Empty village raises concerns about fate of black Libyans

[EFerrari]

Source: McClatchy

By David Enders

TAWERGHA, Libya — This town was once home to thousands of mostly black non-Arab residents. Now, the only manmade sound is a generator that powers a small militia checkpoint, where rebels say the town is a "closed military area."

What happened to the residents of Tawergha appears to be another sign that despite the rebel leadership's pledges that they'll exact no revenge on supporters of deposed dictator Moammar Gadhafi, Libya's new rulers often are dealing harshly with the country's black residents.

According to Tawergha residents, rebel soldiers from Misrata forced them from their homes on Aug. 15 when they took control of the town. The residents were then apparently driven out of a pair of refugee camps in Tripoli over this past weekend.

"The Misrata people are still looking for black people," said Hassan, a Tawergha resident who's now sheltering in a third camp in Janzour, six miles east of Tripoli. "One of the men who came to this camp told me my brother was killed yesterday by the revolutionaries."



Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/09/13/123999/empty-village-raises-concerns.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_term=news

[DrunkenBoat]

1. I have no doubt that when everything shakes out, the rebels will prove to

be no improvement over gaddafi. Also i have no doubt that the people who promoted this war will never admit that non-difference.

[Arctic Dave]

3. The only difference will be the bank accounts the oil profits go to.

I will take a stab and say it won't be the Libyan people.

[elehhhhna]

4. what oil profits? EVERYBODY has pulled out of exploration in Libya.

probably not much production going on and transport is assuredly effed up as well.

[Arctic Dave]

6. Oil in Libya has not stop flowing.

And no one is leaving. Ask ENI, Total, etc.

[iamthebandfanman]

10. +1 definitely far from not flowing ;) n/t

[elehhhhna]

i know these companies

mass redeployments out of Libya. huge.

[elehhhhna]

12. i know these companies

mass redeployments out of Libya. huge.

[Arctic Dave]

13. I work for a lot of these companies, they aren't leaving.

They are retooling for projects.

And the enevitable "contract change".

[PurityOfEssence]

8. Damn, that's well said.

The goody two-shoes warmongers will make any excuses necessary or convenient, but the simple truth is this: everything bad that happened or will happen after March 19th is their fault. Besides arrogantly breaching national sovereignty in a situation where there was no appreciable bloodshed, they stuck our collective noses into a very complex situation, and did it on the cheap.

Butter won't melt in their mouths; they are by definition morally superior for siding with the rebels, regardless of whether this was an actual grassroots rebellion or a sham bolstered by Islamists, foreign influences and some legitimate dissidents.

There was a term in the 80s in the Bay Area that should have stuck better: virtuecrat. It defined those who were so smugly sanctimonious in their own superiority that they could justify any horror their allies did and still talk down to the unenlightened.

Thank you, and welcome to the board, Bateau Ivre...

Stick around; it's a vibrant place and this is not going to go down smoothly, unless all ethnic cleansing is covered up.

[iamthebandfanman]

9. while i agree with your stance on war,

your contempt for others that would disagree is a bit over placed dont you think?

you seriously dont think death and war would have happened without NATO intervention? really?

thats the thing with war and in a broader sense tyrany... theres no non-violent solution most of the time... and if there is cooler heads rarely prevail to make it happen. all it takes is one side unwilling to negotiate.

while our inolvement in wars is always a choice, wars themselve arent always.

[PurityOfEssence]

25. I contend that this contempt comes from constant fusillades of moral superiority

I don't know if you've followed the Libya threads here for the last few months, but there is a consistent through-line of the pro-war interventionists slagging any opposition as Qaddafi-lovers or heartless. The constant self-aggrandizement when advocating war and violation of sovereignty leaves many of us who think this was a sham and a mistake with a very bad taste in our mouths. My ire is directed at them, and it is not reflective of a contempt for those with other opinions. It is a response to certain posters who deny contrary evidence and feel the right to use whatever bullshit claims that come their way.

Unlike the interventionists, who are firmly convinced in a near-religious certainty that "hundreds of thousands" would have been killed had Benghazi been retaken, I have some assumptions of how it might have played out: Benghazi, then Derna and Tobruk would have been retaken with some civilian casualties and modest casualties among the armed insurgents. At that point, Misrata would have given up and that would have been that. The status quo would have been reinstated--with all its many totalitarian faults--and no more blood would have flowed. That is my educated guess, but I do not hold it as anything close to "fact".

The more combative of the interventionists, on the other hand, see the "hundreds of thousands" of deaths as FACT and use these hypothetical deaths to justify the very real ones that have happened and that are to come. Oil, to them, is not the slightest influence in this ugliness, and they discredit all of the overwhelming evidence of Qaddafi's threats for nationalization and the changing of the deal with the French in 2009, as well as the labyrinthine legal issues and huge signing bonuses that drove American companies like Chevron to withdraw with singed tailfeathers.

The "contempt" you cite comes from the extremists among the interventionists, including the Obama-is-perfect crowd, who constantly hectored and belittled anyone who wasn't for their ugly war of resource conquest as somehow callous.

This is a sham, it's shockingly illegal, and it has been justified with a tiresome Little Bo-Peep moral superiority that's been slapped in our faces constantly. To those, I am contemptuous, but the outrage was their making.

I have no issue with those who disagree with me, but when they demand an aristocratic proclamation of moral superiority, I take offense.

[aquart]

14. George Washington wasn't all that different from King George, really. Was he?

What a thoughtless reason for supporting a dictator.

[fast lane]

16. It's not supporting a dictator

just defending Libya from foreign invasion and meddling.

[EFerrari]

17. George Washington? Really?

You're comparing these people who are raping black women and rounding up whole communities of black Africans to George Washington?

[OnlinePoker]

18. Maybe not the rape part...

...but 20% of the population (the loyalists) of the colonies had to flee from the States under threat, leaving all their possessions except for what they could pack up behind. Americans seem to think that the revolution happened and everyone supported it, which was not the case.

[EFerrari]

20. That's very true. I was surprised to learn how many Americans went to Canada

during the War of 1812, for example.

[WhiteTara]

19. Washington was involved in the "Indian Wars"

before the Revolution and although I don't know about the raping, I do know entire communities were wiped out by Washington and his armies.

[EFerrari]

21. Whenever the Western powers back new puppets

they are compared to the Founders, it's part of the ritual.

[WhiteTara]

23. Sounds like I need to get with the program!

:rofl:

[EFerrari]

24. LOL!

:hi:

[DrunkenBoat]

22. What does George Washington have to do with anything? As for "supporting dictators,"

it can't be news to you that the US supports lots of dictators, and when it has a beef with the one currently in charge, it just installs a new one. Or a pseudo-democracy with a corrupt elite.

[Blue_Tires]

2. kick

[Starry Messenger]

5. .

[Jazzgirl]

7. Another kick.

n/t

[iamthebandfanman]

11. this was my biggest fear in the lead up

to the conflict.


trust me, its not a coincidence that gaddafi had sided with his african roots(had himself proclaimed king of africa and strengthened ties with african union) and was wanting to take the country with him and the fact this started. its widely known that libyans consider themselves part of the middle east, and therefor arabic. they hate the idea of being considered 'black' or 'african'.

its kind of similar to what happened in darfur in some ways..
you have a man in power who proclaimed himself arabic and made statements that 'africans' were inferior..and thus the genocide began.

only the other way around in libya.

[fast lane]

15. Tragic

but not very surprising. This mess has echoes of Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Haiti and Iraq all rolled into one.