Posts Tagged ‘Gaddafi’
THE ISLAMIC STATE IN LIBYA – THE CAMEL’S NOSE IS IN THE TENT. (Updated 27th April 2016)
Since the 11th century the nomadic and semi nomadic Bedouin tribes of Libya lived out their traditional lives on land they owned by right of conquest. They moved their tents, their animals and their goods about their homelands according to the seasons. The Libyan Desert and the Sahara are reluctant to yield food and water to those who choose to live in them. Libyan tribes, therefore, protected their water sources, their plough land, their seasonal grazing lands and their date palms. They won a frugal living from a harsh environment with which they remained in a finely balanced equilibrium. Consequently the appearance of strangers in their homelands was treated with a degree of suspicion which underlay traditional desert hospitality.
The Bedouin humour needs a practiced ear to appreciate it. You can hear it in the phrase they used when strangers overstayed their welcome amongst them. They would say, ‘The camel has got its nose in the tent’.
In the middle of the last century oil was found in abundance in Libya’s tribal lands. Tribesmen found employment in the oil industry and the old pastoral life faded. For more than 40 years Libya was ruled by the eccentric Muammar Gaddafi, a man born in a Bedouin tent near Sirte. His rule was despotic and he was removed from power in 2011. Since his demise Libya has been wracked by strife and armed discord. The seed of religious extremism, ruthlessly suppressed throughout Gaddafi’s rule, has germinated in the Arab Spring and now threatens to overwhelm Libya.
The brutal Caliphate which calls itself ‘The Islamic Sate of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)’ exploded out of Syria and seized territory and minds in Iraq with bewildering speed. It has become a de facto state with much of the apparatus of statehood. It is expanding rapidly and has looked for vulnerable and profitable places into which it might expand. It clearly has a greedy eye on Egypt which it threatens from the Sinai Peninsular.
Egypt’s western neighbour, Libya, became a magnet for ISIL. It harbours rich reserves of oil. It is a very large country and thus hard to police. It has fallen into armed discord since the demise of Gaddafi. Gaddafi’s huge stockpiles of arms have been looted and the country is awash with weapons. The armed militias which fought to topple Gaddafi have remained in being and are vying for power. There are two governments which are unable to reconcile their differences and one of them, that which is based in Tripoli, has Islamist leanings. Neither government has, so far, been able to exercise control over the numerous armed militias many of which are led by militant Islamists. There is no effective national police force or judiciary. The militias have assumed both of these roles from which they enrich themselves.
In the near anarchy of Libya, the ‘Islamic State’ was guaranteed a ready source of recruits and also a sufficiency of fellow travellers in positions of power. Now it has a foothold in Derna and Behghazi and is in complete control of the coastal city of Sirte and its neighbouring town of Al-Nawfaliyah.
Sirte was Gaddafi’s home town and he poured a great deal of money into it. He was killed trying to escape from it in 2011 and the city of Sirte has been a pariah ever since. It was thus virtually outlawed and an easy target for IS. It lies between the de facto government based in Tripoli and the internationally recognised government based in the eastern city of Tobruk. These ‘governments’ as so badly at odds that they are unable to combine to root IS out of Sirte. The Islamic State is thus safe in Sirte until a government of national unity exerts sufficient force to attack and eliminate it.
I vividly recall making the journey from Tripoli to Benghazi by road in the 1960s. The Tripoli oasis ends as the road turns south east at Misrata and dives into the desert through which it continues with little let up but for the towns and oil ports for more than 650Kms until it reaches Ajdabia. It is hard to convey in a few words how daunting that desert journey was in the mid twentieth century. It may have become somewhat easier now but is clear – to me at least – how difficult it would be to mount an attack on IS in its stronghold in Sirte.
So safe does IS feel in Sirte that it is from there that it now operates ISIL’s satellite TV station Al Bayan on which it broadcasts the brutal Islamic State propaganda.
There is one other major factor which has not so far been emphasised. Sirte lies to the west of the major oil ports which are spread along the southern shore of the Gulf of Sirte. This is significant in the light of this report by Maha Sulaiman which appeared in the Libya Herald on 3rd November 2015.
‘There has been another assassination attempt in Ajdabiya. Gunmen last night attempt to kill a local imam, Salem Rahil. Several shots were fired at his car as he was leaving his home. Rahil, who is also a member of staff at the University of Benghazi’s Islamic Studies Department, was unhurt.
Ajdabiya is currently the most dangerous place in Libya in terms of assassinations and attempted assassinations, which are on the rise.
Last week, a Salfist imam was murdered when a car bomb exploded beneath his vehicle. Ten days earlier the local army intelligence chief Colonel Ataya Al-Arabi died in a hail of gunfire as he drove up to his home. The day before that there was an attempt to kill another Salafist imam in the town in a similar car bomb attack. Sheikh Mohammed Bodiam escaped serious injury but his nephew was killed.
At the beginning of October, Hassuna Al-Atawish Al-Magharbi, the commander of the LNA’s Brigade 302, which is currently fighting in Benghazi, was shot dead in the town. In September, local militiaman Nasser Al-Rugaieh and political activist Belgassem Al-Zwai were killed in separate incidents and there was an attempt to kill local journalist Usama Al-Jarred.
Almost all the attacks have been blamed on Islamic State (IS) forces or the Islamist Ajdabiya Revolutionaries’ Shoura Council.’
The Islamic State is bidding to take over Ajdabia. Why is this significant? Ajdabia is a strategic city in Libya. It lies to the east of and very close to the oil ports on the southern shores of the Gulf of Sirte. I have already pointed out in earlier blog posts that Adjdabia lies at the point where the coastal road from Tripoli around the shores of the Gulf of Sirte branches north east for Benghazi, almost due east for Tobruk and south east for Kufra. It is a hub for people trafficking from the Sudan. It is also the base of Ibrahim Jhadran who commands the Central Petroleum Facilities Guard and has the power to shut down the oil ports in the Gulf of Sirte.
It is not difficult to see what would happen if IS controls Ajdabia as well as Sirte. It would lie across the sole road access to Libya’s major oil terminals which lie between Sirte and Ajdabia at Marsa Brega, al-Sidr and Ras Lanuf. It would also command the hub of Libya’s eastern highway system. That would not be desirable. The IS camel would have its nose firmly in the Libya tent.
John Oakes
6th October 2015
Update 2nd December 2015
This, in the British Daily Telegraph today, makes disconcerting reading:
Update 5th January 2915
IS has launched an attack on the Libyan oil terminal at Sidra. This from the BBC is worth noting as it has a useful map showing the various ‘power bases’ in Libya.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-35220281
The Libya Herald is today carrying a report listing the names of the IS fighters killed in the attack. They are all Sudanese:
‘As with almost all other IS suicide attacks, there are no Libyans involved. All four were Sudanese. IS names them as Abu Muad Al-Ghurhani, Abu Hamam Al-Ansari, Abu Abdalla Al-Ansari and Abdulrahman Al-Mohajer.’ ……….. ‘At least two members of the Petroleum Facilities Guard were killed this morning during a two-pronged attack by IS on the Sidra and Ras Lanouf oil export terminals.
It appears that IS launched two suicide car bombers at the security gate guarding Sidra in a diversionary strike while another force of up to a dozen vehicles looped south and attacked Ras Lanouf, 32 kilometres further east. In this assault one of the storage tanks in the tank farm was set ablaze.’ From Libya Herald, Tripoli, dated 4t January 2015.
Update 6th January 2015
This by Mustafa Fetouri, a Libyan academic, makes the case for intervention:-
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/12/libya-danger-isis-control-syria-iraq.html#
Update 24th April 2016
This from the Libya Herald.
Tripoli, 23 April 2016:
The head of the central region Petroleum Facilities’ Guards (PFG), Ibrahim Jadhran, was injured this morning in fighting with convoy of vehicles from the so-called Islamic State. According to a PFG source, one guard was killed and, in addition to Jadhran, three others wounded. He claimed that a number of IS fighters had been killed and six of their vehicles captured.
Jadhran was not seriously wounded, the source stated and, after treatment at Ajdabiya’s Imhemed Al-Magarief Hospital, returned to the fighting.
The convoy of around 100 vehicles was spotted around dawn this morning south of Brega. PFG forces from Ajdabiya were called in and engaged them some 50 kilometres from Brega. Fighting continued until around midday.
According to the source, the convoy was not that of the IS fighters who retreated from Derna on Wednesday. With less than 40 vehicles, it was reported to have reached Sirte on Thursday.
The PGF source was unable to say where today’s convoy was heading, although with 100 vehicles it was thought to be taking part in a fresh military operation, possibly an attack on the oil facilities in Brega itself. In January, IS attacked the Sidra and Ras Lanuf export terminals and then attempted an attack on the Zuetina terminal.
Meanwhile there are separate reports of IS fighters pulling out of the village of Ben Jawad, 170 kilometres west of Brega and returning to Sirte, but these have not been confirmed.
Ben Jawad was captured by IS in January.
Update 27th April 2016
It is clear that a concerted attempt to deal with the IS lodgement in Sirte is underway as this in the Libya Herald shows:
Tripoli and Khartoum, 26 April 2016.
There are reports of the movement of two groups of Libyan National Army troops towards Sirte from the south-west and east. Meanwhile at least one Misratan brigade has announced it is moving eastwards toward the 200 kilometre-long coastal strip controlled by IS terrorists.
An army source told this newspaper that a force of more than a thousand men had left Ghabghab, the main army base at Marj and was heading for Sirte. It seems likely that the convoy will include some of the armoured personnel carriers and pickups delivered to Tobruk from the UAE on Saturday.
It is also being reported that the LNA commander in the west, Colonel Idris Madi, is pushing towards IS territory from the south-west. He is said to be accompanied by Colonel Mohamed Ben Nail, the commander of 241 Brigade and Colonel Ali Seedi Al-Tabawey, commander of the Tebu 25 Brigade. This unit, which fought against IS and Ansar Al-Sharia forces in Benina in Benghazilast year is based around the Sarir/Messla oil fields, the Sarir power station and the Shula oil compound.
On its social media site today Misrata’s Marsa Brigade has said that forces belonging to the city’s Military Council were concentrating before advance eastwards toward Sirte.
It is unclear if the Misratan move is being made in coordination with the Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief Khalifa Hafter.
