

Amateur videos show some captured Gaddafi supporters being shot dead and eight badly charred bodies were found in the remains of the military headquarters in Benghazi, which may be those of local boys who disappeared at that time.

There is no evidence that aircraft or heavy anti-aircraft machine guns were used against crowds. Spent cartridges picked up after protesters were shot at came from Kalashnikovs or similar calibre weapons.

The Amnesty findings confirm a recent report by the authoritative International Crisis Group, which found that while the Gaddafi regime had a history of brutally repressing opponents, there was no question of "genocide".

The report adds that "much Western media coverage has from the outset presented a very one-sided view of the logic of events, portraying the protest movement as entirely peaceful and repeatedly suggesting that the regime's security forces were unaccountably massacring unarmed demonstrators who presented no security challenge".

[Furunculus]

Because the next bit involves the army.

Eh.

Anyway, if this new UN doctrine takes hold maybe we can stop shunting money into the army that should going in the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force. That would be better for Britain than acting as America's manpower reserve.

hear, hear!

need us some strategic raiding.

[Fisherking]

@ PJ

I read quite a few of your links. I know you are protesting the treatment of the immigrants but what I keep turning up with is a bit different conclusion. Not that those mistreatments are not taking place!

I think they are not carrying as much weight because that messes with what good guys they are and what a worthwhile intervention this is.

The mercenaries are specters, the rapes are specters and who knows what else.

I am not defending the current regime either, and I expect the vast numbers of those fighting have the best motives.

I just fear it will end in a new dictatorship and this is more about money and power, and who gets it.

[Furunculus]

re R2P in libya:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...ers-wrong.html

[Viking]

I've documented the plight of black Africans under rebel control throughout this thread from multiple, well regarded sources over and over and over and over again, and it is hardly contained to a few isolated incidents. Libyans are an incredibly racist people, and have been long before this 'revolution'. They have long resented the presence of black Africans - abd, or slaves, as they call them - in their country, and have taken advantage of the situation - and NATO - to permanently put the blacks in their place.

It would not have been this thread, but rather some other thread. In which I cannot, for instance, find the AJE link nor the npr link that you have just provided. That aside, most of them does not show more of that in the video (well, I cannot access the ft.com article..); which is what I am looking for: outright atrocities. I did though notice the following in the npr text:

QUIST-ARCTON: This Turkish oil worker, who's managed to escape from Libya, told the BBC he'd witnessed violence against his African colleagues.

Unidentified Man: (Through translator) We left behind our friends from Chad. We left behind their bodies. We had 70 or 80 people from Chad working for our company. They cut them dead with pruning shears and axes, attacking them, saying you're providing troops for Gadhafi. The Sudanese, the Chadians were massacred. We saw it ourselves.

Which is relevant and interesting; and could hint at this being more widespread. However, the incident above could also be somewhat isolated, so more research would be needed.

I have noticed lately that there appears to have been quite an anti-African sentiment in the Libyan poputlation prior to the uprising; as suggested in one of your links, though connecting this to racism outright is a bit premature. The living standard in Libya is not particularly good despite all the oil wealth, and Gaddafi's flirting with sub-Saharans could be important (this could potentially explain why the Egyptians were not targeted). Again, more research is needed in order to get to the heart of the issue.

This is not some rhetorical game I'm playing; it is the bitter reality we, the West, have imposed on millions of Libyans. The truth is that this is not a revolution for all Libyans, it is revolution for a very specific group of Libyans to the detriment of an already vulnerable minority.

Be careful with the use of 'millions', since there are only something like 6 of them in Libya in total. And for most of these millions, the NATO air strikes did not impose much of a new reality, they had already experienced revolts in their cities and a brutal armed response to them - from Tripoli to Benghazi.

It is clear that Gaddafi has not exactly been making things easier the for the sub-Saharans in Libya, and according to one of your links, he said:

During his visit to Rome in August 2010 Colonel Muammar Gaddafi spoke at a ceremony in Rome and warned
, “We don’t know what will happen, what will be the reaction of the white and Christian Europeans faced with this influx of starving and ignorant Africans.”

so, not quite the angel this mr. Gaddafi. Chances are that a new democratic rule could more easily persuaded into a more acceptable stance than a stubborn dictator.

