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Libya 23-02-2011
Libyan soliders that now call themselves the Free Libyan Army shout as the pose for pictures at the main army base in the eastern city of Tobruk, LIbya, Friday, Feb. 25, 2011.
Tara Todras-Whitehill - AP
ENLARGE PHOTO
Demonstrators demand the removal of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi on February 24, 2011 in Benghazi, Libya. Eastern Libya is largely under opposition control, as Gaddafi's forces battled rebels near the capitol Tripoli.
John Moore - Getty Images
ENLARGE PHOTO
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Trích:
Benghazi the nerve centre as Libya protest turns to revolution
Lawyers, doctors and engineers attempt to take the city's destiny into their hands
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Martin Chulov in Benghazi guardian.co.uk, Thursday 24 February 2011 21.30 GMT
Libyans stand atop an army tank outside the courthouse in the dissident-held city of Benghazi. Photograph: Gianluigi Guercia/AFP/Getty
The nerve centre of Libya's revolution is an anxious place indeed. At the heart of Benghazi's courthouse, a building that claimed to stand for justice through Gaddafi's reign, groups of civilian professionals – lawyers, doctors, surgeons and engineers – find themselves at the heart of the movement that is throwing off his despotic yoke.
"We decided to protest last week, for our rights," a lawyer told the Guardian. "And suddenly everything changed. It turned from a protest to a revolution. We don't have any experience in this," she said.
All around her people swirled with documents, mobile phones and momentous news from afar. The town of Zawya fell today, a messenger rushed in to say. Shortly afterwards came word of Masrat, a city halfway to Tripoli that also seems to be falling to the rebels, then the three largest oil fields around Benghazi. The speed of events was staggering.
Five days after Benghazi was sacked, Libya seems to be falling quicker than anyone in Benghazi expected, or prepared for. History has overtaken those who find themselves running the revolt. "And it's causing me a lot of stress," said the lawyer. "We are worried about the people in Tripoli, food and other supplies. We need to co-ordinate everything. There is a lot of responsibility."
Her colleague Amal Bagaigis agreed. "We started just as lawyers looking for our rights and now we are revolutionaries. And we don't know how to manage. We want to have our own face. For 42 years we have this kind of babarianism. We now want to live."
Almost a week after a series of rolling demonstrations became a full-blown revolt, the country's detested old guard now seems confined to a shrinking region near the capital. Gaddafi's grinding reign is widely despised and openly mocked, and the ruined part of the country that has freed itself of him is very much in the mood for re-invention.
"We could be anything now," said one man outside the courthouse where the overwrought professionals upstairs were trying to usher the revolution westwards. "He kept us down because he didn't want anyone to threaten him. That's how despots have always worked. When Libyans get a chance to achieve things, we can be the best in the region."
Thousands gather on the road outside the courthouse each day. By night their numbers swell at least tenfold. Here, wedged between the storm-tossed Mediterranean and a building that once stood as a pillar of the regime, they chant anti-regime slogans, fire guns into the air and hold two fingers skywards in Churchillian "V for Victory" style.
The people are clearly looking for direction from the city's new custodians. And they seem more confident than the professionals are in their ability to get things done.
"This city has a good spirit," said Ahmed al-Sereti, on the rain-soaked street below. "Everyone is doing what they can to make sure things don't slip backwards. There has been no stealing, no looting [apart from government offices, all of which have been sacked]. And people know that this event has changed everything."
The primary concern in Benghazi has been security. But with eager youths manning traffic lights and residents patiently queuing outside banks in the vain hope that they may open soon, there is no sign of frustration or fear. Relief and euphoria seem to be driving this place. The people's awareness that Benghazi's destiny is in their own hands for the first time in four decades is clearly empowering.
"I came back three months ago," said Haithem Gheriani, an Irish-trained surgeon. "And I'm really glad I did. To find myself at the centre of an event in my own country that is so important, so liberating, is a terrific feeling."
Gheriani pitches in at the courthouse, along with oil engineers and businessmen, many of them returned expatriates. Several floors above them, three of Gaddafi's ill-fated mercenaries are locked up in what used to be a holding cell. Hollow-eyed and horrified, their futures seem bleak. "They are kept here for their own safety," said Gheriani. "If we let them go the people would kill them," he said, pointing at the milling crowd in the street below.