It is significant that the army has named its part of the move against Sirte “Qurdabiya 2” after a battle near Sirte at Wadi Al-Hamar (The Red Valley) fought against the Italians in 1915. This was notable for the fact that it was the only major occasion on which Libyans from Tripolitania, Cyrenaica and Fezzan fought side by side against the Italians,
An elder of the Magharba tribe said today on 218 TV that his people will do whatever they can to help the movement of army units from the east. Meanwhile, Petroleum Facilities Guard commander Ibrahim Jadhran, a long-standing Hafter opponent, is understood to have agreed not to interfere with the army advance. Jadhran, who is himself from the Magharba, is believed to have sought to extend the PFG’s control over more oil fields to the south.
There has been considerable social media chatter in recent days about an impending operation against IS. A series of pictures has been posted claiming to show various units advancing.
Reports from inside Sirte this evening indicated that the town in unusually quiet and that the local radio station is broadcasting an almost constant diet of IS songs.
(https://www.google.co.uk/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=libya%20herald)
LIBYA – THE TEBU, THE ZAWIYA AND THE BATTLE FOR KUFRA – OLD ENEMIES IN NEW CONTEXTS.
In Libya the Tebu people of Kufra have long been marginalised. For many years, Gaddafi’s people pursued a program of ‘arabiseation’ which effectively meant the persecution of the Tebu as this report by the Human Rights Council makes clear: “Some 4,000 Toubou [Tebu] people are living in the town of Kufra, an oasis city of 44,000 inhabitants some 2,000 kilometres from Tripoli. In the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya [Gaddafi’s Libya], they were treated as foreigners by the authorities. In December 2007, the Libyan Government withdrew citizenship from members of the Toubou group, stating that they were not Libyans but Chadians. Furthermore the local authorities issued decrees barring Toubou from access to education and health care services. The armed movement “Front for the Salvation of the Toubou Libyans” …. opposed these measures. Up to 33 people died in Kufra, during five days of fighting between the official security forces and the Toubou in November 2008. Despite public criticism, the government of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya [continued] to expel Toubou people from their residential areas in Kufra. Since November 2009 dozens of families lost their homes due to forced destruction by bulldozers supervised by state security forces.”
The hostility between the black Tebu people and the white al Zawiya tribe has long been endemic in Kufra and has escalated into open warfare since the heavy hand of the Gaddafi regime was lifted after the 2011 civil war. Here are some notes which may help to understand the long running enmity between the ethnic Tebu people and the Zawiya tribe in Kufra. (A note here about transliteration and the Zawiya tribe. The tribal name may appear in a number of spellings. Rosita Forbes, who is quoted below, used Souais. Nowadays Libyans often use the name Sway as the Zawiya are known thus locally. Also the Tebu are often honoured with a number of spelling variations, such as Toubu and other near approximations)
The Tebu people of Kufra, Sebha and Muzuq are part of a wider ethnic group called the Teda, desert warriors living in the eastern and central Sahara and, effectively, a black people without nationality. The majority of them can be found in the Tibesti Mountains on the Libyan-Chad border. Their harsh environment, extreme poverty, and remote location make them a very tough people. They have often clashed with the neighbouring tribes and with the Tuareg and, like the gypsies in Great Britain, are despised by the dominant communities who see them as petty thieves and liars.
Traditionally, the Teda controlled the caravan trade routes that passed through their territory. They were widely known in the past for plundering and salve trading. Their language is Tebu and their basic social unit is the nuclear family, organized into clans. They live by a combination of pastoralism, farming, subsistence smuggling and date cultivation.
The Zawiya is a ‘client tribe’ which owes allegiance to the aristocratic Magharba tribe with which it shares a border in the north. This client relationship goes back into antiquity and the Zawiya ignore it at best and resent it at worst. Desert traders and nomadic pastoralists the Zawiya conquered Kufra in 1840 subduing the indigenous Tebu, the non-Arab pan- Saharan ethic group which, at some time in the distant past, maintained a notable presence there. The remnants of their dwellings and forts are still visible. Some suggest that Kufra was the ancient centre of the whole Teda people and even in the late 18th and early 19th centuries they had been in contact with the oases of Egypt and Cyrenaica. The literature is full of stories of their ability to travel between widely dispersed water sources on their special breed of camel and of their lawlessness and sometimes harsh treatment of slaves.
Since 1840 or thereabouts the Zawiya tribe has owned most of the date palm groves of the Kufra oases, employing the Tebu as labourers and extending its trading route into the last African Sultanate to fall to western imperialism, the Wadai, now part of Chad. It is said that Kufra under Zawiya rule was the most noted centre of brigandage in the Sahara. Plus ça change – plus c’est la même chose.
The Zawiya leadership promised the Grand Senussi, Mohamed Ben Ali as-Senussi, a liberal donation of dates and water if he would establish a religious community in Kufra. This he did and the Senussi order eventually moved its headquarters to Kufra from whence it exercised its moral and temporal suasion and commercial competence over the hitherto predatory Zawiya, establishing a profitable trans-Saharan trade in slaves and arms.
Unlike other trans-Saharan routes the Senussi control over the Wadai to Benghazi road via Kufra reduced the costs to slave merchants who were not, therefore, obliged to pay tolls even though their caravans passed through a number of tribal territories. However, the Senussi theocracy and the slave trade through Kufra were under threat from the French who were advancing their empire towards Chad and from the Italians who had commenced to colonise north eastern shore of Libya. Thus the slavers were losing access to the Mediterranean ports in the north and the supply of slaves from the south.
It was in 1910 that the Italians launched their colonial occupation of Libya and gradually extended their dominance over the country. In the east they met resistance from the Libyan tribes on whose most profitable land they had established Italian agricultural settlements and whose migratory life they restricted and disrupted. The logistical problems posed by the huge distance and lack of fodder and water between the Italian bases on the Mediterranean coast meant that the Senussi theocracy based in Kufra was for many years beyond their reach. What is more the Italians became embroiled in World War I and had little time or resources with which to mount an attack on Kufra, protected as it was by distance and an arc of impassable sand seas. In 1920 they adopted the pragmatic policy of appointing the future King of Libya, Mohamed Idris es Senussi, Emir of Cyrenaica with his capital at Kufra. .
In the early years of the 20th Century there were a number of blank areas on the maps of the Libyan Desert. For some time stories circulating about three lost or ‘forbidden’ oases, Kufra, Jebel ‘Uwainat and Zazura, had been circulating amongst geographers. Even the Royal Geographical Society published a paper about Zazura, which turned out to be a mythical place.
In 1921/22 a remarkable expedition to the hitherto closed oasis of Kufra was made by two colourful travellers. One was the Oxford educated Egyptian civil servant and explorer Hassanien Bey and the other an intrepid adventuress, travel writer and novelist, Rosita Forbes. By virtue of Hassanien Bey’s considerable influence with the Emir, Idris es Senussi, they acquired permission to visit the Senussi lodge and mausoleum in Kufra and overcame opposition amongst the Zawiya tribesman to visit the villages in the vicinity. Rosita Forbes managed to conceal a camera about her person with which she managed to take some unique photographs. (In doing this the she was risking her life. Even in 1960s I would not have dared to use my camera freely in much of Libya). The pair found evidence of a continuing, though by now clandestine, slave trade. The odd couple’s considerable journey by camel to the forbidden oasis is described in Forbes’ book ‘The Secret of the Sahara, Kufra’. At one point in their return journey they were under the impression that a band of Tebu was stalking them with malign intent. This may have been why Forbes described the Tebu as ‘the Berber aborigines of Libya. They wear only sheep skins and eat a mixture of powdered dates and locusts’. Some of her photographs appeared in ‘The Illustrated London News’ dated 21st May 1921. One of the photographs is of ruined stone dwellings which, she asserted, were built at some time in antiquity by the Tebu. Forbes estimated that ‘the population of Kufara and Buseima is about 3,000 Zouais (Zawiya) and 100 to 150 Tebu. In addition to these there are a large number of Negroid slaves from Wadai and Darfur’.
On 28th December 1930 the Italian colonial power in Libya was sufficiently strengthened and equipped to launch an attack on the Emir’s Sothern oasis stronghold of Kufra. For the first time the Italians used self contained motorised columns supported by aircraft which traversed the Libyan Desert to project overwhelming power across huge waterless distances and over hitherto impregnable sand seas. The Italian mechanised attack, supported by aerial bombardment and strafing, was quick to reduce Zawiya resistance in Kufra and forced the Senussi family to flee to Siwa in Egypt.
Those inhabitants who made a living on the land watered by Kufra’s springs remained behind but the proud Arabs of the Zawiya tribe decided to escape. They had no time to make long preparations or to feed their camels up for a journey over waterless and fodder-less terrain to the South East. Even so, a party estimated to have been five hundred strong including women and children set out in that direction for the Jebel ‘Uwainat, known as ‘the mountain of springs’, on the border of Libya with Egypt and the Sudan.
For some time there had been no rain at ‘Uwainat and whilst there was still water in the main spring, Ain Dua, the vegetation had withered away and the ill prepared camels could find no sustenance. Some groups elected to move on but many succumbed to starvation and perished. Around four hundred Zawiya eventually reached the Dakhla oasis in Egypt having covered more than 400 miles between water sources over arid desert, a feat with few parallels in non mechanised desert travel.
With time the Zawiya returned to Kufra and their numbers grew substantially as did those of the Tebu. During the early years of World War II Kufra became the base of the British Long Range Desert Group which perfected the use of mechanised transport in the Libyan Desert and the wider Sahara.
After the Italian defeat by the British 8th Army, Libya was administered by British and French Military governments until 1952 when it received its independence and the sometime Emir of Cyrenaica, Idris es Senussi, became its king. Oil was found to be abundant below the desert homeland of the Zawiya. The need for imported labour grew and workers from the Sudan and Chad flocked into Libya via the old slave trading routes, but now in motorised transport. Kufra became a hub for migrants. The number of ‘travel agents and vehicle repair shops’ proliferated. Competition for control of the people trafficking and smuggling business grew between the Zawiya and the Tebu.
The water which supplies the Kufra oasis is from the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System, the world’s largest fossil water aquifer which underlies North Western Sudan, North Eastern Chad, Much of Egypt and some of the South of Libya. One of the notable public works projects funded by revenue from Libya’s oil was to tap the aquifer and pipe fossil water to Benghazi and Tripoli. A centre point irrigation scheme, extracting the fossil water through artisan wells, was also set up near Kufra with the intention of developing a flourishing agriculture, hampered, however, by its remoteness and consequent cost of bringing the fresh produce to market.
Independence came to Libya in 1953 which then became ‘The United Kingdom of Libya’ with the sometime Emir of Cyrenaica, Idris es Senussi as its monarch. The search for oil quickened until the country became a major oil producer. The great wealth which followed attracted numerous economic migrants for sub-Saharan Africa. Many Tebu migrated into Libya from their homeland in the Tibesti Mountains. The Tebu population in Kufra grew apace as did tension between Tebu and Zawiya.
