Voices 4 Libya – The Book

[tabatha]

This is a book about the Libyan Revolution of 17 February 2011. It is not a day-by-day account of the fighting, nor an analysis of military or diplomatic strategy. It is a collection of voices of ordinary people who became involved in that conflict in many different ways. These are the stories they chose to tell about how the Libyan conflict touched all their lives.

...


The AJE blogs have attracted the most amazing, educated, diverse and caring audience mass media ever gathered. After all, who would read Al Jazeera in English? The English speakers who cannot get their Middle Eastern news from other sources are a pretty sophisticated bunch of primarily American, Canadian, British, Australian and New Zealander readers. There are even more refined groups from among the non-English native speakers: French, Swiss, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and yes, Arabic. The list goes on to South America, Africa – pretty much everywhere else. The only continent not yet represented is Antarctica. But that’s only a matter of time.

Radwan Ziadeh, a member of Syrian National Council, said the best source for accurate news on any Arab Spring revolution is Al Jazeera English and their live blogs. He remarked that this world wide connection and support for democracy is the greatest improvement in human rights the world has ever seen, and it is unstoppable. This connection has and will pull down any dictatorship that opposes it. Ziadeh pleaded with the audience to join it and to do for Syria what was done for Libya.

The Al Jazeera blogs, having established themselves as a forum for the dissemination of unbiased up-to-the-minute information about Libya, inevitably attracted Gaddafi’s propaganda machine. The vehemently anti-Muslim, the defiantly anti-NATO, the reflexively anti-West, it seemed at times as though they wore the Wizard of Oz’s green tinted spectacles as they sought to shout down the Freedom Fighters’ side of the argument and to dominate the information agenda in favour of Colonel Gaddafi’s regime. These entertaining folks still believe that the liberation of Tripoli was staged and filmed in Qatar and that Gaddafi forces captured Misurata in late August. For them Gaddafi never died, and the truth never lived.

http://voices4libya.com/

[Mr.Liberty]

1. Hmmm...I wonder if they'll have the Voices of the families

of the black Libyans who were butchered? That gonna be in there? How about the voices of the people who's homes were destroyed by NATO bombing runs...that gonna be in there? If it is, then maybe it's not propaganda.

[tabatha]

2. I do not think you have the whole story.

FromJoanne Joanne ♌ Leo
Ask ANY citizen of #TRIPOLI how many civilians #NATO killed ? They will say practically None Only stupid outsiders claim civ. death by Nato

jenanmoussa Jenan Moussa
I asked pple here in #Misurata about #Nato role in #libya."At one point we could only sleep when we heard sound of their planes," some said.

jenanmoussa Jenan Moussa
Did you know people of #Misurata called #Nato planes "Hanan"? Meaning: "tenderness". "Here comes Miss tender," they tell one another. #libya

@ladyglennmore
Yvonne
RT @2011feb17 @AndersFoghR I live in Tripoli between 5major milit. bases u bombed many times.I confirm no civilians hurt during ur ops.TY

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As for the "butchery" of the Black civilians, there were indeed revenge killings. Do you know why there were revenge killings (which happened in far larger numbers in South Africa, despite Mandela's call to forgive). Jalil asked Libyans to forgive and forget, but some who witnessed the brutality of the Tawargha (like the White farmers in SA) could not. There were many black Libyans who fought WITH the Freedom Fighters, and there are black Libyans in the soccer team. In fact, there is a small black tribe in the south of Libya that fought on the side of the Freedom Fighters.