The erratic leader who recruited them, just over a week ago, on Thursday seemed to be at the verge of losing total control of the country. His grasp on sanity was again also in question. In a third address on state television, he blamed al-Qaida for inciting the rebellion and called on Libyans to rehabilitate wayward children who had joined the fray.
"The power is in your hands," Gaddafi said. "It is a different system here [compared with Tunisia, or Egypt]. If you want change the advantage is with you. It is your choice. You can put people on trial, you can change your job.
"This is unacceptable, unbelievable. People claim that they are intelligent; teachers, engineers. If they are reasonable people with reasonable demands, just ask them what they want. But they are not reasonable. They have been dictated to by Bin Laden."
Gaddafi did not appear on video, raising questions about where he is now as towns around the capital steadily fall into rebel hands. Zawya to the west of Tripoli was the scene of fighting between opposition groups and the regime that left scores dead, local officials said. In further bad news for Gaddafi, leading members of his own tribe have denounced him, and in particular the brutal crackdown he ordered on dissenters in the east of the country that led to Benghazi being lost.
"They started this protest peacefully," said Gheriani. "And the youths joined them. And then when Gaddafi started killing them the people rose up."
That version of Libya's fast-moving revolution is echoed by most people spoken to by the Guardian over the past two days; a series of protests inspired by uprisings elsewhere in the region that were met by prescribed savagery.
That much seems formulaic in a regime that has shown no tolerance for dissent since 1969. However, the next phase was not in the script. "We all just decided we had had enough," said Qais al-Ibrahim. "We felt that this was just too much and the people attacked the bases and the government. But to see things fall the way they did was astonishing."
Another lawyer, Abdul Salam al-Masmari, said the savage over-reach of Gaddafi's forces on Saturday was a final straw. "We started hearing about all the killings and we didn't want to stay here demonstrating in front of the court. It was a chilling moment, a powerful moment. That's when we knew we had to make this push for freedom."
As the lawyer was speaking to us, security officers inside the court arrested a local reporter who they suspected was a spy for the remaining regime elements in Benghazi. He was taken to the same prison cell where the alleged mercenaries are held. The event left nerves even more frayed.
"The revolution is four days old," said the female lawyer. "The fence of fear has been broken. But we still need to protect ourselves. The regime will find whatever way they can to reach us. He has all of our names and thoughts in a notebook and he has my voice on tape. He is not a real journalist. Collaborators are still out there. That's why I don't want to give you my name."
Throughout the afternoon, there didn't seem to be much strategic organising going on. But nor did there need to be. One by one, reports came in of towns falling like dominoes on the long march to Tripoli. The revolution seems to be self-fulfilling. Help keeps pouring in from unlikely sources.
"One of the regime's key figures in the area came to see us today," the female lawyer said. "He said he is with us now."
Did she believe him?
"Not really," she said. "But he has done his calculations and he can see that we are winning strongly. He will be loyal to where the strength is."
On Libyan television the father of a defecting air force pilot wept with pride as he explained the exploits of his son, who had been sent to bomb three oilfields near Benghazi. The father's account confirms those reported by workers at the Bregga oilfield of two men parachuting to earth and a jet fighter crashing nearby.
"My son was ordered to take off by a man with a gun pointing at his back. He said no and pulled the lever to eject them both. He is a hero. Even if he died I would still be proud. He refused to kill the people."
Across town at the army base, which fell to swarming demonstrators on Sunday, a dungeon has been unearthed. It is not far from Gaddafi's former parade ground, which lies in a crumpled heap. Today fathers were taking their children through the site, a heavily concreted underground hole that showed signs of recent use. "People were tortured here last week," said one father. "It used to be the most feared place in town. Now it's for everyone to see. It shows how bad he was and how lucky we are."
Change has been rapidly embraced in Benghazi. In less than four days a new radio station has opened, called Freedom Radio, and a new newspaper has hit the streets. A revolutionary song recorded in recent days is on high rotation and bandanas in the colour of the former independence flag are worn.
However the rapid succession of events seems perhaps a little too fast for the revolution's organisers. "I am really stressed about this," said the female lawyer. "We are sleeping three hours a night, we are not seeing our families and we cannot get too far ahead of ourselves. One step at a time, we keep telling people. But they are really proud and enthusiastic. The trouble is this is not over yet. Tripoli is our capital, yesterday, today and tomorrow. That is our goal."
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