Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC) must do more to protect black Libyans, Amnesty International said today, after allegations that members of the Tawargha tribe were detained, threatened and beaten on suspicion of fighting for al-Gaddafi forces.
Some Tawarghas who have been detained in Tripoli are said to have been made to kneel facing the wall, and then been beaten with sticks and whips. Others have simply vanished after being arrested at checkpoints and taken from hospitals by armed revolutionaries (thuwwar).
"The NTC must put an end to such abuses, particularly against vulnerable groups like the Tawarghas, and send a clear message that Libya is no longer a place where torture will be tolerated," said Diana Eltahawy, North Africa researcher at Amnesty International, who is currently in Libya.
Tawargha, a western Libyan town that remained loyal to Colonel al-Gaddafi and was used as a base for his troops, is associated in the minds of Misratah residents with some of the worst human rights violations committed during the conflict.
"There is no question that al-Gaddafi forces were involved in war crimes and serious human rights violations in Misratah, and that some Tawarghas fought alongside al-Gaddafi forces," said Diana Elthahawy.
"But anyone responsible should be brought to justice in fair trials; not dragged out of hospital beds on the assumption that all Tawarghas are 'killers' and 'mercenaries'. The whole population should not have to suffer."
Most residents of the Tawargha region, about 40km from Misratah, fled their homes in August before the arrival of the thuwwar. Tens of thousands are now living in different parts of Libya - unable to return home as relations between the people of Misratah and Tawargha remain particularly tense.
Residents of makeshift camps near Tripoli, where displaced people from Tawargha are sheltering, told Amnesty International that they would not go outside for fear of arrest. They told how relatives and others from the Tawargha tribe have been arrested from checkpoints and even hospitals in Tripoli.
On 29 August, Amnesty International delegates saw a Tawargha patient at the Tripoli Central Hospital being taken by three men, one of them armed, for "questioning in Misratah". The men had no arrest warrant.
Amnesty International was told that at least two other Tawargha men had vanished after being taken for questioning from Tripoli hospitals.
One 45-year-old flight dispatcher and his uncle were arrested by armed thuwwar while out shopping in the al-Firnaj area of Tripoli on 28 August.
They were taken to the Military Council headquarters at Mitiga Airport just east of the capital. The men told Amnesty International that they were beaten with the butt of a rifle and received death threats. Both were held for several days in Mitiga and are still detained in Tripoli.
Even in the camps, the Tawarghas are not safe. Towards the end of last month, a group of armed men drove into the camp and arrested about 14 men.
Amnesty International spoke to some of their relatives; none knew of their fate or whereabouts.
Another woman at the camp said that her husband has been missing since he left the camp to run an errand in central Tripoli, about a week ago. She fears that he might be have been detained.
One woman, who has been living in the camp with her husband and five children for about a week, told Amnesty International that she was terrified of going home:
"If we go back to Tawargha, we will then be at the mercy of the Misratah thuwwar.
"When the thuwwar entered our town in mid-Ramadan [mid-August] and shelled it, we fled just carrying the clothes on our backs. I don't know what happened to our homes and belongings. Now I am here in this camp, my son is ill and I am too afraid to go to the hospital in town. I don't know what will happen to us now."
In addition to Tawarghas, other black Libyans including from the central Sabha district as well as sub-Saharan Africans continue to be at particular risk of reprisals and arbitrary arrests, on account of their skin colour and widespread reports that al-Gaddafi forces used "African mercenaries" to repress supporters of the NTC.
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Amnesty International (London);
I TOTALLY DISAGREE with you on two issues:-
FIRSTLY, It is not entirely true that the "Tawargha tribe were detained, threatened and beaten on suspicion of fighting for al-Gaddafi forces". This is what is happening now but previously, as the NATO instigated and led war was going on, there was ENDLESS MASSACRES of black people of Libya in particular and Africa in general without any let up.
Thousands, if not millions, of black or dark skinned people of Africa, from both within Libya and from Sub-Saharan Africa were, for six months, CONTINOUSLY and ENDLESSLY SLAUGHTERED by murderers of the Nato Terrorist Council (NTC) but neither you nor NATO (the creators of NTC) said a word in unreservedly condemning these killings.
You now pretend to be concerned about black people and yet you gave your back to millions as they were being massacred for the past 6 months. Where and what were you seeing that made you so blind as not to see such daylight human rights abuses, massacres and deliberate displacements that we all saw?