King Idris, always a reluctant monarch, abdicated in 1969 and Muammar Gaddafi mounted a pre-emptive coup whilst the old King’s favoured successors were still abed. His rule, which lasted until 2011, was erratic and autocratic. He stirred up enmity between the Zawiya and the Tebu by means of a classic disinformation ploy. He implied that the Tebu were brought into Kufra by the much hated Italians.
Gaddafi’s grandiose ambitions were directed towards Africa and in particular Chad. Between 1968 and 1987 Gaddafi launched a number of military incursions into Chad and for a while maintained a military occupation of Chadian territory. One of the results was a further increase of Tebu in Kufra. Gaddafi’s forces were roundly defeated in the so called Toyota Wars and left Chad in 1987. One of the cruel outcomes of Gaddafi’s occupation of northern Chad was the large numbers of land mines his forces left behind in the Tebu homelands. They interrupted migratory patterns and made swaths of the country uninhabitable. There followed a further increase in the Tebu population in Kufra. In addition, the uneasy relationship between the Zawiya and the Tebu was exacerbated during Gaddafi’s war with Chad. Since the majority of the Tebu live in Chad those who established in Kufra were perceived to be 5th Columnists
In 2011 the uprising against Gaddafi commenced. France, the UK and the Arab League became involved and matters fared badly for Gaddafi who was forced to employ mercenaries. Many of them were recruited in Chad. Since the Tebu homeland is mainly in the Tibesti mountain region of northern Chad it was an easy propagandist ploy to label all Tebu as mercenaries.
In 2011 the Tebu formed an armed militia called the Desert Shield Brigade and joined the anti-Gaddafi forces. The Zawiya appear to he been divided in loyalty. The Gaddafi regime was toppled and the proliferation of arms from the looting of Gaddafi’s considerable arms dumps has resulted in the breakdown of law and order.
There are now two rival governments in Libya which are in bitter and often armed opposition to each other. Neither has the will nor the wherewithal to control the remote south and consequently old enmities are now pursued with deadly consequences. These reports in the Libya Herald illustrate the point:
Dated 27 July 2015: ‘Despite reports of a ceasefire agreed yesterday in Kufra between Zawia and Tebu fighters, with a promise to hand over prisoners, there has again been heavy fighting in the town today, for the third day in succession. Continued intermittent clashes between the two communities re-erupted into full-scale violence on Friday since when at least 14 people have been killed two dozen wounded.
“Nine Zwai members and five Tebu people have been killed and the number of casualties is over 25, from both communities” Salah Al-Sanussi, a Tebu elder living in Kufra, told the Libya Herald today.
“Mortar and heavy artillery fire is being exchanged and there is absolutely no safe police left,” he said.
Most of the current fighting is around the Tebu district of Gadarfai, which separates the two Zwai areas of Bu-Shoug and Al-Harah, as well as at the Al-Khadrah roundabout in the south of the town.
Tebu fighters are also reported to have fired mortars at the Kufra airport, located at Zwai area of the town, forcing its closure.
A week ago, when five people, including two Bangladeshi workers, were killed in a Zwai-Tebu shootout, the town’s National Security Directorate spokesman warned of rising tension between the two communities. Lieutenant Mohammed Khalil said that the main streets of the town were closed because of sniper activities by both sides and that the Directorate did not have the power to put a stop to the clashes.
Zwai and Tebu elders and other local leaders were trying their best to contain the situation, he said, but it was deteriorating fast………..31 July 2015: Communal clashes in the south-eastern oasis of Kufra have now continued for just over a week, with the government and the Libyan National Army (LNA) still unable to control the conflict.
Tebu-Zwai tit-for-tat killings over the last month once again exploded into bloody armed clashes between the two tribes on Friday last week. In the past couple of days, some 15 people are said to have been killed.’
This is an unfinished story with an unpredictable outcome. The troubles in Kufra are far from over. Both the Tebu and Zawiya are in competition for the lucrative people trafficking, drug and arms smuggling trade centred on Kufra. There are also rumours of foreign interference, particularly from the Sudan. I believe that Ansar Sharia, the Salafist-Jihadist group which has been listed by the USA as a terrorist organisation, has a foothold in Kufra where it seems to control the road to Jalo, and thus of most of the northbound traffic.
Around 17% of Libya’s oil reserves lies in the Zawiya homeland as do the source wells for the Great Man Made River carrying water from the Nubian Sub-Saharan Aquifer to the coastal cities. The Zawiya have sometimes threatened to cut off both of these vital resources.
For more contemporary background this paper is worth reading:
Click to access libya_security_2.pdf
John Oakes
10th September 2105
NOTE – HASSANIEN BEY AND ROSITA FORBES
The achievements of Hassanien Bey who was accompanied by Rosita Forbes on the epic journey to Kufra in 1922 (mentioned above) were overshadowed by Forbes who rushed into print with her book ‘The Secret of the Sahara: Kufra’. Hassanien Bey made a further and more extensive expedition into the Libya Desert. An article about his travels, with photographs of Kufra, Zawiya sheiks and a Tebu woman, appeared in the National Geographic Magazine in September 1924 and may be accessed here.
Click to access natgeog1924-text.pdf
Update
23rd September 2015
Reports from Kufra on 20th September 2015 suggest that some30 have recently been killed and dozens wounded in fresh fighting and that the town council is threatening to seek foreign help in the absence of support from ether the Tripoli or Beda governments.
BOOKS BY JOHN OAKES For books by John Oakes see… (USA): http://www.amazon.com/John-Oakes/e/B001K86D3O/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1 ….. (UK): http://www.amazon.co.uk/John-Oakes/e/B001K86D3O/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_1
GADDAFI’S LETHAL LEGACY – AN OVERVIEW (UPDATED 25TH JULY 2014)
A FIRST POST IN AN OCCASIONAL SERIES ABOUT THE FATE OF GADDAFI’S ENOURMOUS STOCKPILE OF ARMS
At the Paris Summit for Security in Nigeria at the Elysée Palace in Paris on Saturday, May 17, 2014. Ashraq Al-Awsat reported:-
“Hours after yet another attack in a Boko Haram stronghold—this time in Cameroon, near the border with Nigeria—the leaders agreed to improve policing of frontiers, share intelligence, and trace the weapons and cash that are the group’s lifeblood.
“This group is armed, with heavy weapons of an unimaginable sophistication and the ability to use them,” said French President François Hollande.
He said the weapons came from chaotic Libya, and the training took place in Mali before the ouster of its Al-Qaeda linked Islamist leaders. As for the money, Hollande said its origins were murky.”
Gaddafi’s appetite for arms was extraordinary and his arms depots have been systematically looted since his downfall. Libyan has become a major source of illegal arms exported eastwards into Egypt and Syria, westwards to arm the al Qaeda franchise fighting in the Chaambi Mountains in Tunisia and southwards into the Sahel countries and Nigeria
We are well into the third year of the post Gaddafi era in Libya. The process of reconstruction and reformation has not, so far, been markedly successful. The level of international support has declined and the loose alliance which is attempting to run the country is under severe strain.
At a London investment conference on 17th August 2013 the Libyan Prime Minister Dr Ali Zeidan stated; “I say frankly that if the international community does not help us collect arms and ammunition, then the return of security is going to take a long time. The (Libyan) government can only do so much”. Amongst the major threats to Libya and her neighbours is the lack of control over the vast amount of weaponry and military hardware which the Gaddafi regime left in its wake. Because of the fractured nature of the rebellion and the chaotic logistic systems employed by both the Gaddafi loyalists and the rebel militias substantial quantities of arms and munitions are unaccounted for to this day.
When it became clear that the NATO and Qatari forces aligned against him had achieved air superiority Gaddafi dispersed vast quantities of mines, mortars, artillery, anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles, tanks and ammunition into abandoned buildings and private properties. These caches were drawn on by both Gaddafi loyalists and rebel militias during the fluid and chaotic civil war.
Few people know how much there was or where it is now. Many are still guessing, including MI6 which the London Sunday Times has quoted as its source for the statement that ‘there is a million tons of weaponry in Libya – more than the entire arsenal of the British Army – most of it unsecured’.
Following Gaddafi’s demise much of the weaponry was seized by revolutionary and post revolutionary militias which are now using it to control regions where the rule of law is weak or absent.
The mercenary army which Gaddafi recruited from neighbouring countries to bolster the defence of his regime dispersed homewards after the fall of Tripoli carrying looted weapons and ammunition. In particular, the exodus of his battle hardened Tuareg warriors with their considerable armoury caused instability in Mali and unrest in the other Sahel.
The remote and climatically unfavourable southern regions of Libya have been declared a military zone and are thus opaque to Libya watchers. This means that the areas around Ghadamis, Ghat, Awbari, Al-Shati, Sebha, Murzuq and Kufra as closed zones of military operations. The long border between Libya and her southern neighbours – Darfur, Chad and Niger – have always been porous and are now more so. The looted arms may be cached in large quantities in this area and moved out by convoy when the opportunity arises or smuggled in small quantities by what is known as ant smugglers, individuals or small groups who make frequent to a fro journeys carrying arms, drugs and migrants.
The near lawless south of Libya has attracted the attention of the Al Qaeda ‘Emir’ Mukhtar Belmukhtar who may have established training base there and who is a notorious trafficker in arms, cigarettes and people. Mukhtar Belmukhtar is believed to have mounted the attack in January 2013 on the BP gas facility in Southern Algeria from Libya and has been seen recently in an Al Qaeda video posing with a anti-aircraft rocket launcher (MANPAD) which may have been looted from Libya. Chad, Niger and Algeria have protested to Libya about the growing security threat posed by the lawlessness in the region.
There are a number of bloggers and some US legislators who are claiming that CIA operatives at the time when US Ambassador Chris Stevens was killed in Benghazi were running arms from Gaddafi’s looted stockpiles in Libya to rebel forces in Syria. Amongst them is Phil Greaves to whose blog is found here http://notthemsmdotcom.wordpress.com/.
There is growing and persistent evidence that ships containing arms and ammunition are plying between the Libyan ports of Misurata and Benghazi and ports in Turkey adjacent to Syria. These shipments are either made with the tacit agreement or the acquiescence of the Libyan Government. It seems to those of us who watch events that both Benghazi and Misurata, Libya’s second and third largest cities, are largely bereft of government control. Misurata is in the hands of well organised militias or ‘Thwars’ and Benghazi has been hijacked by militias with powerful salafist/wahabi/jihadist supporters but little popular appeal.
