Everyone knows that the NATO-led attack on Libya in 2011 produced a failed state, billions in state funds looted, millions of displaced persons, a refugee epidemic that threatens to destabilize Europe and a Libya under Islamist rule. And then there is the massive Islamist racism against black Libyans, such as the Tawhargha tribe, who since 2011 have faced unbearable struggles and violent killings.
Under the leadership of militia warlords such as Abdelhakim Belhadj (LIFG jihadi fighter, friend of Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan and hailed as a “hero” by John McCain), Libya now has a horrifying regime. The Western-backed Libya is permeated by terror, random kidnappings, gruesome rapes, the most morbid form of torture – all viewable and permitted on Arabic Facebook and YouTube – and the practice of allowing civilians to spend years in prison without a trial. Libyans are pleading for the U.N., U.S., Amnesty Internation and Human Rights Watch to react, to no avail. There is just a deafening silence in the West.
Humanitarian pleas, also from the U.N., implore the West to take responsibility for the destruction instigated in 2011. The United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) steadily expresses ”strong condemnation of the violence, intimidation and obstruction to the work of Libya’s sovereign institutions by militiamen.” The secretary-general of the U.N. agency for International Cooperation, Eya Essif, addresses the racism against black Libyans, the Tawhargha. We have all heard about the slavery. War crimes openly take place in areas controlled by militias affiliated with the internationally recognized Presidential Council in Tripoli. A U.N. report says that armed groups are guilty of a wide range of abuses. The wide abuse has long been made known, the Supreme Council of the Libyan Tribes pointing out that many children have been left in these prisons since 2011 and up to today.
We are way beyond the 2016 U.K. House of Commons report, which documented the media lies spread when the war broke out in February 2011. Moammar Gadhafi was not “attacking his own people” or performing some sort of “genocide.” Libya was, in fact, Africa’s richest country, a middle-income socialist state, 95 percent literacy, free education for both men and women, with a massive Libyan Investment Fund waiting to be looted. The Wikileaked Hillary Clinton email and other documents have shown that the assault on Libya was not out of care for the civilians, rather the opposite: It was in search of the Libyan wealth and to stop the Pan African plan to skip the dollar for the Gold Dinar.
“Killings and torture are being committed by all sides in Libya, according to a U.N. report,” wrote the BBC back in 2016. “Human-rights violations are carried out by armed groups. Victims include detainees, journalists and human rights activists.” Since then, no improvements have been carried out.
The militia leaders regularly overrule the Libyan courts and dictate the outcome of lawsuits, taking advantage of the lawlessness. This was recently seen in the Ain Zara, a prison in Tripoli where 45 young men are now awaiting the death penalty. According to sources on the ground, the notorious warlord Ghnewa Kikli is allegedly responsible for pushing the courts to place the death penalty on the men. The families protest in this video. The EU said the death sentence, issued by the Criminal Chamber of the Tripoli Court of Appeal, “was worrying.” There are now pleas for the ICC courts to indict Haitam Al Tajouri and the militia leader in question regarding the 45 condemned men,. The aim is to stop the militia rule of terror in Libya.
Reports on the ground state that there are at least 30,000 prisoners in Libya, most of them former supporters of Gadhafi, who are incarcerated without law and order, many in prison since 2011. There are women as old as 80 years and children as young as 15. One of Gadhafi’s sons, Saadi el-Gadhafi, is still in prison, even though the courts acquitted him. Hannibal Gadhafi is still incarcerated in Lebanon. Gaddafi’s wife, Safia Farkash, and daugher, Aisha Gadhafi, are still unable to use their frozen bank accounts or to travel. Since when was it a crime to be a president’s wife? Or daughter? Why is the family still being punished?
President Trump recently addressed the issue with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte. Let us hope we may soon see an end to the Libyan misery.
