← From Our Own Correspondent
From Our Own Correspondent
Dec 31, 2011
00:28:00
Kate Adie on the months of the Libyan revolution which led up to the death of Colonel...
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- [00:00]
Andrew Harding
Hello, this is the from our own correspondent office in Bush House in London. We also make editions of the programme
- [00:06]
Kate Adie
for the BBC World Service, but you've downloaded the latest Radio 4 programme. It's presented by Kate Ady.
- [00:12]
Kevin Connolly
What have I ever done to you? Apparently some of the last words spoken by Colonel Gaddafi shortly before he was killed by an angry mob in Sirte on October 20th. It's been a year of extraordinary change in the Arab world and nowhere more so than in Libya. In this special edition, we look back at some of the dispatches on this program which recorded the progress of the Libyan revolt and the downfall of the man who ruled the country for 42 years. Every time I saw him, and there were numerous occasions, he had a different attitude on display. Sometimes he made his own people shake with fear. Sometimes he'd utter ridiculous COD philosophy. And once he nearly ran me over in a battered Peugeot. It was nothing personal, he was just a bad driver. But each time his wardrobe spoke volumes. Whether he was dressed as a be medalled Ruritanian admiral or a Bedouin shepherd,
- [01:09]
Andrew Harding
Colonel Gaddafi arrived punctually. Dressed in a robe of russet brown and wearing a pair of Ray Ban aviator sunglasses. He was alert, cheerful and focused. In the interview, he was defiant. The UN resolution against Libya was illegitimate, he said. Why didn't they send a fact finding mission to before they passed it? Al Qaeda was responsible for the trouble in the streets. The west wanted to recolonize Libya. He had no money abroad to freeze. I have only a tent, he said. To try to understand anyone, you have to think about how the world looks from their angle. Colonel Gaddafi's is unique. He's been in power since he led a coup in 1969, when he was in his late 20s. Look at the photos of his early meetings with allies. President Titu of Yugoslavia, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, major world figures of the 50s and 60s. The colonel has been in power for almost all his adult life. He told me that the people of Libya loved him and would die to protect him. For a man under pressure, Colonel Gaddafi seemed very relaxed. Perhaps he feels more comfortable back in his old role as the West's bogeyman in the Middle east than he did embracing Tony Blair and Silvio Berlusconi and the other leaders who for a brief moment saw Libya as a new, benign, even pro Western presence in the Arab world. When the Colonel left the restaurant, I thought I saw a spring in his step.
- [02:37]
Kevin Connolly
The revolt in Libya had begun. In the eastern city of Benghazi. Widespread protests broke out after security forces used live ammunition against demonstrators, more than 20 people were killed. By the end of February, the battle for Libya's second largest city was over. The streets, it was reported, were alive with celebration.
- [02:57]
Rana Jawad
I was travelling around Benghazi early the other morning. The driver suggested we pop into a local cafe. He took me to Tika's. It is in fact the oldest coffee shop in the city and it is undoubtedly the best place I found to learn the stories and secrets of Benghazi. Before the revolt, people only talked about football, Apparently. Now all they discuss is fighting and freedom. The beauty of Benghazi at the moment is that everyone wants to give you their opinion, in some cases literally queuing up to talk to you. I squeezed into a spot by the counter and was almost immediately joined by Osman Madawi. Most of his front teeth are missing, he's got a wispy grey beard. And While he's officially 56, he says he was reborn February 17, the day the Libyan revolt started. Previous to then, he says he felt that this was not his country. I felt like an animal, he continues, liable to be taken away at any moment for any reason. He was specific about when he decided that Colonel Gaddafi was not right for Libya. January 1976, when several protesters, including a couple of friends, were hanged from Benghazi lamp posts. All that has now changed, says Osman. I don't throw anything away. I tidy my street. I am now a human being. One of the staff overhearing her conversation says the air is now clear in Benghazi. The rains came and washed away the old senses, the old ways of thinking. They also appear to have washed away almost all Gaddafi supporters in eastern Libya. Another Tika customer, Sala Youssef, a retired Air Force pilot who has enlisted as a member of the anti Gaddafi rebel army, told me that those who hadn't fled were being carefully watched. They don't answer the door, they hide, he says, heavily armed. Now is not the time for them, says Saleh. We have to push towards Tripoli. When the time comes, we'll deal with them. How I wandered. We'll have to kill them, he replies nonchalantly. Or many of them, at least.
- [05:10]
Kevin Connolly
Benghazi was a city which always whispered defiance of the Colonel. Before the revolution, its people were careful to keep their cynicism about his promises and achievements. Private.
