Na’eem Jeenah
Nelson Mandela’s statement “I am the master of my own fate”, and his accusation that the Americans are arrogant and dull, resonate as the truth to many South Africans. As a sovereign nation, South Africa cannot simply accede to the demands of the world’s superpower and ditch those which supported its struggle for liberation in its hour of need. And Libya is definitely in an hour of need!
But Libya and its leader, Moammar Gadaffi, are more than just the victims of the world’s bully.
What requires some examination is the relationship of Gadaffi and Libya’s ruling elite to opposition, and the role of “the great socialist people’s Libyan Arab Jamahariya” in the region, particularly in respect of neighbour Chad.
The Arabic Jamahariya means, loosely, “the state of the masses”, a state in which the people govern themselves. In Libya, the people may govern themselves only insofar as that is approved of by the “leader of the revolution”.
In the 1980s Gadaffi denounced the arbitrary practices of the past and called for respect for human rights in Libya. The Great Green Document on Human Rights in the Era of the Masses contains guarantees to protect individual rights, outlaws torture and ill- treatment, and restricts the use of the death penalty.
However, the past few years have seen a dramatic increase in the repression of any kind of opposition and the number of gross human rights violations in Libya. The main targets have been the Islamist opposition groups.
One of the worst cruelties is collective punishment. In March the Charter of Honour approved collective punishment for those accused of “collective crimes”, including “obstructing the people’s authority, instigating, and tribal fanaticism”. People are guilty of these crimes if they “abstain from disavowing criminals who are relatives, or neighbours”. Collective punishment will be carried out on a community even when the identity of the persons concerned have not been disclosed.
In 1994 Gadaffi said: “Anyone who is considering treason now thinks about it 1 000 times, and even if he manages to flee, and offers himself in sacrifice, he knows that his family, his home, his plantation and all his property will be destroyed, burnt and walked on by the masses.”
He added: “When traitors are discovered within a tribe, the Libyan people consider the whole tribe as traitors, they disdain it and humiliate it.”
In September 1995 security men in Benghazi arrested Abdullah al-Zayyani, his wife, two daughters and two grandchildren, all without a warrant. He was told they would not be released until his brother-in-law gave himself up. Al- Zayyani’s son, allegedly a member of an Islamist group, was killed days earlier, along with others. The brother-in-law was with the group and escaped. The fate of Al- Zayyani and his family is unknown.
House destruction is another form of collective punishment. Several prominent Libyan figures in exile have had their houses destroyed. Just last year, security forces bulldozed the house of Khaled al- Fathi, an alleged Islamist.
Hundreds of suspected government opponents – particularly members or sympathisers of Islamist groups – are subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention and torture. Army officer Al-Saghier al-Shafi’i was arrested for political reasons from his parent’s house near Tripoli in October 1994 while he was celebrating the first week of his marriage. His family did not know his whereabouts until months later.
Hundreds of opposition figures have also been held without charge for as long as 15 years. Law graduate Rashid Abdal-Hamid al- Urfa has been held without charge or trial since February 1982. He was arrested with 20 others on suspicion of having “founded an Islamist opposition group which aimed to overthrow the system of government”. Some detainees have spent more than 10 years in prison without charge before being released.
Though Libyan legislation prohibits the use of torture against detainees, physical and psychological torture is widely used on political detainees. Torture methods include beatings, including falaqa – beating on the soles of the feet – hanging by the wrists from a ceiling, and being suspended from a pole between the knees and elbows while electric shocks, cigarette burns and dog bites are inflicted on the victims.
In 1995 24 secondary schools pupils were reportedly tortured before being tried and sentenced to various terms from five to nine years. They had been arrested after demonstrations spark-ed by the local people who were forced to attend a meeting and to sign a petition calling for the execution of several men arrested in connection with an armed rebellion in October 1993.
In recent years there have been a number of cases of suspected opponents of the government being forcibly returned to Libya by Egypt, Tunisia and Sudan. They were arrested on return to Libya, and most are still held without charge.
A number of opposition figures “disappear” from countries outside Libya. Many are from Egypt where, it seems, local security forces assist their Libyan counterparts to arrest the dissidents.
One of these was Mansur Kikhiya, a former Libyan foreign minister. He “disappeared” from a hotel in Cairo where had been attending a conference for the Arab Organisation of Human Rights. Until 1980 he had been Libya’s permanent representative to the United Nations. He resigned in protest against the execution of political opponents by the government.
Another of the security forces’ activities on foreign soil is extrajudicial executions. (Of course, extrajudicial executions are not unusual within Libya itself.) Last year, a letter sent by the director of the Sidi- Hussein Popular Security Centre to the director of security referred to opponents killed by the security forces as “stray dogs”.
In 1995, Ali Muhammad Abu Zaid was stabbed to death in his grocery shop in London. In 1973 he had been arrested for political reasons in Libya and had spent two years in prison.
The Americans might be arrogant and dull, but Gadaffi is not short in the brutality category either.