Arms are also moving illegally towards the escalating rebellion in the Sinai where the Egyptian army is waging a war which is likely to attract Al Qaeda franchises and to destabilise the border with Israel. Hezbollah in the Gaza strip has been seen to display arms which have their origin in Libya and which it may be using in its activities in Syria. The Egyptian military is disconcerted about the distribution of Libyan arms amongst discontented groups west of Suez.
JOHN OAKES
For books by John Oakes see… (USA): http://www.amazon.com/John-Oakes/e/B001K86D3O/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1 ….. (UK): http://www.amazon.co.uk/John-Oakes/e/B001K86D3O/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_1
Update 27th September 2013
At a meeting on 26th September with five of the G8 foreign ministers in New York, Prime Minister Ali Zeidan repeated his call for international help to stop the plundering of stock piles of Qaddafi-era arms and ammunition.
Update 2nd March 2014
Essential Reading……….
http://www.usip.org/publications/illicit-trafficking-and-libya-s-transition-profits-and-losses
Update 28th March 2014
News of explosions around Sebha indicate that the arms dumps are ungraded still.
Update 19th May 2014
This piece shows that Nigeria’s Boko Haram obtained their considerable and sophisticated weaponry from Gaddafi’s stockpiles in Libya
http://www.aawsat.net/2014/05/article55332375
Update 25th July 2014
Egypt is very concerned about the unprecedented amount of arms and ammunition being smuggled across her long and difficult border with Libya:
LIBYA – EQUATING BLACKS WITH MERCENARIES?
One of the many problems the Libyan government is grappling with today is the illegal detention of people accused of being Gaddafi’s mercenaries during the recent civil war. Joe Stork, deputy Middle East and North Africa director of Human Rights Watch, stated on 5th February 2013; ‘The [Libyan] government acknowledges that about 8,000 people are being detained across Libya, but only about 5,600 of these are in facilities controlled to some degree by the military or the Interior and Justice ministries.’
According to Libya’s Law 38 of 2nd May 2012 the Interior and Defence Ministries were required to refer all supporters of the former regime currently detained by militia, if there is sufficient evidence against them, to the judicial authorities by 12th July 2012. However, some authorities, including Lawyers for Justice in Libya, believe that Law 38 gives impunity for actions performed in the name of the revolution, stating as it does that there shall be no penalty for ‘military, security, or civil actions dictated by the February 17 Revolution that were performed by revolutionaries with the goal of promoting or protecting the revolution.’ It may be that militiamen accused in future of detaining and torturing suspects without due process of law will be able to escape sanction because of this ambiguity.
The deadline was far from being met when, on 14th July, Sarah Lea Whitson, the Middle Eastern and North African director of Human Rights Watch stated; ‘Across Libya, thousands of detainees still languish in prisons, without formal charge and without prospect of legal review. Despite months of cajoling the militias the transitional authorities missed the deadline and failed to gain control over approximately 5,000 people still held arbitrarily by armed groups, some subject to severe torture,’
Most detainees are Gaddafi security force members, former government officials, suspected foreign mercenaries or migrants from sub-Saharan Africa. There is growing evidence that militias are equating blacks with mercenaries. The Human Rights Watch has often warned about the maltreatment and torture of detainees held in militia detention centres. Many countries, with Chad at the top of the list, have denounced the treatment of their migrants in post Gaddafi Libya and it is clear that regional and diplomatic tensions will be heightened if the appeals are not heeded by the Libya government.
The Libya Herald reported on 5th February 2013 that some positive news came from the Libyan Minister of Justice, Salah Marghani, in a written note in which he states; “The Ministry has embarked on a policy that includes taking the necessary measures to end all violations and bring detention places under actual and full control of the judicial police.” The minister also made it clear that detention centres outside the control of the ministry of Justice would be criminalised.
It appears that the al-Roame facility for more than 2,000 prisoners in Misurata, which is to be under the aegis of the judicial police, will take control of all detainees in the city by mid May 2013 and this ‘model’ would be replicated elsewhere. To help, 24 prosecutors are being transferred from Eastern Libya to Misurata and thousands of new recruits to the police are being trained to control ‘judicial facilities’. Not before time it would seem and it is hoped that matters have improved since January 2012 when Médecins Sans Frontières stopped its work in detention centres in Misurata because its medical staff were being asked to patch up detainees midway through torture sessions so they could go back for more abuse.
The militias appear to be using the prisoners to revenge themselves against those who fought for Muammar Gaddafi and also as bargaining chips in the struggle for local and national power in Libya. It is difficult to escape the conclusion that some racial prejudice is involved which may have its roots in the slave trade, still active in some parts of Libya in the early part of the 20th century.
The case of Tawergha illustrates the point. In August of 2011, Misuratan militias broke out of the brutal siege of their city by Colonel Gaddafi’s forces and attacked their neighbours in Tawergha on whom the late dictator had once lavished money and favour. Accused of crimes against Misuratan civilians during the siege, all 35,000 or so residents of Tawergha fled and their town was systematically looted and destroyed by vengeful Misuratans. (Gadaffi’s forces had laagered in Tawergha whilst conducting the siege of Misurata and some of the young men of the town joined them in the fighting. Accusations of rape have been levied at them, though not yet substantiated.)
Tawergha, a town 38 kilometres or so south of Misurata, and now deserted by its inhabitants, was mostly populated with black Libyans, a legacy of its 19th-century origins as a transit town in the trans-Saharan slave trade. Now, on the gates of many their deserted and vandalized homes Misuratans have scrawled the words “slaves” and “negroes.”
Temporary sites for displaced Tawerghans have grown up and still remain in Libya. The UNHCR reports that some 20,000 of them have been registered in sites in Tripoli, Benghazi, Tarhouna and other smaller towns across the country. Another 7,000 or so were discovered in the south, near the town of Sebha. There must be some who remain unaccounted for – either staying with relatives or friends or hiding in the desert, afraid to emerge.
The UN Human Rights Council on Libya has complained that Tawerghans have been killed, arrested arbitrarily and tortured across the country. ,
JOHN OAKES
http://www.amazon.com/John-Oakes/e/B001K86D3O/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0
DARFUR – ANOTHER POTENTIAL FLASH POINT IN THE SAHEL (A post in an occasional series about Gaddafi’s African Legacy.)
The unforeseen consequences of the Libya civil war in Mali and Algeria are dominating the news in the UK and France. There are other consequences which need attention in the remote Sudanese province of Darfur. Reuters is reporting that some 30,000 people have fled their homes in Golo and Guldo towns to escape two weeks of fighting that began on December 24 in Darfur’s Jebel Marra area. Also around 2,800 people fled to a camp in Nertiti in central Darfur, already home to 42,000 displaced people.
There are unconfirmed reports that rebels from the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) faction led by Abdel Wahed Mohamed al-Nur have seized the towns of Golo and Rockero. Several thousand people are reported to have fled when fighting broke out between two Arab tribes over the use of a gold mine in the Jebel Amer area of North Darfur.
Darfur is in one of the poorest regions of Sudan. It is hard to reach because it is so far from the capital, Khartoum. It has long been neglected by the central government. Conditions there are ripe for exploitation by malign elements. There is a classic feedback loop. Neglect increases dissatisfaction with governments. Dissatisfaction leads to conflict which attracts radical groups such as the al Qaeda franchises.
Libya has long been interested in Darfur. 1985 Gaddafi concluded a military agreement with the Sudanese government to supply trucks and spares for Soviet equipment already on the Sudanese military inventory in exchange for being allowed to set up a base in Darfur for Libyan forces engaged in a war with Chad. Since then Gaddafi was been credited with meddling in Sudanese affairs, especially in Darfur.
The dreadful depravations of the notorious Janjaweed militias in Darfur between 1985 and 1990 may have been one of the unforeseen consequences of Gaddafi’s foreign policy in the region. By the time this conflict was resolved and estimated 5,400 had been killed, tens of thousands had been displaced and 40,000 homes destroyed.
Libya’s neighbours, Sudan, Chad, Niger, Mali and Algeria, have been forced to adjust themselves to the fluid and dangerous situation caused by Gaddafi’s fall. It will be useful to look further into the wider effect.
Update 7th June 2016
Darfur flooded with arms:
Libya-The Tebu of Kufra, Sebha and Muzuq; A black people in search of a nationality. Updated 30th April 2014
‘A delegation of some 36 Tebu representatives arrived in Tripoli on Tuesday 27th November 2012 to press the new Libyan government and the General National Congress on citizenship and civil rights issues for their people.’ Who are the Tebu and why are they important?
The Libyan region in which the Tebu live is rich in oil and underground water which, via the Great Man Made River, is piped to the coast where an estimated 90 per cent of Libya’s population live. It is also prime territory for illicit trade, with government-subsidised fuel and food smuggled out of the country in return for weapons, drugs, alcohol and migrants. The fall of Gaddafi triggered a minor war for control of the border trade between the black Tebu residents of Kufra, Sebha and Muzuq and the white Arab tribes – the Zawiya, the Awlad Suleiman and the Warfella.
There are visible signs of discrimination against the Tebu. For example, at Kufra a wall built by the Arab Zawiya tribe encircles the small town and traffic funnels through a guarded entrance. The Zawiya are in charge of Kufra’s government, military council, the commercial centre and small airport. The minority Tebu people live in shacks surrounded by rubbish heaps in the ghetto communities of Gadarfai and Shura. They are cordoned off by checkpoints monitored by the Libyan army.
Speaking in Tripoli to the editor of the Libya Herald on 27th November the Tebu military leader, Essa Abdul Majid Mansour, pointed out that fighting in Kufra between the majority Sway [al Zawiya] tribesman and minority Tebu clans had resulted in a number of deaths. He said that relations between the Sway and the Tebu were still tense and there was an urgent need for a government delegation to go to Kufra to achieve some form of settlement, otherwise matters will get worse. “There is already smuggling of weapons to Al-Qaeda groups outside the country, as well as drugs being brought into Libya. A main issue [for the Tebu] is the question of citizenship.”
The problem for the Tebus stemmed from Libya’s 1954 citizenship law when traditionally semi-nomadic tribes lacked identification, denying them access to higher education, skilled jobs, housing and health care. Michel Cousins of the Libya Herald writes ‘Large numbers of Tebus were stripped of their citizenship by Gaddafi in 2009 following a Tebu uprising the previous year, itself the result of persecution by the regime. There were forced evictions and demolition of Tebu homes. Because of it, the Tebu joined last year’s revolution from the very beginning. Officials say that there are some 12,000-15,000 Libyan Tebus. However, Essa Abdul Majid Mansour claims that there are at least 200,000 who are now stateless, having been stripped of their citizenship.’
