You are in the 248th Witness Revolution diary, bearing witness to pro-democracy movements in North Africa, the Middle East and beyond. This is a special edition to cover the unfolding events in Tripoli, the last stand againstof the Gaddafi Forces. (see links to previous diaries for this event at the bottom of the diary.) (h/t Athenian for pointing out that the grammatical error.)
UPDATE:
There are rumors that an armored convoy made it from Libya to Algeria and that, perhaps, Gaddafi is in that convoy:
brokenwing2005 10:01pm via Twitter for Android
Did gaddafi escape?"@AJELive: 6 armoured Mercedes seen crossing border from #Libya into #Algeria - Reuters http://t.co/...
Hopefully, this will reveal a lot of evidence for Gadaffi regime crimes:
Did Gadaffi's daughter Hana, whom he had claimed died when the US attacked Bab Alziziya in the 1980s, and whom he turned into a national martyr, actually survive?
For a quarter of a century, Colonel Gaddafi claimed that his adopted baby daughter Hana was killed in a U.S. airstrike.
The dictator even set up a shrine to the six-month-old infant in his Tripoli compound, with replica American missiles and furniture preserved behind glass screens.
Yesterday, however, it appeared that it was all a ruse to whip up hatred against the West and win sympathy from ordinary Libyans.
Documents and photographs found in the compound suggest that far from perishing in the 1986 attack, Hana is alive – and working as a doctor.
There is, of course, the ongoing concern that the Libyans, led by the NTC won't be able to actually run the country civically and that chaos will ensue:
(h/t gchaucer2)2007 (scroll down to that entry)
Now that Gaddafi is in hiding, the former deputy secretary general of the United Nations, Lord Malloch-Brown, tells the BBC it is important that the Libyans quickly sort out how the country will be run: "At this point in pretty much every Arab revolt there's a call for a strong man, everybody looks for the new Nasser. Well, today's Nasser ends up usually being tomorrow's Gaddafi. It's really important that they resist that and govern in an inclusive way, which means some kind of committee structure."
I'm thinking that the Lord (yes. rather ironic.) hasn't paid attention to how well Benghazi has been managed these past 6 months, with about zero resources. He might have missed the committees already established in Tripoli, too:
A Double Agent in Gadhafi Camp
Mr. Ben Jumaa’s local council forms the base level of the rebel governing structure that has sprung up in most of the country during the past six months. It is among some 20 neighborhood councils in Tripoli that answer to the Tripoli Council, which has steered the city’s uprising and that answers, in turn, to the rebels’ national governing body, the National Transitional Council.
Some 30 members of the Tripoli-wide council met Thursday and for the first time agreed to break their operational security, meeting as a group in a downtown hotel. The cadre of mostly middle-age professionals, including engineers, hotel managers and accountants, had been meeting in secret locations for months, using aliases to protect themselves from arrest or infiltration. Few knew each other by name or occupation.
On Thursday, they hugged and wept as they saw each other in the open, and introduced themselves by their real names.
The tight cell structure that Mr. Ben Jumaa helped organize in Fashloom, these people say, was replicated in other Tripoli neighborhoods. In the industrial suburb of Tajoura, local commanders organized patrols to alert residents to nightly raids by irregular militias loyal to Col. Gadhafi.
A country's battle scars:
Entrance of memorial on #Tripoli street #Misrata #Libya to people killed by #Gaddafi forces . Alot of ammo still live yfrog.com/kkfqoppj
On a lighter note:
Some inspirational messages from Libyans:
(h/t
petral)
@taimur_ly تيمور عبد العزيز
Benghazi taught us courage, Misrata resistance, Nafousa determination, Zawiya perseverance, Tripoli patience. This is Libya @tripolicouncil
54 minutes ago via Echofon
(h/t downsouth )
Good Tweet
hishamjmatar Hisham Matar, Author
We've defeated Qaddafi in the battlefield, now we must defeat him in our imagination. We mustn't allow his legacy to corrupt our dream.
6 minutes ago
The Libyans tell us who they are and what they fight for
A Vision of a Democratic Libya - the guiding document of the revolution
Their newer, flashier web site is
NTCLibya.com
Who are the libyan 'rebels'?
Opposition fighters against Gaddafi's regime are sometimes referred to as 'rebels'. This can be viewed negatively and so the correct term for the 'rebels' is freedom fighters.
(h/t
angry marmot )
TNC comments on post-Q role for NATO
AFP via Al-Ahram
Libya's rebel government envoy to the Cairo-based Arab League said Monday that his country will not allow NATO bases in Libya after Muammar Gaddafi's ouster, official MENA news agency said.
"Libya is an Arab and Islamic nation before NATO and after NATO," he said, adding, "the Libyans revolted from the 1970s against Western bases and there will be no non-Libyan bases."
They've also decided not to take international loans:
(h/t
greenbird )
Bloomberg news:
“We don’t need loans,” former Libyan Central Bank Governor Farhat Bengdara, who broke with Qaddafi’s regime in February, said in an interview in Dubai. “Libya has huge financial resources and oil reserves. What it needs is the cooperation of the international community to lift the freeze on Libya’s assets aboard.”