These people, declared war criminals, should not have Western backing.

No, those people shouldn't. But they are not backed as individuals.

Are you actually suggesting that there is any scenario in which such behavior is appropriate?

No, but I do not express moral disapproval at any opportunity given. It would destroy that piece of evidence of yours, that's why it would 'suck'.

Also, your outrage at the unconfirmed use of foreign mercenaries is rather laughable. What do you think NATO is?

I do not have any 'outrage' at use of mercenaries. NATO consists of professional military forces responsible to their commanders not through money, but through their country of origin.

It was not a single person, it was one of a growing list of human rights organizations that have conducted the only actual (instead of anecdotal) research I've yet seen on the issue and found no traces of foreign mercenaries in Libya...

I just posted a Time link on the previous page, and one from the Telegraph. Given the chaotic situation, I do not find the research conducted thus far as having too much weight. It is pretty weird that the findings by Nick Meo is not mentioned in the report, and that further strengthens my fear for the report's accuracy.

or any of the other claims used to justify NATO intervention.

I am sure there would be plenty of masssacres if the rebellion was crushed; a dictator is not safe on his throne if the people dare to revolt. But the arguments put forth in the UNSC and similar, are not at all my own arguments for the intervention, so I do not feel particularly devoted to their defense.

Have you ever heard of dual citizenship? It's rather common in Libya. Moving right along...

If they were brought in from Chad and given a Libyan citizenship, that would still make them mercenaries. Just a more clever way of securing their loyality.

Of course you cannot confirm any of it, because it is based in unsupported hysteria.

Tsk. Those links appear to me to primarily concern sub-Saharans, I was specifically talking about people not from those areas. It was also irrelevant to the point whether or not the reports were fantasy. The point was that not only sub-Saharans were accused of being mercenaries: it does not at all take racism to produce a mercenary scare.

Not at all. The rebels have discredited themselves with countless public lynchings, beheadings, and mutilations of innocent black workers. I will be glad to link to any and all of the above if the moderators OK it.

Videos will not suffice, they are not a proper investegation. Benghazi is alone a city of over 600 000, it would take quite a few videos in order to prove that the majority of them are into it.

Here's another, somewhat less convenient truth. No Western nation would tolerate similar acts. The US, for example, has put down several violent rebellions with equally violent force. Here's what happens when you storm an armory in America with an intent to incite a rebellion.

That is completely irrelevant, Libya was a dictatorship. The feelings of a dictatorship does not matter.

[Adrian II]

Panzer, welcome to the real world. This is what happens when dictatorships are disbanded.

In 1991 the peoples of former Yugoslavia engaged in bloody civil conflict when their country fell apart and the centre could not hold. In the resulting anomia (an anarchic state of lawlessness and lack of effective authority) many scores were settled.

In Iraq after 2003 Shiites began to kill Sunnis and Sunnis began to kill Kurds and vice versa. Prejudice was rife and it ran very deep because it was allowed to fester for dozens and in some cases for hundreds of years because people in Iraq never had freedom of movement, freedom of speech, reliable sources of information and proper education in our sense of the word.

In Afghanistan the 2001 invasion was an open invitation to tribes to settle age-old scores.

So I'm not surprised at all that similar things would happen in a tribal society like Libya where the top gorilla has just been chased off in a very bloody fight.

On balance I think Nato has done the right thing. At least there is now a opening for a different kind of Libyan government and society. Apart from the anti-black sentiment (which was fostered by Gaddafi just as well) there are lots of other urgent issues that will need to be adressed. Let's hope the new governmemt will succeed. I think every one on this forum will agree that this is not a run course.

AII

[Viking]

That is one line reasoning I haven't felt the need to invoke too heavily, given that the claims of racism are not properly backed up; though I'm sure ethnic differences could help polishing the final result.

