Feb. 21, 2011 - Berlin, Germany - About 100 demonstrators stage a protest outside the Libyan embassy in Berlin as reports indicate widespread and dramatic loss of life at anti-government protests in Libya multiply.
The latest news from the shores of Tripoli.
| Wed Feb. 23, 2011 5:15 PM PST
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 [1] 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 [2] against protesters in Benghazi, the country’s second-biggest city, and more than 200 protesters [3], 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 [4]." 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 [5]. Corruption is rampant [6], dissidents are brutally suppressed [7], 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."
Last week, Libyan dissident Najla Aburrahman begged [1] 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 [2] against protesters in Benghazi, the country’s second-biggest city, and more than 200 protesters [3], 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 [4]." 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 [5]. Corruption is rampant [6], dissidents are brutally suppressed [7], 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."
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 [5] 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 [8]," 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 [9]. 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 [10]. 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 [11].
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 [12]."
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 [13], 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 [14].
UPDATE 3, Monday, Feb. 21, 12:15 p.m. EST/7:15 p.m. Tripoli (Nick Baumann [15]): 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 [20], 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 [15]): NBC News reports [21] that the State Department has ordered all non-emergency personnel to leave Libya immediately. The resigned Libyan ambassador to India told Al Jazeera [22] "it is only a matter of days until the regime is finished." And The Guardian confirms earlier reports [23] 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 [24]): Witnesses saw armed militiamen speeding into Tripoli’s Green Square in Toyota trucks, firing on protestors [25] 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 [26]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 [27]): UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon has spoken with Qaddafi and told him the violence "must stop immediately," a UN spokesperson said [28]. 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 [29]. 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 [27]): Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has very belatedly condemned [30] 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 [31], 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 [32] to Libya for a "cultural tour." Just last week, Berlusconi reportedly sent a Danish IC4 train [33] to Qaddafi as a gift.
UPDATE 10, Monday, Feb. 21, 6:10 p.m. EST/1:10 a.m. Tuesday Tripoli (Nick Baumann [15]): The State Department has released a transcript [38] of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's recent comments on Libya:
CNN's Ben Wendeman has managed to sneak into Libya from Egypt [42], 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 17, Tuesday, Feb. 22, 6:15 p.m. EST/Wednesday, Feb. 23, 1:15 a.m. Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta [24]): The Associated Press reports [53] 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 [31], 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 [54] 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 [27]): Mother Jones has interviewed Libyan poet and University of Michigan professor Khaled Mattawa, whorecounts the horrors [55] of growing up under the Qaddafi regime. He says, "This is the moment we've been waiting for."
UPDATE 22, Wednesday, Feb. 23, 11:51 a.m. EST/6:30 p.m. Tripoli (Ashley Bates [27]): Thomas Friedman argues [61] 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:
UPDATE 25, Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2:07 p.m. EST/9:07 p.m. Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta [24]): Two from earlier today that're worth a read. First, Leslie Gelb urges caution [65], 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 [66] 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 [24]): The International Organization for Migration reports [67] 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 [24]): This is the way we bail. Channel News Asia has a short dispatch [68] on a pair of Libyan pilots who refused orders to bomb Benghazi. And The New York Times reports [69] 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 [27]): 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:
UPDATE 30, Wednesday, Feb. 23, 8:00 p.m. EST/3:00 a.m. Thursday in Tripoli (Nick Baumann [15]): 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." [72]
UPDATE 33, Thursday. Feb. 24, 12:22 p.m. EST/ 7:22 p.m. Tripoli (Ashley Bates [27]): 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 36, Thursday, Feb. 24, 5:22 p.m. EST/Friday, Feb. 25, 12:22 a.m. Tripoli (David Corn [80]): I just spoke [81] 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 [27]): More bizarre, disturbing news: The US State Department announced today [82] 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.
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 [8]," 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 [9]. 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 [10]. 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 [11].
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 [12]."
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 [13], 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 [14].
UPDATE 1, Monday, Feb. 21, 9:00 a.m. EST/4:00 p.m. Tripoli (Nick Baumann [15]): SkyNews is reporting [16] 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 [15]): Al Jazeera (via Sultan al Qassemi [17]) 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 [18] as "business as usual," and asks whether the West is even capable of "bold, creative policymaking." The Atlantic's Max Fisher, meanwhile, says [19] 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 [15]): 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 [20], 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 [15]): NBC News reports [21] that the State Department has ordered all non-emergency personnel to leave Libya immediately. The resigned Libyan ambassador to India told Al Jazeera [22] "it is only a matter of days until the regime is finished." And The Guardian confirms earlier reports [23] 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 [24]): Witnesses saw armed militiamen speeding into Tripoli’s Green Square in Toyota trucks, firing on protestors [25] 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 [26]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 [27]): UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon has spoken with Qaddafi and told him the violence "must stop immediately," a UN spokesperson said [28]. 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 [29]. 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 [27]): Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has very belatedly condemned [30] 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 [31], 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 [32] to Libya for a "cultural tour." Just last week, Berlusconi reportedly sent a Danish IC4 train [33] to Qaddafi as a gift.
