Libyan rebels are attacking and killing African blacks

(Correction, 4:25 p.m.: As a reader points out, the Somaliland Press article is dated March 5. Above the March 5 date, it says, “Updated August 26.” I think the August date is what I noticed. This doesn’t change anything essential as to the problems created by the defeat of Kaddafi. In fact, rebel murders of blacks in Libya are still continuing, according to the Washington Post [via Steve Sailer]. Michael Reagan writes that the conflict among Libya’s 135 tribes unleashed by Kaddafi’s fall makes it necessary for the U.S. to lead and rebuild—or rather build—that country.)

I wrote yesterday that the U.S. and its European allies have taken on a much bigger burden in Libya than they had imagined. In the Western liberal ideology, shared by “conservatives,” the rebels are “democrats,” seeking universal freedom, and this shared belief in freedom will be the basis of a new social order. In reality, the rebels are human beings, belonging to religious and ethnic groups that are in conflict, often deadly conflict, with other religious and ethnic groups. By helping overthrow Kaddafi, we have released multidimensional, murderous conflict, and we will either become responsible for containing it, or, out of the need to protect our “democracy” policy, conceal the horror that the policy has unleashed. Remember the damning fact that the neoconservatives have never even acknowledged the widespread violent attacks on Christians that have been going on Iraq, forcing up to two million Christians to flee their homes and Iraq itself, ever since we freed the country and helped create a Muslim government there (see this and this).

Here’s the latest indication of what we have actually liberated in Libya. The Somaliland Press reports that the Libyan rebels are mistreating, threatening, and killing many black workers and students in Libya, who are living in terror and trying to escape. Excerpts:

In east Libya, African hunt began as towns and cities began fall under the control of Libyan rebels, mobs and gangs. They started to detain, insult, rape and even executing black immigrants, students and refugees.

In the past two weeks, more than 100 Africans from various Sub-Sahara states are believed to have been killed by Libyan rebels and their supporters.

According to Somali refugees in Libya, at least five Somalis from Somaliland and Somalia were executed in Tripoli and Benghazi by anti-Gaddafi mobs. Dozens of refugees and immigrants workers from Ethiopia, Eritrea, Ghana, Nigeria, Chad, Mali and Niger have been killed, some of them were led into the desert and stabbed to death. Black Libyan men receiving medical care in hospitals in Benghazi were reportedly abducted by armed rebels. They are part of more than 200 African immigrants held in secret locations by the rebels.

In many disputes involving Libyan residents and black Africans, the Libyans are turning in the Africans as mercenaries.

Thousands more Africans caught up in this mercenary hysteria are terrified. Some barricaded themselves in their homes, while others hid in the desert. Insulted, threatened, beaten, chased and robbed. Their only crime was being black and therefore treated as “mercenaries” of Gaddafi….

Mohamed Abdillahi, Somaliland, 25, was sleeping at his home in Zouara, when the mobs arrived. “They knocked on the door around 1 o’clock in the morning. They said get out, we’ll kill you, you are blacks, foreigners, clear.”

The testimonials and are very similar among the thousands of Africans that saw the ugly side of Libya in the past weeks. “They have attacked us, they took everything from us,” said Ali Farah, Somali labourer 29 years.

“They wanted to kill civilians, they beat many of us. To me, they are animals,” says Jamal Hussein, 25 years Sudanese worker.

Many of the fleeing Africans are terrified to tell their stories. At the checkpoint, they do not mingle with others. When asked about their ordeal, they just freeze, “they stopped us many times and said not tell what has happened here, say there are no problems,” Elias Nour from Ethiopia said.

“For the past seven days, my whole family has been holed up at home without any food, running water or electricity, we appeal for urgent intervention,” Mohamed Abdi from Somaliland told local reporters by cellphone.

- end of initial entry -

Philip M., who sent the news story, writes:

David Cameron needs to declare in the strongest possible terms that these attacks are “totally unacceptable.” These rebels need firmly reminding that if they indulge in such behaviour then they are no better than Gaddafi themselves. To be frank, this really is a long way short of the respect for human rights and democracy that we expect of them. The National Transitional Council of Libya needs to reign in these dissident rebels, that are in no way representative of the rebels as a whole, before the Transitional council loses all credibility and authority, and Libya slides into chaos—and it needs to do it really rather quickly.

It would be a tragedy if the promise and optimism of the early minutes of the new, free Libya should be lost.

And then perhaps, if they will not stop, we could support the Africans to overthrow the rebels.

LA replies:

Just to make sure that no one misunderstands, Philip was satirizing Cameron’s likely statement about the killings of blacks by the Libyan rebels.

Corey N. writes:

The Somaliland Press article is dated March 5 in the header and March 4 at the bottom. This might be what helped cause the people debarking on Lampedusa.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 26, 2011 01:33 PM | Send