But of course, what really matters here is the abolition of a dictatorship. Sure, many people will become victims of war and either perish or be maimed for life; but everday life in a dictatorship is also war - a war between the government and the people. People will suddenly disappear to never come back, or they will come back as crushed individuals. What would take the greatest toll of four decades of Gaddafi's dictatorship, and a potential four new under his son(s) - and this war - is not so clear. If the numbers provided here of the 'Abu Salim prison massacre' is correct, I think the dictatorship would win, if numbers was all that mattered (but is it?).

So, give the people their freedom; then give them more thorough advice on how be just while excercising their said freedom. Roughly speaking.

[PanzerJaeger]

Panzer, welcome to the real world.

Ah, there's another one of those patronizing, clichéd little phrases that washes away a multitude of sins.

Unfortunately, the West is living in a fantasy world.

In our fantasy...

We believe that Britain and France are still relevant players on the international stage. They can still entertain neocolonial fantasies under fun new monikers like R2P, despite near complete military impotence. They believe that they have set an important precedent for future intervention, when in fact, from a geopolitical level, the most important impact of this action is the perceived futility and danger of acquiescing in the West's nuclear non-proliferation efforts among the world's dictators. It will be difficult to launch future freedom missions as every tin pot colonel with an ounce of common sense runs to North Korea to buy their own reactors.

We believe that the United States has learned 'valuable lessons' from Iraq and Afghanistan, when in fact the most important lessons have been completely ignored. Instead of relying on careful, objective analysis of a given situation, America is still willing to go to war based on thinnest of evidence, most of it very obviously manufactured by the opposition. And after making the grave decision to go to war - to take ownership of the conflict and its externalities - America has apparently decided that instead of committing enough forces to ensure the freedom and security of every poor bastard we're supposed to be freeing (hello, Iraq?), we'll go the opposite direction and let the locals sort it out themselves as to ensure plausible deniability when the inevitable slaughter ensues.

We believe that NATO is still a viable fighting force, instead of an underfunded, decrepit organization barely capable of ousting the weakest of regimes. Instead of retrenching and investing the resources necessary to ensure the defense of North America and Europe, we envision a bright future of continued interventions outside of that sphere against flaccid regimes on a shoe string budget in the name of freedom for all, instead of freedom for select groups to the extreme detriment of many others as has been the case in Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Libya.

We believe that we've rid the Arab Street of a vicious dictator and a committed enemy of the West, when in fact our governments were more than comfortable in bed with him, sucking the oil from his teat, until it ceased being convenient. Further, we breathlessly repeat wild stories of a mad man slaughtering his people and on the precipice of genocide, despite absolutely no evidence of any of it. All the while, there is real evidence that dictators across the region actually are using overwhelming military force against defenseless protestors, and our governments struggle to even formally denounce them.

Most regrettably, we've bought into the good versus evil narrative to such a degree that we actually believe we've brought freedom to the Libyan people, instead of picked sides in a sectarian civil war fought largely between elements of the very same regime that we're supposedly fighting against. Our glasses are so heavily rose tinted that they allow us to see only academics instead of regime henchmen, Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, and tribal leaders looking to settle scores. Those glasses are so tinted, so thick, that they allow us to excuse our own complicity in the harassment, marginalization, oppression, and misery of millions as simply the normal occurrences of 'the real world'.

What is happening in Libya may be representative of the real world, but it is a world we chose to jump in to, feet first and with no thought to the negative consequences. Real people are dying, and their blood is on our hands - not by necessity, but by choice.


(Here is the text of the Financial Time's piece posted earlier. I did not realize it was subscription only. I hope I'm not breaking any rules by reproducing it.)

Sub-Saharan Africans bear brunt of rebels’ ire

By Katrina Manson in Nairobi

Published: March 29 2011 23:57 | Last updated: March 29 2011 23:57



As rumours of black mercenaries flown and trucked into Libya in their thousands have swirled about the country, poor sub-Saharan African migrant workers have borne the brunt of rebel outrage at the claims.

Aid groups, long barred access to the country, estimate anything from 500,000 to 1.5m black Africans may be based in Libya, many of them illegally.

