Libyan plan to trace mass graves and missing people - NewScientist

[tabatha]

As Libyans celebrate the fall of Muammar Gaddafi following his death last week, the country's transitional government has already set up a commission that it says will ensure the transparent and orderly exhumation and identification of bodies from mass graves.

"It will take a few months to work out the number of people missing," says Salim Al-Serjani, vice-president of the newly formed National Commission for Tracing and Identifying Missing Persons.

Speaking to New Scientist from Libya's capital Tripoli, he said that 4000 to 5000 people went missing during the 42 years of Gaddafi's dictatorship, on a crude estimate, and around 20,000 to 25,000 more are thought to have gone missing in the nine-month conflict that ended last week. "The old regime didn't like to give out any information, so it will take a while to know more exact figures," he said.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21086-libyan-plan-to-trace-mass-graves-and-missing-people.html

[mainer]

1. 5000 missing over 42 years is 119 people a year missing.

(number corrected)

And this is Gaddafi's opposition talking?

By comparison, in the US, 900,000 people go missing every year. http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/criminal_mind/forensics/americas_missing/2.html

[Xithras]

2. *cough*math*cough*

5000/42=119.04

That's about 10 people a month.

[mainer]

3. Oops. Thanks.

Need to wear my glasses when I look at the calculator decimal point. It still seems like a lot less than the hundreds of thousands that were rumored killed by Gaddafi during his rule.

[Xithras]

6. I know.

And, to put it into context: While neither the DoJ or FBI publish independent statistics, it's estimated that up to 600 Americans are killed by "government agents" in our country every year. Depending on the agenda you were trying to push, that could easily be spun into something fairly ominous.

[mainer]

7. I'd never heard that statistic.

I guess "government agents" includes all law enforcement entities?

[Xithras]

8. Yep.

All deaths, by all law enforcement agencies, in all U.S. states and territories. It includes both official executions, law enforcement shootings, and deaths in detention that can be attributed to the actions of LEO's (admittedly, I may be fuzzy on the details, it's been a few years since I read this.)

Because there are no official statistics released, the estimates based on news reports can vary pretty wildly, but they appear to generally hover between 400 and 600 people a year.

600 peoplee may sound like a lot, but that's only one officer involved shooting in each state, each month.

Still, an unscrupulous journalist with an agenda could easily spin that into a headline like, "U.S. police state executes 15,000 American's without trial over the past 25 years!"

[TheWraith]

4. In addition to the people who were KNOWN to have been imprisoned/tortured/murdered.

Or are we going to go through another round of "Ghaddafi was really such a good man"?

[mainer]

5. I'd like to know the truth. Not the hyperbole, that's all.

During the run-up to the Iraq war, I got into an internet debate with a pro-invasion person who insisted that Saddam was killing or disappearing hundreds of thousands of Iraqi enemies every week. He insisted this was the truth, based on "hard" information from exiles. I pointed out that with that many killed per week, Iraq would be depopulated within a year. Yet he kept telling me that it was the truth, and i was a Saddam-lover because I didn't believe it.

I've learned to be cautious.