The Tebu people of Kufra, Sebha and Muzuq are part of a wider ethnic group called the Teda, desert warriors living in the eastern and central Sahara and, effectively, a black people without nationality. The majority of them can be found in the Tibesti Mountains on the Libyan-Chad border. Their harsh environment, extreme poverty, and remote location make them a very tough people. They have often clashed with the neighbouring tribes and with the Tuareg and, like the gypsies in Great Britain, are despised by the dominant communities who see them as petty thieves and liars.
Traditionally, the Teda controlled the caravan trade routes that passed through their territory. They were widely known in the past for plundering and salve trading. Their language is Tebu and their basic social unit is the nuclear family, organized into clans. They live by a combination of pastoralism, farming, substance smuggling and date cultivation.
In Libya the Tebu people of Kufra have long been marginalised. For many years, Gaddafi’s people pursued a program of ‘arabiseation’ which effectively meant the persecution of the Tebu as this report by the Human Rights Council makes clear: “Some 4,000 Toubou [Tebu] people are living in the town of Kufra, an oasis city of 44,000 inhabitants some 2,000 kilometres from Tripoli. In the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya [Gaddafi’s Libya], they were treated as foreigners by the authorities. In December 2007, the Libyan Government withdrew citizenship from members of the Toubou group, stating that they were not Libyans but Chadians. Furthermore the local authorities issued decrees barring Toubou from access to education and health care services. The armed movement “Front for the Salvation of the Toubou Libyans” …. opposed these measures. Up to 33 people died in Kufra, during five days of fighting between the official security forces and the Toubou in November 2008. Despite public criticism, the government of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya [continued] to expel Toubou people from their residential areas in Kufra. Since November 2009 dozens of families lost their homes due to forced destruction by bulldozers supervised by state security forces.”
The hostility between the black Tebu people and the white al Zawiya tribe has long been endemic in Kufra and has escalated into open warfare since the heavy hand of the Gadaffi regime was lifted after the 2011 civil war. Traditionally practicing nomadic pastoralism of sheep and camels in a triangular area with its apex at Ajadabia, the Zawiya conquered Kufra, in 1840, subduing the indigenous Tebu. The Zawiya tribe owns most of the date palm groves of the Kufra oases, employing the Tebu tribesmen as labourers. The Zawiya might not be the biggest tribe in Libya, but they are still a considerable force because of the vast size of its homeland. Its members are spread out across the areas around the oil export facilities on the Gulf of Sidra to the interior regions around the oil deposits, as well as the Kufra oasis. The Zawiya are known as a fierce and xenophobic tribe and they intend to control the trade, legal and illegal, that passes through the Kufra oasis complex.
On the 23rd of February 2012, the Jamestown Foundation published its report entitled “The Battle for Kufra Oasis and the On-going War in Libya”. It states, in part: “An escalating tribal conflict in the strategic Kufra Oasis has revealed once more that Libya’s Transitional National Council (TNC) is incapable of restoring order in a nation where political and tribal violence flares up on a regular basis, fuelled by a wave of weapons liberated from Qaddafi’s armouries. Though this is hardly the first clash between the African Tebu and the Arab Zawiya tribe that took control of the oasis from the Tebu in 1840, it is certainly the first to be fought with heavy weapons such as RPGs and anti-aircraft guns, an innovation that is reflected in the various estimates of heavy casualties in the fighting. Fighting began on February 12 and has continued to the present [22nd February]. Well over 100 people have been killed in less than two weeks; with many hundreds more wounded (Tripoli Post, February 22).”
Essa Abdul Majid Mansour told Michel Cousins; ‘The stability of Libya depends on the stability of the south and the stability of the south depends on the stability of the Tebu. The stability of the Tebu also affects Europe, he added, referring to the need to secure Libya’s southern borders to prevent sub-Saharan migrants using the country as a gateway across the Mediterranean to Europe.’ He may well be right.
JOHN OAKES
For books by John Oakes see… (USA): http://www.amazon.com/John-Oakes/e/B001K86D3O/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1 ….. (UK): http://www.amazon.co.uk/John-Oakes/e/B001K86D3O/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_1
Update 18th December 2012. There is some hope at last! Read this:
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2012/12/20121216201619436647.html
Update 19th December 2012
This is part of an article in the Libya Herald which throws an interesting new light on this complex problem:
‘According to immigration officials, an estimated 40,000 non-Libyans, the majority of them Africans, were granted Libyan nationality during last year’s uprising in exchange for their support for the Qaddafi regime. As part of a broader power-struggle, some Arab tribes have exploited this situation, branding the black African Tebu, many of whom supported last year’s revolution, as part of the problem.’
Read the full article:
http://www.libyaherald.com/2012/12/06/200-inmates-escape-sebha-prison-as-congressmen-from-fezzan-stage-walkout/
and also:
http://www.libyaherald.com/2012/12/19/libyan-jets-continue-border-sweeps-over-the-south/
Update 8th January 2013
An interesting interview from the Tebu point of view:
http://www.minorityvoices.org/news.php/fr/1145/interviews-with-activists-ahamat-molikini-says-tibu-minority-still-face-oppression-in-post-arab-spri
Update 9th January 2013
Inter-tribal killings continue:
http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/01/08/new-fatal-clashes-in-kufra/
Update 15th January 2013
An excellent in depth piece about the Tebu and Libya’s south;
http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/01/13/deserts-forgotten-worriers/
Update 14th February
News of attempts to reconcile the Zawiya and the Tebu in Kufra. The attachment to the Senussi sect is invoked:
http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/features/2013/02/12/feature-02
Update 10 April 2013
Reports of more killing in Kufra despite the cease fire:
http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/04/10/fresh-violence-flares-in-kufra/
In contrast this next is an outstanding and sympathetic report about the Tebu and deserve a wider audience.
http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/04/08/defying-the-odds-the-first-national-tebu-festival-draws-libyans-from-across-the-southern-region-to-murzuk-despite-security-concerns/
Update 29th May 2013
The Tebu’s are now blockading one of Libya’s major oil fields. They have a list of grievances. See the flowing piece in the Libya Herald;
http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/05/27/tebus-protest-after-military-leader-vanishes/
Update 21st June 2013
A detailed and well written piece from the Libya Herald on the situation in Sothern Libya where fears that a terrorist group has set up shop are growing;
Update 3rd July 2013
News that Tebu protesters have shut down the ‘Elephant’ oil field west of Muzuk:
http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/07/03/oil-disputes-costing-libya-50-million-a-day-congress-energy-committee-chairman/
Update 20th July 2013
The Tebu, Tuareg and Berber minorities in Libya have protested that they are under-represented on the Congressional Constitution committee and have threatened to take direct action. The Tebu action in the ‘Elephant’ oil field is already affecting Libya’s oil exports.
See this in the Libya Herald:
Update 17th March 2014
The Tebu of Kufra still appear to be threatened by the majority Sway.
http://www.libyaherald.com/2014/02/07/supplies-blocked-from-reaching-tebu-community/#axzz2w7WeDK4K
Update 30th April 2014
These pieces brings the issue of the Tebu and of minority rights in Libya up to date:
THE LIBYAN CIVIL WAR – SOME CONSEQUENCES FOR CHILDREN
To alert a wider readership to some of the consequences for children of the recent civil war in Libya and its repercussions in the Sahel.
AN OVERVIEW
The intervention by NATO and Qatar in 2011 on behalf of the anti-Gadaffi National Transition Council was successful in achieving regime change in Libya. The demise of the dictator, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, was greeted with acclaim in the west. However his rule had been both cruel and powerful and his fall left Libya without a civic society and, in particular, a respected police force and an effective army. The country has since been dominated by armed militias which were originally raised to fight Gadaffi’s forces and have not been disbanded.
Gaddafi purchased huge quantities of arms and ammunition which were stored in depots around the country. After his fall these depots were looted and some arms illegally exported to neighbouring countries. The Libyan militias are now armed with tanks and heavy weapons. The use of landmines by Gaddafi’s forces has been excessive and there are areas in Libya and neighbouring Chad which are now extremely hazardous.
Gaddafi’s ‘Arabiseation’ policy resulted in the suppression the Berber minority in Libya’s western Jebel Nefusa and the black Tebu people of the south. Intertribal ‘revenge’ skirmishes between Arab tribes and these minority peoples have become endemic since the regime change.
Gaddafi used Tuaregs as mercenaries, arming them and hardening them in battle. They have returned to their homelands bearing arms and are pursuing their ambitions with not a little violence. They have joined the Al Qaeda franchises and criminal gangs in the bad lands of northern Mali to create a potential ‘Somalia’ which has a destabilising influence in Niger, Algeria, Burkina Faso, Mauritania and possibly Nigeria.
Gaddafi used African mercenaries from Chad and other sub-Saharan states in the recent civil war. Until the civil war began nationals of Chad, Niger and the Sudan were the most numerous and settled migrants in Libya. Since his regime fell many fled under difficult circumstances and black migrants and black Libyan nationals have been imprisoned and ill-treated on the grounds that they might be ex mercenaries. Lately the accusations of being mercenaries have been replaced by allegations of witchcraft, spreading AIDs or public drunkenness.
Libya’s borders, especially in the south, are very long and difficult to control. They have always been porous and are now even more so, resulting in ill-controlled smuggling of arms, alcohol, drugs and people.
Gadaffi’s personalised foreign policy was focussed on achieving dominance in Africa and to that end he purchased personal power within the African Union. He acted as both a protagonist and mediator in the internal and external disputes of neighbouring countries, especially the Sudan and Chad. He waged an unsuccessful war against Chad between 1980 and 1987 and eventually exercised unprecedented influence over its affairs. It became a virtual client state. The effect of the loss of the Gaddafi regime’s extensive investments in the Sahel countries has yet to be analysed.
THE LIBYAN MILITIAS
On the 17th February 2013 Libyans will celebrate the second anniversary of the Benghazi uprising which triggered the fall of Gaddafi. As they do so they may feel that their new leaders have been too slow to control the numerous revolutionary militias formed during the civil war and have yet to disband. The militiamen argue that they fought to topple Gaddafi and are entitled to say who runs their country. Since they are heavily armed, some with artillery and tanks, they easily assert their authority because the regular army was weakened and there is no real police force. What is more, the Gaddafi regime had destroyed civic society and outlawed political parties.