United Nations agencies have set up hotlines for those trapped inside the country and have so far chartered flights for 59,000 people who have managed to escape to the border.

“Even before this, black Africans in general are not liked at all, but this [mercenary] theory has made the situation tremendously worse,” one black African man, holed up at home and too worried about reprisals to be identified by name or nationality, said by telephone from Tripoli.

Like many black Africans, he speaks of rebel sympathisers in the capital Tripoli clamouring outside his door at night, warning him he will be the first to be killed when the regime falls. For a while, he fled to a farm on the outskirts of the capital with a dozen or so others, until the farm owner found them and chased them out. His job stopped with the crisis, and this week he was robbed of all his rent money at knifepoint in a bread line.

The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said it has become a “poisonous” atmosphere for sub-Saharan Africans in Libya, noting youth gangs this week broke down the doors to threaten an Eritrean family in hiding for three weeks, and that there are unconfirmed reports of some killed.

The UN migration agency said: “So far the advice we’ve been giving is if you’re in a safe place, then stay for the time being.”

The threats mean that some among the poorest and least respected of Libyan society are now rooting for Gaddafi’s regime to prevail.

Says the man in hiding: “Some people here among the black African community tend to support the regime purely on the basis of wanting to survive. If the rebels win, they’re going to unleash their terror on black Africans.”

It is a sorry development for many who sought sanctuary in the country, fleeing war or political persecution at home. Five years ago, aged 32, the man walked across the Sahara desert, exhausted as some of his fellow travellers’ legs gave way, in the hope of reaching respite in Libya. His salary of $300 a month was three times what he might make back home, but his longed-for better life was characterised by constant racist abuse, being beaten on the streets and eventually being taken on by employers who purposefully kept his status illegal so he could not leave.

As well as a bulk of Egyptian, Tunisian and Bangladeshi workers, UN agencies have flown people home to Burkina Faso, Chad, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Nigeria, Sudan and Togo. Some African embassies have managed to escort their citizens out, hundreds at a time. In all, nearly 330,000 people have made it to Libya’s borders in the past month, crossing into Tunisia, Egypt, Algeria and Niger.

Many more are waiting. The UN migration agency has received reports of tens of thousands of Africans stranded in Sabha, for example, a desert airbase rumoured to be receiving mercenaries from Algerian-flown planes, claims denied by Algeria. Tripoli’s most popular black neighbourhood is still full.

“I regret crossing the Sahara,” said the man in Tripoli. “I would rather starve than try to cross the Sahara again on foot.”

That is one line reasoning I haven't felt the need to invoke too heavily, given that the claims of racism are not properly backed up

Not properly backed up? Racism in Libya is very well documented. It amazes me that the most ardent proponents of this conflict often know the least about the intricacies of Libyan society.

'They call you a slave'

Hussein Zachariah, a welder from Ghana who worked for a Turkish construction company in Benghazi for three years before conflict began, says he was often verbally abused on the street and had stones thrown at him.

“They say a lot of things about you,” says Mr. Zachariah, no relation to Ibrahim Zachariah. “They call you a slave.”

He claimed that his friend was accused of being a mercenary fighter and that he witnessed him being severely beaten by “protesters” on the street.

Racism nothing new in Libya

Racism toward migrant laborers from sub-Saharan Africa is not a new phenomenon in Libya.

In 2000 the Brussels-based International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) condemned attacks and alleged killings of migrant workers from Ghana, Cameroon, Sudan, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad and Nigeria allegedly by young Libyans targeting black migrants particularly in the East of the country, after the government ordered a crackdown on illegal migrant workers. According to a statement made in 2000 by the ICFTU the attacks “were provoked by news portraying African migrants as being involved in drug-trafficking or dealing in alcohol.”

Human Rights Watch also documented racist attacks on migrant workers and asylum seekers from sub-Saharan in Libya in 2006 and 2009. The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) has long put pressure on Libya to address the issue of racial discrimination against black African migrants. The issue of racial discrimination against black Africans was most recently raised at the United Nations Human Rights Council in February of 2010.