UPDATE 8, Monday, Feb. 21, 4:20 p.m. EST/11:20 p.m. Tripoli (Nick Baumann [15]): Yusuf al-Qaradawi [34], 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 [20]: "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 [35]: "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 [15]): CNN has a truly awful video [36] of what it says are the bodies of Libyan soldiers who refused to shoot at protesters. And here's Marc Lynch's writeup [37] 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 [15]): The State Department has released a transcript [38] 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 [27]): Egypt and Tunisia have both set up field hospitals [39] on their borders with Libya and are trying to send help. A group of Libyan military officers have released a statement [40] 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 [15]): 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 [41], a "f***king loon."
UPDATE 13, Tuesday, Feb. 22, 1:15 a.m. EST/6:15 a.m. Tripoli (Ashley Bates [27]): Below is a translated YouTube video of Qaddafi's bizarre television appearance.CNN's Ben Wendeman has managed to sneak into Libya from Egypt [42], 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 [15]): 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 [43] (a large city and strategic port) being in the hands of rebels. The German press agency DPA reports [44] that Benghazi's airstrip has been totally destroyed [45].
- A group of Libyan military officers has reportedly [46] asked all members of the Libyan army to move towards the Tripoli, the capital, and attempt to depose Qaddafi.
- NBC's Richard Engel reports [47] that Libyans are already suffering from shortages of "rice, flour, sugar, [and] oil."
- Human Rights Watch says [48] 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 [49] 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.
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 [15]): 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 [50] 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 [51] 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 [52].
UPDATE 17, Tuesday, Feb. 22, 6:15 p.m. EST/Wednesday, Feb. 23, 1:15 a.m. Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta [24]): The Associated Press reports [53] 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 [31], 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 [54] 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 [27]): Mother Jones has interviewed Libyan poet and University of Michigan professor Khaled Mattawa, whorecounts the horrors [55] 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 [24]): Things could be coming to a head:
- Reports from towns near Tripoli suggest that fighting has reached the capital's doorstep [56], 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 [57] 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 [58]. "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's 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 [24]): Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini says [59] 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 [24]): Hewing close to his Egypt-react script, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad condemned [60] 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 [27]): Thomas Friedman argues [61] 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:
UPDATE 23, Wednesday, Feb. 23, 1:00 p.m. EST/8:00 p.m. Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta [24]): Michael J. Totten on why Libya isn't Tunisia or Egypt [62]: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.
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.UPDATE 24, Wednesday, Feb. 23, 1:25 p.m. EST/8:25 p.m. Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta [24]): The Atlantic's Max Fisher tweets [63]: "Isolated but largely consistent reports seem to indicate sweeping military defections across Libya's northeast." And, on the ground, Anjali Kamat's tweet [64] 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"
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 25, Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2:07 p.m. EST/9:07 p.m. Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta [24]): Two from earlier today that're worth a read. First, Leslie Gelb urges caution [65], 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 [66] 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 [24]): The International Organization for Migration reports [67] 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 [24]): This is the way we bail. Channel News Asia has a short dispatch [68] on a pair of Libyan pilots who refused orders to bomb Benghazi. And The New York Times reports [69] 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 [27]): 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.UPDATE 29, Wednesday. Feb. 23, 6:13 p.m. EST/Thursday, Feb. 24, 1:13 a.m. Tripoli (Ashley Bates [27]): In his first televised comments on the Libya crisis [71], 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.
On France's No-Fly Zone Proposal [70]: 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 30, Wednesday, Feb. 23, 8:00 p.m. EST/3:00 a.m. Thursday in Tripoli (Nick Baumann [15]): 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." [72]
UPDATE 31, Thursday, Feb. 24, 10:52 a.m. EST/5:52 p.m. Tripoli (Siddhartha Mahanta [24]): 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[73] 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 crackdown "grave violations to human rights and human and international laws,” reports [74] the Associated Press.
- In a speech aired on state television on Wednesday, Qaddafi blamed the unrest on Al Qaeda, reports Al Jazeera [75]. "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!"
UPDATE 33, Thursday. Feb. 24, 12:22 p.m. EST/ 7:22 p.m. Tripoli (Ashley Bates [27]): 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 [24]): Just tweeted [78] 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 [24]): Another must-watch [79] 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 [80]): I just spoke [81] 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 [27]): More bizarre, disturbing news: The US State Department announced today [82] 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.
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