The capital, Tripoli, is a case in point. There are at least seven armed militias controlling the city, one of which is led by the sometime Islamist fighter, Abdul Hakim Belhadj. The leader of another group, Abdullah Ahmed Naker, recently claimed to have 22,000 armed men at his disposal and that his forces already controlled of 75 per cent of the capital, whereas Belhadj could only call on 2,000 armed supporters.
A notable militia is from the town of Zintan. It is this militia which captured Gaddafi’s favourite son, Saif el Islam. He is still incarcerated in Zintan, apparently without access to a lawyer. Berbers from the Gebel Nefusa also maintain a militia in Tripoli. Clearly they intend to see that the Berbers, long suppressed by Gaddafi, are not marginalised in the new Libya.
The provisional Libyan government seems to have abandoned its third largest city, Misurata, to its militias of which there are thought to be 170 or so. The strongest is probably the Hablus Brigade which still has 500 militiamen at its disposal. The Misuratans appear to control a region stretching from the east of Tripoli to Sirte, Gaddafi’s old home town.
Some of the militias have been accused of mistreating suspected Gaddafi loyalist. There may have been torture, extrajudicial executions and rape of both men and women. Armed militias are still holding as many prisoners suspected of being Gaddafi loyalists or mercenaries in detention centres around the country.
THE CHILDREN OF DISPLACED PEOPLE IN LIBYA
AN EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT
Chad and Niger, situated at the southern border of Libya, share a large stretch of desert with Libya, making any journey across the border a difficult and dangerous endeavour. Even so, as the civil war developed, many sub-Saharan migrants fled across the border bad lands. When Tripoli fell, the returning migrants found the route blocked at Sebha in southern Libya. Other were arrested and detained arbitrarily. There was also a substantial flow of escaping sub-Saharan migrants who attempted to reach Europe via Tunis, Algeria and Egypt.
Amnesty International and the press have published witness statements about the atrocities committed against migrants of sub-Saharan origin in Libya. One report entitled ‘Children raped in front of families’ carried by the British Chanel 4 News needs corroborating and thus is to be read with due caution: “Families who fled some of the bitterest fighting in Libya have told Save the Children that children as young as eight, have been sexually assaulted in front of family members. One group of mothers said girls had been held for four days and raped, after which they have been unable to speak. Other children said they saw their fathers killed before them and their mothers raped.
Michael Mahrt, Save the Children’s Child Protection Advisor, said: “The reports of sexual violence against children are unconfirmed but they are consistent and were repeated across the four camps we visited…..Children told us they have witnessed horrendous scenes. Some said they saw their fathers murdered and mothers raped. They described things happening to other children but they may have actually happened to them and they are just too upset to talk about it – it’s a typical coping mechanism used by children who have suffered such abuse…..What is most worrying is that we have only been able to speak to a limited number of children – what else is happening to those who are trapped in Misurata and other parts of the country who do not have a voice?” Save the Children is calling for the international community to ensure that all parties respect children’s right to be protected from violence and abuse. The charity is urgently scaling up its child protection work in Benghazi including training social workers to provide children with psycho-social support [1 ].
A NOTE ADDED ON 28TH FEBRUARY 2017
The breakdown of law and order since 2011 has resulted in increased numbers of children being maltreated by criminal people traffickers in Libya.
THIS UNICEF REPORT IS ESSENTIAL READING
LIBYA -THE MISURATANS AND THE BLACK TRIBE OF TAWERGHA
In Libya today, Tawergha is a ghost town 38 kilometres from Misurata on the road to Sirte. In August of 2011, Misuratan militias broke out of the brutal siege of their city by Colonel Gaddafi’s forces and attacked their neighbours in Tawergha on whom the late dictator had once lavished money and favour. Accused of crimes against Misuratan civilians during the civil war siege, all 35,000 or so residents of Tawergha fled and their town was systematically looted and destroyed by vengeful Misuratans. (Gadaffi’s forces had laagered in Tawergha whilst conducting the siege of Misurata and some of the young men of the town joined them in the fighting. Accusations of rape have been levied at them, though not yet substantiated.)
Tawergha was mostly populated with black Libyans, a legacy of its 19th-century origins as a transit town in the trans-Saharan slave trade route. Now, on the gates of many of the deserted and vandalized homes Misuratans have scrawled the words “slaves” and “negroes.” (John Wright in his book, The Trans Saharan Slave Trade, suggests that Misurata may have survived as a quiet, unmolested, slaving centre until the very end of the 19th century, though how the descendants of slaves came to form a community 38 kilometres southeast of Misurata and survive as a clan or tribe for so many years is a mystery.)
There are disturbing allegations circulating in the media. For example, Sam Dagher of the Wall Street Journal reported on 18th September 2011 that Mahmoud Jibril, the Libyan National Transitional Council Prime Minister, made this statement at a public meeting at the Misurata town hall: “Regarding Tawergha, my own viewpoint is that nobody has the right to interfere in this matter except the people of Misurata.”…..“This matter can’t be tackled through theories and textbook examples of national reconciliation like those in South Africa, Ireland and Eastern Europe.” Sam Dagher himself witnessed the burning of more than a dozen homes in the town
Temporary sites for displaced Tawergha have grown up and still remain. The UHCR reports that some 20,000 of them have been registered in sites in Tripoli, Benghazi, Tarhouna and other smaller towns across the country. Another 7,000 Tawerghans were discovered in the south, near the town of Sebha. There must be some who remain unaccounted for – either staying with relatives or friends or hiding in the desert, afraid to emerge.
According to a report in the Libya Herald dated 8th November 2012 about eleven thousand displaced Tawergha people are currently in seven camps in Benghazi where the unsanitary conditions are aggravated by rain and cold. Concern is growing that Tawergha children are the victims of discrimination as schools and universities are refusing to accept them.
The Libyan Herald report also states that Mustafa Abdel Jalil, the former president of the National Transitional council, and interim Prime Minister Abdurrahim Al-Kib told the Tawerghans that it is still not the right time for them to return to their town since the authorities are not yet in a position to guarantee their safety. Their future is bleak. Today the vandalised town of Tawergha is surrounded by armed militiamen from Misurata. They are tasked to ensure that no one returns. For them Tawergha no longer exists [2 ].
LIBYA – THE NEFUSA MOUNTAINS
The internal displacement of whole groups of people is still taking place. The advances of anti-Gadaffi forces in the Nefusa Mountains south of Tripoli led to the displacement of some 17,000 members of the Mashashya tribe, which was granted land around the town of Al Awiniya by Gadaffi in the 1970s. Although some members of this tribe held their ground they remain under threat of expulsion. A further 6,000 members of the Gualish tribe were also displaced from land they had traditionally occupied in a tribal conflict with the Kikla people. A number of smaller and often short-term waves of displacement have resulted from local disputes have flared up in the south and west of the country [ 3].
THE SAHEL COUNTRIES – CHILDREN AND THE SECONDARY EFFECT OF THE LIBYAN CIVIL WAR
MALI – THE TUAREGS, Al QAEDA AND ANSAR DINE
‘Northern Mali has imploded from a mix of poverty, drought, guns, corruption, marginalisation – and destabilisation following the fall of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi – while the primary vector of this chaos remains the long-suffering Tuareg populace……….’ May Ling Welsh [ 4]
Gaddafi was drawn to the Tauregs, the so called Blue Men of the Sahara, and he spent much treasure and effort interfering in their affairs. He recruited large numbers of them into his army and they fought for him in Chad and during the recent civil war in Libya. His demise has left them without a sponsor and ally, albeit an erratic one. They are a nomadic people whose homeland is in Algeria, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso and Libya. It is difficult to be accurate but I suspect that they number at least 3 million. The Tuareg of Niger amounted to nearly 1.8 million in 1998. The Azawad region of Mali harboured 1.5 million in 1991. Algeria had under a million in the late 1980s. There is also a small population near the Nigerian city of Kano whilst Libya was home to nearly 20,000. [ 5].
Mali is a big, landlocked country much of which is the home to some large Tuareg groups who live their unique nomadic life in its vast desert and whose origin is a mystery and customs warlike. They had been conducting a rebellion against the Mali government of President Amadou Toumani Toure based in the largely Christian south.
Two events led to further discord. On 22nd March 2012 a military coup by the western trained Mali army deposed President Toure because he was not dealing effectively with the Tuareg rebellion. The military handed over power to a civilian government but were destabilise at a crucial time leaving a power vacuum. The Tuareg rebels, now stiffened and heavily armed by Gaddafi’s sometime mercenaries, took advantage and grabbed control of the province of Anzawad, an area in the north of Mali nearly as large as France.
There were others lurking in the background ready to piggyback on the Tuareg rebellion. Amongst them were men of an al Qaeda franchise called Ansar Dine. Its name means “Defenders of the Faith” and its followers embrace a puritanical form of Islam known as Salafism.
Ansar Dine muscled in on the Tuareg separatists and together they declared an independent Islamic state in Northern Mali. However they were uneasy bedfellows. At first Ansar Dine’s turbaned fighters gained a reputation for keeping order after outbreaks of looting. When they started enforcing strict sharia law they earned hostility from locals in Timbuktu and Gao who practised a more tolerant style of Islam.
In June 2012, the Movement for Jihad and Unity in West Africa (MUJAO), another al-Qaeda linked group with Algerian connections, took control of the headquarters of the Tuareg separatists in northern Mali. The Mali government has so far been powerless to act against them and are currently seeking outside assistance. [ 6].
The Al Qaeda franchise in the region immediately took advantage of the opportunity to assume power in Northern Mali with disastrous consequences for the region. UNHCR has reported that 34,977 Malians escaped to Burkina Faso, 108,942 fled to Mauritania and 58,312 went to Niger. Some 118,000 Malians have been internally displaced, 35,300 of them in the regions of Kidal, Gao and Timbuktu. [7 ].
