A Libyan Primer from Mother Jones and Al Jazeera
What’s Happening in Libya Explained
http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/02/whats-happening-libya-explained?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Motherjones%2Fmojoblog+%28MotherJones.com+|+MoJoBlog%29
— By Ashley Bates and Siddhartha Mahanta
| Tue Mar. 1, 2011 MOTHER JONES
Al Bayda, Libya—An opposition supporter holding a machine gun celebrates with opposition forces who control the east Libyan city of Al Bayda. Nasser Nouri/ Xinhua/ ZUMAPRESS.com
The following is a basic primer on what’s happening in Libya. You can also jump straight to today’s updates.
Last week, Libyan dissident Najla Aburrahman begged western media to pay attention to the bloodbath unfolding in her country. “If the Libyan protesters are ignored,” she wrote, “the fear is that [Libyan dictator Muammar] Qaddafi— a man who appears to care little what the rest of the world thinks of him—will be able to seal the country off from foreign observers, and ruthlessly crush any uprising before it even has a chance to begin.”
Since then, Qaddafi’s troops have used machine guns and large-caliber weapons against protesters in Benghazi, the country’s second-biggest city, and more than 200 protesters, including children, have reportedly been killed.
Why are Libyans unhappy?
Libya has been ruled for 42 years by a cunning, repressive, eccentric dictator who has frequently described his own people as “backwards.” More than half of his 6.5 million subjects are under 18. Despite Libya’s plentiful oil revenues, which represent most of the national budget, many children suffer from malnutrition and anemia. Corruption is rampant, dissidents are brutally suppressed, and many citizens are afraid to say Qaddafi’s name in public or in private for fear of attracting suspicion. Instead, Qaddafi is often referred to as “the leader” and his son Seif (until now heir-apparent) as “the principal.” Discussing national policy with a foreigner is punishable with three years in prison. Reporters Without Borders describes press freedom in Libya as “virtually non-existent.”
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Oil is the economy in Libya and oil profits have bankrolled massive investments in education and infrastructure—yet Libya lags far behind other oil-rich Arab states. Unemployment stands at 30 percent. People who have jobs often work only part-time. Basic foods—including rice, sugar, flour, gasoline—are heavily subsidized by the government and sold for a fraction of their true cost. A 2006 New Yorker article described Libya’s “prosperity without employment and large population of young people without a sense of purpose.”
Libya’s society is tribal and traditional—despite liberal laws on issues such as women’s rights—and many Libyans identify via clan allegiance first, nationality second.
Some in Libya hoped that Seif Qaddafi, who has been growing more prominent as an adviser to his father, would create openings for democratic reform. Seif earned a doctorate in political philosophy from the London School of Economics and keeps Bengal tigers as pets. He has founded the “Qaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation,” which supposedly seeks to promote human rights and fight the use of torture in Libya and across the Middle East.
Wasn’t Qaddafi that guy who set up a giant tent on Donald Trump’s spread?
Yup, he’s the guy. During his 2009 trip to the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Qaddafi had hoped to sleep and entertain guests inside an elaborate Bedouin-style tent in Manhattan’s Central Park. That didn’t work out, so instead the dictator rented land on a suburban property owned by Donald Trump. The tent was erected and then dismantled after a public outcry, and both Trump and the Secret Service announced that Qaddafi wasn’t coming after all.
Why can’t anyone agree on how to spell Qaddafi’s name?
Since at least the 1980s, the name has been alternately spelled as “Moammar / Muammar Gadaffi /Gaddafi / Gathafi / Kadafi / Kaddafi /Khadafy / Qadhafi / Qathafi /etc.,” according to Chris Suellentrop at Slate. They’re all different attempts at transliterating Arabic pronunciation.
How did all this start?
Inspired by pro-democracy uprisings across the Arab world, Libyan dissidents had planned a “day of rage” for Thursday, Feb. 17. On February 15, security forces arrested a prominent lawyer named Fathi Terbil, who had represented families of some of the 1,200 prisoners massacred by Libyan security forces at Abu Slim prison in 1996. Once released later that day, Terbil set up a webcam overlooking Benghazi’s main square, where some of the families had been protesting. With help from exiled Libyans in Canada and around the world, the video spread rapidly on the Internet.
Al Jazeera Arabic conducted a phone interview with Libyan novelist Idris al-Mesmari, who reported that police were shooting at protesters—and then the connection was lost. (Mesmari was reportedly arrested by Libyan authorities.) Shortly thereafter, thousands more began battling Qaddafi’s troops, and hundreds are reported to have been killed. “Both protesters and the security forces have reason to believe that backing down will likely mean their ultimate death or imprisonment,” says the New York Times.
What are the implications of Libyan instability?
After decades of being reviled as a state sponsor of terrorism, Libya recently reversed course and joined the ranks of America’s allies in the fight against Al Qaeda. In 2003, Qaddafi agreed to stop developing weapons of mass destruction and paid $2.7 billion to the families of the 270 victims of Pan Am 101—the plane bombed by Libyan agents over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988. In return, the US and the United Nations lifted economic sanctions against Libya.
On the Arab street, however, Qaddafi is widely loathed. Most of his political victims have been members of banned Islamist groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood, which would likely gain stronger influence if he were overthrown. Qaddafi, once among the Palestinian movement’s most vocal international supporters, outraged many Arabs by saying that Palestinians have no special claim to the land of Israel and calling for the creation of a bi-national “Isratine.”
What’s the latest?
On Sunday, February 20, protesters succeeded in overtaking all parts of Benghazi except for a government security compound. Qaddafi’s son gave a long, rambling televised speech in which he blamed Islamic radicals and Libyan exiles for the uprising. He claimed civil war over the country’s oil resources would set off starvation, cause public services including education to collapse, and could spark a Western invasion. He said, “We will fight until the last man, until the last woman, until the last bullet.”
Protests have now spread to the capital, Tripoli, with thousands of demonstrators converging onto the city’s main square and reportedly taking over state television headquarters. They faced well-armed pro-Qaddafi militias who fired into the crowds. The Libyan government has sought to impose an information blackout, blocking the internet and satellite television and forbidding foreign journalists from entering. Al-Jazeera remains the most comprehensive source of coverage; you can follow its live blog here.
UPDATE 1, Monday, Feb. 21, 9:00 a.m. EST/4:00 p.m. Tripoli (Nick Baumann): SkyNews is reporting that witnesses claim the state television building and other public buildings in Tripoli are on fire.
UPDATE 2, Monday, Feb. 21, 11:45 a.m. EST/6:45 p.m. Tripoli (Nick Baumann): Al Jazeera (via Sultan al Qassemi) reports multiple accounts of airplanes attacking protesters in Tripoli. Shadi Hamid, an expert on the Arab world at the Brookings Institution, slams the Western response as “business as usual,” and asks whether the West is even capable of “bold, creative policymaking.” The Atlantic’s Max Fisher, meanwhile, says that while the media blackout means the air-attack claims are impossible for press to verify, if they’re true, the United Nations should “shut down Libyan airspace immediately.”
UPDATE 3, Monday, Feb. 21, 12:15 p.m. EST/7:15 p.m. Tripoli (Nick Baumann): Mobile and television networks are down across Libya. Al Hurra (a satellite television competitor of Al Jazeera’s that is sponsored by the US government) is reporting that the Libyan ambassador in London has resigned and joined protests outside the embassy. The network is also reporting that helicopters carrying senior Libyan officials have left Tripoli “in the direction of Malta,” according to Sultan Al Qassemi. (If you’re not following him on Twitter, you should be.) William Hague, the British foreign minister, has said that Qaddafi fled to Venezuala, but the Venezualans are denying that. And the head of the Libyan Army is reportedly under house arrest. In short: it’s chaos, and no one knows for sure what is happening. There are also reports just now that the Libyan ambassador to Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority country, has also resigned.
UPDATE 4, Monday, Feb. 21, 12:50 p.m. EST/7:50 p.m. Tripoli (Nick Baumann): NBC News reports that the State Department has ordered all non-emergency personnel to leave Libya immediately. The resigned Libyan ambassador to India told Al Jazeera “it is only a matter of days until the regime is finished.” And The Guardian confirms earlier reports that several Libyan airplanes and helicopters have landed in Malta. They were reportedly piloted by Libyan colonels seeking asylum. The earlier reports of military planes attacking protesters also seem to be close to confirmation—Reuters has published a story citing more eyewitnesses to the attack.
UPDATE 5, Monday, Feb. 21, 2:41 p.m. EST/9:41 p.m. Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): Witnesses saw armed militiamen speeding into Tripoli’s Green Square in Toyota trucks, firing on protestors fighting with riot police. Many of the gunmen are believed to be from other African countries. Meanwhile, Colonel Qaddafi’s security forces have retreated into buildings around Tripoli, which remains under the control of rebel forces. And in a sign of deepening internal fissures, some of Qaddafi’s top officials have broken ranks with the government. Meanwhile, protestors in Benghazi—where the uprising began—have released a list of demands for a secular interim government led by the army in cooperation with a council of Libyan tribes. And on Democracy Now, Libyan poet Khaled Mattawa says his country is “forever changed” by the uprising.
UPDATE 6, Monday, Feb. 21, 3:11 p.m. EST/10:11 p.m. Tripoli (Ashley Bates): UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon has spoken with Qaddafi and told him the violence “must stop immediately,” a UN spokesperson said. The BBC reports that Qaddafi was still in Libya during this Monday phone call.
In an apparent defection, two Libyan fighter jets have landed in Malta, the Times of Malta reports. The pilots had presumably refused orders to bomb protesters in Benghazi.
Al-Jazeera Arabic reports that it’s received videos of murdered protesters that are too graphic to air. The video below, which was released by Al-Jazeera English, gives (non-graphic) on-the-ground footage and a concise synopsis of events on Saturday and Sunday.
UPDATE 7, Monday, Feb. 21, 4:05 p.m. EST/11:11 p.m. Tripoli (Ashley Bates): Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has very belatedly condemned the violence against civilians in Libya, calling it “unacceptable.” Over the weekend, Berlusconi said he hadn’t phoned Qaddafi because he didn’t want to “disturb” him amidst the uprisings.
As chronicled by Mother Jones senior correspondent James Ridgeway, Berlusconi and Qaddafi have worked together to catch Italy-bound migrants and asylum seekers. Berlusconi, who is on trial for allegedly having sex with an underage prostitute, has courted Libyan petrodollars, and rolled out the red carpet during Qaddafi’s multiple visits to Italy. In June of 2009, Qaddafi flew one thousand Italian women to Libya for a “cultural tour.” Just last week, Berlusconi reportedly sent a Danish IC4 train to Qaddafi as a gift.
UPDATE 8, Monday, Feb. 21, 4:20 p.m. EST/11:20 p.m. Tripoli (Nick Baumann): Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a prominent Muslim theologian, was just on Al Jazeera. He issued a fatwa during the interview calling for the death of Qaddafi. Sultan Al Qassemi’s translation: “To any army soldier, to any man who can pull the trigger & kill this man, do so. Save your countrymen from this brutal tyrant. It is wrong of you to stand by while he kills innocent people.” Meanwhile, Al Jazeera reports that the Egyptian army’s Facebook page has been updated with news that Libyan border guards have withdrawn from Egypt’s boundary with Libya. And Al Jazeera English just reported that the Libyan ambassador to the US has resigned and come out against Qaddafi. (UPDATE: Foreign Policy’s Blake Hounshell clarifies that the ambassador may not have technically resigned, but calls it a “moot point” given the ambassador’s explicit criticism of the regime.) Meanwhile, Foreign Policy’s Marc Lynch is calling for US and international intervention: “NATO enfoced no-fly zone, hold [Qaddafi] + regime individually responsible for deaths, call urgent [security council] meeting, targeted sanctions.”
UPDATE 9, Monday, Feb. 21, 5:45 p.m. EST/12:45 a.m. Tuesday Tripoli (Nick Baumann): CNN has a truly awful video of what it says are the bodies of Libyan soldiers who refused to shoot at protesters. And here’s Marc Lynch’s writeup of his call for international intervention I mentioned in Update 8.
UPDATE 10, Monday, Feb. 21, 6:10 p.m. EST/1:10 a.m. Tuesday Tripoli (Nick Baumann): The State Department has released a transcript of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent comments on Libya:
The world is watching the situation in Libya with alarm. We join the international community in strongly condemning the violence in Libya. Our thoughts and prayers are with those whose lives have been lost, and with their loved ones. The government of Libya has a responsibility to respect the universal rights of the people, including the right to free expression and assembly. Now is the time to stop this unacceptable bloodshed. We are working urgently with friends and partners around the world to convey this message to the Libyan government.