Good sources for information:
Al Jazeera English live TV
Al Jazeera English liveblog
Guardian Middle East liveblog
Feb17.info news aggregator and local reporting (live video feed), excellent resources such as maps and reliable Twitter streams to follow
BBC live coverage (video and text)
Free Libya TV-Arabic
Free Libya TV-English
NATO site on Libya
File:Tripolitanian Front.svg
Great map of what's happening where right now from the Guardian. (I couldn't figure out how to embed this)
Follow on Twitter:
Feb 17 voices
Al Jazeera English
LibyanYouthMovement
Sultan Al Qassemi
Twitter tags #feb17 #libya #tripoli #mermaiddawn
We must remember that Libyans are still risking their lives to rid themselves of the Gadaffi regime:
IsaMadesclaire 1:44am via Twitter for iPhone
RT @libyanproud: #Tripoli : Qasr BenGhasheer is still being shelled and controlled by #Gaddafi forces. #Feb17 #Libya
PeterClifford1 1:45am via HootSuite
#Libya Many #Gaddafi gunmen killed in heavy fighting around #AbuSalim in #Tripoli. No Gaddafis found. http://t.co/...
I've been fascinated at the way the Freedom Fighters created brigades of people from the different towns, so that when they went in, they would be known to the residents. Here is the Tarhouna brigade arriving in Tarhouna:
It is acts such as this, which make the Libyan people so happy to be free of Gadaffi:
Children among 180 slaughtered in Tripoli
A group of about 180 civilian prisoners, seven of them children, were massacred by Gadhafi forces earlier this week, one of the survivors has told The Daily Telegraph.
The slaughter took place on Tuesday at the al-Yarmouk military base in the suburbs of Tripoli, according to the survivor, Abdulatti Musbah Haleem.
(h/t
jpmassar)
Juan Cole's Top Ten Myths About The Libya War
1. Qaddafi was a progressive in his domestic policies.
2. Qaddafi was a progressive in his foreign policy.
3. It was only natural that Qaddafi sent his military against the protesters and revolutionaries; any country would have done the same.
4. There was a long stalemate in the fighting between the revolutionaries and the Qaddafi military.
5. The Libyan Revolution was a civil war.
6. Libya is not a real country and could have been partitioned between east and west.
7. There had to be NATO infantry brigades on the ground for the revolution to succeed.
8. The United States led the charge to war.
9. Qaddafi would not have killed or imprisoned large numbers of dissidents in Benghazi, Derna, al-Bayda and Tobruk if he had been allowed to pursue his March Blitzkrieg toward the eastern cities that had defied him.
10. This was a war for Libya’s oil.
He devotes a paragraph or two to each of his myths.
Map of neighborhoods in Tripoli (click on image for larger version):
map of West Libya, towns surrounding Tripoli (click on image for larger version):
updated as of AUG 22
(h/t Oujdi) This interactive google map is more up to date
View Larger Map again, I can't get google map embed to work here
(h/t bumblebums) I can't get the embed to work
there's an interactive Google map of Tripoli indicating where fighting has broken out.
This is the best map we've seen of Libya and what's happened where.
@IbnOmar2005 Ibn Omar
EXCELLENT PIC. How the media covered the "stalemate" in #Libya. Every outlet should see this. @CNN @BBC
(h/t Lawrence)
A blog post from a Libyan on Al Jazeera that I
would like to repost here.
I know from personal experience just how grateful Libyans are to all who gave them their solidarity and this blog post expresses that well:
LibyaInAbstentia
Thank you to all the people here who have stood with the Libyan people to what I hope will soon be the end. I hope that any of you who would like to visit Libya and see all the places you have been talking about and meet all the people you have been supporting will be able to. I know that I do mention God in my posts, I do not mean to offend anyone and I know that you are all good people no matter what your belief or you would not be here. I have to believe in God, I go to funerals for these young men, I have seen them badly hurt and I have tried to calm my children while they tried to sleep listening to battles in the neighborhood. Because I believe, I do pray for the best for each one of you who has given up time doing something else so that you could be here. That you know more about a place and people that you might not have thought of a year ago, means to me that there is hope not only for the future of Libya, but the future of the world. Apathy is the biggest threat to freedom and democracy. No matter what your opinions, you are not apathetic and you are all fighters for freedom and democracy. To those who consider themselves believers, God bless you, to those who do not, my sincere thanks and appreciation.
(h/t Lawrence)
If a picture speaks a thousand words, then this video about the early days of the Libyan Revolution speaks millions. Not only does it clearly show that the Revolution was initially peaceful, but also that it was an uprising that took place in basically every major town and city in Libya.
Links to previous Tripoli Battle diaries:
The Battle for Tripoli Part II
Breaking: The Battle For Tripoli Has Begun. W/ Updates. "All Hell Has Broken Out in Tripoli."
Witnessing Revolution #227: Battle of Tripoli or #MermaidDawn
Witnessing Revolution Diary #228: Battle of Tripoli continues
Witnessing Revolution Live Blog #229 - Libya
Witnesssing Revolution #230: Battle of Tripoli continues
Witnessing Revolution Live Blog #231 - Libya
Witnessing Revolution #232 - Battle of Tripoli continues
Witnessing Revolution #233: Zero Hour for Libya is really here
Witnessing Revolution #234: Libya Celebrating, Seeking Gaddafi
Witnessing Revolution #235: Libya Celebrating, Seeking Gaddafi
Witnessing Revolution #236: Libya NTC Rejects Notion of NATO Bases
Witnessing Revolution #237: Fighting continues in Libya
Witnessing Revolution #238: Fighting continues in Libya
Witnessing Revolution #239: Do the Gaddafis Even Matter Anymore?
Witnessing Revolution #240: Libyans have entered Bab Alziziya
Witnessing Revolution #241: full Arab Spring updates
Witnessing Revolution #242: Battle of Tripoli continues
Witnessing Revolution #243: Libya-SCUD missiles, grad rockets, journalists as hostages
Witnessing Revolution #244: Libya: Journalists freed, another defection
A href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/08/25/1010422/-Witnessing-Revolution-245:-Fighting,-atrocities-and-change-in-Libya">Witnessing Revolution #245: Fighting, atrocities and change in Libya |