Tripoli falls to Libyan rebels

[KurtFF8]

Source

TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — Libyan rebels raced into Tripoli Sunday and met little resistance as Moammar Gadhafi's defenders melted away and his 42-year rule rapidly crumbled. The euphoric fighters celebrated with residents of the capital in Green Square, the symbolic heart of the fading regime.

Gadhafi's whereabouts were unknown, though state TV broadcast his bitter pleas for Libyans to defend his regime. Opposition fighters captured his son and one-time heir apparent, Seif al-Islam, who along with his father faces charges of crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court in the Netherlands. Another son was in contact with rebels about surrendering, the opposition said.

"It's over, frizz-head," chanted hundreds of jubilant men and women massed in Green Square, using a mocking nickname of the curly-haired Gadhafi. The revelers fired shots in the air, clapped and waved the rebels' tricolor flag. Some set fire to the green flag of Gadhafi's regime and shot holes in a poster with the leader's image.

By the early hours of Monday, rebels controlled large parts of the capital. They set up checkpoints alongside residents — many of them secretly armed by rebel smugglers in recent weeks. But pockets of pro-Gadhafi fighters remained: In one area, Associated Press reporters with the rebels were stopped and told to take a different route because of regime snipers nearby.

"We were waiting for the signal and it happened," said Nour Eddin Shatouni, a 50-year-old engineer who was among the residents who flowed out of their homes to join the celebrations. "All mosques chanted 'God is great' all at once. We smelled a good scent, it is the smell of victory. We know it is the time."

The seizure of Green Square held profound symbolic value and marked a stunning turn in the tide of the 6-month-old Libyan civil war. The regime has held pro-Gadhafi rallies there nearly every night since the revolt began in February, and Gadhafi delivered speeches to his loyalists from the historic Red Fort that overlooks the square.

The sweep into the capital came after the rebel fighters advanced 20 miles from the west in a matter of hours. They took town after town and overwhelmed a major military base meant to defend Tripoli, 16 miles from the city. All the way, they met little resistance and residents poured out on the streets to welcome them.

In a series of angry and defiant audio messages broadcast on state television, Gadhafi called on his supporters to march in the streets of the capital and "purify it" of "the rats." He was not shown in the messages.

His defiance raised the possibility of a last-ditch fight over the capital, home to 2 million people. Government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim claimed the regime has "thousands and thousands of fighters" and vowed: "We will fight. We have whole cities on our sides. They are coming en masse to protect Tripoli to join the fight."

But it appeared that Gadhafi's military was abandoning him quickly.

The rebels' way into Tripoli was opened when the military unit in charge of protecting Gadhafi and the capital surrendered, ordering his troops to drop their weapons, the rebel information minister Mahmoud Shammam said.

In a sign of the coordination among rebels, as the main force moved into the city from the west, a second force of 200 opposition fighters from the city of Misrata further east landed by boat in the capital. They brought weapons and ammunition for Tripoli residents who join the rebellion, said Munir Ramzi of the rebels' military council in Misrata.

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Gadhafi's regime was "clearly crumbling" and that the time to create a new democratic Libya has arrived.

The sooner Gadhafi "realizes that he cannot win the battle against his own people, the better," he said in a statement, adding that NATO will continue to strike his troops if they make "any threatening moves toward the Libyan people."

It was a stunning reversal for Gadhafi, who earlier this month had seemed to have a firm grip on his stronghold in the western part of Libya, despite months of NATO airstrikes on his military. Rebels had been unable to make any advances for weeks, bogged down on the main fronts with regime troops in the east and center of the country.

Gadhafi is the Arab world's longest-ruling, most erratic, most grimly fascinating leader — presiding for 42 years over this North African desert republic with vast oil reserves and just 6 million people. For years, he was an international pariah blamed for the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jumbo jet over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 270 people. After years of denial, Gadhafi's Libya acknowledged responsibility, agreed to pay up to $10 million to relatives of each victim, and declared he would dismantle all weapons of mass destruction.

That eased him back into the international community.

But on February 22, days after the uprising against him began, Gaddafi gave a televised speech amid violent social unrest against his autocratic rule. In the speech, he vowed to hunt down protesters "inch by inch, room by room, home by home, alleyway by alleyway." The speech caused a furor that fueled the armed rebellion against him and it has been since mocked in songs and spoofs across the Arab world.