- [05:21]
Michael Buchanan
A young engineering student called Abdul Salam agreed to take me on a strange tour of the great building projects that the regime, for all its supposed ruthlessness, has failed to see through to completion. First up, the West Benghazi New Town Project 2000 West Benghazi was supposed to provide the city's youth with an extra 200,000 homes. And yet, as far as the eye can see, the husks of incomplete apartment blocks are all that constitute the promised utopia. That and the many cranes that stand idly by. Nearby, a placard hails another Gaddafi project, the great Trans Libyan railway line, linking Tobruk in Egypt in the east with Tripoli and the west and beyond to Tunisia. You learn very quickly around here that Colonel Gaddafi is very fond of placards heralding grand new building projects. What's happening behind the scaffolding is often very different, as is the case for the Great Trans Libyan Railway. I can report there is no great terminus as yet, but the buffers seem very soundly constructed. From here, the twin tracks course their way through the desert for approximately 800 metres before petering out beside a resting goatherd and his flock.
- [06:34]
Rana Jawad
Ha ha.
- [06:35]
Michael Buchanan
Exulted my young engineer guide. What did I tell you? Not only had Gaddafi failed to make the railways run on time, he had failed to make the railways. Then off to Benghazi's newly finished hospital, started 40 years ago and just completed, said Abdul Salam. They started and finished Dubai in the same time. Then a look at the far from finished and apparently abandoned March 28 football stadium where Libya hopes to host the 2013 African cup of Nations tournament. Other unfinished works included a cafe complex, a golf course and one of the Colonel's celebrated man made rivers laid low by a big corporate bankruptcy. We in Benghazi always know this of Gaddafi, Abdussalam told me. The guy just can't finish anything he starts.
- [07:30]
Kevin Connolly
On 17 March, the United Nations Security Council agreed to impose a no fly zone in Libya's airspace. NATO countries sent in advisors as well as weapons and cash to help the rebels. Towns and cities like Tobruk, Zawiyah, Brega and Sabrata were falling to them. Also the port city of Misrata.
- [07:50]
Andrew Hoskins
I arrived in this pocket of rebel held territory after a 34 hour trip in a small fishing boat. I spent much of the crossing clinging to the legs of a heavy machine gun on the deck as the boat wallowed flamboyantly in the swell. Misrata's rebels had just pushed the last of Colonel Gaddafi's forces out of the city and there was much talk of a wider offensive, perhaps even a march on Tripoli, the next big town along the coast. From here is a place called Zlitten, half an hour's drive to the west. The rebels Say they've been smuggling weapons to their allies there. But it's complicated. Several fighters tell me that the rebels inside Zlitten don't want their help, that they'd even fight them if they launched an attack. Is that pride? Tribal frictions? Probably a mixture. Besides, a lot of people in Zlitten are understandably keen to keep the war away from their town. Ibrahim reckons 40% of residents there still support Colonel Gaddafi. I've heard similar estimates from many others. So for now, Misrata remains on its own, the only liberated city in western Libya. The place itself is a mess. Ruined buildings, the wreckage of tanks, roadblocks everywhere. No foam system, no power in some neighbourhoods, queues for food and a daily flow of dark, dead and wounded fighters ferried back from the front lines.
- [09:11]
Kevin Connolly
But it seems Colonel Gaddafi's forces hadn't given up Misurata yet.
- [09:16]
Gabriel Gatehouse
Over a cup of mint tea, Mahmoud El Galai was sharing his worries about his young daughters. This successful engineer and former roller skater also works with us as a translator. My girls want to go outside, he said. They keep asking me why not? I say it's not safe because of the rockets. It makes me feel very bad. The words were barely out of his mouth when we heard the first explosion. It was followed almost immediately by two more. The sickening sound of rockets landing downtown about a mile and a half from our hotel. Colonel Gaddafi's forces still menace Misrata from a distance. This was the first time their long range weapons had reached so far into the city center. We rushed to the local hospital to check for casualties. No one was killed this time. I recognized the doctor tending to one of the injured. Hakeem Zagut, a compassionate and dedicated young surgeon, was leaning over a man with a ball bearing embedded in his cheek. The city has been liberated up to a point. The regime's men have been driven out, but they're just over half an hour's drive away. Misrata is still cut off, accessible only by sea. Local medical officials say around a thousand have been killed and 8,000 injured. There are amputees and then there are the missing. Another 900 or so. One family has more than 10 missing members. A 13 year old boy is waiting for them here, wondering if they will ever come home.