UPDATE 11, Monday, Feb. 21, 6:45 p.m. EST/1:45 a.m. Tripoli (Ashley Bates): Egypt and Tunisia have both set up field hospitals on their borders with Libya and are trying to send help. A group of Libyan military officers have released a statement calling on all members of the Libyan army to join the protesters. Al-Jazeera Arabic reports that advertisements in Guinea and Nigeria are offering up to $2,000 per day to fight as mercenaries for the Libyan army. And Libyan State TV has just announced that Qaddafi will speak shortly.
UPDATE 12, Monday, Feb. 21, 7:20 p.m. EST/2:20 a.m. Tuesday Tripoli (Nick Baumann): In what almost seemed like a piece of bizarre, horrible performance art (with awful consequences), Qaddafi just spoke on Libyan state television. The whole appearance lasted about 15 seconds and consisted of him saying that he is in Tripoli, not Venezuela (as British foreign secretary William Hague had claimed), and warning citizens not to believe “the dog tv channels” saying otherwise. He was holding an umbrella, too. The whole thing was a stark reminder of the fact that an entire country is ruled by a man who is at best a very odd tyrant who is totally willing to kill his people and at worst a total madman—or, as The Atlantic’s Max Fisher writes, a “f***king loon.”
UPDATE 13, Tuesday, Feb. 22, 1:15 a.m. EST/6:15 a.m. Tripoli (Ashley Bates): Below is a translated YouTube video of Qaddafi’s bizarre television appearance.
CNN’s Ben Wendeman has managed to sneak into Libya from Egypt, making him the first (and presumably only) western television correspondent to be reporting from Libya. He found no officials, passport control, or customs on the Libyan side of the border. A Libyan man said to him, “You must show the world what has happened here. We will show you everything, everything!”
UPDATE 14, Tuesday, Feb. 22, 10:30 a.m. EST/5:30 p.m. Tripoli (Nick Baumann): Lots of news to catch up on this morning:
* There are scattered reports of both Benghazi (Libya’s second-largest city and the place where the uprising started) and Tobruk (a large city and strategic port) being in the hands of rebels. The German press agency DPA reports that Benghazi’s airstrip has been totally destroyed.
* A group of Libyan military officers has reportedly asked all members of the Libyan army to move towards the Tripoli, the capital, and attempt to depose Qaddafi.
* NBC’s Richard Engel reports that Libyans are already suffering from shortages of “rice, flour, sugar, [and] oil.”
* Human Rights Watch says at least 62 people have been confirmed killed in Tripoli, the capital, since Sunday.
* The United Nations Security Council is holding a closed-door session today to discuss the violence in Libya. The BBC’s Eleanor Montague reports that Britain will ask the UN to “take action” on Libya “because of its implications for security in the region.”
* Al Jazeera reports that Libyan state television is claiming that Qaddafi will give another address shortly. It remains to be seen whether it will be as bizarre as his last one.
UPDATE 15, Tuesday, Feb. 22, 11:30 a.m. EST/6:30 p.m. Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): Marc Lynch finds himself advocating for more aggressive action in Libya:
I don’t call for a direct military intervention. And I am keenly, painfully aware of all that could go wrong with even the kinds of responses I am recommending. But right now those fears are outweighed by the urgent imperative of trying to prevent the already bloody situation from getting much, much worse. This is not a peaceful democracy protest movement which the United States can best help by pressuring allied regimes from above, pushing for long-term and meaningful reform, and persuading the military to refrain from violence. It’s gone well beyond that already, and this time I find myself on the side of those demanding more forceful action before it’s too late.
UPDATE 16, Tuesday, Feb. 22, 11:50 a.m. EST/6:50 p.m. Tripoli (Nick Baumann): Qaddafi is still in the midst of a long, rambling speech, full of threats and bluster and general delusion and stubbornness. It’s “like a mashup of every dictator’s excuse ever. Protesters want to Islamify Libya, turn it into… Somalia. Or something,” writes Wired’s Spencer Ackerman. The headline, though, is Qaddafi’s pretty much explicit promise to slaughter protesters. Qaddafi promised the death penalty for numerous crimes, and mentioned Tiannemen Square and suggested the Chinese regime had done the right thing. “If there was any doubt before, there is no longer: Qaddafi has unequivocally declared intention to massacre his own people,” says Brookings’ Shadi Hamid. Other highlights: “We Libyans resisted the… United States and Britain in the past, we will not surrender.” “I will not leave the country, and I will die as a martyr.” “We will not lose one inch of this land.” “We will flight to the last man and woman and bullet.” The Times of Malta has perhaps the best early summary of the speech.
UPDATE 17, Tuesday, Feb. 22, 6:15 p.m. EST/Wednesday, Feb. 23, 1:15 a.m. Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): The Associated Press reports that Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi has spoken to Qaddafi on the phone, as his brutal crackdown on anti-government protests continues. As Jim Ridgeway outlined, the two rulers and their countries are close, and signed a “friendship treaty” in 2008 that called for Italy to pay Libya $5 billion in compensation for its 30-year colonial occupation. Meanwhile, concerns about Italy’s natural gas supplies continue to mount after the country’s chief energy company, ENI, said it had suspended supplies through its Greenstream pipeline. It runs from Libya to Sicily, and supplies 10 percent of Italy’s natural gas.
UPDATE 18, Tuesday, Feb. 22, 6:27 p.m. EST/Wednesday, Feb. 23, 1:27 a.m. Tripoli (Ashley Bates): Mother Jones has interviewed Libyan poet and University of Michigan professor Khaled Mattawa, who recounts the horrors of growing up under the Qaddafi regime. He says, “This is the moment we’ve been waiting for.”
UPDATE 19, Wednesday, Feb. 23, 10:08 a.m. EST/5:08 p.m. Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): Things could be coming to a head:
* Reports from towns near Tripoli suggest that fighting has reached the capital’s doorstep, reports The New York Times. And the spate of high-level defections from the Qaddafi regime continues, with interior minister Abdel Fattah Younes al-Abidi leaving on Tuesday night. He urged the Libyan Army to join the people and their “legitimate demands.” State media claimed he has been kidnapped by “gangs.” Towns in the east continue to, in essence, declare their independence and establish up informal opposition governments. “The widening gap between the capital and the eastern countryside underscored the radically different trajectory of the Libyan revolt from the others that recently toppled Arab autocrats on Libya’s western and eastern borders, in Tunisia and Egypt,” reports Times. Internet access in Tripoli remains blocked, and phone service is only intermittent.
* Foreign governments are continuing their mad rush to evacuate their citizens from Libya, chartering military and civilian planes and even mobilizing military ships. It’s unclear how many Americans remain in Libya.
* French President Nicolas Sarkozy is calling on the European Union to impose sanctions against Libya. “I call on the foreign ministry to propose to our European Union partners the swift adoption of concrete sanctions so that all those involved in the ongoing violence know that they must assume the consequences of their actions,” he told a cabinet meeting on Wednesday. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has also said she would support sanctions if Qaddafi doesn’t stop using violence against his own people. And the White House said on Tuesday that it is examining proposals by Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) to consider reimposing sanctions.
UPDATE 20, Wednesday, Feb. 23, 10:20 a.m. EST/5:20 p.m. Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini says his country estimates that 1,000 people have died in Libya since the uprising began.
UPDATE 21, Wednesday, Feb. 23, 11:30 a.m. EST/6:30 p.m. Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): Hewing close to his Egypt-react script, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad condemned Qaddafi for “unimaginable repression” against the Libyan people. “It is unimaginable that someone is killing his citizens, bombarding his citizens,” Ahmadinejad said on state television. “How can officers be ordered to use bullets from machine guns, tanks and guns against their own citizens?…This is unacceptable. Let the people speak, be free, decide to express their will…Do not resist the will of the people.”
UPDATE 22, Wednesday, Feb. 23, 11:51 a.m. EST/6:30 p.m. Tripoli (Ashley Bates): Thomas Friedman argues in today’s New York Times that events unfolding in Libya and across the Middle East highlight the failures of oil interest-driven US foreign policy. His solution: a $1-a-gallon gasoline tax, to be phased in at 5 cents a month beginning in 2012, with all the money going to pay down the US deficit. Friedman says:
For the last 50 years, America (and Europe and Asia) have treated the Middle East as if it were just a collection of big gas stations: Saudi station, Iran station, Kuwait station, Bahrain station, Egypt station, Libya station, Iraq station, United Arab Emirates station, etc. Our message to the region has been very consistent: “Guys (it was only the guys we spoke with), here’s the deal. Keep your pumps open, your oil prices low, don’t bother the Israelis too much, and, as far as we’re concerned, you can do whatever you want out back.
UPDATE 23, Wednesday, Feb. 23, 1:00 p.m. EST/8:00 p.m. Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): Michael J. Totten on why Libya isn’t Tunisia or Egypt:
The contrast between Libya and its neighbors is stark. When I visited Tunisia just a few months before going to Tripoli, I met plenty of people willing to criticize Ben Ali even when others were present. Sure, they lowered their voices, but they didn’t cower in fear. Egypt under Mubarak was even more open. I spoke to dissident bloggers like “Big Pharaoh” and “Sandmonkey” in restaurants and bars, and they didn’t care if anyone heard them slagging the president. Cairo’s mukhabarat didn’t seem to mind what anyone said as long as they didn’t act on their disgruntlement. Granted, regimes like these wouldn’t have lasted decades if they were easy to get rid of, but, ultimately, they lack the staying power of the hard totalitarian states.
States like Libya, that is. Tunisia is pleasant, prosperous, and heavily Frenchified, while Egypt is a poverty-stricken shambles, but Ben Ali and Mubarak were both pragmatic, standard issue authoritarians. Qaddafi, by comparison, is an emotionally unstable ideological megalomaniac. He says he’s the sun of Africa and swears to unite the Arabs and Africans underneath him. He has repeatedly threatened to ban money and schools, and he treats his country, communist-style, like a mad scientist’s laboratory. What I knew when I was there holds true today, even as his grip on power seems shaky: This guy is not going to liberalize, and he is not going to go quietly.
UPDATE 24, Wednesday, Feb. 23, 1:25 p.m. EST/8:25 p.m. Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): The Atlantic’s Max Fisher tweets: “Isolated but largely consistent reports seem to indicate sweeping military defections across Libya’s northeast.” And, on the ground, Anjali Kamat’s tweet confirms that things are breaking down for Qaddafi: “Entering #Libya now. Greeted by army who have all joined revolution. Man checking our passports is an airforce major general #feb17″
UPDATE 25, Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2:07 p.m. EST/9:07 p.m. Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): Two from earlier today that’re worth a read. First, Leslie Gelb urges caution, not grandiose action, for the United States. “My fear is that an activist and grand strategy will grossly exaggerate America’s power to shape events and will do more harm than good,” he writes. And former CIA field officer Robert Baer reports from sources in Libya on just how far Qaddafi is willing to go to maintain his grip on power. Qaddafi “has ordered security services to start sabotaging oil facilities. They will start by blowing up several oil pipelines, cutting off flow to Mediterranean ports. The sabotage, according to the insider, is meant to serve as a message to Libya’s rebellious tribes: It’s either me or chaos.”
UPDATE 26, Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2:35 p.m. EST/9:35 p.m. Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): The International Organization for Migration reports that migrants have begun to cross into Tunisia from Libya. “Although most of the arrivals have largely been…Tunisian… nationals migrants of various nationalities”—including Syrian, Lebanese, Turkish, and German—”have been crossing the border into Tunisia’s Medenine Governorate requesting assistance to go back home,” IOM writes in a press release. Additional IOM staff are set to deploy to the border area.
UPDATE 27, Wednesday Feb. 23, 3:55 p.m. EST/10:55 p.m. Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): This is the way we bail. Channel News Asia has a short dispatch on a pair of Libyan pilots who refused orders to bomb Benghazi. And The New York Times reports that thousands of African mercenaries and militiamen are heading to Tripoli to back up Qaddafi, as rebel forces continue to secure their control of surrounding towns. Witnesses say that protestors appear to have taken control of the northwestern city of Misurata.
UPDATE 28, Wednesday. Feb. 23, 5:56 p.m. EST/Thursday, Feb. 24, 12:56 a.m. Tripoli (Ashley Bates): Earlier today, I spoke on the phone with Ali Ahmida, a University of New England political science professor whose work explores power, agency, and anti-colonial resistance in Libya. Here are some of his thoughts:
On Where This Could Be Headed: Unfortunately, I think it’s going to get worse. The regime closed the last chances for reform and negotiations when Seif Qaddafi gave this really threatening speech that was more of a declaration of war, an ultimatum….The regime is clinging to the old days, thinking they can crush the opposition.
