Libyans lob grenades, storm NTC office in uprising cradle

[ellisonz]

AFP – 11 hrs ago

Angry protesters threw home-made grenades and stormed Libya's ruling National Transitional Council offices in the city of Benghazi, setting its front ablaze on Saturday, witnesses said.

The attack, the first such violent act against the NTC -- the body which is ruling Libya since the fall of Moamer Kadhafi's regime -- came in the eastern city which was also the first to rise up against the dictator last year.

The attack occurred as up to 2,000 protesters, including injured former rebels who helped topple Kadhafi's 42-year-old regime, demonstrated outside the NTC offices, witnesses and an AFP correspondent at the scene reported.

Witnesses said the grenade blasts occurred when wounded former rebels were protesting at being "marginalised" in the new Libya, demanding more transparency in the NTC and opposing what they said were opportunists from joining the ruling body.

http://news.yahoo.com/grenades-lobbed-libyan-ntc-benghazi-office-181618360.html

Hot heads making trouble that helps no one...

[tabatha]

1. No, but they are not going to accept anything other than what they fought for.

The NTC is doing a shitty job in the communication department.

EDIT
“People are not happy with the council because it has also given government posts to people who are known to have links with Gaddafi.”

Which is a very strong indication how much the Libyans despised Gaddafi.

[ellisonz]

3. Those are valid points...

...Communication is essential and I think they need to simplify the transition process.

[joshcryer]

4. Yeah, as was said from the start, Libyan self-determination above all else.

If they do not feel that they are being listened to, they will respond.

[Fool Count]

25. "Carting off computers and office furniture" is, I would say, a very strong indication

of what those "revolutionaries" were all about to begin with. They'll just keep looting their own
country until there is nothing left to cart off. Thank you, NATO, for the "freedom" you brought.

[joshcryer]

31. Do those videos below make the protesters look any "scarier" than Wisconsinites?

So you hear about a loud explosive and a car being busted up and some vandalism.

Doesn't sound any worse than the Penn State riot just two years ago here.

I wonder, I really do, if foreigners in other countries make such broad brush, ignorant statements about us when we misbehave.

[joshcryer]

2. Video of the event:

Protesters entered:

Jailil listened to their demands:

The "grenade" story is interesting, I am glad no one was apparently injured, and I hope that the protesters are treated with dignity, emotions can get very high in these sorts of circumstances, when you feel the status quo is not hearing your demands.

[joshcryer]

5. More on the "grenade":

https://twitter.com/#!/m_madi

https://twitter.com/#!/m_madi/status/160867684286861312

Mohamed Madi
Some people did throw "Jelateena", crude explosive used for killing fish, near the HQ to cause commotion, but not to injure/harm

[ellisonz]

6. Interesting...

Your twitter skills are impressive, joshcryer.

[Gigibagigi]

7. I wonder why this is happening..

Where not they supposed to be the one siding with the "people"?

[tabatha]

8. The NTC is trying to take the reconciliation path, by including people who worked for Gaddafi

Like Mandela - but the Libyans do not want anyone who was associated with Gaddafi.

I guess they have not been persuaded on the reconciliation bit.

Possibly, Libya needs a Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

[Gigibagigi]

9. Free elections

Personally I think that the reconciliation path is the best, but I am not Libyan.
They will have soon free elections, so why bother attacking the NTC?
They can vote them out as they like

[tabatha]

10. Well, we have not gone through what they have gone through.

It also appears to be a pay issue as well.

[joshcryer]

11. My main focus is watching the women protestors, they want 50% quota representation.

Right now it's 10%, as a proposal (which is less than Iraq and Afghanistan at 25%). This is going to be an uphill battle for the secularists and the feminists in Libya, it's going to be quite interesting to watch it all unfold.

Gaddafi cronies will be ousted, as will foreign pressures for politics (though the UAE is sending in companies at a fast pace). I'm not too worried about that.

I am hoping, and I could be wrong, that the outcome is better than Egypt and Tunisia where islamists took control.

[tabatha]

13. They have removed the quota.

I posted that a few days ago.

[joshcryer]

15. Sorry, you are correct, and I saw that, my mistake.

[fasttense]

12. The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission was of little concrete value.

First and foremost in it's creation, the rich, white ruling class maintained control over South Africa's money. Upon the collapse of South Africa’s apartheid regime, negotiations between the white rulers and the black population began. For whatever reasons, the white rulers were able to maintain control of financing, budget administration and money creation in South Africa. It's all fine and dandy to say we are going to help the impoverished balck majority but if there is no money to do it, is there really any help coming forward?

Second, the TRC was designed to bring out the truth at the cost of accountability. Instead of prosecuting mass murderers, the commission tried to give them amnesty in exchange for the truth.

Third, there was very little compensation for the victims. This is directly related to the fact that the white ruling elite still control the financing of the country. Many black citizens still live in severely impoverished segregated villages, while the white elite still live in their mansions and bus in their black help.

[tabatha]

14. The problem was with Mbeki who believed in Thatcherism.

Zuma does not. That is about the only one of his saving graces.

"Mbeki, as an ANC insider and while president, was a major force behind the continued neoliberal structure of the South African economy. He drew criticism from the left for his perceived abandonment of state-interventionist social democratic economic policies – such as nationalization, land reform, and democratic capital controls – prescribed by the Freedom Charter, the ANC's seminal document.[20]"

Mbeki was in charge of the economy both under Mandela and his own rule. I think he also let black South Africans down with his AIDs policies.