- [11:06]
Kevin Connolly
A national transitional council aimed at steering the nation through to the post Gaddafi era emerged from the rebel movement. But still the battles continued.
- [11:16]
Jonathan Head
A Libyan who's just crossed over into Tunisia tells me of his experience at a language school abroad. His fellow foreign students used to ask, libya, where's that? And Then they'd say, ah, Gaddafi, terrorists. His friend nods emphatically and says, Gaddafi didn't want any other Libyans to be known, only him. I'm told how in Libyan football matches, the commentators were not allowed to mention the name of the players. Instead, number 13 passes to five, player two, two and goal. It's so that no one becomes famous, only Gaddafi, the man explains. An exception was apparently made when Colonel Gaddafi's son Saadi became a professional player. Then the commentary went something like this. He said, Number two passes to number 11 and the Honorable Captain Engineering PhD Sa'di Al Gaddafi has the ball and passes back to number four. Another group of refugees talk of how after demonstrators were fired upon in Benghazi and Tripoli and bodies of protesters were piled up on the streets, one of Colonel Gaddafi's other sons, Saif Al Islam, appeared on television. He had a reputation as something of a reformer. One of his pet projects, a man tells me, was called Libya Tomorrow. But we used to call him Tomorrow never comes, the man said. Nevertheless, the nation expected Saif to call a halt to the violence. Instead, he took his father's side. We will find you hiding in your cupboards, he said in a chilling speech to the protesters in Benghazi. We will show no mercy.
- [13:01]
Kevin Connolly
All civil wars unearth old scores to be settled. And Gaddafi had intensified the divisions by handing out favours to some, but not to others.
- [13:11]
Kate Adie
Yiffron is a war torn but potentially beautiful town. It sits high on an escarpment overlooking the undulating desert plains leading to Tripoli. Yiffron means the caves. This place is the symbolic home of Libya's Berbers. Now it's also the cultural capital of the mainly Berber speaking rebels. Some of the caves are still there. During the worst of the fighting, people took refuge in them, the these homes of their ancestors to escape from flying shrapnel. Nowadays, of course, the steep winding streets of Yiffren have stone built houses, houses with doors. And here's the point. The doors in this Berber dominated town are almost all intact. People fled the fighting in a rush and locked up behind them. When the rebels eventually took control of Yiffron, that's how they left most of the doors locked and secure, safe for their ethnic kin to one day return home. It's a very different story in a nearby town populated mainly by members of the Arab Mashibe. The Berbers in the area say the Mashibere given land here by the government of Colonel Gaddafi 20 or 30 years ago. His plan, the Berbers say, was to drive a cultural and pro government wedge into a Berber dominated area. The town, also commonly called Mashasha, is a much more modern place than Yiffren. It's dominated by a squat and rather ugly supermarket and an electricity substation. And here, almost all the doors are off their hinges. They've either been smashed open with hammers or had their locks shot to bits and burst open by machine guns. There's evidence of looting everywhere. Some of the houses have been set on fire. At one home, children's building bricks and broken toy cars are scattered across the courtyard. It wasn't clear if a child had been scooped up by his parents in the middle of a game or if a looter had grabbed the best of the toys later. But what was clear was that the Mashasha Dawes and of course the Mashasha people got much worse treatment from the rebels than the Berber doors and people. Of course the Berber dominated rebels would say, of course that's what happened because they sided with Colonel Gaddafi's army.
- [15:35]
Kevin Connolly
The battle for Tripoli itself reached a climax in mid August. Reporting what was going on inside the capital was tightly controlled, but not all our correspondence were corralled. Along with government minders inside the Hotel
- [15:47]
Jonathan Head
Rixos, there were sleepless nights of fretting over how to report on what was happening. Since I was one of just two foreign correspondents based here, being a newlywed to my Libyan husband, who was a native of Benghazi, the city where the uprising against Gaddafi began, complicated things further. My husband reminded me that we were in Tripoli, not Benghazi. He told me, they have a death brigade that specialize in people like you. I can't help you. No one can. They will knock on our door and drag you out in front of me and execute you. So I became the anonymous male Tripoli resident who, under the name Tripoli Witness, described for three months life in the city for BBC News Online. As the weeks went by, gathering information became increasingly difficult. Many friends and sources fled the country, some after imprisonment and torture. To begin with, I would jump out of my bed at all hours of the night, every night, thinking, this is it. They've tracked me down, knowing I'm Tripoli Witness. Or that our home, like many other homes we knew of, would be raided by security forces every three days. When the stress felt too much to bear, I would bake a cake. I also developed an unusual predilection to trashy romance novels found in a friend's library. Towards the end, I even misguidedly took up knitting before realizing it would never be a career option not even a hobby.