On France’s No-Fly Zone Proposal: No, no, no. I think it’s is a bad idea. I think, in the long run, it would be a liability more than a help. The Libyan people have fought against one of the most brutal western colonizations in Africa. They lost half a million people in the [1911-1943] war against Italian colonialism and 60,000 people perished in the [Italian] concentration camps. So Libyan people are very wary of foreign intervention….And Iraq is a big, lousy lesson for all of us. Look at how much killing happened in Iraq. How much agony. And how the exiled Iraqis have really conned the United States.
On Libya’s Democratic Potential: It’s possible there would be no democracy after Qaddafi, but that’s not unusual. It’s not because the people don’t want freedom of choice or democracy. It’s because either the state and its authoritarian forces are too powerful, or because the [western] conservatives have always supported dictatorships and absolutist monarchies. They are just as guilty. Having democracy is not an easy matter. As in the American and the western experience, this is going to take more than just having a constitution and voting rights….I also think that question has to be guarded against foreign intervention and an exaggerated role for the Libyan exile community, which has been out of touch for a long time.
On What America Should Do: First, pressure the Libyan regime through the UN to negotiate a peaceful transition and stop the killing. Second, really try to learn about Libyan society. There’s a huge vacuum in our knowledge about Libya. We reduce it to tribes and clans, or to Qaddafi, or to oil. There’s nothing about Libyan society. I find that appalling, even among our commentators and our scholars.
UPDATE 29, Wednesday. Feb. 23, 6:13 p.m. EST/Thursday, Feb. 24, 1:13 a.m. Tripoli (Ashley Bates): In his first televised comments on the Libya crisis, Obama announced that he’s sending Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Geneva for a meeting of the UN Human Rights Council and for talks with allied foreign ministers. Obama condemned the Qaddafi government’s “outrageous” violence, said that protecting American citizens in Libya was his “highest priority,” and rejected allegations that western powers are meddling in Arab uprisings. “The change that is taking place across the region is being driven by the people of the region,” he said.
UPDATE 30, Wednesday, Feb. 23, 8:00 p.m. EST/3:00 a.m. Thursday in Tripoli (Nick Baumann): The Independent’s Robert Fisk, who seems to be the first Western reporter to get into Tripoli, has a report from “a city in the shadow of death.”
UPDATE 31, Thursday, Feb. 24, 10:52 a.m. EST/5:52 p.m. Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): Today: witnesses say Qaddafi is consolidating his forces in preparation for a showdown against rebel forces in Tripoli.
* Qaddafi’s forces are fortifying their position around Tripoli, as cities in the east continue to fall to rebel forces and defections from the military and his inner circle continue. Witnesses told the The New York Times that members of Qaddafi’s forces—made up, in large part, of mercenaries and slices of the military loyal to his tribe and its allies—were training their energies on the roads leading to the capital, while establishing checkpoints on the road to the west of Tripoli. And there are now reports of protests in the pro-Qaddafi city of Sabha for the first time. Meanwhile, Egyptian officials said on Wednesday that nearly 30,000 people, mostly Egyptian, had fled across the border back to their home country.
* The latest defector: Qaddafi aide (and cousin) Ahmed Gadhaf al-Dam, who announced on Thursday that he has defected to Egypt in protest against the regime’s “grave violations to human rights and human and international laws,” reports the Associated Press.
* In a speech aired on state television on Wednesday, Qaddafi blamed the unrest on Al Qaeda, reports Al Jazeera. “It is obvious now that this issue is run by al-Qaeda…No one above the age of 20 would actually take part in these events…They are taking advantage of the young age of these people [to commit violent acts] because they are not legally liable!” said the Libyan ruler.
UPDATE 32, Thursday, Feb. 24, 12:13 p.m. EST/7:13 p.m. Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): Two from Mother Jones: Jim Ridgeway sheds more light on the cozy relationship between and Italy, oil, immigrants, and all. And Mac McClelland speculates on why the UN has dragged its feet in Libya: “When it comes to the lack of meaningful UN action on Libya, it’s not disorganization, or excessive bureaucracy to blame—just a healthy dose of sacklessness.”
UPDATE 33, Thursday. Feb. 24, 12:22 p.m. EST/ 7:22 p.m. Tripoli (Ashley Bates): Below is a compelling three-minute video recently posted by Al-Jazeera. It tightly summarizes the events of the last few days, features non-graphic footage from cities across Libya, and shows chilling clips from Libyan state television.
UPDATE 34, Thursday, Feb. 24, 1:56 p.m. EST/8:56 p.m. Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): Just tweeted by @SultanAlQassemi: “Breaking Al Hurra: the Libyan mission to the UN takes down Gaddafi’s green flag & raises the Kingdom of #Libya independence flag instead.”
UPDATE 35, Thursday, Feb. 24, 4:20 p.m. EST/11:20 p.m. Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): Another must-watch from Al Jazeera: an interview with Muhammad al-Senussi, the man who would have been Libya’s crown prince. The country was a monarchy until Qaddafi led a coup in 1969.
UPDATE 36, Thursday, Feb. 24, 5:22 p.m. EST/Friday, Feb. 25, 12:22 a.m. Tripoli (David Corn): I just spoke to a friend’s husband who is in Benghazi. He’s Libyan, works there and in Europe, and his family is in this city, the second largest in the Libya. He asks that I don’t use his name—because Muammar Qaddafi is not gone yet (and though he’ll eventually return to Europe, his relatives won’t). He reports:
* Benghazi is quiet and safe. Shops and banks—though not schools—were open today. He had no trouble driving throughout the city. “Everybody’s fine,” he says. I’ts very safe… Unbelievably. Nobody is afraid of Qaddafi like before.”
* The Internet is not functioning in the city. International phone service is sketchy. Many residents are receiving and watching Al Jazeera.
* The city is being governed by an ad hoc assortment of military people, police, past government officials, and groups of citizens.
* There is a major fear shared by the residents of Benghazi: that Qaddafi will launch an air assault on the city. My friend’s husband notes that the military guarding the city does not possess anti-aircraft guns. He says that because Qaddafi was distrustful of this region, he did not supply the military based there with large amounts of weaponry. “We cannot fight back against an air attack,” he says.
* The residents of Benghazi have been trying to follow what’s happening in Tripoli. “I was able to talk to a friend in Tripoli,” he notes. “He told me, ‘It’s hell in Tripoli. There’s shooting everywhere. Qaddafi’s mafia is shooting people everywhere in the city.’”
He’s hopeful that the violence in Libya—a friend of his was shot and killed in Benghazi—will soon be over and Qaddafi gone. “In a couple of days,” he says, “everything will be finished.”
UPDATE 37, Thursday, Feb. 24, 6:28 p.m. EST/Friday, Feb. 25, 1:28 a.m. Tripoli (Ashley Bates): More bizarre, disturbing news: The US State Department announced today that the Libyan government may arrest foreign journalists who enter the country illegally as “Al-Qaida collaborators.” Western and Arab journalists, including CNN’s Ben Wedeman, have entered Libya without permission.
UPDATE 38, Friday. Feb. 25, 9:43 a.m. EST/ 4:22 p.m. Tripoli (Ashley Bates): The brutality continues as anti-Qaddafi protesters fight on:
*
In an act of desperation, Libya state television announced shortly before Friday prayers that Qaddafi will offer a 150 percent increase in wages for all government workers and $400 to every family.
*
The announcement had no apparent effect, and tens of thousands took to the streets across Libya following Friday prayers. The worst violence occurred in Tripoli, where Qaddafi forces are still clinging to power. Al-Arabiya reports that gunmen open fired on protesters in several areas of the capital.
*
Sheik Yousef Qaradawi, a relatively moderate Muslim cleric admired in the Arab world for his encyclopedic knowledge of Islamic law and feared by some commentators in the West for his anti-Israel views, gave a Friday sermon in Qatar that was broadcast live by Al-Jazeera. Qaradawi said (reported via Sultan AlQassemi), “We are expecting good news from Libya. I can almost see the victory in my eyes now….I believe in this victory because I believe in God.” Qaradawi also advised revolutionaries to take pity on mercenaries that Qaddafi has reportedly hired from neighboring African countries. “They are poor,” Qaradawi said. “Give them the security to leave.”
*
Qaddafi’s son, Seif Qaddafi, was asked in a Friday interview with CNN Turk television whether his family had a “Plan B.” He replied defiantly that his family plans to “live and die in Libya.”
*
Navy Pillay, the UN high commisioner for human rights, said Friday that Qaddafi’s bloody crackdown is “escalating alarmingly” and “thousands may have been killed or injured.”
*
Activists have launched new radio stations and newspapers in eastern Libya, where anti-Qaddafi forces have gained the upper hand.
UPDATE 39, Friday, Feb. 25, 11:10 a.m. EST/6:10 p.m. in Tripoli (Nick Baumann): The New York Times’ Kareem Fahim and David Kirkpatrick have a dispatch from what are increasingly looking like the front lines of a war between Libyan revolutionaries and Qaddafi’s mercenaries. Lede: “Rebels seeking to overturn the 40-year rule of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi repelled a concerted assault by his forces on Thursday on cities close to the capital, removing any doubt that Libya’s patchwork of protests had evolved into an increasingly well-armed revolutionary movement.” Highlight [emphasis added]: “Tawfik al-Shohiby, one of the rebels, said that in the early days of the revolt one of his relatives bought $75,000 in automatic weapons from arms dealers on the Egyptian border and distributed them to citizens’ groups in towns like Bayda.” Read up. Also:
* The entire Libyan mission at the United Nations mission in Geneva, Switzerland quit on Friday morning.
* Paul Schemm of the Associated Press has an interesting piece on how the citizens of Benghazi, the city where the uprising started, are governing themselves.
UPDATE 40, Friday, Feb. 25, 1:56 p.m. EST/8:56 p.m. in Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): From Mother Jones: Qaddafi’s son, Saif, authored a 2007 doctoral thesis praising democracy and human rights. No, it’s not a joke.
UPDATE 41, Friday, Feb. 25, 2:57 p.m. EST/9:57 p.m. in Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): A flurry of news from Washington, brought to you by Twitter:
* Josh Rogin retweets Chuck Todd: “RT @chucktodd: “Pretty much everything that was on the table short of a no-fly zone is being enacted by US govt re: #libya”
* From Reuters: “White House says U.S. has decided to move forward with unilateral sanctions against #Libya, will be coordinated with European allies”
* And from @SultanAlQassemi, via Al Arabiya: “Breaking – Al Arabiya: AP: Washington suspends US embassy activities in Tripoli #Libya”
UPDATE 42, Friday, Feb. 25, 3:35 p.m. EST/10:35 p.m. in Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): Here’s the State Department’s full statement on suspending embassy operations in Libya:
Given current security conditions in Libya, coupled with our inability to guarantee fully the safety and security of our diplomatic personnel in the country, the Department of State has temporarily withdrawn Embassy personnel from Tripoli and suspended all embassy operations effective February 25, 2011. The safety of the American community remains paramount to the Department and we will continue to provide assistance to the greatest extent possible through other missions.
UPDATE 43, Friday, Feb. 25, 4:10 p.m. EST/11:10 p.m. in Tripoli (Nick Baumann): The Guardian has the scoop on UK officials telling Qaddafi loyalists to “defect or face war crimes trials.” This is important. First, it shows the UK believes Qaddafi is definitely going down, and puts a lot of pressure on his key people. It also demonstrates that the West hopes to hold Libyan officials accountable for the deaths of civilian protesters. Hillary Clinton, William Hague, and Catherine Ashton—the top foreign affairs officials for the US, the UK, and the EU, respectively—are headed to Geneva on Monday to argue that the International Criminal Court should prosecute Libyan leaders. Between this and the unilateral US moves mentioned in Update 41, it’s pretty clear that the West is finally, ever-so-slowly, moving to do at least something about the horrible violence and massacres in Libya.
UPDATE 44, Saturday. Feb. 26, 9:58 a.m. EST/ 4:58 p.m. Tripoli (Ashley Bates): A roundup of news from around the web:
*
Qaddafi forces are still maintaining a stronghold in Tripoli. They’ve set up checkpoints around the city and are opening arms depots for their supporters, attempting to pit tribes against one another. “We shall destroy any aggression with popular will,” Qaddafi said in his latest television address. “Libya will become a red flame, a burning coal.”
*
In most other Libyan cities, including Benghazi, where the revolution was launched, anti-Qaddafi forces are in full control.
*
Foreign Policy reports that some Latin American leaders, including Fidel Castro of Cuba and Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, are standing by Qaddafi amidst the bloodbath. Ortega has spoken regularly with Qaddafi by phone and thinks Qaddafi is “fighting a great battle.” Castro distrusts the accuracy of news coming out of Libya and fears a “western invasion.” Both Ortega and Castro are longtime friends of Qaddafi and recipients of the “Muammar Qaddafi International Human Rights Prize.”