As the rebel force advanced on Tripoli, taking town after town, thousands of jubilant civilians rushed out of their homes to cheer the long convoys of pickup trucks packed with fighters shooting in the air. One man grabbed a rebel flag that had been draped over the hood of a slow-moving car and kissed it, overcome with emotion.

Some of the fighters were hoarse, shouting: "We are coming for you, frizz-head." In villages, mosque loudspeakers blared "Allahu Akbar," or "God is great."

"We are going to sacrifice our lives for freedom," said Nabil al-Ghowail, a 30-year-old dentist holding a rifle in the streets of Janzour, a suburb just six miles west of Tripoli. Heavy gunfire erupted nearby.

As rebels moved in Tripoli, thousands celebrated in the streets of Benghazi, the rebels' de facto capital hundreds of miles to the east. Firing guns into the air and shooting fireworks, they cheered and waved the rebel tricolor flags, dancing and singing in the city's main square.

Rebel chief Mustafa Abdel-Jalil in Benghazi confirmed to the AP that the rebels arrested Gadhafi's son Seif al-Islam but refused to give the details of the capture.

"We have captured Seif al-Islam and he is in safe hands," he said.

In the Netherlands, the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, said his office would talk to the rebels on Monday about Seif al-Islam's transfer for trial. "It is time for justice, not revenge," Moreno-Ocampo told the AP.

Seif al-Islam, his father and Libya's intelligence chief were indicted earlier this year for allegedly ordering, planning and participating in illegal attacks on civilians in the early days of the violent crackdown on anti-regime protesters.

Another son, Mohammed, was in contact with the rebels and was asking for guarantees for his safety, said rebel spokesman Sadiq al-Kibir. Mohammed, who is in charge of Libyan telecommunications, appeared on the Arabic satellite channel Al-Jazeera, saying his house was surrounded by armed rebels.

"They have guaranteed my safety. I have always wanted good for all Libyans and was always on the side of God," he said. Close to the end of the interview, there was the sound of heavy gunfire and Mohammed said rebels had entered his house before the phone line cut off.

The day's first breakthrough came when hundreds of rebels fought their way into a major symbol of the Gadhafi regime — the base of the elite 32nd Brigade commanded by Gadhafi's son, Khamis. Fighters said they met with little resistance. They were 16 miles from the big prize, Tripoli.

Hundreds of rebels cheered wildly and danced as they took over the compound filled with eucalyptus trees, raising their tricolor from the front gate and tearing down a large billboard of Gadhafi. From a huge warehouse, they loaded their trucks with hundreds of crates of rockets, artillery shells and large-caliber ammunition.

One group started up a tank, drove it out of the gate, crushing the median of the main highway and driving off toward Tripoli.

"This is the wealth of the Libyan people that he was using against us," said Ahmed al-Ajdal, 27, pointing to his haul. "Now we will use it against him and any other dictator who goes against the Libyan people."

At the base, the rebels also freed more than 300 prisoners from a regime lockup, most of them arrested during the heavy crackdown on the uprising in towns west of Tripoli. The fighters and the prisoners — many looking weak and dazed and showing scars and bruises from beatings — embraced and wept with joy.

"We were sitting in our cells when all of a sudden we heard lots of gunfire and people yelling 'God is great.' We didn't know what was happening, and then we saw rebels running in and saying 'We're on your side.' And they let us out," said 23-year-old Majid al-Hodeiri. He said he was captured four months ago by Gadhafi's forces crushing the uprising in his home city of Zawiya. He said he was beaten and tortured while under detention.

From the military base, the convoy sped toward the capital.

Mahmoud al-Ghwei, 20 and unarmed, said he had just came along with a friend for the ride .

"It's a great feeling. For all these years, we wanted freedom and Gadhafi kept it from us. Now we're going to get rid of Gadhafi and get our freedom," he said.

The uprising against Gadhafi broke out in mid-February, and anti-regime protests quickly spread. A brutal regime crackdown quickly transformed the protests into an armed rebellion. Rebels seized Libya's east, setting up an internationally recognized transitional government there, and two pockets in the west, the port city of Misrata and the Nafusa mountain range.

Gadhafi clung to the remaining territory, and for months neither side has been able to break the other.

In early August, however, rebels launched an offensive from the Nafusa mountains, intending to open a new, western front to break the deadlock. They fought their way down to the Mediterranean coastal plain, backed by NATO airstrikes, and captured the strategic city of Zawiya.