[Centurion1]

Ah, there's another one of those patronizing, clichéd little phrases that washes away a multitude of sins.

Unfortunately, the West is living in a fantasy world.

In our fantasy...

We believe that Britain and France are still relevant players on the international stage. They can still entertain neocolonial fantasies under fun new monikers like R2P, despite near complete military impotence. They believe that they have set an important precedent for future intervention, when in fact, from a geopolitical level, the most important impact of this action is the perceived futility and danger of acquiescing in the West's nuclear non-proliferation efforts among the world's dictators. It will be difficult to launch future freedom missions as every tin pot colonel with an ounce of common sense runs to North Korea to buy their own reactors.

We believe that the United States has learned 'valuable lessons' from Iraq and Afghanistan, when in fact the most important lessons have been completely ignored. Instead of relying on careful, objective analysis of a given situation, America is still willing to go to war based on thinnest of evidence, most of it very obviously manufactured by the opposition. And after making the grave decision to go to war - to take ownership of the conflict and its externalities - America has apparently decided that instead of committing enough forces to ensure the freedom and security of every poor bastard we're supposed to be freeing, we'll go the opposite direction and let the locals sort it out themselves as to ensure plausible deniability when the inevitable slaughter ensues.

We believe that NATO is still a viable fighting force, instead of an underfunded, decrepit organization barely capable of ousting the weakest of regimes. We envision a bright future of continued interventions in the name of freedom for all, instead of freedom for select groups to the extreme detriment of many others as has been the case in Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Libya.

We believe that we've rid the Arab Street of a vicious dictator and a committed enemy of the West, when in fact our governments were more than comfortable in bed with him, sucking the oil from his teat, until it ceased being convenient. Further, we breathlessly repeat wild stories of a mad man slaughtering his people and on the precipice of genocide, despite absolutely no evidence of any of it. All the while, there is real evidence that dictators across the region actually are using overwhelming military force against defenseless protestors, and our governments struggle to even formally denounce them.

Most regrettably, we've bought into the good versus bad narrative to such a degree that we actually believe we've brought freedom to the Libyan people, instead of picked sides in a sectarian civil war fought largely between elements of the very same regime that we're supposedly fighting against. Our glasses are so heavily rose tinted that they only allow us to see only academics instead of regime henchmen, Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, and tribal leaders looking to settle scores. Those glasses are so tinted, so thick, that they allow us to excuse our own complicity in the harassment, marginalization, oppression, and misery of millions as simply the normal occurrences of 'the real world'.

What is happening in Libya may be representative of the real world, but it is a world we chose to jump in to, feet first and with no thought to the negative consequences. Real people are dying, and their blood is on our hands - not by necessity, but by choice.


(Here is the text of the Financial Time's piece posted earlier. I did not realize it was subscription only. I hope I'm not breaking any rules by reproducing it.)

Sub-Saharan Africans bear brunt of rebels’ ire

By Katrina Manson in Nairobi

Published: March 29 2011 23:57 | Last updated: March 29 2011 23:57



As rumours of black mercenaries flown and trucked into Libya in their thousands have swirled about the country, poor sub-Saharan African migrant workers have borne the brunt of rebel outrage at the claims.

Aid groups, long barred access to the country, estimate anything from 500,000 to 1.5m black Africans may be based in Libya, many of them illegally.

United Nations agencies have set up hotlines for those trapped inside the country and have so far chartered flights for 59,000 people who have managed to escape to the border.

“Even before this, black Africans in general are not liked at all, but this [mercenary] theory has made the situation tremendously worse,” one black African man, holed up at home and too worried about reprisals to be identified by name or nationality, said by telephone from Tripoli.

Like many black Africans, he speaks of rebel sympathisers in the capital Tripoli clamouring outside his door at night, warning him he will be the first to be killed when the regime falls. For a while, he fled to a farm on the outskirts of the capital with a dozen or so others, until the farm owner found them and chased them out. His job stopped with the crisis, and this week he was robbed of all his rent money at knifepoint in a bread line.