*
African migrants who were working in Libya’s oil industry now fear they’ll be killed on suspicion of being Qaddafi mercenaries. A Turkish oil worker who escaped from Libya told the BBC that his Sudanese and Chadian colleagues had been “massacred” by attackers who reportedly said, “you are providing troops for Qaddafi.” Many white Libyans have long harbored racist sentiments. Professor Saad Jabbar, deputy director of the North Africa Center at Cambridge University, told NPR he fears a “genocide against anyone who has black skin.”
*
The US State Department said Saturday morning that some Americans “may” remain in Libya despite its attempt to evacuate all US nationals. American journalists, for example, will presumably opt not to leave. A US “task force” will stay in Libya to assist Americans.
*
The UN Security Council will meet in New York today to discuss imposing international sanctions. This includes an arms embargo, an asset freeze, and a travel ban against Qaddafi government officials. Friday night, Obama issued an executive order to freeze the American-held assets of Qaddafi family members and high level government officials. Libya’s ambassador to the UN has pleaded for the Security Council to “save Libya” by imposing sanctions.
UPDATE 45, Sunday, Feb. 27, 3:00 p.m. EST/10:00 p.m. in Tripoli (Nick Baumann): Here’s what’s happening today:
* The Times’ David Kirkpatrick reports on the “tour” of Tripoli Qaddafi offered for foreign journalists on Saturday, and notes that it “appeared to backfire”: “When government-picked drivers escorted journalists on tours of the city on Saturday morning, the extent of the unrest was unmistakable.”
* US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued an extensive statement Saturday on “holding the Qaddafi government accountable.” On Sunday, she briefed reporters on her plane as she prepared to fly to Geneva, Switzerland, to meet with European leaders, keep up US pressure on Libya, and make sure the International Criminal Court looks into war crimes committed by the Qaddafi regime. (The UN Security Council has already referred the case to the ICC.) Headline: Clinton reiterated that the US has “made it clear we expect [Qaddafi] to leave” the country.
* Clinton was also asked about the rival government a former Qaddafi justice minister has set up in Benghazi. She said “it’s way too soon to tell how this is going to play out, but we’re going to be ready and prepared to offer any kind of assistance that anyone wishes to have from the United States.”
* Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) both mentioned potential military aid to Libyan rebels in Sunday show appearances this morning, shocking absolutely no one.
* The foreign minister of Italy, perhaps Qaddafi’s closest European ally, said Sunday that the “point of no return” had been reached in Libya and that the end of Qaddafi’s rule is “inevitable.”
* Saif al Islam Qaddafi, Muammar’s son, was on Christiane Amanpour’s program this morning disputing well-documented reports of the regime using violence against civilians.
* The key equation going forward will be whether rebels have the numbers and arms necessary to beat Qaddafi’s mercenaries—or whether Western sanctions will decrease Qaddafi’s ability to pay those mercenaries. There’s also a chance Qaddafi will change his mind and leave the country, but so far both he and his son have said they will “die fighting.” Bottom line: this could get even bloodier as rebel forces converge on Tripoli.
UPDATE 46, Monday, Feb. 28, 10:05 a.m. EST/5:05 p.m. in Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): Qaddafi remains in denial as his support dwindles and defects. And the fighting continues:
* Conspiracies, Homegrown: the Libyan government is blaming the combined powers of Islamic radicalism and the West for conjuring a conspiracy to take over the country, reports The New York Times. “The Islamists want chaos; the West also wants chaos,” said Musa Ibrahim, a government spokesman, to reporters. He argued that the West wants Libya’s oil, while Islamists want to establish a base for international terrorism. He also denied reports that Qaddafi loyalists have fired their guns at civilians. Meanwhile, fighting rages on, with rebels saying they’ve foiled Qaddafi’s attempt to retake the eastern city of Misurata. And low-paid contract workers continue fleeing across the country’s eastern and western borders into Egypt and Tunisia, respectively.
* Off with his bizarrely-coiffed head: Count French Prime Minister Francois Fillon and British Prime Minister David Cameron among the foreign authorities calling for Qaddafi to go. The EU’s top foreign policy official, Catherine Ashton, has also announced that the EU will adopt sanctions against Libya. And Germany has offered a proposal to end all financial payments to Libya for 60 days, reports Reuters, while Italian foreign minster Franco Frattini suspended a nonaggression treaty with Libya on the grounds that the Libyan state “no longer exists.”
UPDATE 47, Monday, Feb. 28, 10:25 a.m. EST/5:25 p.m. in Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): A must-watch: ABC News’ Christiane Amanpour interviewed Qaddafi heirs Said and Saif on ABC’s This Week yesterday. “Nobody is leaving this country,” Saif told Amanpour. He also denied that the military has attacked its own people, and insisted that most of the country is calm. “Show me a single attack, show me a single bomb,” he said. “The Libyan air force destroyed just the ammunition sites,” he said.
UPDATE 48, Monday, Feb. 28, 10:51 a.m. EST/5:51 p.m. in Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): Megalomania, Noy Going Viral: Noy Alooshe, an Israeli journalist living in Tel Aviv, cut this YouTube video lampooning Qaddafi’s speech from last Tuesday. Alooshe set the speech to the song “Hey Baby” by the American rappers Pitbull and T-Pain. He titled his creation “Zenga-Zenga,” alluding to Qaddafi’s repetition of the word zanqa (Arabic for alleyway). “The original clip features mirror images of a scantily clad woman dancing along to Colonel Qaddafi’s rant. Mr. Alooshe said he got many requests from Web surfers who asked him for a version without the dancer so that they could show it to their parents, which he did,” reports the Times.
UPDATE 49, Monday, Feb. 28, 1:35 p.m. EST/8:35 p.m. in Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): Al Jazeera is reporting that Qaddafi has appointed his intelligence chief, Bouzaid Dordah, to speak to anti-government protestors in the east. They’ve formed a “national council” as a means of keeping the uprisings in different cities under one, unified body.
UPDATE 50, Monday, Feb. 28, 2:06 p.m. EST/9:06 p.m. in Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): Democracy Now!’s Anjali Kamat has just returned to Egypt from a five day trip to eastern Libya. “There is a sense that Qaddafi could do anything to people [in Tripoli] and there is a real sense of fear,” she says in this dispatch. Watch the whole thing.
UPDATE 51, Monday, Feb. 28, 3:50 p.m. EST/10:50 p.m. in Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): Key tweets, brought to you by the indispensable @SultanAlQassemi: “Gaddafi to ABC: America is not the policeman of the world. Obama is a good man but he was misinformed by those around him. #Libya” and “Breaking – Reuters/CNBC: US Treasury Dept freezes $30 billion in Libyan assets in the US #Libya Via @acarvin & @ThamerSalman”. Meanwhile, it’s looking more and more like Qaddafi views peaceful negotiation with the rebel forces as a realistic possibility.
UPDATE 52, Monday, Feb. 28, 6:20 p.m. EST/Tuesday, March 1, 1:20 p.m. in Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): The Washington Post’s Jeff Stein reports that a senior White House officials says the administration doesn’t think that Libya’s chemical weapon arsenal—including mustard and sarin gas—is vulnerable to theft. Experts think that Libya destroyed over three thousand bombshells designed to carry gas as part of its deal to end years of isolation by the west. But a large stockpile of mustard and sarin gas remain stored in barrels at three locations south of Tripoli:
Speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive issue, the administration official suggested the Libyans have moved to bolster the security of the material since protests erupted earlier this month, but he refused to specify what those steps were or how the administration had communicated with the Libyans.
“We have continued to urge the Libyans to safely complete destruction of their remaining chemical weapons agent as quickly as possible,” the official said. “As part of that process, the Libyans have taken appropriate steps to secure their CW [chemical weapons] from unauthorized access.”
UPDATE 53, Tuesday, March 1, 11:00 a.m. EST/6:00 p.m. in Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): Here’s what’s happening today:
* As the prospect of civil war in Libya looms ever larger, The New York Times reports Qaddafi’s forces are having little success in staving off rebel attacks around the country. And the colonel is facing growing international pressure to step down. The US, meanwhile, has repositioned its naval fleet in anticipation of possible humanitarian or military intervention in Libya. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s message: to surrender power “now, without further violence or delay.”
* The Times also reports on the ongoing impact of the chaos in Libya on the economies of its neighbors:
The enduring impact of the region’s turmoil was evident in Cairo, where Egypt postponed the reopening of its stock exchange again on Tuesday until Sunday. The exchange has been closed for over a month, after antigovernment protests in late January shook investor confidence and drove the value of the country’s benchmark index down 17 percent in two trading days. In Bahrain on Tuesday, protesters marched down King Faisal Highway in the capital, Manama. In Oman, whose first major protests were reported over the weekend, demonstrations continued on Tuesday, a day after violent clashes with the security forces in the port city of Sohar, and the unrest spread for the first time to the capital, Muscat.
* Western countries are still debating the option of enforcing a no-fly zone over the country. But The Assocated Press reports that Russian officials have ruled out the idea, with foreign minister Sergey Lavrov calling the proposal “superfluous.”
* And on ABC News on Monday, Qaddafi revealed the depths of his delusion. “They love me. All my people with me, they love me,” he said. “They will die to protect me, my people.”
UPDATE 54, Tuesday, March 1, 11:24 a.m. EST/6:24 p.m. in Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): On apples, trees, and not falling far from them:
the Council on Foreign Relations’ Steven Cook debunks the fallacy of the second generation reformer—in Libya’s case, the erroneous title belongs to the allegedly pro-democracy Saif al-Islam al-Qaddafi, Phd.
UPDATE 55, Tuesday, March 1, 11:35 a.m. EST/6:35 p.m. in Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): Is Sergey Lavrov on to something when it comes to no-fly zones? (see Update 53). How do they work? And do they work? Foreign Policy’s Josh Keating takes a swing.
UPDATE 56, Tuesday, March 1, 1:15 p.m. EST/8:15 p.m. in Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): Al Jazeera reports that British Prime Minister David Cameron is pushing the international community to act against Qaddafi. “It’s not acceptable that Colonel Gaddafi can be murdering his own people, using aeroplanes and helicopters gunships.. and we have to plan now to make sure that if it happens we can do something to stop that,” he said. In his remarks, Cameron also discussed the possibility of arming opposition fighters. And he’s also asked his defense ministry to work with the country’s allies on a plan for a no-fly zone over Libya.
UPDATE 57, Tuesday, March 1, 2:15 p.m. EST/9:15 p.m. in Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): Things could be flaring up in Tajoura, a neighborhood in eastern Tripoli that’s served as the epicenter for unrest in the capital. “Tajoura is very tense. There were small demonstrations. Regime had removed grafitti/signs, but last night people put them back. #Libya,” tweets @iyad_elbaghdadi.
UPDATE 58, Tuesday, March 1, 2:35 p.m. EST/9:35 p.m. in Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): Must-watch: the latest footage from Libya’s border with Tunisia, where tens of thousands of refugees are spilling over into the recently revolutionized country. It’s from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees:
UPDATE 59, Tuesday, March 1, 2:50 p.m. EST/9:50 p.m. in Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): File this under “aggressive, but maybe not aggressive enough”: the Associated Press reports that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says that the Obama administration may seek the prosecution of Qaddafi for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing that killed 270 people, after some ex-Libyan officials claimed that Qaddafi personally ordered the attack. Clinton told Congress that she will ask the FBI and Justice Department to look into the matter. The US considers the bombing a closed case.
UPDATE 60, Tuesday, March 1, 4:15 p.m. EST/11:15 p.m. in Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): While Josh Keating broke down the logistics of installing a no-fly zone, David Axe tells us why Libya’s complex, 25-year old air defense network probably won’t save it if foreign nations decide to go all-in.
UPDATE 61, Tuesday, March 1, 4:50 p.m. EST/11:50 p.m. in Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): In an unprecedented move, the UN general assembly has voted, unamimoiusly, to temporarily suspend Libya’s membership to the UN Human Rights Council, reports Al Jazeera. The country will be prevented from participating in the assembly until the body makes a more permanent decision. Speaking to the assembly in New York, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said that “[t]he world has spoken with one voice: we demand an immediate end to the violence against civilians and full respect for their fundamental human rights, including those of peaceful assembly and free speech.” His next move: consulting with the heads of the UN’s humanitarian agencies, the Arab League, the African Union, and the Organization of the Islamic Conference on what steps to take next.
