Libyan Martyrs The Blood Spilled
by L. S. Carbonell
It was too much to hope that all the autocratic regimes in the Middle East would give in with little or no bloodshed to the tidal wave of democracy rolling across the region. Col. Moammar Qaddafi of Libya has chosen to be the one to put his own power above the lives of the citizens of his nation. The streets of Tripoli are running with blood.
Qaddafi gave a screaming, fist-pounding speech from the lobby of the bombed-out palace that he left unrepaired as a monument to the U. S. bombing attack during the Reagan administration. He had a statue erected in the rubble – a golden fist crushing a U. S. fighter jet. It created a surreal background for a speech in which he announced “Libya wants glory, Libya wants to be at the pinnacle, at the pinnacle of the world. I am a fighter, a revolutionary from tents … I will die as a martyr at the end, to my last drop of blood.” He called the revolutionaries drug-addled, misguided youths, bought off by a “small, sick group,” fomented by “bearded men” (Islamic fundamentalists) and Libyans exiles. He rallied his supporters to attack the revolutionaries, “You men and women who love Qaddafi … get out of your homes and fill the streets. Leave your homes and attack them in their lairs. The police cordons will be lifted, go out and fight them, for the defense of the revolution and the defense of Qaddafi. Forward, forward, forward!” And they went forward. Witnesses have handed off thumb drives to an Al Jazeera reporter who managed to get into Libya. The images show gangs of Qaddafi supporters roaming the streets, shooting anyone they saw, firing machine guns into the fronts of homes.
Qaddafi is not going to survive this revolution. I will not be the least bit surprised to wake up one morning before the end of this week and hear that someone close to him has put his nation out of its misery, after all, he said he would be a martyr. Qaddafi has literally vowed to burn Tripoli to the ground before he gives up power. He has ordered fighter jets to strafe the city and planes to drop bombs indiscriminately. He called the revolutionaries (they passed being protesters days ago) “dogs” who deserved to die. He even claimed that the United States was dropping bombs on Tripoli. Whether he was pulling that one out of his butt or has seriously lost his grip on reality is unknown. Reports are claiming that many of those working for Qaddafi are sub-Saharans hired for this repression. These are men who learned their tactics in places like Rwanda. So far, and this is a big “so far” he has not ordered the oil fields set afire.
Qaddafi has almost no support left within Libya. Army units are handing out weapons to revolutionaries. At least two pilots flew their planes out of the country rather than fire on citizens. His cabinet ministers have quit. His entire U. N. delegation has quit. Libyan diplomats all over the country are quitting. The entire eastern side of the Libya is in the hands of the revolutionaries. NBC’s Richard Engel has reached Benghazi and is literally half of the journalists inside the country. The tribes west of Tripoli have thrown their support behind the revolution. The circle of revolution around Qaddafi is slowly tightening.
pre-Qaddafi Libyan flag being flown by revolutionaries
The death toll can only be guessed at. The number reported by those hospitals and doctors who have gotten messages out appears to be around 300. But that did not include the unclaimed, uncollected bodies lying in the streets of Tripoli.
The United Kingdom has sent a war ship to evacuate British and other foreign workers from Tripoli. Thousands have already fled, airlifted out by their own and other governments. The oil has stopped flowing from Libya, with a resultant spike in oil prices in an industry that doesn’t deal with disruption with any rational actions. Oil rose from $88 a barrel on Monday to $93 a barrel on Tuesday, even while Saudi Arabia has said that it can up production to cover the loss of Libya’s supply.
The U. N. Security Council was in emergency session Tuesday, with discussions about how to intervene to end the violence against the people of Tripoli. Libya’s own deputy ambassador asked the U. N. to imposed a no-fly zone to prevent foreign mercenaries from entering the country. No nation has offered him asylum if he should choose to leave.
President Bush thought he could “plant the seed of democracy” in the Middle East by conquering Afghanistan and Iraq. Democracy doesn’t work that way. Conquering armies that turn into occupying armies are enemies of democracy because they are seen by the conquered as imperialists who are rigging elections to put their supporters into power. Whether America has done this or not is irrelevant. It is how the occupations and the governments they created are perceived. The movement spreading over the Middle East is how democracy really happens – out of the people who want to be free, who want to participate in their own governance, who want to work their way through the hard work of building a free nation. They don’t want it done for them.
Moammar Qaddafi cannot survive. He must not survive. His survival would embolden other autocratic rulers to use hired mercenaries to kill their own citizens to preserve power. His survival would slow if not halt this great movement forward to democracy among people all around the world. His survival would turn a reasonably violence-free democracy quest into civil wars with tens of thousands of victims. Moammar Qaddafi cannot be allowed to survive. Hopefully, sooner than later, someone in his inner circle will fulfill his wish to die for his country. Hopefully, his family will flee rather than face the wrath of Libya’s people. Then, the Libyan people can begin the long hard fight to stabilize their country and build a true democracy.
Comments