The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said it has become a “poisonous” atmosphere for sub-Saharan Africans in Libya, noting youth gangs this week broke down the doors to threaten an Eritrean family in hiding for three weeks, and that there are unconfirmed reports of some killed.

The UN migration agency said: “So far the advice we’ve been giving is if you’re in a safe place, then stay for the time being.”

The threats mean that some among the poorest and least respected of Libyan society are now rooting for Gaddafi’s regime to prevail.

Says the man in hiding: “Some people here among the black African community tend to support the regime purely on the basis of wanting to survive. If the rebels win, they’re going to unleash their terror on black Africans.”

It is a sorry development for many who sought sanctuary in the country, fleeing war or political persecution at home. Five years ago, aged 32, the man walked across the Sahara desert, exhausted as some of his fellow travellers’ legs gave way, in the hope of reaching respite in Libya. His salary of $300 a month was three times what he might make back home, but his longed-for better life was characterised by constant racist abuse, being beaten on the streets and eventually being taken on by employers who purposefully kept his status illegal so he could not leave.

As well as a bulk of Egyptian, Tunisian and Bangladeshi workers, UN agencies have flown people home to Burkina Faso, Chad, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Nigeria, Sudan and Togo. Some African embassies have managed to escort their citizens out, hundreds at a time. In all, nearly 330,000 people have made it to Libya’s borders in the past month, crossing into Tunisia, Egypt, Algeria and Niger.

Many more are waiting. The UN migration agency has received reports of tens of thousands of Africans stranded in Sabha, for example, a desert airbase rumoured to be receiving mercenaries from Algerian-flown planes, claims denied by Algeria. Tripoli’s most popular black neighbourhood is still full.

“I regret crossing the Sahara,” said the man in Tripoli. “I would rather starve than try to cross the Sahara again on foot.”

Not properly backed up? Racism in Libya is very well documented. It amazes me that the most ardent proponents of this conflict often know the least about the intricacies of Libyan society.

'They call you a slave'

Hussein Zachariah, a welder from Ghana who worked for a Turkish construction company in Benghazi for three years before conflict began, says he was often verbally abused on the street and had stones thrown at him.

“They say a lot of things about you,” says Mr. Zachariah, no relation to Ibrahim Zachariah. “They call you a slave.”

He claimed that his friend was accused of being a mercenary fighter and that he witnessed him being severely beaten by “protesters” on the street.

Racism nothing new in Libya

Racism toward migrant laborers from sub-Saharan Africa is not a new phenomenon in Libya.

In 2000 the Brussels-based International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) condemned attacks and alleged killings of migrant workers from Ghana, Cameroon, Sudan, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad and Nigeria allegedly by young Libyans targeting black migrants particularly in the East of the country, after the government ordered a crackdown on illegal migrant workers. According to a statement made in 2000 by the ICFTU the attacks “were provoked by news portraying African migrants as being involved in drug-trafficking or dealing in alcohol.”

Human Rights Watch also documented racist attacks on migrant workers and asylum seekers from sub-Saharan in Libya in 2006 and 2009. The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) has long put pressure on Libya to address the issue of racial discrimination against black African migrants. The issue of racial discrimination against black Africans was most recently raised at the United Nations Human Rights Council in February of 2010.

I love you sometimes PJ. But don't expect too much in lieu of response. When I raised the same ideas regarding French and British excessive ambitions they weren't even mentioned. At best you will be likely to receive a patronizing, "You just don't understand what the real world is like."

Fabulous writing though.

[Fragony]

Aye Panzer, mentioned it earlier but they just don't believe me. Blacks, if there are any left atm as they are seen as mercenaries (which a lot were), will have to flee. South please thx.

[Fisherking]

If you wade through PJ’s links you will find that Mercenaries in this conflict are as hard to find as Weapons of Mass Destruction were in Iraq.

I am no fan of the Libyan Government or Gaddafi but it would seem that most of the “information” we are getting about mercenaries and atrocities against the people is misinformation.

It is either hysteria or an example of the quote “in war the first casualty is the truth”.