Ashley Bates is an editorial intern at Mother Jones. She just returned from three years in the Middle East.
http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/02/whats-happening-libya-explained?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Motherjones%2Fmojoblog+%28MotherJones.com+|+MoJoBlog%29
— By Ashley Bates and Siddhartha Mahanta
| Tue Mar. 1, 2011 MOTHER JONES
Al Bayda, Libya—An opposition supporter holding a machine gun celebrates with opposition forces who control the east Libyan city of Al Bayda. Nasser Nouri/ Xinhua/ ZUMAPRESS.com
The following is a basic primer on what’s happening in Libya. You can also jump straight to today’s updates.
Last week, Libyan dissident Najla Aburrahman begged western media to pay attention to the bloodbath unfolding in her country. “If the Libyan protesters are ignored,” she wrote, “the fear is that [Libyan dictator Muammar] Qaddafi— a man who appears to care little what the rest of the world thinks of him—will be able to seal the country off from foreign observers, and ruthlessly crush any uprising before it even has a chance to begin.”
Since then, Qaddafi’s troops have used machine guns and large-caliber weapons against protesters in Benghazi, the country’s second-biggest city, and more than 200 protesters, including children, have reportedly been killed.
Why are Libyans unhappy?
Libya has been ruled for 42 years by a cunning, repressive, eccentric dictator who has frequently described his own people as “backwards.” More than half of his 6.5 million subjects are under 18. Despite Libya’s plentiful oil revenues, which represent most of the national budget, many children suffer from malnutrition and anemia. Corruption is rampant, dissidents are brutally suppressed, and many citizens are afraid to say Qaddafi’s name in public or in private for fear of attracting suspicion. Instead, Qaddafi is often referred to as “the leader” and his son Seif (until now heir-apparent) as “the principal.” Discussing national policy with a foreigner is punishable with three years in prison. Reporters Without Borders describes press freedom in Libya as “virtually non-existent.”
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Oil is the economy in Libya and oil profits have bankrolled massive investments in education and infrastructure—yet Libya lags far behind other oil-rich Arab states. Unemployment stands at 30 percent. People who have jobs often work only part-time. Basic foods—including rice, sugar, flour, gasoline—are heavily subsidized by the government and sold for a fraction of their true cost. A 2006 New Yorker article described Libya’s “prosperity without employment and large population of young people without a sense of purpose.”
Libya’s society is tribal and traditional—despite liberal laws on issues such as women’s rights—and many Libyans identify via clan allegiance first, nationality second.
Some in Libya hoped that Seif Qaddafi, who has been growing more prominent as an adviser to his father, would create openings for democratic reform. Seif earned a doctorate in political philosophy from the London School of Economics and keeps Bengal tigers as pets. He has founded the “Qaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation,” which supposedly seeks to promote human rights and fight the use of torture in Libya and across the Middle East.
Wasn’t Qaddafi that guy who set up a giant tent on Donald Trump’s spread?
Yup, he’s the guy. During his 2009 trip to the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Qaddafi had hoped to sleep and entertain guests inside an elaborate Bedouin-style tent in Manhattan’s Central Park. That didn’t work out, so instead the dictator rented land on a suburban property owned by Donald Trump. The tent was erected and then dismantled after a public outcry, and both Trump and the Secret Service announced that Qaddafi wasn’t coming after all.
Why can’t anyone agree on how to spell Qaddafi’s name?
Since at least the 1980s, the name has been alternately spelled as “Moammar / Muammar Gadaffi /Gaddafi / Gathafi / Kadafi / Kaddafi /Khadafy / Qadhafi / Qathafi /etc.,” according to Chris Suellentrop at Slate. They’re all different attempts at transliterating Arabic pronunciation.
How did all this start?
Inspired by pro-democracy uprisings across the Arab world, Libyan dissidents had planned a “day of rage” for Thursday, Feb. 17. On February 15, security forces arrested a prominent lawyer named Fathi Terbil, who had represented families of some of the 1,200 prisoners massacred by Libyan security forces at Abu Slim prison in 1996. Once released later that day, Terbil set up a webcam overlooking Benghazi’s main square, where some of the families had been protesting. With help from exiled Libyans in Canada and around the world, the video spread rapidly on the Internet.
Al Jazeera Arabic conducted a phone interview with Libyan novelist Idris al-Mesmari, who reported that police were shooting at protesters—and then the connection was lost. (Mesmari was reportedly arrested by Libyan authorities.) Shortly thereafter, thousands more began battling Qaddafi’s troops, and hundreds are reported to have been killed. “Both protesters and the security forces have reason to believe that backing down will likely mean their ultimate death or imprisonment,” says the New York Times.
What are the implications of Libyan instability?
After decades of being reviled as a state sponsor of terrorism, Libya recently reversed course and joined the ranks of America’s allies in the fight against Al Qaeda. In 2003, Qaddafi agreed to stop developing weapons of mass destruction and paid $2.7 billion to the families of the 270 victims of Pan Am 101—the plane bombed by Libyan agents over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988. In return, the US and the United Nations lifted economic sanctions against Libya.
On the Arab street, however, Qaddafi is widely loathed. Most of his political victims have been members of banned Islamist groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood, which would likely gain stronger influence if he were overthrown. Qaddafi, once among the Palestinian movement’s most vocal international supporters, outraged many Arabs by saying that Palestinians have no special claim to the land of Israel and calling for the creation of a bi-national “Isratine.”
What’s the latest?
On Sunday, February 20, protesters succeeded in overtaking all parts of Benghazi except for a government security compound. Qaddafi’s son gave a long, rambling televised speech in which he blamed Islamic radicals and Libyan exiles for the uprising. He claimed civil war over the country’s oil resources would set off starvation, cause public services including education to collapse, and could spark a Western invasion. He said, “We will fight until the last man, until the last woman, until the last bullet.”
Protests have now spread to the capital, Tripoli, with thousands of demonstrators converging onto the city’s main square and reportedly taking over state television headquarters. They faced well-armed pro-Qaddafi militias who fired into the crowds. The Libyan government has sought to impose an information blackout, blocking the internet and satellite television and forbidding foreign journalists from entering. Al-Jazeera remains the most comprehensive source of coverage; you can follow its live blog here.
UPDATE 1, Monday, Feb. 21, 9:00 a.m. EST/4:00 p.m. Tripoli (Nick Baumann): SkyNews is reporting that witnesses claim the state television building and other public buildings in Tripoli are on fire.
UPDATE 2, Monday, Feb. 21, 11:45 a.m. EST/6:45 p.m. Tripoli (Nick Baumann): Al Jazeera (via Sultan al Qassemi) reports multiple accounts of airplanes attacking protesters in Tripoli. Shadi Hamid, an expert on the Arab world at the Brookings Institution, slams the Western response as “business as usual,” and asks whether the West is even capable of “bold, creative policymaking.” The Atlantic’s Max Fisher, meanwhile, says that while the media blackout means the air-attack claims are impossible for press to verify, if they’re true, the United Nations should “shut down Libyan airspace immediately.”
UPDATE 3, Monday, Feb. 21, 12:15 p.m. EST/7:15 p.m. Tripoli (Nick Baumann): Mobile and television networks are down across Libya. Al Hurra (a satellite television competitor of Al Jazeera’s that is sponsored by the US government) is reporting that the Libyan ambassador in London has resigned and joined protests outside the embassy. The network is also reporting that helicopters carrying senior Libyan officials have left Tripoli “in the direction of Malta,” according to Sultan Al Qassemi. (If you’re not following him on Twitter, you should be.) William Hague, the British foreign minister, has said that Qaddafi fled to Venezuala, but the Venezualans are denying that. And the head of the Libyan Army is reportedly under house arrest. In short: it’s chaos, and no one knows for sure what is happening. There are also reports just now that the Libyan ambassador to Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority country, has also resigned.
UPDATE 4, Monday, Feb. 21, 12:50 p.m. EST/7:50 p.m. Tripoli (Nick Baumann): NBC News reports that the State Department has ordered all non-emergency personnel to leave Libya immediately. The resigned Libyan ambassador to India told Al Jazeera “it is only a matter of days until the regime is finished.” And The Guardian confirms earlier reports that several Libyan airplanes and helicopters have landed in Malta. They were reportedly piloted by Libyan colonels seeking asylum. The earlier reports of military planes attacking protesters also seem to be close to confirmation—Reuters has published a story citing more eyewitnesses to the attack.
UPDATE 5, Monday, Feb. 21, 2:41 p.m. EST/9:41 p.m. Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): Witnesses saw armed militiamen speeding into Tripoli’s Green Square in Toyota trucks, firing on protestors fighting with riot police. Many of the gunmen are believed to be from other African countries. Meanwhile, Colonel Qaddafi’s security forces have retreated into buildings around Tripoli, which remains under the control of rebel forces. And in a sign of deepening internal fissures, some of Qaddafi’s top officials have broken ranks with the government. Meanwhile, protestors in Benghazi—where the uprising began—have released a list of demands for a secular interim government led by the army in cooperation with a council of Libyan tribes. And on Democracy Now, Libyan poet Khaled Mattawa says his country is “forever changed” by the uprising.
UPDATE 6, Monday, Feb. 21, 3:11 p.m. EST/10:11 p.m. Tripoli (Ashley Bates): UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon has spoken with Qaddafi and told him the violence “must stop immediately,” a UN spokesperson said. The BBC reports that Qaddafi was still in Libya during this Monday phone call.
In an apparent defection, two Libyan fighter jets have landed in Malta, the Times of Malta reports. The pilots had presumably refused orders to bomb protesters in Benghazi.
Al-Jazeera Arabic reports that it’s received videos of murdered protesters that are too graphic to air. The video below, which was released by Al-Jazeera English, gives (non-graphic) on-the-ground footage and a concise synopsis of events on Saturday and Sunday.
UPDATE 7, Monday, Feb. 21, 4:05 p.m. EST/11:11 p.m. Tripoli (Ashley Bates): Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has very belatedly condemned the violence against civilians in Libya, calling it “unacceptable.” Over the weekend, Berlusconi said he hadn’t phoned Qaddafi because he didn’t want to “disturb” him amidst the uprisings.
As chronicled by Mother Jones senior correspondent James Ridgeway, Berlusconi and Qaddafi have worked together to catch Italy-bound migrants and asylum seekers. Berlusconi, who is on trial for allegedly having sex with an underage prostitute, has courted Libyan petrodollars, and rolled out the red carpet during Qaddafi’s multiple visits to Italy. In June of 2009, Qaddafi flew one thousand Italian women to Libya for a “cultural tour.” Just last week, Berlusconi reportedly sent a Danish IC4 train to Qaddafi as a gift.
UPDATE 8, Monday, Feb. 21, 4:20 p.m. EST/11:20 p.m. Tripoli (Nick Baumann): Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a prominent Muslim theologian, was just on Al Jazeera. He issued a fatwa during the interview calling for the death of Qaddafi. Sultan Al Qassemi’s translation: “To any army soldier, to any man who can pull the trigger & kill this man, do so. Save your countrymen from this brutal tyrant. It is wrong of you to stand by while he kills innocent people.” Meanwhile, Al Jazeera reports that the Egyptian army’s Facebook page has been updated with news that Libyan border guards have withdrawn from Egypt’s boundary with Libya. And Al Jazeera English just reported that the Libyan ambassador to the US has resigned and come out against Qaddafi. (UPDATE: Foreign Policy’s Blake Hounshell clarifies that the ambassador may not have technically resigned, but calls it a “moot point” given the ambassador’s explicit criticism of the regime.) Meanwhile, Foreign Policy’s Marc Lynch is calling for US and international intervention: “NATO enfoced no-fly zone, hold [Qaddafi] + regime individually responsible for deaths, call urgent [security council] meeting, targeted sanctions.”
UPDATE 9, Monday, Feb. 21, 5:45 p.m. EST/12:45 a.m. Tuesday Tripoli (Nick Baumann): CNN has a truly awful video of what it says are the bodies of Libyan soldiers who refused to shoot at protesters. And here’s Marc Lynch’s writeup of his call for international intervention I mentioned in Update 8.
UPDATE 10, Monday, Feb. 21, 6:10 p.m. EST/1:10 a.m. Tuesday Tripoli (Nick Baumann): The State Department has released a transcript of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent comments on Libya:
The world is watching the situation in Libya with alarm. We join the international community in strongly condemning the violence in Libya. Our thoughts and prayers are with those whose lives have been lost, and with their loved ones. The government of Libya has a responsibility to respect the universal rights of the people, including the right to free expression and assembly. Now is the time to stop this unacceptable bloodshed. We are working urgently with friends and partners around the world to convey this message to the Libyan government.