Unfortunately, there is a strong influential libertarian organization in South Africa. One of the biggest mistakes that was made was privatizing water. I am totally opposed to their platform, and was horrified to learn years later that the book written by the founder was funded by David Koch.

http://www.freemarketfoundation.com/

In addition to trying to follow Mandela's reconciliation, the Libyan TNC did not want to repeat the mistakes of Iraq, such as kicking out all the people who worked for Saddam. That was stated a number of times.

[PurityOfEssence]

18. Please stop calling certain factions "the Libyans"

This is one of the most irritating traits of goody two-shoes interventionists: making sweeping statements that certain groups are the entire heart and soul of the Libyan people.

With the full weight of western air power and Qatari ground forces, they still took the better part of a year to topple Qaddafi; that clearly shows that he had plenty of true support and that--as is often the case in such times--many took no part in the action at all.

To say that anything that supports your contention is the clear voice of "the Libyans" bears no scrutiny. There has been no voting, except among self-appointed politicians. There has certainly been no plebicite. There are many factions and lots going on here, and the continued haranguing that everything's quite simple and straightforward is just a continuation of the extreme arrogance of the interventionists in the first place.

The very legitimacy of the claim that this is a true assertion of the will of the people also holds no water: the rebellion was being quite handily put down, and the only thing that saved it was MASSIVE foreign intervention.

Also, to pre-empt the tiresome argument that we had help in our revolution, let's remember that France didn't intervene in our Revolution until more than two years after it had started, and after we had won a clear strategic victory at Saratoga; we were a viable force and had shown our will, even if the colonies were very much in civil war and not fully behind the fight.

Things are very jittery there now, whether we get it in our corporatist media or not.

I'll tell you one group of people we're not hearing anything from: the many, many dead, many of whom would still be alive if we hadn't gone on our deceptive imperial oil-thieving vendetta.

[ellisonz]

19. Non-sense.

"Also, to pre-empt the tiresome argument that we had help in our revolution, let's remember that France didn't intervene in our Revolution until more than two years after it had started, and after we had won a clear strategic victory at Saratoga; we were a viable force and had shown our will, even if the colonies were very much in civil war and not fully behind the fight."

I think dismissing that parallel shows that insincerity of your propagandizing. You're saying that in order for an oppressed people to receive support in your uprising they have to be a militarily "viable force?" Who made you standard maker?

"I'll tell you one group of people we're not hearing anything from: the many, many dead,"

And how many did the rat Gaddafi put there?

[PurityOfEssence]

22. Gainsaying flak

Her contention is that "the Libyans" were overwhelmingly against Qaddafi to such an extent that their opinion is effectively unified. That's just hogwash, and pointing out the inability of their insurrection to survive without massive assistance is a legitimate argument to sustain that, don't you think?

To constantly pat oneself on the back and repeat the party line that everyone hated him is simply not sustained by reality, and to continually make fatuous proclamations about what "they" want, as if they're a homogeneous group, is deceptive, incorrect and self-aggrandizing.

Are you seriously going to contend that less people were killed in our on-the-cheap bit of imperialism than would have if he'd been left alone to reclaim Benghazi, Derna and Tobruk? None of us knows, but the interventionists have a sickening habit of having all the answers and stacking hypothetical deaths against actual ones.

Qaddafi was no saint, but he did do many good things for his people and for sub-saharan Africa. I'm sure the average darker-hued Libyan would have a thing or three to say about that.

[ellisonz]

24. Really?

[PurityOfEssence]

26. Yes. Really.

[ellisonz]

27. Hah...

Paid and bussed. Like his mercenaries...

[joshcryer]

28. You're seriously pushing Gaddafi's "million man march" picture?

The one that only had 10k people at most?

Seriously?

[joshcryer]

29. More like:

100k people showed on Oct 23. Second video really shows a good shot at the 45 second mark. Yes, those are people as far as the eye can see.

[joshcryer]

30. Voting is in June I think, I can't remember the exact date.

The USA didn't have its first elections for around 5 years after the Revolutionary War.

[Gigibagigi]

33. Maybe

Maybe
Let` s see how it develops..

[harmonicon]

16. Clearly, we should be bombing the NTC.

The Libyans want freedom, and we should give it to them strapped to bombs.

[tabatha]

17. Have the NTC bombed the protesters?

Have they threatened to chase down protesters street by street, house by house, closet by closet?

Have they massed military equipment outside the city?

Do they have snipers on the roof tops?

Have Libyan pilots defected to Malta because they refuse to bomb their own people?

In all democratic countries, people are allowed to demonstrate without fear of being killed. That is what is allowed to happen in Libya right now, which could not happen before.

I think you should check your logic - it seems to have gotten lost.

[harmonicon]

20. Yes, they have done those things.

Backed up by NATO (a group which was created to preserve and spread capitalism in the world), they killed a great number of people, including the execution of prisoners. How do you think they got into power?

[ellisonz]

21. What do you think happens if NATO doesn't intervene?

[pampango]

23. "the forced silence of people living under autocrats should never have been mistaken for popular

complacency..."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle-east/human-rights-watch-urges-the-west-to-back-peaceful-protests-and-end-the-arab-exception/2012/01/22/gIQACBgvHQ_story.html

[joshcryer]

32. Thank you for that important HRW report.

It deserves its own thread to counter islamphobic commentators who think that autocrats were better for these people, and indeed, where faux "popular complacency" was the rule.