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Libya is the latest Arab country to be rocked by anti-government protests that threaten the regime of its longtime dictator, Colonel Moammar Gadhafi. But instead of quickly submitting to the will of the people, as President Mubarak did in Egypt, Gadhafi has unleased his supporters and hired mercenaries to violently crackdown on democracy demonstrators. |
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| Protesters gather in Libya's second-largest city, Benghazi. The protesters made their own flags to replace those representing their dictator's regime. |
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Reports indicate that anti-Gadhafi protesters now control large portions of Eastern Libya, including the country’s second-largest city of Benghazi. However, the country’s capital, Tripoli, remains under government control and has become ground zero for intense fighting between government forces and protesters. The latest reports out of Tripoli, including amateur video shot by protesters, show anti-government demonstrators coming under heavy gunfire from Gadhafi’s forces.
Other countries with citizens in Libya, including the U.S., are evacuating people by ferry or airplane. Those trying to flee Libya report long lines and huge crowds at airports and ferry terminals.
"The airport is just a zoo. There's about 10,000 people there, all trying to get out," British citizen Ewan Black told the BBC as he got off a flight from Tripoli. "It's just absolutely manic, basically it's uncontrolled. I lost all my luggage. It's literally bodies climbing over bodies to get to the door.”
Information gathering is difficult
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Libya borders both Egypt and Tunisia, where pro-democracy movements recently took place. |
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Unlike during recent protests in Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen, foreign journalists have been barred from accessing the most volatile parts of Libya to report on events there. Therefore, the world has relied on telephone conversations, cell phone videos and occasional Internet communication from Libyans to keep abreast of events.
Recently, the U.S. State Department gained permission from Libyan officials to allow some reporters to enter Libya. However, the Libyan regime said that any journalists who had previously snuck into the country without permission would be considered to be collaborating with the resistance and could face punishment.
An erratic leader
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Col. Muammar Gadhafi has ruled Libya for more than 40 years. |
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Colonel Gadhafi has ruled the country since he took power in a bloodless coup against the king in 1969. He has long been viewed as both one of the world’s most erratic and shrewd dictators.
“He had charisma,” David Mack, a State Department official who first met Gadhafi in 1973, told the NewsHour. “He had an ability to speak in public with a fairly high degree of eloquence in Arabic. He conveyed sincerity. He was self-confident. And I think he was very convincing to Libyans.”
Yet, Mack added that in later meetings he had the impression that the Libyan leader “wasn’t all there.”
Gadhafi has made several appearances on television to assure the world he has not fled and will continue to fight. The latest was a rambling speech in which he accused the terrorist organization Al Qaeda and its leader Osama bin Laden of turning young Libyans against their regime by poisoning their coffee with hallucinogenic drugs.
Libya and the West
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Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was the first person in her position to visit Libya in 50 years. |
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President Obama strongly condemned the violence in Libya, stating that the aggression at the hands of Gadhafi’s government was “unacceptable” and that he is considering a “full range of options” for how to respond to the crisis.
The relationship between Western countries and Libya is complicated by the fact that Libya provides about two percent of the world’s oil, much of it to Europe across the Mediterranean Sea. Oil and gasoline prices are currently on the rise because of investors’ fears that the Libyan protests could disrupt the oil supply.
In 1986, President Ronald Reagan’s administration bombed Libya in retaliation for its role in blowing up a Berlin nightclub and killing two American soldiers. Two years later, Libya was tied to the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 207 people.
After 9/11, however, Libya paid reparations for its role in the Lockerbie bombing and agreed to dismantle its nuclear program. In a show of goodwill in 2008, then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice became the first person in her office to visit Libya in more than 50 years.
Civil war is possible
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The protests in Libya have pitted those who want Gadhafi out against mercenaries hired by Gadhafi's regime to kill protestsers. |
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Now that much of Libya is reportedly a battleground between pro-democracy protesters and Gadhafi’s regime, some analysts warn a prolonged civil war could result. Gadhafi has called in mercenaries-- outside soldiers hired by the government -- to help attack and punish protesters.
Reports indicate that some members of the Libyan army, who were previously loyal to Gadhafi, joined the protest movement after they were ordered to fire on their own people. Two Libyan fighter jet pilots landed on the nearby island of Malta and asked for political asylum instead of bombing protesters, while other pilots crashed their planes in the desert after escaping by parachute to avoid having to attack their countrymen.
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| --Compiled by Veronica DeVore for NewsHour Extra |
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| Students From Around the US Debate Gun Control |
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 I think we've been witnessing violence for years, whether in reality through the media or through video games, and I don't think that's a first-hand effect. |
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| Ellie, Student Reporting Labs |
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