UPDATE 11, Monday, Feb. 21, 6:45 p.m. EST/1:45 a.m. Tripoli (Ashley Bates): Egypt and Tunisia have both set up field hospitals on their borders with Libya and are trying to send help. A group of Libyan military officers have released a statement calling on all members of the Libyan army to join the protesters. Al-Jazeera Arabic reports that advertisements in Guinea and Nigeria are offering up to $2,000 per day to fight as mercenaries for the Libyan army. And Libyan State TV has just announced that Qaddafi will speak shortly.
UPDATE 12, Monday, Feb. 21, 7:20 p.m. EST/2:20 a.m. Tuesday Tripoli (Nick Baumann): In what almost seemed like a piece of bizarre, horrible performance art (with awful consequences), Qaddafi just spoke on Libyan state television. The whole appearance lasted about 15 seconds and consisted of him saying that he is in Tripoli, not Venezuela (as British foreign secretary William Hague had claimed), and warning citizens not to believe “the dog tv channels” saying otherwise. He was holding an umbrella, too. The whole thing was a stark reminder of the fact that an entire country is ruled by a man who is at best a very odd tyrant who is totally willing to kill his people and at worst a total madman—or, as The Atlantic’s Max Fisher writes, a “f***king loon.”
UPDATE 13, Tuesday, Feb. 22, 1:15 a.m. EST/6:15 a.m. Tripoli (Ashley Bates): Below is a translated YouTube video of Qaddafi’s bizarre television appearance.
CNN’s Ben Wendeman has managed to sneak into Libya from Egypt, making him the first (and presumably only) western television correspondent to be reporting from Libya. He found no officials, passport control, or customs on the Libyan side of the border. A Libyan man said to him, “You must show the world what has happened here. We will show you everything, everything!”
UPDATE 14, Tuesday, Feb. 22, 10:30 a.m. EST/5:30 p.m. Tripoli (Nick Baumann): Lots of news to catch up on this morning:
* There are scattered reports of both Benghazi (Libya’s second-largest city and the place where the uprising started) and Tobruk (a large city and strategic port) being in the hands of rebels. The German press agency DPA reports that Benghazi’s airstrip has been totally destroyed.
* A group of Libyan military officers has reportedly asked all members of the Libyan army to move towards the Tripoli, the capital, and attempt to depose Qaddafi.
* NBC’s Richard Engel reports that Libyans are already suffering from shortages of “rice, flour, sugar, [and] oil.”
* Human Rights Watch says at least 62 people have been confirmed killed in Tripoli, the capital, since Sunday.
* The United Nations Security Council is holding a closed-door session today to discuss the violence in Libya. The BBC’s Eleanor Montague reports that Britain will ask the UN to “take action” on Libya “because of its implications for security in the region.”
* Al Jazeera reports that Libyan state television is claiming that Qaddafi will give another address shortly. It remains to be seen whether it will be as bizarre as his last one.
UPDATE 15, Tuesday, Feb. 22, 11:30 a.m. EST/6:30 p.m. Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): Marc Lynch finds himself advocating for more aggressive action in Libya:
I don’t call for a direct military intervention. And I am keenly, painfully aware of all that could go wrong with even the kinds of responses I am recommending. But right now those fears are outweighed by the urgent imperative of trying to prevent the already bloody situation from getting much, much worse. This is not a peaceful democracy protest movement which the United States can best help by pressuring allied regimes from above, pushing for long-term and meaningful reform, and persuading the military to refrain from violence. It’s gone well beyond that already, and this time I find myself on the side of those demanding more forceful action before it’s too late.
UPDATE 16, Tuesday, Feb. 22, 11:50 a.m. EST/6:50 p.m. Tripoli (Nick Baumann): Qaddafi is still in the midst of a long, rambling speech, full of threats and bluster and general delusion and stubbornness. It’s “like a mashup of every dictator’s excuse ever. Protesters want to Islamify Libya, turn it into… Somalia. Or something,” writes Wired’s Spencer Ackerman. The headline, though, is Qaddafi’s pretty much explicit promise to slaughter protesters. Qaddafi promised the death penalty for numerous crimes, and mentioned Tiannemen Square and suggested the Chinese regime had done the right thing. “If there was any doubt before, there is no longer: Qaddafi has unequivocally declared intention to massacre his own people,” says Brookings’ Shadi Hamid. Other highlights: “We Libyans resisted the… United States and Britain in the past, we will not surrender.” “I will not leave the country, and I will die as a martyr.” “We will not lose one inch of this land.” “We will flight to the last man and woman and bullet.” The Times of Malta has perhaps the best early summary of the speech.
UPDATE 17, Tuesday, Feb. 22, 6:15 p.m. EST/Wednesday, Feb. 23, 1:15 a.m. Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): The Associated Press reports that Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi has spoken to Qaddafi on the phone, as his brutal crackdown on anti-government protests continues. As Jim Ridgeway outlined, the two rulers and their countries are close, and signed a “friendship treaty” in 2008 that called for Italy to pay Libya $5 billion in compensation for its 30-year colonial occupation. Meanwhile, concerns about Italy’s natural gas supplies continue to mount after the country’s chief energy company, ENI, said it had suspended supplies through its Greenstream pipeline. It runs from Libya to Sicily, and supplies 10 percent of Italy’s natural gas.
UPDATE 18, Tuesday, Feb. 22, 6:27 p.m. EST/Wednesday, Feb. 23, 1:27 a.m. Tripoli (Ashley Bates): Mother Jones has interviewed Libyan poet and University of Michigan professor Khaled Mattawa, who recounts the horrors of growing up under the Qaddafi regime. He says, “This is the moment we’ve been waiting for.”
UPDATE 19, Wednesday, Feb. 23, 10:08 a.m. EST/5:08 p.m. Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): Things could be coming to a head:
* Reports from towns near Tripoli suggest that fighting has reached the capital’s doorstep, reports The New York Times. And the spate of high-level defections from the Qaddafi regime continues, with interior minister Abdel Fattah Younes al-Abidi leaving on Tuesday night. He urged the Libyan Army to join the people and their “legitimate demands.” State media claimed he has been kidnapped by “gangs.” Towns in the east continue to, in essence, declare their independence and establish up informal opposition governments. “The widening gap between the capital and the eastern countryside underscored the radically different trajectory of the Libyan revolt from the others that recently toppled Arab autocrats on Libya’s western and eastern borders, in Tunisia and Egypt,” reports Times. Internet access in Tripoli remains blocked, and phone service is only intermittent.
* Foreign governments are continuing their mad rush to evacuate their citizens from Libya, chartering military and civilian planes and even mobilizing military ships. It’s unclear how many Americans remain in Libya.
* French President Nicolas Sarkozy is calling on the European Union to impose sanctions against Libya. “I call on the foreign ministry to propose to our European Union partners the swift adoption of concrete sanctions so that all those involved in the ongoing violence know that they must assume the consequences of their actions,” he told a cabinet meeting on Wednesday. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has also said she would support sanctions if Qaddafi doesn’t stop using violence against his own people. And the White House said on Tuesday that it is examining proposals by Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) to consider reimposing sanctions.
UPDATE 20, Wednesday, Feb. 23, 10:20 a.m. EST/5:20 p.m. Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini says his country estimates that 1,000 people have died in Libya since the uprising began.
UPDATE 21, Wednesday, Feb. 23, 11:30 a.m. EST/6:30 p.m. Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): Hewing close to his Egypt-react script, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad condemned Qaddafi for “unimaginable repression” against the Libyan people. “It is unimaginable that someone is killing his citizens, bombarding his citizens,” Ahmadinejad said on state television. “How can officers be ordered to use bullets from machine guns, tanks and guns against their own citizens?…This is unacceptable. Let the people speak, be free, decide to express their will…Do not resist the will of the people.”
UPDATE 22, Wednesday, Feb. 23, 11:51 a.m. EST/6:30 p.m. Tripoli (Ashley Bates): Thomas Friedman argues in today’s New York Times that events unfolding in Libya and across the Middle East highlight the failures of oil interest-driven US foreign policy. His solution: a $1-a-gallon gasoline tax, to be phased in at 5 cents a month beginning in 2012, with all the money going to pay down the US deficit. Friedman says:
For the last 50 years, America (and Europe and Asia) have treated the Middle East as if it were just a collection of big gas stations: Saudi station, Iran station, Kuwait station, Bahrain station, Egypt station, Libya station, Iraq station, United Arab Emirates station, etc. Our message to the region has been very consistent: “Guys (it was only the guys we spoke with), here’s the deal. Keep your pumps open, your oil prices low, don’t bother the Israelis too much, and, as far as we’re concerned, you can do whatever you want out back.
UPDATE 23, Wednesday, Feb. 23, 1:00 p.m. EST/8:00 p.m. Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): Michael J. Totten on why Libya isn’t Tunisia or Egypt:
The contrast between Libya and its neighbors is stark. When I visited Tunisia just a few months before going to Tripoli, I met plenty of people willing to criticize Ben Ali even when others were present. Sure, they lowered their voices, but they didn’t cower in fear. Egypt under Mubarak was even more open. I spoke to dissident bloggers like “Big Pharaoh” and “Sandmonkey” in restaurants and bars, and they didn’t care if anyone heard them slagging the president. Cairo’s mukhabarat didn’t seem to mind what anyone said as long as they didn’t act on their disgruntlement. Granted, regimes like these wouldn’t have lasted decades if they were easy to get rid of, but, ultimately, they lack the staying power of the hard totalitarian states.
States like Libya, that is. Tunisia is pleasant, prosperous, and heavily Frenchified, while Egypt is a poverty-stricken shambles, but Ben Ali and Mubarak were both pragmatic, standard issue authoritarians. Qaddafi, by comparison, is an emotionally unstable ideological megalomaniac. He says he’s the sun of Africa and swears to unite the Arabs and Africans underneath him. He has repeatedly threatened to ban money and schools, and he treats his country, communist-style, like a mad scientist’s laboratory. What I knew when I was there holds true today, even as his grip on power seems shaky: This guy is not going to liberalize, and he is not going to go quietly.
UPDATE 24, Wednesday, Feb. 23, 1:25 p.m. EST/8:25 p.m. Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): The Atlantic’s Max Fisher tweets: “Isolated but largely consistent reports seem to indicate sweeping military defections across Libya’s northeast.” And, on the ground, Anjali Kamat’s tweet confirms that things are breaking down for Qaddafi: “Entering #Libya now. Greeted by army who have all joined revolution. Man checking our passports is an airforce major general #feb17″
UPDATE 25, Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2:07 p.m. EST/9:07 p.m. Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): Two from earlier today that’re worth a read. First, Leslie Gelb urges caution, not grandiose action, for the United States. “My fear is that an activist and grand strategy will grossly exaggerate America’s power to shape events and will do more harm than good,” he writes. And former CIA field officer Robert Baer reports from sources in Libya on just how far Qaddafi is willing to go to maintain his grip on power. Qaddafi “has ordered security services to start sabotaging oil facilities. They will start by blowing up several oil pipelines, cutting off flow to Mediterranean ports. The sabotage, according to the insider, is meant to serve as a message to Libya’s rebellious tribes: It’s either me or chaos.”
UPDATE 26, Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2:35 p.m. EST/9:35 p.m. Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): The International Organization for Migration reports that migrants have begun to cross into Tunisia from Libya. “Although most of the arrivals have largely been…Tunisian… nationals migrants of various nationalities”—including Syrian, Lebanese, Turkish, and German—”have been crossing the border into Tunisia’s Medenine Governorate requesting assistance to go back home,” IOM writes in a press release. Additional IOM staff are set to deploy to the border area.
UPDATE 27, Wednesday Feb. 23, 3:55 p.m. EST/10:55 p.m. Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): This is the way we bail. Channel News Asia has a short dispatch on a pair of Libyan pilots who refused orders to bomb Benghazi. And The New York Times reports that thousands of African mercenaries and militiamen are heading to Tripoli to back up Qaddafi, as rebel forces continue to secure their control of surrounding towns. Witnesses say that protestors appear to have taken control of the northwestern city of Misurata.
UPDATE 28, Wednesday. Feb. 23, 5:56 p.m. EST/Thursday, Feb. 24, 12:56 a.m. Tripoli (Ashley Bates): Earlier today, I spoke on the phone with Ali Ahmida, a University of New England political science professor whose work explores power, agency, and anti-colonial resistance in Libya. Here are some of his thoughts:
On Where This Could Be Headed: Unfortunately, I think it’s going to get worse. The regime closed the last chances for reform and negotiations when Seif Qaddafi gave this really threatening speech that was more of a declaration of war, an ultimatum….The regime is clinging to the old days, thinking they can crush the opposition.