Amnesty International (London);
If any country, today, provides arms to Al Qaeda and an American marine, serviceman or citizen is killed using that fire arm, America severely punishes that country for providing a bullet that killed its citizen. Libya was bombed several times before; Sudan was bombed, Pakistan is being bombed everyday; Afghanistan and Iraq are American colonies as we speak.
In the same way, why are you, Amnesty International (if you are truly independent), not blaming NATO for not only creating, training and arming terrorists but also for indiscriminately bombing civilians throughout Libya?
YOU ARE a BIASED and RACIST organisation falsely purporting to stand for the poor and vulnerable in the world! You ONLY shout at the top of your voice when America and Europe are not involved but there is definite silence when it is America massacring innocent people, especially blacks.
NATO did not only bomb Libya, they were directly involved in combat operations (in contravention of UNSC Resolution 1973) that resulted in the deaths of millions of innocent and unarmed Libyans, black Sub-Saharan Africans and the Tawargha tribe and other Libyan black tribes that were victimised by NATO terrorists for no other reason than that they are black - (RACISM AT ITS BEST).
All this happened in the presence of NATO soldiers - American Special Forces, British SAS soldier, French Special Forces, Qatar Special Forces, UAE Forces, the CIA and MI6 and were operating with these terrorists.
Do not tell me the hogwash about so-called fighters liberating Libya because you know it very well that without NATO boots on the ground in Libya, the inexperienced, and indisciplined, undisciplined and ill-disciplined NATO terrorists would not have overrun a single town or village.
As I once said (as if I was prophesying) at the beginning of the NATO invasion, "short of NATO direct involvement in combat operations, the terrorist NTC" was NEVER going to takeover Libya.
We all heard about the amphibian NATO troops that entered Tripoli by sea to aide the so-called "sleeper cells" (who, in actual fact, were NATO forces and intelligence agents on the ground in Tripoli). That was the undoubted, overt and DIRECT NATO INVOLVEMENT on the ground in Libya, especially Tripoli.
All the time before that, NATO would COVERTLY overrun a town, after carpertly bombarding it to the ground, and then call-in the ill-disciplined terrorists, and their imbedded journalists, to stage-manage 'liberation'.
SO, therefore, as I said before, NATO should take FULL RESPONSIBILITY for the actions of their creation. NO other person, group of people, entity or country should be held to account for killing blacks than NATO (over rally) but ALSO Sarkozy, Cameroon and Obama (individually) SHOULD BE BROUGHT TO JUSTICE for EXTERMINATING black people in Libya.
Amnesty International (London);
SECONDLY, I disagree with you on whom you direct your blame to (for the massacres) and whom you say should stop the unwarranted killings of black people of AFRICA.
The Nato Terrorist Council (NTC) is completely out of these massacres. This is the work of NATO, the creator of NTC. It is NATO that is TOTALLY and COMPLETELY to blame for all the deaths that have taken place and are taking place and shall take place in Libya.
As you very well know, the NTC has no control over the different and fractured terrorist units fighting Qaddafi in Libya - NATO has that firm grip and control over their own creation. This is why the so-called NTC leaders are failing to travel to Tripoli to establish political control over the whole country because of these differences.
However, at the same time that the NTC is failing to travel to Tripoli, NATO soldiers are there collecting as many documents as they can lay their hands on for future prosecution of the NTC leaders after using them enough.
They (NATO) also want to exonerate themselves in future when information comes out about their involvement in torture and extra-ordinarily renditioning suspects to various torture camps in the world.
That as it may, the NTC did not create these genocidaire groups (it was itself a creation of NATO) in other words they have no power over the various armed units; the NTC did not train these units; the NTC did not arm them - it was NATO, especially FRANCE, hence, collectively, individually and severally, IT IS NATO that is TOTALLY, UNDISPUTABLY and UNQUESTIONABLY to blame for the killings, the maiming, the rapes, the sufferings and the displacements that are going on in Libya.
NATO must take TOTAL and FULL RESPONSIBILITY for what happened in Libya since their invasion of that country, what is going on right now and what will happen in future.
If ALL BLACK AFRICANS are exterminated, NATO should be held to account for their actions and the actions of their creation - NTC.
I am very pessimistic about the situation in Libya and expect more refuges, in particular among the one million black Libyans. Again, reading Dr Marranci's blog http://tinyurl.com/drmarranc
i I tend to agree with him that we have to link this to the history of Libya and the kind of Arab supremacism that exists there (but also in other parts of the Middle East). The fact now, as we know, that Islamic extremist militant groups are actives make things worst.