Just because it is told to you by news commentators or governments does not make it true.

[Fragony]

I haven't read PJ's link, arab racism isn't all that new to me, blacks are regarded sub-human. Ghaddafi recruited a lot of them and that is going to be very ugly for blacks, if it hasn't already. Doubt you will find a living black in rebel-controlled area's, they are probably all dead. I got some lovely footage of lynchings if you can stomach it

[Adrian II]

We envision a bright future of continued interventions in the name of freedom for all

I don't think anybody on this board believes that. Libya was an exception. You can bet Nato is not going to intervene in Syria, for instance, unless Syria itself seeks a confrontation. And Nato would be quite capable of warding off a Syrian threat, it isn't that powerless.

I seriously doubt that Libya is going to be a full-grown democracy. To the outside world the rebels are represented by the amiable and decent Mustafa Abdul Jalil, the former Justice Minister, but among the rebel fighters there are quite a few groups that have ties to Al Qaeda and other islamist movements and that hold similar political views. Apart from that there is a huge potential for renewed tribal conflict. I think we will yet see quite a few reports of score-settling, not just between Arabs and blacks.

You are right that the Western states are manipulating public perception of this conflict. They did so in 1999 with regard to Kosovo, in 2001 with regard to Afghanistan and in 2003 with regard to Iraq. Ever since I was a member of this board I have tried to refute such propaganda. I don't remember you being so sceptical then, on the contrary. And I'm not sure that I'm happy with your late conversion. It seems to be rooted in a desire to bash Arabs more than in any genuine concern for human rights.

AII

[Hax]

I seriously doubt that Libya is going to be a full-grown democracy.

If the majority of the people seek an Islamic state, is that undemocratic? What constitutes a "full-grown democracy"?

[Adrian II]

If the majority of the people seek an Islamic state, is that undemocratic? What constitutes a "full-grown democracy"?

Do we really need to go there? A question like this could only be asked by someone who enjoys full democracy and doesn't even understand or value it.

AII

[Fragony]

If the majority of the people seek an Islamic state, is that undemocratic? What constitutes a "full-grown democracy"?

They would chose to be an enemy ideologically. But AdrianII is going to laugh very at me for saying that so I'm of

[Adrian II]

They would chose to be an enemy ideologically. But AdrianII is going to laugh very at me for saying that so I'm of

Good God, it wouldn't be the first time that the West creates it own enemies.

AII

[rory_20_uk]

If you wade through PJ’s links you will find that Mercenaries in this conflict are as hard to find as Weapons of Mass Destruction were in Iraq.

The real toughie is that if someone is dead there's no evidence that they were a mercenary, and if they're not dead they'll not stick around. I don't see what the big deal about Mercs is anyway. There's no issue when America uses them in any of its conflicts.

The rebels won - good. Then we should get the hell out of there ASAP. They want help? We want oil. They pay for assistance and it's a simple business arrangement, and not interfering.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

If the majority of the people seek an Islamic state, is that undemocratic? What constitutes a "full-grown democracy"?

Islamic states have dreadful track records, which is why I find it odd that progressive Bahrain gets lumped in with Syria when the former was trying to prevent the actual outbreak of revolution and is already cautiously moving towards democracy and firmly away from Islamicism.

In any case, the rise of Islamic states has little to do with positive political consent and far more to do with a lack of opposition.

As a point of contrast, do you think the majority wanted a theocratic autocracy in England in the 1650's? Or was it just that the religious fundamentalists had all the power?

[Fragony]

Good God, it wouldn't be the first time that the West creates it own enemies.

AII

ha, you are just as predictable as Libya's plunge in a nightmare of civil war. Panzer is sooooooo right, what do you know of these countries exactly

[Adrian II]

The rebels won - good. Then we should get the hell out of there ASAP. They want help? We want oil. They pay for assistance and it's a simple business arrangement, and not interfering.

The West has committed itself in Libya for years and years, if only to prevent either total anarchy or the establishment of a fundamentalist regime. There is no way around it. You break it, etcetera.

ha, you are just as predictable as Libya's plunge in a nightmare of civil war. Panzer is sooooooo right, what do you know of these countries exactly

Lol, what exactly are you trying to say?