On France’s No-Fly Zone Proposal: No, no, no. I think it’s is a bad idea. I think, in the long run, it would be a liability more than a help. The Libyan people have fought against one of the most brutal western colonizations in Africa. They lost half a million people in the [1911-1943] war against Italian colonialism and 60,000 people perished in the [Italian] concentration camps. So Libyan people are very wary of foreign intervention….And Iraq is a big, lousy lesson for all of us. Look at how much killing happened in Iraq. How much agony. And how the exiled Iraqis have really conned the United States.
On Libya’s Democratic Potential: It’s possible there would be no democracy after Qaddafi, but that’s not unusual. It’s not because the people don’t want freedom of choice or democracy. It’s because either the state and its authoritarian forces are too powerful, or because the [western] conservatives have always supported dictatorships and absolutist monarchies. They are just as guilty. Having democracy is not an easy matter. As in the American and the western experience, this is going to take more than just having a constitution and voting rights….I also think that question has to be guarded against foreign intervention and an exaggerated role for the Libyan exile community, which has been out of touch for a long time.
On What America Should Do: First, pressure the Libyan regime through the UN to negotiate a peaceful transition and stop the killing. Second, really try to learn about Libyan society. There’s a huge vacuum in our knowledge about Libya. We reduce it to tribes and clans, or to Qaddafi, or to oil. There’s nothing about Libyan society. I find that appalling, even among our commentators and our scholars.
UPDATE 29, Wednesday. Feb. 23, 6:13 p.m. EST/Thursday, Feb. 24, 1:13 a.m. Tripoli (Ashley Bates): In his first televised comments on the Libya crisis, Obama announced that he’s sending Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Geneva for a meeting of the UN Human Rights Council and for talks with allied foreign ministers. Obama condemned the Qaddafi government’s “outrageous” violence, said that protecting American citizens in Libya was his “highest priority,” and rejected allegations that western powers are meddling in Arab uprisings. “The change that is taking place across the region is being driven by the people of the region,” he said.
UPDATE 30, Wednesday, Feb. 23, 8:00 p.m. EST/3:00 a.m. Thursday in Tripoli (Nick Baumann): The Independent’s Robert Fisk, who seems to be the first Western reporter to get into Tripoli, has a report from “a city in the shadow of death.”
UPDATE 31, Thursday, Feb. 24, 10:52 a.m. EST/5:52 p.m. Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): Today: witnesses say Qaddafi is consolidating his forces in preparation for a showdown against rebel forces in Tripoli.
* Qaddafi’s forces are fortifying their position around Tripoli, as cities in the east continue to fall to rebel forces and defections from the military and his inner circle continue. Witnesses told the The New York Times that members of Qaddafi’s forces—made up, in large part, of mercenaries and slices of the military loyal to his tribe and its allies—were training their energies on the roads leading to the capital, while establishing checkpoints on the road to the west of Tripoli. And there are now reports of protests in the pro-Qaddafi city of Sabha for the first time. Meanwhile, Egyptian officials said on Wednesday that nearly 30,000 people, mostly Egyptian, had fled across the border back to their home country.
* The latest defector: Qaddafi aide (and cousin) Ahmed Gadhaf al-Dam, who announced on Thursday that he has defected to Egypt in protest against the regime’s “grave violations to human rights and human and international laws,” reports the Associated Press.
* In a speech aired on state television on Wednesday, Qaddafi blamed the unrest on Al Qaeda, reports Al Jazeera. “It is obvious now that this issue is run by al-Qaeda…No one above the age of 20 would actually take part in these events…They are taking advantage of the young age of these people [to commit violent acts] because they are not legally liable!” said the Libyan ruler.
UPDATE 32, Thursday, Feb. 24, 12:13 p.m. EST/7:13 p.m. Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): Two from Mother Jones: Jim Ridgeway sheds more light on the cozy relationship between and Italy, oil, immigrants, and all. And Mac McClelland speculates on why the UN has dragged its feet in Libya: “When it comes to the lack of meaningful UN action on Libya, it’s not disorganization, or excessive bureaucracy to blame—just a healthy dose of sacklessness.”
UPDATE 33, Thursday. Feb. 24, 12:22 p.m. EST/ 7:22 p.m. Tripoli (Ashley Bates): Below is a compelling three-minute video recently posted by Al-Jazeera. It tightly summarizes the events of the last few days, features non-graphic footage from cities across Libya, and shows chilling clips from Libyan state television.
UPDATE 34, Thursday, Feb. 24, 1:56 p.m. EST/8:56 p.m. Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): Just tweeted by @SultanAlQassemi: “Breaking Al Hurra: the Libyan mission to the UN takes down Gaddafi’s green flag & raises the Kingdom of #Libya independence flag instead.”
UPDATE 35, Thursday, Feb. 24, 4:20 p.m. EST/11:20 p.m. Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): Another must-watch from Al Jazeera: an interview with Muhammad al-Senussi, the man who would have been Libya’s crown prince. The country was a monarchy until Qaddafi led a coup in 1969.
UPDATE 36, Thursday, Feb. 24, 5:22 p.m. EST/Friday, Feb. 25, 12:22 a.m. Tripoli (David Corn): I just spoke to a friend’s husband who is in Benghazi. He’s Libyan, works there and in Europe, and his family is in this city, the second largest in the Libya. He asks that I don’t use his name—because Muammar Qaddafi is not gone yet (and though he’ll eventually return to Europe, his relatives won’t). He reports:
* Benghazi is quiet and safe. Shops and banks—though not schools—were open today. He had no trouble driving throughout the city. “Everybody’s fine,” he says. I’ts very safe… Unbelievably. Nobody is afraid of Qaddafi like before.”
* The Internet is not functioning in the city. International phone service is sketchy. Many residents are receiving and watching Al Jazeera.
* The city is being governed by an ad hoc assortment of military people, police, past government officials, and groups of citizens.
* There is a major fear shared by the residents of Benghazi: that Qaddafi will launch an air assault on the city. My friend’s husband notes that the military guarding the city does not possess anti-aircraft guns. He says that because Qaddafi was distrustful of this region, he did not supply the military based there with large amounts of weaponry. “We cannot fight back against an air attack,” he says.
* The residents of Benghazi have been trying to follow what’s happening in Tripoli. “I was able to talk to a friend in Tripoli,” he notes. “He told me, ‘It’s hell in Tripoli. There’s shooting everywhere. Qaddafi’s mafia is shooting people everywhere in the city.’”
He’s hopeful that the violence in Libya—a friend of his was shot and killed in Benghazi—will soon be over and Qaddafi gone. “In a couple of days,” he says, “everything will be finished.”
UPDATE 37, Thursday, Feb. 24, 6:28 p.m. EST/Friday, Feb. 25, 1:28 a.m. Tripoli (Ashley Bates): More bizarre, disturbing news: The US State Department announced today that the Libyan government may arrest foreign journalists who enter the country illegally as “Al-Qaida collaborators.” Western and Arab journalists, including CNN’s Ben Wedeman, have entered Libya without permission.
UPDATE 38, Friday. Feb. 25, 9:43 a.m. EST/ 4:22 p.m. Tripoli (Ashley Bates): The brutality continues as anti-Qaddafi protesters fight on:
*
In an act of desperation, Libya state television announced shortly before Friday prayers that Qaddafi will offer a 150 percent increase in wages for all government workers and $400 to every family.
*
The announcement had no apparent effect, and tens of thousands took to the streets across Libya following Friday prayers. The worst violence occurred in Tripoli, where Qaddafi forces are still clinging to power. Al-Arabiya reports that gunmen open fired on protesters in several areas of the capital.
*
Sheik Yousef Qaradawi, a relatively moderate Muslim cleric admired in the Arab world for his encyclopedic knowledge of Islamic law and feared by some commentators in the West for his anti-Israel views, gave a Friday sermon in Qatar that was broadcast live by Al-Jazeera. Qaradawi said (reported via Sultan AlQassemi), “We are expecting good news from Libya. I can almost see the victory in my eyes now….I believe in this victory because I believe in God.” Qaradawi also advised revolutionaries to take pity on mercenaries that Qaddafi has reportedly hired from neighboring African countries. “They are poor,” Qaradawi said. “Give them the security to leave.”
*
Qaddafi’s son, Seif Qaddafi, was asked in a Friday interview with CNN Turk television whether his family had a “Plan B.” He replied defiantly that his family plans to “live and die in Libya.”
*
Navy Pillay, the UN high commisioner for human rights, said Friday that Qaddafi’s bloody crackdown is “escalating alarmingly” and “thousands may have been killed or injured.”
*
Activists have launched new radio stations and newspapers in eastern Libya, where anti-Qaddafi forces have gained the upper hand.
UPDATE 39, Friday, Feb. 25, 11:10 a.m. EST/6:10 p.m. in Tripoli (Nick Baumann): The New York Times’ Kareem Fahim and David Kirkpatrick have a dispatch from what are increasingly looking like the front lines of a war between Libyan revolutionaries and Qaddafi’s mercenaries. Lede: “Rebels seeking to overturn the 40-year rule of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi repelled a concerted assault by his forces on Thursday on cities close to the capital, removing any doubt that Libya’s patchwork of protests had evolved into an increasingly well-armed revolutionary movement.” Highlight [emphasis added]: “Tawfik al-Shohiby, one of the rebels, said that in the early days of the revolt one of his relatives bought $75,000 in automatic weapons from arms dealers on the Egyptian border and distributed them to citizens’ groups in towns like Bayda.” Read up. Also:
* The entire Libyan mission at the United Nations mission in Geneva, Switzerland quit on Friday morning.
* Paul Schemm of the Associated Press has an interesting piece on how the citizens of Benghazi, the city where the uprising started, are governing themselves.
UPDATE 40, Friday, Feb. 25, 1:56 p.m. EST/8:56 p.m. in Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): From Mother Jones: Qaddafi’s son, Saif, authored a 2007 doctoral thesis praising democracy and human rights. No, it’s not a joke.
UPDATE 41, Friday, Feb. 25, 2:57 p.m. EST/9:57 p.m. in Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): A flurry of news from Washington, brought to you by Twitter:
* Josh Rogin retweets Chuck Todd: “RT @chucktodd: “Pretty much everything that was on the table short of a no-fly zone is being enacted by US govt re: #libya”
* From Reuters: “White House says U.S. has decided to move forward with unilateral sanctions against #Libya, will be coordinated with European allies”
* And from @SultanAlQassemi, via Al Arabiya: “Breaking – Al Arabiya: AP: Washington suspends US embassy activities in Tripoli #Libya”
UPDATE 42, Friday, Feb. 25, 3:35 p.m. EST/10:35 p.m. in Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): Here’s the State Department’s full statement on suspending embassy operations in Libya:
Given current security conditions in Libya, coupled with our inability to guarantee fully the safety and security of our diplomatic personnel in the country, the Department of State has temporarily withdrawn Embassy personnel from Tripoli and suspended all embassy operations effective February 25, 2011. The safety of the American community remains paramount to the Department and we will continue to provide assistance to the greatest extent possible through other missions.
UPDATE 43, Friday, Feb. 25, 4:10 p.m. EST/11:10 p.m. in Tripoli (Nick Baumann): The Guardian has the scoop on UK officials telling Qaddafi loyalists to “defect or face war crimes trials.” This is important. First, it shows the UK believes Qaddafi is definitely going down, and puts a lot of pressure on his key people. It also demonstrates that the West hopes to hold Libyan officials accountable for the deaths of civilian protesters. Hillary Clinton, William Hague, and Catherine Ashton—the top foreign affairs officials for the US, the UK, and the EU, respectively—are headed to Geneva on Monday to argue that the International Criminal Court should prosecute Libyan leaders. Between this and the unilateral US moves mentioned in Update 41, it’s pretty clear that the West is finally, ever-so-slowly, moving to do at least something about the horrible violence and massacres in Libya.
UPDATE 44, Saturday. Feb. 26, 9:58 a.m. EST/ 4:58 p.m. Tripoli (Ashley Bates): A roundup of news from around the web:
*
Qaddafi forces are still maintaining a stronghold in Tripoli. They’ve set up checkpoints around the city and are opening arms depots for their supporters, attempting to pit tribes against one another. “We shall destroy any aggression with popular will,” Qaddafi said in his latest television address. “Libya will become a red flame, a burning coal.”
*
In most other Libyan cities, including Benghazi, where the revolution was launched, anti-Qaddafi forces are in full control.
*
Foreign Policy reports that some Latin American leaders, including Fidel Castro of Cuba and Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, are standing by Qaddafi amidst the bloodbath. Ortega has spoken regularly with Qaddafi by phone and thinks Qaddafi is “fighting a great battle.” Castro distrusts the accuracy of news coming out of Libya and fears a “western invasion.” Both Ortega and Castro are longtime friends of Qaddafi and recipients of the “Muammar Qaddafi International Human Rights Prize.”