On Saturday, they consolidated control of Zawiya, then launched their furious rush on the capital.

At the same time, rebel "sleeper cells" inside Tripoli rose up and clashed with Gadhafi loyalists. Rebel fighters who spoke to relatives in Tripoli by phone said hundreds rushed into the streets in anti-regime protests in several neighborhoods on Sunday.

"We received weapons by sea from Benghazi. They sent us weapons in boats," said Ibrahim Turki, a rebel in the Tripoli neighborhood of Tajoura, which saw heavy fighting the past two days. "Without their weapons, we would not have been able to stand in the face of the mighty power of Gadhafi forces."

___

Hadeel Al-Shalchi in Cairo contributed to this report.

Thus I would argue, marks the end and defeat of the Arab Spring. Or at least a significant blow to it.

[Lynx]

This is neither the end nor a defeat. Assad is next.
In time the working class will grow disillusioned with the lack of economic reform. For now, the promise of democracy will delay development of a proper revolution.

[Martin Blank]

I have a feeling there will be a short honeymoon. Let's not forget that there was a large section of the rebels who never wanted assistance from NATO in the first place.


EDIT: Post 4,000! Woo-hoo!

[Os Cangaceiros]

Source



Thus I would argue, marks the end and defeat of the Arab Spring. Or at least a significant blow to it.

I don't think so...the good colonel was not a reformist, nor were his supporters (well, perhaps he was a reformist back in da day, but certainly not in today's era. In fact he was moving in the exact opposite direction). So I don't see how his defeat is a defeat for the reformist movement, which is what the "Arab Spring" is. It's certainly not a revolutionary movement, although the social forces involved have potential.

[A Marxist Historian]

I have a feeling there will be a short honeymoon. Let's not forget that there was a large section of the rebels who never wanted assistance from NATO in the first place.


EDIT: Post 4,000! Woo-hoo!

There were? They sure haven't exhibited much evidence of existence lately.

Let us not sugarcoat this. This is a huge victory for imperialism, and a huge defeat for the Arab peoples. You will now have a government utterly subordinate to the whims of the imperialists--and fairly popular to boot initially.

This will strengthen the position of imperialism all over the Middle East. It will especially have a strong effect in Syria, where the popular insurgency will also become more and more subordinate to the imperialists after the Libyan model. It will discourage popular mobilization vs. the US-supported military dictators in Egypt.

Arab rulers will now be licking US boots even more fervently.

-M.H.-

[Aspiring Humanist]

I really hope the new Libya is not another US puppet state

[Dzerzhinsky's Ghost]

I honestly don't know how I feel about this. To me this seems like a victory for Western imperialism and the NATO club regardless of whether or not certain sections of the rebel factions didn't want foreign intervention. As to what will happen after this, I am curious to see.

[Aspiring Humanist]

Well as an anarchist and a communist I have to respect and support the peoples right to self determination and their desire to overthrow a dictator. Call Gaddafi whatever you want but there is no denying he is a repressive dictator.

This does not mean I support the NTC, I support the Libyan people only

[Geiseric]

The libyan rebels themselves had the same motivations as the egyptian protesters or syrian ones, libya is just more valuable than egypt which is why there was more of imperialist interference in that country. Ghadaffi was an imperialist puppet himself, he was just a 3rd world country's dictator. An incapible one at that, who tried unsuccessfully to give himself a big brother look. Why the fuck do stalinists think he's a representative of the proletariat though? It's like they think they NEED to pick between two assholes. What it comes down to in my opinion is opposing any interference by NATO but letting the libyan people decide what to do. And syrians hate the U.S. and NATO more than libyans do, so it'll be tougher there. i would have thought that Stalinists would back assad as well, since he's "anti imperialist," whatever the fuck that means. Cheuvanism of the working class is what i'm seeing from Stalinists during the Arab spring though. i think this is the begining of something better in the M.E. though.

[Ismail]

WSWS article on the subject: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/au...liby-a20.shtml

The regime with which NATO intends to replace Gaddafi has the most right-wing, reactionary character. The TNC has drawn up a 14-page “constitutional declaration” in Benghazi, which was shown to AFP. It lays out the foundation for a right-wing Islamist government in Libya. It states, “Libya is a democratic and independent state. The people are the source of authority, Tripoli is the capital, Islam is the religion, and Islamic sharia [traditional law] is the principal source of legislation.”