CHILD SOLDIERS IN MALI
On 17th August 2012 a UNICEF spokesperson in Geneva stated: “UNICEF is raising the alarm over recruitment of children in northern Mali. UNICEF has received credible reports that armed groups in the north are increasingly recruiting and using children. Increasing numbers of boys are being used for military purposes – as fighters, porters, cooks and for patrols. While it is difficult to establish precise figures, reliable sources have stated that the numbers involved are in the hundreds and appear to be escalating. UNICEF is calling on all parties to the conflict as well as leaders and community members, to make sure that children are protected from the harmful impact of armed conflict and do not participate in hostilities”. [8 ] …… UNICEF also warned of the deteriorating conditions in northern Mali, where the malnutrition rate is among the highest in the country. “Islamists who seized control of part of Mali are amassing money from ransoms and drug trafficking while imposing Sharia law, says a senior UN official. They are also buying child soldiers, paying families $600 (£375) per child”. (Ivan Simonovic (UN Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights) said after a fact-finding visit to the country).” [9]
Many residents of Timbuktu, Kidal, and Gao regions told Human Rights Watch that they saw children inside apparent training camps of the Islamist armed groups. They also observed children as young as 11 years manning checkpoints, conducting foot patrols, riding around in patrol vehicles, guarding prisoners, enforcing Sharia law, and cooking for rebel groups. One witness described children being taught to gather intelligence. [10 ]
Al Jazeera reports: ‘We saw scores of Tuareg child soldiers in northern Mali, especially among al-Qaeda-linked groups. Many come from communities that are extremely isolated and poor – where it is normal for a child to walk hours each day to bring water from distant wells, normal for children to lose a parent due to a lack of medical care, normal to be illiterate, and where every 10 years it is normal to lose some, half, or all of one’s animals, and to start once again from zero………’[11 ]
LIBYA AND THE TRANS-SAHARAN PEOPLE TRAFFICKING ROUTES
People traffickers are amongst the beneficiaries of the streams of economic migrants and asylum seekers moving through Libya on the old slave trading routes in an effort to reach Europe.
Libya’s long and un-policed desert borders allow people from African countries to be brought into the country undetected, and Libya’s 2,000-kilometer northern coastal border allows traffickers direct sea access to Europe. Emmanuel Gignac, head of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in Libya observes that the trans-Saharan people trafficking routes have become more hazardous. The two main hubs are Kufra and Sebha in Libya. West African migrants are going through Sebha via Chad or Niger, and those originating from the Horn of Africa are going through Sudan to Kufra.
Kufra is a cluster of oases in south eastern Libya 1,500 kilometres or so from the Mediterranean coast. Around 60,000 people now live there. It is on the old trans-Saharan slave trade route from Chad in the south to Benghazi in the north. It is now on the illegal migrant route from Khartoum to the Mediterranean. There are other routes through western Libya from Timbuktu and Kano to Tripoli which were used in the past by slave traders. When they reach Kufra, migrants are transported at night across the desert to the coast in covered trucks.
Kufra was a holy place. It was the seat of the Senussi theocracy which, for a number of years, controlled the southern part of the old province of Cyreniaca and oversaw the passing slave trade which persisted until at least 1911 – slightly more than 100 years ago. It is now the hub of an illegal trade in arms, drugs, alcohol and humans. There have been a number of disturbances there between the resident Arab al-Zwia tribe and the African Tebu minority. These clashes reflect the ancient animosity between the Tebus and the al-Zawia but are also part of a turf war for control of the smuggling trade and people trafficking. Migrants arriving, or returning to Kufra, pay large sums for their transport to ‘travel agents’. They may be accommodated in detention centres.
A recent eyewitness report from Sebha, a city 640 Kilometres south of Tripoli, gives us a glimpse of the modern trans-Saharan migrant route; “More than 1,300 illegal immigrants are detained here, some 100 kilometres outside the city of Sebha, along the road between the sand dunes to the south and the border with Niger. They have no shelter, not even makeshift tents, forced to sleep on the sandy, pebble-studded ground. Only the lucky few among them have a blanket to protect them from the gusts of scorching wind. The others curl up so they can shield their faces in their keffiyehs or T-shirts. It is early evening, and the temperature in this southern Libyan desert known for its scorpions and vipers is 35° Celsius (95° Fahrenheit)”. Another example, though from elsewhere in Libya – the UNHCR visited Abu Rashada detention centre in Garyan (West Libya) on 15 October 2012 and reported: ‘840 individuals were detained [there] including 30 women, 7 of them pregnant, as well as 50 minors. The detainees were mainly from Niger, Sudan, Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon, Mali, and Somalia. UNHCR received reports of mistreatment’. [12 ]
The Nigerian Embassy in Libya offered this possibly dramatized warning to its nationals in a pamphlet in 2009. ‘Increasingly, among these migrants are young girls, who are lured into this journey under the pretext that they would work either in Libya or in Italy. Sadly, these girls end up in brothels, subjected to horrible sexual abuse, until they die in the hands of their captors. A few lucky ones are rescued by the police or the Nigerian Mission in one of the transit countries. Unfortunately, for most of them life would never be the same again, as they often contract HIV/AIDS while in these brothels.’ UNICEF reports that ‘Poverty is the key motivation for parents to send their children abroad. But they are unaware of the perils most children face in transit and at their destinations. An estimated 200,000 children are victims of child trafficking in Africa each year. Research has shown that most of the children trafficked to Libya are exploited as labourers in plantations or as child domestic workers.’ [13 ]
When the migrants travelling to Europe reach the Libyan coast they are embarked on flimsy and overcrowded boats for the hazardous sea trip to Malta, Lampedusa or Sicily. The UN Refugee Agency released figures in January 2012 showing that more than 1,500 irregular migrants or refugees drowned or went missing in 2011 while attempting crossings of the Mediterranean Sea. The Times of Malta dated 27th May 2012 carried this report; ‘This morning, a group of 136 illegal immigrants was brought to Malta on a patrol boat. The 86 men, 43 women and 7 children were picked up from a drifting dinghy some 72 miles south of Malta after their boat was deemed to be in distress. Among the migrants was a new-born, while another baby was born as a patrol boat was bringing the migrants to Malta.’
THE COMBINED EFFECT OF THE LIBYAN CIVIL WAR AND DROUGHT IN THE SAHEL COUNTRIES
The effect of drought in the Sahel, possibly because of climate change, has been clear for some time. As a starting point we might note that UNICEF predicts that ‘over 4 million children are projected to suffer from acute malnutrition this year [2012] across the nine countries of the Sahel, including nearly 1.1 million children who will face life-threatening severe acute malnutrition’.[14 ]
Before the 2011 civil war labour migration to Libya acted as a key source of income for the development of neighbouring communities. The loss of remittances has had an adverse effect on these countries, particularly in light of looming food crises. The stream of returnees to Chad meant that the towns near the Libyan border doubled in size quickly and the breakdown in trade with southern Libya caused food prices to rise rapidly. The combined threat of drought, high food prices, displacement and chronic poverty is affecting millions of people in 2012.
The Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations has stated that ‘food insecurity and malnutrition are recurrent in the region with more than 16 million people directly at risk this year [2012]. Drought has reduced Sahelian cereal production by 26 per cent as compared to last year, Chad and Gambia are experiencing 50 per cent decreases and other countries are suffering serious localized deficits. Severe fodder shortages are leading to early transhumance and changing livestock corridors, causing tensions to rise between communities and at border areas. The situation is compounded by high food prices and a decrease in remittances owing to the global economic crisis and the return of migrants from Libya. The deteriorating security situation in Northern areas is further aggravating the problem. The overall priorities in the region include: protecting the livelihoods of the most vulnerable’. [15 ]
Given the mounting number of reports of conflict it is surprising what little attention is now paid to the plight of children in the Sahel. The UN Security Council took this view of the situation in Chad in 2011. ‘The displacement of families as a result of both the volatile security situation and the economic situation has resulted in the movement of children, within some areas in eastern Chad, as well as into the Sudan, in extremely vulnerable conditions, making them potential targets for exploitation, recruitment and trafficking. Several incidents of child abduction and trafficking for forced labour and commercial sexual exploitation purposes have been brought to the attention of the Task Force.’[16 ]
LAND MINES AND UNEXPLODED ORDINANCE ARE A SPECIAL THREAT TO CHILDREN
Land mines and unexploded weapons take large swaths of country out of agricultural use, divert migratory routes and keep aid agencies away.
IN LIBYA
High levels of abandoned and unexploded ordnance still litter towns and roads where fighting took place and without adequate understanding of the dangers many people, especially children and internally displaced persons, remain at risk of serious harm.
“We know of some deaths[in Libya], but we’re expecting many more when the conflict fully winds down, especially among children,” said Sarah Marshall, a representative of the U.N. demining group. “Kids see shiny objects on the ground, and naturally reach out for them. Plus, you can’t just leave a school with a grad missile sitting in the parking lot.” [17 ]. In Misurata, Libya, children’s playgrounds can be dangerous places. Tragic accidents are common where air strikes on munitions storage facilities have spread unexploded bombs into civilian areas.[18 ] Children are particularly attracted to 23mm bullets as they are in abundance and easy to pick up. [19]
Human Rights Watch documented the extensive use of antipersonnel and anti-vehicle landmines by Gaddafi forces during the 2011. HRW researchers found at least five types of mines in nine locations, including around Ajadabia, in the Nefusa Mountains, near Brega, and in Misurata. Over the past year, local and international demining organizations have been working with Libyan authorities and the United Nations to collect and destroy this abandoned ordnance. [20]
IN CHAD
Chad is a vast, landlocked and arid central African country which harbours a largely nomadic population of 8.6 million on a territory twice the size of France. Three decades of war caused an estimated 200,000 to 400,000 deaths. It is struggling with a land mine problem. The affected areas are believed to cover 1,081 sq. km of land. Most of the mines were planted during the second Libyan occupation of northern Chad, from 1984 to 1987…..They are Gaddafi’s African legacy. [21 ]
A CONCLUSION – CIVIL WAR, FAMINE AND ‘FEEDBACK LOOPS’
People in flight become vulnerable as soon as they leave their homes and their support network. The dispersal of refugee camps in difficult terrain poses logistical problems for relief agencies which are exacerbated by armed groups such as Islamist extremists, militias, criminal gangs, drug smugglers and people traffickers. Land mines and unexploded ordnance restrict the movement of aid and assistance.
There is a classic feedback loop. Famine increases dissatisfaction with governments. Dissatisfaction leads to conflict which attracts radical groups such as al Qaeda franchises. This leads to military mobilisation and the further displacement of people.
Already aid agencies in the region are withdrawing because of danger to their personnel. Children are extremely vulnerable in these conditions.
JOHN OAKES
For books by John Oakes see… (USA): http://www.amazon.com/John-Oakes/e/B001K86D3O/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1 ….. (UK): http://www.amazon.co.uk/John-Oakes/e/B001K86D3O/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_1
END NOTES
1] http://www.channel4.com/news/child-soldiers-sent-by-gaddafi-to-fight-libyan-rebels. Also see – The Battle for Libya: Killings, Disappearance and Torture, Amnesty International, 13th September 2011 and Africa without Gadaffi. The Case of Chad Crisis Group Africa Report No. 180. 21st October 2011.