- [17:15]
Kevin Connolly
The rebellion finally reached Tripoli in mid August. As the fighters poured into the city, resistance melted away. The Gaddafi family were forced to flee their fortified compound, which was then trashed by the rebels, who were pictured marching off with souvenirs of the Gaddafi's luxurious, somewhat tasteless lifestyle. For one of our correspondents, the fall of Tripoli presented a shopping opportunity.
- [17:39]
Mark Doyle
The young shop assistant sucked in his cheeks thoughtfully, as though he hoped the gesture might somehow make me thinner. This is a very slimming pattern, he said reassuringly, patting the sleeve of the shirt I was struggling to fit into. I had not, of course, meant to go shopping for clothes as the rebel army which toppled Muammar Gaddafi consolidated its grip on his old capital. But Libya in August is brutally hot, and with my baggage lost in one of the dreary little desert staging posts along our route into Tripoli, I eventually found myself with no choice. It was late when we set out into the inky, humid night. There were checkpoints every few hundred metres. At the first, a tired young fighter peered cheerfully in through the open window. Just making sure you don't have Gaddafi in the trunk, he said cheerfully. He slammed the boot of the car shut after finding it full only of our flak jackets and flight cases. No room for him in there. With his big frizzy head, he grinned. When we finally found a shop that was open, it was beside a major checkpoint near the sea front where the rebels had parked a huge mobile anti aircraft gun. Every so often, they fired in celebration with a chattering metallic clatter that made it feel as though the fabric of the night was being torn. Even the spent shell casings landing on the ground sounded like cracked dinner gongs being struck with a hammer. Gradually, the shop assistant and I made ourselves understood. Above the racket, we established that I needed a shirt that had no epaulettes, shoes with no tassels and shorts I'd be able to fasten up with no one to help me and no slogans. So not the slinky muscle shirt with the words Sexy Skier emblazoned across the chest. Eventually, we just settled on the biggest shirt to be found on rails, which normally cater for Tripoli's snake hipped fashionistas. It was still a little snug, but we had a deal.
- [19:29]
Kevin Connolly
David Cameron and President Sarkozy visited Benghazi and Tripoli in September. They met representatives of the National Transitional Council amid speculation about who might be part of the new government which would lead the country away from the Gaddafi era. There were many voices demanding to be heard. One belonged to Abdul Hakim Belhajd, who led the liberation of Tripoli and whose fighters were now manning checkpoints all over the capital.
- [19:55]
Pascal Harter
I went to see his deputy, Sheikh Khaled Sharif. This is a man who left Libya for Afghanistan to fight the Soviet occupation. He joined the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, an organization long viewed with suspicion by Western intelligence agencies because of its close links to Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. He is a short, graying, slightly portly man with a quiet, scholarly air. To him, he speaks softly and courteously, like many devout Muslim men here. He shakes my hand, but not that of my producer, because she's a woman. I ask him about his past. Yes, we knew Osama bin Laden. We lived there with him. But we did not support 9 11. We told him it was a mistake to open up this front against the west when our real enemies were dictators in our own Arab countries. Sheikh Khalid, even so, was seized by the Americans shortly after the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and held for two years at Bagram Air Base. He was tortured, he says, subjected to repeated sleep deprivation. For a year, they played loud rock music day and night. But, he adds, they investigated me, and I believe they know very well that we Libyans had nothing to do with 9 11. In 2003, the Americans handed him back, rendered him, in the parlance of the war on terror, to Libya, where he disappeared for five more years into Gaddafi's jails. The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group in the past denounced those who sought democratic dialogue. Jihad was the only way to ensure the victory of Islam. They believed that was their position. He shakes his head. The Islamic Fighting Group no longer exists, he says. We have chosen dialogue with those Libyans who do not agree with us. We will play our part in the system that will emerge here. The Libyan people can now choose the kind of government they want. We will make our case along with all the others. I ask him about America, the great enemy of the global jihad. Every Libyan is grateful for what America and the NATO allies did here. He says. The change, if we take it at face value, is extraordinary. The Islamists have come in from the cold. They are, or at least they say they are, embracing pluralism, the rule of law, dialogue, and a new relationship with the West. We know what Libya is in transition from, but not yet what it will become. But in Tripoli, at this moment of explicit and universally articulated optimism, it is hard not to be struck by the promise this moment represents.
- [22:33]
Kevin Connolly
By the end of September, rebel military action was confined to just a handful of locations, including Sirte Traditionally the town most loyal to Muammar Gaddafi.