Read this first for the background to understand the comment below:
http://thenextlibyandictator.blogspot.com/2011/11/misrata-and-tawargha.html

Comment:

I am from Misurata City and I was there from day one of the revolution. We went out with sticks & rocks & that same night as the author wrote, we were met with bullets. Actually it wasn’t Gaddafi’s men who were shooting but it was young kids from Tawergha who were given AK47s to shoot demonstrators. Misurata city was being bombed for months and attacked by at least 12 Gaddafi brigades. But the worst brigade was the Tawergha brigade and everybody knows that. Tawergha had it’s own brigade and there are videos on youtube to prove that. I am a businessman and I had an assistant from Tawergha and he manages my warehouse. We just unloaded goods worth $200,000 to the warehouse so I called him and his reply was shocking. I asked him about his whereabouts & if he’s ok and I was worried about him because I haven’t seen him for a couple of days. We used to treat him like part of the family. From having nothing, after working with me he got a car, he got married etc. Anyway, his reply was something like this “You people from Misurata will all die, we are coming to kill you, rape your sisters, wives & mothers and he started cursing”. I was just shocked, I thought to myself maybe someone else stole his mobile. I called him by his name to make sure it’s him. And he said yes it’s him and I recognized the voice. I asked him if he was serious or joking and of course he wasn’t joking. He replied soon I will know if he’s serious or not and that my warehouse is on fire as we speak! I freaked out and I drove to my warehouse and it was on fire. After that day, we know that most of Tawergha people were going to be against us. They were promised that Misurata will be divided amongst them if Misurata falls. They were also promised by the dead tyrant, money, political positions etc. They got what they deserved, now running for their lives. My other business friends had similar stories with their Tawergha staff. They all looted their goods and fled then joined the Gaddafi forces to attack Misurata. We were really surprised because these people lived amongst us and we treated them as family & friends. One of my brother’s best friends is from Tawergha and that guy also fled and joined the Gaddafi forces. We still can’t believe what most of these people did. They thought it was going to be an easy task to take over Misurata but we proved them wrong.

Actually my father is writing a book with my help about the atrocities committed in Misurata and the shocking stories of some local people. We already interviewed many but there are just so many stories to be told. We just try to choose the most shocking. First it will be written in Arabic & then into English.

One of the stories that we will write about is actually about my relative. On the 19th of March, the Allied Forces before Nato took control of the mission, destroyed the Gaddafi forces that was headed to Benghazi. On that same day, another convoy was headed to Misurata but nobody came to help. On that day I was buying groceries when suddenly a tank’s missile hit a building close by. I couldn’t hear anything for a while & all I could see was chaos & people running. Gaddafi’s forces were entering the 2 main streets of Misurata “Benghazi street & Tripoli street”. I was in Tripoli street when they entered the city. There were skirmishes on the outskirts of the city on a daily basis before the 19th of March but on that day, they entered with force. I could see in the distance, hundreds of soldiers, 4×4 cars mounted with machine guns, tanks, military transport tanks etc. The soldiers were getting off & entering all the buildings. I fled the scene. My relative was living in one of the buildings on that street. I met him during April and he told me his story. When he tried to exit the building, it was too late. He said soldiers were getting into each apartment of the building and he lived on the 4th floor. He couldn’t jump from the balcony so he was stuck. He took a bottle of water & hid in the storage room. It was full of sheets, quilts, and he just lied down in a corner & prayed. The soldiers eventually got in and checked every room quickly and left. After some hours, some soldiers came back & he said they seemed to be African from the language they spoke. He didn’t move for a whole day. There was no signal to make any calls & the 3G network was cut off so he couldn’t get online. He was stuck. At night the soldiers would come to the apartment & laugh & eat but he couldn’t understand a word they were saying. In the early morning of the next day, he got hungry & wanted to check if it’s possible to escape or not. As he checked one room, he froze because there was 1 black soldier sleeping on his bed with a sniper rifle beside him. His legs were shaking and he couldn’t move. He finally went back to his hideout and stay put for another long day. He told me he regrets not taking the sniper & shooting that soldier but he was so afraid that he couldn’t even move for a few seconds. When it gets quiet, he could hear women screaming & he knew that the soldiers were raping women. On his 2nd night, he decided that he had to escape or get stuck & get caught eventually. To be continued…

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There are always two sides to a story and you have to know both. Like Mandela and Jalil, I believe revenge is wrong. But many people are not wired that way - e.g. the man who kills the rapist of his daughter as has happened in the US. But that is just one person. All judgments should be on individuals not peoples, otherwise people could say that all people in the US are like Newt Gingrich.