2] Human Rights Council. Report of the International Commission of Inquiry on Libya. http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/RegularSession/Session19/A.HRC.19.68.pdf https://libyastories.com/2012/11/15/misuratans-and-the-black-tribe-of-tawergha-a-fourth-in-the-libyan-tribes-series/
3] Human Rights Council. Report of the International Commission of Inquiry on Libya http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/RegularSession/Session19/A.HRC.19.68.pdf
4] May Ying Welsh, Al Jazeera.8th July 2012. http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/07/201277173027451684.html
5] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-17582909
6] https://libyastories.com/2012/07/08/libya-and-the-law-of-unforeseen-consequences/
7] http://reliefweb.int/report/chad/depth-top-10-neglected-refugee-crises
8] http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/10/us-mali,
9] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-19905905
10] http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/09/25/mali-islamist-armed-groups-spread-fear-north seen and heard
11] http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/07/201277173027451684.html
12] Lucy Matieu in Le Temps dated 2012-07-06 and UNHCR Libya, External Update. October 2012 .
13] http://www.nigeriantripoli.org/illegal_migration.pdf and http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/niger_51679.html
14] http://www.unicef.org/media/media_65267.html
15] http://www.fao.org/crisis/sahel/the-sahel-crisis/2012-crisis-in-the-sahel-region/en/
16] Report of the UN Security Council Secretary-General on children and armed conflict in Chad, S/2011/64.
17] Jon Jensen Global Post August 27, 2011 13:42 http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/110827/libya-gaddafis-land-mines-still-threat
18] http://www.unicef.ca/en/discover/protecting-children-from-unexploded-landmines-in-liby,a
19] http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/libya-one-year-on-the-battle-against-cluster-bombs-landmines-and-uxo/
20] http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/03/25/libya-good-start-landmine-destruction
21] http://www.irinnews.org/InDepthMain.aspx?InDepthId=19&ReportId=62837&Country=Yes
Update 23rd December 2014
This has just appeared in the Libya Herald!
Libyan human rights group calls for halt to militias hiring minors
By Libya Herald staff.
Tripoli, 22 December 2014:
The Libyan Observatory for Human Rights (LOHR) has expressed “deep concern” that ever greater numbers of Libyans under the age of 18 are being recruited into the ranks of the country’s militias.
Insisting that the use of minors be stopped, the LOHR called on parents to stop allowing their children to join militias, cautioning that “what is voluntary now will become mandatory in the future”.
There has been evidence of all sides using minors as fighters. Some of those killed in the fighting in Kikla were said to be under 16 years of age.
The LOHR also said that the forced recruitment of untrained civilians into the current conflicts had to stop.
The United Nations had to put pressure on the warring parties to engage in dialogue in order to resolve the political crisis in Libya, the group stressed.
Update 4th October 2015
I published this paper on 12/5/2012. Since that time the security situation in Libya has worsened considerably. This has just appeared in the Libya Herald:
Tunis, 3 October 2015:
Nearly a million children in Libya are at risk in one way or another because of the fighting that has gripped the country (Libya) says a UN agency.
The risks range from the fighting itself and battlefield detritus, to lack of proper food and healthcare, psychological trauma and physical and sexual abuse, said the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. In a report issued this week it also claimed that children are being recruited, sometimes forcibly, by militias.
Over all, the OCHA is estimating that more than three million people – half of all Libyans – have been affected by the conflict and some 2.44 million are in need of protection and some form of humanitarian assistance.
MISURATANS AND THE BLACK TRIBE OF TAWERGHA. (A fourth in the Libyan Tribes series).UPDATE 27th January 2018
(News from Libya today, 27th January 2018, states that ‘trucks and diggers have begun clearing the roads leading to and inside the town of Tawergha in preparation for the long awaited return of locals on the 1 February.’)
In Libya today Tawergha is a ghost town 38 kilometres from Misurata on the road to Sirte. In August of 2011, Misuratan militias broke out of the brutal siege of their city by Colonel Gaddafi’s forces and attacked their neighbours in Tawergha on whom the late dictator had once lavished money and favour. Accused of crimes against Misuratan civilians during the siege, all 35,000 or so residents of Tawergha fled and their town was systematically looted and destroyed by vengeful Misuratans. (Gadaffi’s forces had laagered in Tawergha whilst conducting the siege of Misurata and some of the young men of the town joined them in the fighting. Accusations of rape have been levied at them, though not yet substantiated.)
Tawergha was mostly populated with black Libyans, a legacy of its 19th-century origins as a transit town in the trans-Saharan slave trade. Now, on the gates of many their deserted and vandalized homes Misuratans have scrawled the words “slaves” and “negroes.” (John Wright in his book, The Trans Saharan Slave Trade, suggests that Misurata may have survived as a quiet, unmolested, slaving centre until the very end of the 19th century, though how the descendents of slaves came to form a community 38 kilometers southeast of Misurata and survive as a clan or tribe for so many years is a mystery.)
There are disturbing allegations circulating in the media. For example, Sam Dagher of the Wall Street Journal reported on 18th September 2011 that Mahmoud Jibril, the Libyan National Transitional Council Prime Minister, made this statement at a public meeting at the Misurata town hall: “Regarding Tawergha, my own viewpoint is that nobody has the right to interfere in this matter except the people of Misurata.”…..“This matter can’t be tackled through theories and textbook examples of national reconciliation like those in South Africa, Ireland and Eastern Europe.” Sam Dagher himself witnessed the burning of more than a dozen homes in the town.
Temporary sites for displaced Tawergha have grown up and still remain in Libya. The UNHCR reports that some 20,000 of them have been registered in sites in Tripoli, Benghazi, Tarhouna and other smaller towns across the country. Another 7,000 or so were discovered in the south, near the town of Sebha. There must be some who remain unaccounted for – either staying with relatives or friends or hiding in the desert, afraid to emerge.
According to a report in the Libya Herald dated 8th November 2012 about eleven thousand displaced Tawergha people are currently in seven unsatisfactory camps in Benghazi where the unsanitary conditions are aggravated by rain and cold. Concern is growing that Tawergha children are the victims of discrimination as schools and universities are refusing to accept them.
The Libyan Herald report also states that Mustafa Abdel Jalil, the former president of the National Transitional council, and interim Prime Minister Abdurrahim Al-Kib told the Tawerghans that it is still not the right time for them to return to their town since the authorities are not yet in a position to guarantee their safety. Their future is bleak. Today the vandalised town of Tawergha is surrounded by armed militiamen from Misurata. They are tasked to ensure that no one returns. For them Tawergha no longer exists.
(This disconcerting report dated 3rd November 2017 in the British newspaper, the Guardian, is strongly recommended to readers of this post but I ask you to note that there are some acts of appalling brutality described therein.
John Oakes
For books by John Oakes see… (USA): http://www.amazon.com/John-Oakes/e/B001K86D3O/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1 ….. (UK): http://www.amazon.co.uk/John-Oakes/e/B001K86D3O/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_1
Update 28th January 2013
It seems that Misurata is still largely in the hands of militias.
http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/01/28/misrata-clamps-down-weapons-ban/
Update 20th March 2013
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH EXPRESSES CONCERN ABOUT TAWERGHANS AND ADDS: “Foreign governments that intervened militarily in Libya under a UN Security Council resolution to protect civilians forcefully condemned violations by the Gaddafi government but have failed to challenge effectively the ongoing abuses against Tawerghans and others”.
Update 18th May 2013
A mass grave has been discovered in Tawergha.
http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/05/17/vigil-in-misrata-after-discovery-of-mass-grave/
Update 21st June 2013
Libyan PM tells Tawerghans not to take unilateral action and return to their home town until issues are settled concerning their perceived support for Gaddafi when Misurata was under siege. It is world refugee week!:
http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/06/20/dont-go-back-to-tawergha-yet-zeidan-tells-its-people/
Update 24th June 2013
Tawergans agree to postpone their return to their home town:
http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/06/24/crisis-difused-as-tawergha-return-delayed/
Update 2nd October 2013
This – about Tawerghans today is definitely worth your attention:
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/aljazeeraworld/2013/10/road-tawergha-201310191859343221.html
Update 30th January 2015
This out today and hopeful
An UNSMIL statement reads as follows:
“In line with the positive environment that prevailed at the meeting [in Geneva], the UN facilitated an agreement between the municipalities of Misrata and Tawergha on the following points:
Establishment of a committee from the local council of Tawergha and whoever they call upon to help in visiting the prisons in the City of Misrata and to receive assurances about their conditions, and to review with the responsible authorities the charges against them and their legal status.
The right of the people of Tawergha to return to their land through the establishment of a committee to discuss the mechanism to achieve that on the ground and to remove all obstacles and prepare all the appropriate conditions.
There was agreement that UNSMIL will follow up this process in cooperation with the two sides.”
Update 20th June 2017
This in the Libya Herald today:
Tripoli, 19 June 2017:
A new Presidency Council-approved agreement on the right of Tawerghans to return to their deserted hometown has been signed by Misratan and Tawerghan civic leaders, including Misrata-Tawergha Reconciliation Committee chairman Yousef Zarzah, Tawergha local council leader Abdulrahman Shakshak, and Misrata mayor Mohamed. The agreement was signed in Tripoli at the Prime Ministry office in the presence of Presidency Council (PC) head Faiez Serraj and his deputy Ahmed Maetig, himself from Misrata, and the minister for displaced persons, Yousef Jalalah.
In a brief speech, Serraj has promised to provide all required infrastructure services to Tawergha.
From his side, Maetig said that PC would supervise the return of residents so that they were safe and secure.
“The agreement has bough to an end long sessions of talks which been taken a great deal of time. Now we are looking ahead for better future,” he said.
However, the reconciliation agreement, while speaking of the Tawerghans returning as well as of compensation for both communities for damages suffered, makes no mention of a date when they can go home.
It follows a statement last week by Tawerghan civil society activists that they intend to return to the town this Thursday and from there issue a call to the rest of the more than 40,000 Tawerghans living in camps across Libya to come back to their hometown.
There are suggestions that, far from making that happen, today’s signing in the presence of Serraj is an attempt to again delay such a return. There is still, in Misrata, a minority opposed to it ever happening.
For his part, though, State Council president Abdulrahman Sewehli, also from Misrata, has given his full backing to the Tawerghans’ right to return, saying that it was high time they did so, and yesterday announced on his Twitter feed that “key steps” to bring it about were “coming soon” – a clear reference to today’s agreement.
“Kudos to Libyan patriots who genuinely care about reconciliation through healing the nation’s wounds”, he tweeted.
While commending today’s agreement, Human Rights Watch has called for it to be implements quickly.
Berenice Stories 