AII

[Fragony]

The West has committed itself in Libya for years and years, if only to prevent either total anarchy or the establishment of a fundamentalist regime. There is no way around it. You break it, etcetera.



Lol, what exactly are you trying to say?

AII

What do you think is going to happen? It is going to be horrible

[Adrian II]

What do you think is going to happen? It is going to be horrible

Let me echo your question: what do you and Panzer know about these countries?

All we know is there is a lot of resentment, tribalism and backwardness. So yes, it may all go horribly wrong, I said so from the start. But I refuse to buy into the the notion that Arabs are congenitally incapable of doing the right thing, anywhere, any time.

AII

[rory_20_uk]

The West has committed itself in Libya for years and years, if only to prevent either total anarchy or the establishment of a fundamentalist regime. There is no way around it. You break it, etcetera.

Rubbish. As soon as the UN mandate is over, we can be off. Leave it to the Arab League or the African Federation to sort it out. That's what they're for, isn't it?

We didn't break it, they broke it themselves.

Has China / Saudi Arabia flooded Europe and the USA with free money after we broke our financial system? No - apparently it's our problem to solve. This is theirs.

[Fragony]

Let me echo your question: what do you and Panzer know about these countries?

All we know is there is a lot of resentment, tribalism and backwardness. So yes, it may all go horribly wrong, I said so from the start. But I refuse to buy into the the notion that Arabs are congenitally incapable of doing the right thing, anywhere, any time.

AII

I probably know more about it than you do, as I know that there is going to be civil war, and it is going to be bad

[ICantSpellDawg]

I probably know more about it than you do, as I know that there is going to be civil war, and it is going to be bad

There is a civil war and it is bad, but I agree with Adrian and I believe that it is coming to an end in the near future. There is this notion that "these people" simply cannot have a civil and responsible society; that is inane. These people are us, and until they develop the ability to make a life for and educate themselves, we will all continue to be screwed by backwardness, poverty and extremism - around the world.

I just hope we can muster up the will to use the same "iron diplomacy" with Syria, and then on to the next stepped on nation that can muster the gumption to eviscerate it's illegitimate leadership. (not in agreement with Adrian). We've found our sweet spot - support the insurgency and encourage the right path.

Let's all get along, we are all rich/middle class, white kids/adult kids who spend most of our free time arguing on video game forums. We are probably not experts, but I'd bet that we are all knowledgeable enough to have a more illuminating conversation about geopolitics than most groups of rich white kids who argue about geopolitics on world of warcraft or GTA forums, etc.

[Adrian II]

Rubbish. As soon as the UN mandate is over, we can be off.

Oh sure, technically we can. But since we have invested in this thing and we would like the episode to turn out well, we are going to be around for quite a while. Libya shouldn't become a new hotbed for al-Qaeda or a new Somalia now should it? That's in no one's interest.

AII

[Fragony]

Trust me Tuffstuff, Syria is going to be a bloodbath

[rory_20_uk]

Oh sure, technically we can. But since we have invested in this thing and we would like the episode to turn out well, we are going to be around for quite a while. Libya shouldn't become a new hotbed for al-Qaeda or a new Somalia now should it? That's in no one's interest.

The biggest problems at the moment are probably Iran, North Korea, Pakistan and Syria. We are doing nothing in any of those (a few drone strikes in Pakistan does not really count). There is already Somalia, Yemen and Afghanistan for insurgents. How much room does a training camp need? Almost none. The only difference in Libya is it's slightly closer, and the majority of attacks have been against overseas assets rather than homeland as they are a lot easier to do.

If assistance is passing along some intel, giving advice on setting up governments and trading then fine - we gain a lot for a little. If it's garrisoning the place then no thanks - we tie up resources that are already stretched and are even less able to counter the next threat.

Libya's sovereign wealth fund is something like $65 Billion. That should keep them going for a while. After they've spent all of that then... they can sell their oil.