*
African migrants who were working in Libya’s oil industry now fear they’ll be killed on suspicion of being Qaddafi mercenaries. A Turkish oil worker who escaped from Libya told the BBC that his Sudanese and Chadian colleagues had been “massacred” by attackers who reportedly said, “you are providing troops for Qaddafi.” Many white Libyans have long harbored racist sentiments. Professor Saad Jabbar, deputy director of the North Africa Center at Cambridge University, told NPR he fears a “genocide against anyone who has black skin.”
*
The US State Department said Saturday morning that some Americans “may” remain in Libya despite its attempt to evacuate all US nationals. American journalists, for example, will presumably opt not to leave. A US “task force” will stay in Libya to assist Americans.
*
The UN Security Council will meet in New York today to discuss imposing international sanctions. This includes an arms embargo, an asset freeze, and a travel ban against Qaddafi government officials. Friday night, Obama issued an executive order to freeze the American-held assets of Qaddafi family members and high level government officials. Libya’s ambassador to the UN has pleaded for the Security Council to “save Libya” by imposing sanctions.
UPDATE 45, Sunday, Feb. 27, 3:00 p.m. EST/10:00 p.m. in Tripoli (Nick Baumann): Here’s what’s happening today:
* The Times’ David Kirkpatrick reports on the “tour” of Tripoli Qaddafi offered for foreign journalists on Saturday, and notes that it “appeared to backfire”: “When government-picked drivers escorted journalists on tours of the city on Saturday morning, the extent of the unrest was unmistakable.”
* US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued an extensive statement Saturday on “holding the Qaddafi government accountable.” On Sunday, she briefed reporters on her plane as she prepared to fly to Geneva, Switzerland, to meet with European leaders, keep up US pressure on Libya, and make sure the International Criminal Court looks into war crimes committed by the Qaddafi regime. (The UN Security Council has already referred the case to the ICC.) Headline: Clinton reiterated that the US has “made it clear we expect [Qaddafi] to leave” the country.
* Clinton was also asked about the rival government a former Qaddafi justice minister has set up in Benghazi. She said “it’s way too soon to tell how this is going to play out, but we’re going to be ready and prepared to offer any kind of assistance that anyone wishes to have from the United States.”
* Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) both mentioned potential military aid to Libyan rebels in Sunday show appearances this morning, shocking absolutely no one.
* The foreign minister of Italy, perhaps Qaddafi’s closest European ally, said Sunday that the “point of no return” had been reached in Libya and that the end of Qaddafi’s rule is “inevitable.”
* Saif al Islam Qaddafi, Muammar’s son, was on Christiane Amanpour’s program this morning disputing well-documented reports of the regime using violence against civilians.
* The key equation going forward will be whether rebels have the numbers and arms necessary to beat Qaddafi’s mercenaries—or whether Western sanctions will decrease Qaddafi’s ability to pay those mercenaries. There’s also a chance Qaddafi will change his mind and leave the country, but so far both he and his son have said they will “die fighting.” Bottom line: this could get even bloodier as rebel forces converge on Tripoli.
UPDATE 46, Monday, Feb. 28, 10:05 a.m. EST/5:05 p.m. in Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): Qaddafi remains in denial as his support dwindles and defects. And the fighting continues:
* Conspiracies, Homegrown: the Libyan government is blaming the combined powers of Islamic radicalism and the West for conjuring a conspiracy to take over the country, reports The New York Times. “The Islamists want chaos; the West also wants chaos,” said Musa Ibrahim, a government spokesman, to reporters. He argued that the West wants Libya’s oil, while Islamists want to establish a base for international terrorism. He also denied reports that Qaddafi loyalists have fired their guns at civilians. Meanwhile, fighting rages on, with rebels saying they’ve foiled Qaddafi’s attempt to retake the eastern city of Misurata. And low-paid contract workers continue fleeing across the country’s eastern and western borders into Egypt and Tunisia, respectively.
* Off with his bizarrely-coiffed head: Count French Prime Minister Francois Fillon and British Prime Minister David Cameron among the foreign authorities calling for Qaddafi to go. The EU’s top foreign policy official, Catherine Ashton, has also announced that the EU will adopt sanctions against Libya. And Germany has offered a proposal to end all financial payments to Libya for 60 days, reports Reuters, while Italian foreign minster Franco Frattini suspended a nonaggression treaty with Libya on the grounds that the Libyan state “no longer exists.”
UPDATE 47, Monday, Feb. 28, 10:25 a.m. EST/5:25 p.m. in Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): A must-watch: ABC News’ Christiane Amanpour interviewed Qaddafi heirs Said and Saif on ABC’s This Week yesterday. “Nobody is leaving this country,” Saif told Amanpour. He also denied that the military has attacked its own people, and insisted that most of the country is calm. “Show me a single attack, show me a single bomb,” he said. “The Libyan air force destroyed just the ammunition sites,” he said.
UPDATE 48, Monday, Feb. 28, 10:51 a.m. EST/5:51 p.m. in Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): Megalomania, Noy Going Viral: Noy Alooshe, an Israeli journalist living in Tel Aviv, cut this YouTube video lampooning Qaddafi’s speech from last Tuesday. Alooshe set the speech to the song “Hey Baby” by the American rappers Pitbull and T-Pain. He titled his creation “Zenga-Zenga,” alluding to Qaddafi’s repetition of the word zanqa (Arabic for alleyway). “The original clip features mirror images of a scantily clad woman dancing along to Colonel Qaddafi’s rant. Mr. Alooshe said he got many requests from Web surfers who asked him for a version without the dancer so that they could show it to their parents, which he did,” reports the Times.
UPDATE 49, Monday, Feb. 28, 1:35 p.m. EST/8:35 p.m. in Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): Al Jazeera is reporting that Qaddafi has appointed his intelligence chief, Bouzaid Dordah, to speak to anti-government protestors in the east. They’ve formed a “national council” as a means of keeping the uprisings in different cities under one, unified body.
UPDATE 50, Monday, Feb. 28, 2:06 p.m. EST/9:06 p.m. in Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): Democracy Now!’s Anjali Kamat has just returned to Egypt from a five day trip to eastern Libya. “There is a sense that Qaddafi could do anything to people [in Tripoli] and there is a real sense of fear,” she says in this dispatch. Watch the whole thing.
UPDATE 51, Monday, Feb. 28, 3:50 p.m. EST/10:50 p.m. in Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): Key tweets, brought to you by the indispensable @SultanAlQassemi: “Gaddafi to ABC: America is not the policeman of the world. Obama is a good man but he was misinformed by those around him. #Libya” and “Breaking – Reuters/CNBC: US Treasury Dept freezes $30 billion in Libyan assets in the US #Libya Via @acarvin & @ThamerSalman”. Meanwhile, it’s looking more and more like Qaddafi views peaceful negotiation with the rebel forces as a realistic possibility.
UPDATE 52, Monday, Feb. 28, 6:20 p.m. EST/Tuesday, March 1, 1:20 p.m. in Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): The Washington Post’s Jeff Stein reports that a senior White House officials says the administration doesn’t think that Libya’s chemical weapon arsenal—including mustard and sarin gas—is vulnerable to theft. Experts think that Libya destroyed over three thousand bombshells designed to carry gas as part of its deal to end years of isolation by the west. But a large stockpile of mustard and sarin gas remain stored in barrels at three locations south of Tripoli:
Speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive issue, the administration official suggested the Libyans have moved to bolster the security of the material since protests erupted earlier this month, but he refused to specify what those steps were or how the administration had communicated with the Libyans.
“We have continued to urge the Libyans to safely complete destruction of their remaining chemical weapons agent as quickly as possible,” the official said. “As part of that process, the Libyans have taken appropriate steps to secure their CW [chemical weapons] from unauthorized access.”
UPDATE 53, Tuesday, March 1, 11:00 a.m. EST/6:00 p.m. in Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): Here’s what’s happening today:
* As the prospect of civil war in Libya looms ever larger, The New York Times reports Qaddafi’s forces are having little success in staving off rebel attacks around the country. And the colonel is facing growing international pressure to step down. The US, meanwhile, has repositioned its naval fleet in anticipation of possible humanitarian or military intervention in Libya. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s message: to surrender power “now, without further violence or delay.”
* The Times also reports on the ongoing impact of the chaos in Libya on the economies of its neighbors:
The enduring impact of the region’s turmoil was evident in Cairo, where Egypt postponed the reopening of its stock exchange again on Tuesday until Sunday. The exchange has been closed for over a month, after antigovernment protests in late January shook investor confidence and drove the value of the country’s benchmark index down 17 percent in two trading days. In Bahrain on Tuesday, protesters marched down King Faisal Highway in the capital, Manama. In Oman, whose first major protests were reported over the weekend, demonstrations continued on Tuesday, a day after violent clashes with the security forces in the port city of Sohar, and the unrest spread for the first time to the capital, Muscat.
* Western countries are still debating the option of enforcing a no-fly zone over the country. But The Assocated Press reports that Russian officials have ruled out the idea, with foreign minister Sergey Lavrov calling the proposal “superfluous.”
* And on ABC News on Monday, Qaddafi revealed the depths of his delusion. “They love me. All my people with me, they love me,” he said. “They will die to protect me, my people.”
UPDATE 54, Tuesday, March 1, 11:24 a.m. EST/6:24 p.m. in Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): On apples, trees, and not falling far from them:
the Council on Foreign Relations’ Steven Cook debunks the fallacy of the second generation reformer—in Libya’s case, the erroneous title belongs to the allegedly pro-democracy Saif al-Islam al-Qaddafi, Phd.
UPDATE 55, Tuesday, March 1, 11:35 a.m. EST/6:35 p.m. in Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): Is Sergey Lavrov on to something when it comes to no-fly zones? (see Update 53). How do they work? And do they work? Foreign Policy’s Josh Keating takes a swing.
UPDATE 56, Tuesday, March 1, 1:15 p.m. EST/8:15 p.m. in Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): Al Jazeera reports that British Prime Minister David Cameron is pushing the international community to act against Qaddafi. “It’s not acceptable that Colonel Gaddafi can be murdering his own people, using aeroplanes and helicopters gunships.. and we have to plan now to make sure that if it happens we can do something to stop that,” he said. In his remarks, Cameron also discussed the possibility of arming opposition fighters. And he’s also asked his defense ministry to work with the country’s allies on a plan for a no-fly zone over Libya.
UPDATE 57, Tuesday, March 1, 2:15 p.m. EST/9:15 p.m. in Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): Things could be flaring up in Tajoura, a neighborhood in eastern Tripoli that’s served as the epicenter for unrest in the capital. “Tajoura is very tense. There were small demonstrations. Regime had removed grafitti/signs, but last night people put them back. #Libya,” tweets @iyad_elbaghdadi.
UPDATE 58, Tuesday, March 1, 2:35 p.m. EST/9:35 p.m. in Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): Must-watch: the latest footage from Libya’s border with Tunisia, where tens of thousands of refugees are spilling over into the recently revolutionized country. It’s from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees:
UPDATE 59, Tuesday, March 1, 2:50 p.m. EST/9:50 p.m. in Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): File this under “aggressive, but maybe not aggressive enough”: the Associated Press reports that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says that the Obama administration may seek the prosecution of Qaddafi for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing that killed 270 people, after some ex-Libyan officials claimed that Qaddafi personally ordered the attack. Clinton told Congress that she will ask the FBI and Justice Department to look into the matter. The US considers the bombing a closed case.
UPDATE 60, Tuesday, March 1, 4:15 p.m. EST/11:15 p.m. in Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): While Josh Keating broke down the logistics of installing a no-fly zone, David Axe tells us why Libya’s complex, 25-year old air defense network probably won’t save it if foreign nations decide to go all-in.
UPDATE 61, Tuesday, March 1, 4:50 p.m. EST/11:50 p.m. in Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta): In an unprecedented move, the UN general assembly has voted, unamimoiusly, to temporarily suspend Libya’s membership to the UN Human Rights Council, reports Al Jazeera. The country will be prevented from participating in the assembly until the body makes a more permanent decision. Speaking to the assembly in New York, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said that “[t]he world has spoken with one voice: we demand an immediate end to the violence against civilians and full respect for their fundamental human rights, including those of peaceful assembly and free speech.” His next move: consulting with the heads of the UN’s humanitarian agencies, the Arab League, the African Union, and the Organization of the Islamic Conference on what steps to take next.
Ashley Bates is an editorial intern at Mother Jones. She just returned from three years in the Middle East.
posted by Kevin Anthony Stoda at 8:05 AM
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