The document was reportedly written by Islamic activist Mohammed Busidra, who granted an interview to Canada’s Globe and Mail daily on August 5. The paper reported that Busidra is “organizing Libya’s mosques into a political machine. This has made him, in the view of many people here, the figure who will wield the most political power, and likely control the country’s leadership, in the event of the dictator’s demise.”

Busidra presented his vision for an Islamic fundamentalist and pro-imperialist puppet state in Libya. He assured the Globe and Mail that he would “remain favorable toward the West and its governments and oil companies.” The inescapable conclusion is that Libya’s 42 billion barrels of oil will be de-nationalized and seized by Western oil firms.

Busidra also insisted that alcohol and homosexuality should become strictly illegal in Libya, as well as “the praise of any religion other than Islam.”

[Lacrimi de Chiciură]

Moved to Ongoing Struggles: The Arab World Protests.

[Geiseric]

This islamist state isn't gonna last long, there Has to be too many libyans who actually want democracy. Still, this is terrible.

[jake williams]

I really hope the new Libya is not another US puppet state

lol.

Hope Obama still has Bush's "Mission Accomplished" banner. If not I guess they may as well make a new one, in French, for Mr. Sarkozy. If not that, this might do:

[Jose Gracchus]

Where's the massive "progressive" "people's" (dare we say working-class?) spontaneous mass resistance to the rebels? I suppose they cower in fear of the imperialists, whilest previously they bravely rallied to the Brother Guide of the Revolution.

Still, I am sure Libya's descent into failed statism and total burglary by more formidable bourgeoisies and their states, will continue unabated, catalyzed in fact, by this event. No cause for celebration, rather, a bitter lesson for what real historical prospects for political and social change are outside of the working class for itself.

[La Comédie Noire]

I can't wait to see all the freedoms NATO bestows on the people of Libya and all their oil fields.

[jake williams]

Where's the massive "progressive" "people's" (dare we say working-class?) spontaneous mass resistance to the rebels? I suppose they cower in fear of the imperialists, whilest previously they bravely rallied to the Brother Guide of the Revolution.

What are you talking about?

If you're suggesting the "rebels" have been allowed to take Libya without any popular resistance - have you heard anything about this country in northern Africa called "Libya", where a ragtag bunch of ex-Gaddafi officials, ex-pat businesspeople and Islamic fundamentalists backed with money, guns, airstrikes, diplomatic, training and strategic support by the most powerful military alliance in human history, ever, hasn't been able to displace an allegedly hated monarch, after 6 months of fighting, in a small country with a heavily armed population?

[Jose Gracchus]

Give me a fucking break.

You know exactly what I am saying. I am saying that the Gaddhafi regime has no popular, much less "national liberation" or whatever class-collaborationist ideological recipe the Western armchair left has invented to give itself purpose since its abandonment of the workers' movement in its opportunistic collusion with non-Anglo-Euro-American petty bourgeois and insurgent (quite honestly Third Positionist) movements throughout the world. If it was a political machine erected in support of something other than the Libyan bourgeoisie's exploitation of labor power and natural resources, then one would have expected that social basis to emerge. Rather, one reactionary club of bourgeois forces revolted and overthrew the regime where it was weak, and then outlasted the rump regime in the West.

You're trying to portray it like it was the Last Stand of the Spartans or some shit, which is absurd. Let's be honest: NATO did not commit itself fully to this campaign and there was a mixed support for interventionism within the Western elite. Nevertheless, one cannot use NATO's support as proof positive that the regime has progressive political character due to the fact that Gaddhafi held-on until outlasted for six months.

[punisa]

Interesting when Churchill said "We shall never surrender" it was hailed as one of the best speeches in history and when Colonel Gaddafi said basically the same thing late last night he was called a lunatic by media.

Screw NTC, there is nothing democratic about them.
NATO created another colony and some of you are cheering for it - this makes me actually physically sick

[Jose Gracchus]

And here comes the delusional accusations that anyone is "cheering" anything. A necessary device, when the progress of history presents itself to your tendency as a brand-spanking-new excuse of the day to try to call out others for insufficient fictitious support for foreign bourgeois forces bleeding the working-class white with their wars.

[punisa]

Let's be honest: NATO did not commit itself fully to this campaign and there was a mixed support for interventionism within the Western elite.

You sir are a delusional man... and also suffer from the subconscious NATO fetish. Sad.