- [22:43]
Alan Little
Unlike the other men, Lamin had had some military experience, although he'd spent most of his working life until the conflict broke out this year in Misrata's giant steel works. He wasn't tall and walked with a pronounced limp caused by a shrapnel injury. But with his growling voice, his thick black beard and glinting eyes, he had rare authority over his men. One barked instruction was usually enough to get them scurrying into action. He was also instantly likable, open, hospitable and fun. But confronted that morning by withering sniper fire, his men balked at making the dash in their converted gun trucks towards the first building's insert. I was too far back to see what happened next, but they told me Lahmin decided he had to set an example by leading from the front. He was hit twice in the chest and died in the arms of his close friend Aziz. He left behind an eight month old daughter and his wife, who's pregnant with their second child. Most of the fighters I met in Sirte were excitable young men who showed little awareness of the huge risks they took with their lives. Not just in their headlong rush to battle, but also from their cavalier handling of all the weapons they'd inherited from the Gaddafi regime. But Lahmin and disease weren't like that. Both of them were older men, very conscious of their family commitments and of the pain caused by lost lives. I spent quite a bit of time with Aziz, who's a former sports teacher, and asked him about what drove him to keep leaving his family and head back to the front line. He's got six children. His youngest, Mohammed, is just a month old. I can't stop until this is finished, he said. I have to see it through. I owe it to all those who've died and I owe it to our new country.
- [24:29]
Kevin Connolly
Sirte finally fell on 20 October, and Muammar Gaddafi was found there, hiding in a drainage pipe. He was killed by a vengeful mob. The television pictures were flashed around the world.
- [24:41]
Jeremy Bowen
The fighters first response to the news was one of disbelief. More than anything, a day earlier, the final capture of Surte had seemed a long and arduous way off. Plus, few people seriously believed that Colonel Gaddafi himself was still hiding in that ever shrinking corner of his hometown. And yet, as we drove on, it became clear that the news was spread, spreading. A small group of fighters stopped us further down the road with an impromptu celebration. Jumping up and down, firing their guns in the air. And chanting, we got the curly haired one. A young man grinned. By now, few seemed to be in any doubt Gaddafi had been caught. A man appeared wearing a New York Yankees baseball cap, claiming to have been the one who'd captured the Colonel. He was brandishing a golden revolver. Gaddafi's own personal handgun, he said. Later that same day, I saw the exact same gun, or a precise replica, in the hands of another fighter. This one was wearing a traditional long shirt. The front was stained with blood. Blood, he said, of the dictator. Arguments flared over who was the real hero of the hour. There was a sense of history in the making and people were keen to claim their pace. But those images of an aging man lying bewildered on the ground, trying desperately to avoid the blows of a raging mob, are disturbing. Perhaps the Colonel deserved his fate. He certainly seemed to have little awareness of just how much he was loathed. One fighter told me that in those final moments, as he was dragged from his hole, Muammar Gaddafi had asked, what have I ever done to you?
- [26:17]
Kevin Connolly
Just about every Libyan would have an answer to that. Having spent four decades taking cover from his capricious decisions and frightening ra, few will miss him or could write a personal obituary of him.
- [26:29]
Mark Doyle
Gaddafi made you wonder if dictatorship attracts the mad or maddens those attracted to it. He was an old fashioned, theatrical sort of tyrant, whose lineage you can trace from the bombastic ravings of Mussolini through the kilted debauchery of IDI Amin, to the platform healed kleptocracy of Omar Bongo of Gabon. He recruited a corps of Amazonian female bodyguards, drove a golf buggy and permanently closed every cinema in the country, apparently in case moviegoers plotted against him. Now, of course, there will be no reckoning from Maammar Gaddafi beyond the last great reckoning that faces us all. There will be no questions from the bereaved to help us understand why he did it, and no confessions from his henchmen to tell us how. Perhaps, after all, he will be the last of the grotesque, theatrical, blood stained, buffoon dictators. It would be nice to think that a certain type of tyranny died alongside the man who spent his life in a palace and his last moments in a sewer pipe.
- [27:32]
Kevin Connolly
And that was Kevin Connolly. The other correspondents featured here were Rana Gewad, Jeremy Bowen, Michael Buchanan, Andrew Harding, Andrew Hoskin, Pascal Harter, Mark Doyle, Olagarin, Alan Little, Gabriel Gatehouse and Jonathan Head. Thank you for listening today and throughout 2011. It was a year which seemed to contain a decade of news. We'll be back next Saturday morning. As yet another year gets underway. I hope you'll join us. Goodbye.