The Ugliest Faces of Humanity

After my last post I fell silent for the rest of the time I was in Libya. This is because I started doing prison visits, interviewing current torture victims, and what I was seeing and hearing was so upsetting, so widespread, that I did not know how best to disseminate the information, and whether it was really appropriate for me to do so. But this article came out yesterday in the New York Times, and captures perfectly the current situation in prisons in Libya. Please read it, if you want to get a sense of how catastrophic the current situation is, and how vengeance is gripping the population. 

The most disturbing and worrying is the way in which the revolution has produced a subset of the population, namely the ‘thuwar’, who are viewed as heroes who remain beyond the reaches of the law, and are functioning with de facto impunity. This group continues to practice torture, particularly within unofficial detention facilities, and the current justice system seems to have no way of addressing these crimes nor sanctioning the perpetrators in any way. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/magazine/in-libya-the-captors-have-become-the-captive.html?_r=1

Politics

Everyone has talked about the issues of tribal differences in Libya. The mentality of tribal culture here in Libya seems to be that each group believes in its importance over others, and fights to constantly maintain ownership of a particular area/industry/etc (this is the view of locals when they talk about roots of the tension between different cities, which ultimately break down on tribal lines). Where I am seeing it manifest itself is in civil society organizations, which absolutely refuse to cooperate with each other, and each believes that it needs to work on its projects, without any appreciation of the benefit of collaboration for the greater good of the state of Libya… this makes it incredibly difficult to work with groups of partner organisations, but this is something that the international orgs and donors need to push for, if there are to be any lasting results.

Meanwhile, when people speak about the lack of a political culture here, they are not exaggerating. This population has no experience in forming political parties, developing platforms, or holding elections. At the moment, besides the Muslim Brotherhood, which benefits from being able to export its platform from neighboring countries, there are about four parties which may appear in the elections. But these parties do not have names, or if they do, nobody knows them, nor a platform. They are known as ‘the party of Mr X’, Mr. X being whoever is the head of the party. And people will vote for the person that their know. This literally is a flashback to student council elections in middle school, where no matter how much time the nerds spent preparing their speeches, it was always the most popular kid who would win, regardless of their knowledge, or lack thereof, of politics.

The big question at the moment is whether the elections will take place on the 19th of June or not. The NTC is passing the blame for all current problems on the Interim Government, which has lost its legitimacy as a result. So everyone agrees that even if it means holding disorganised elections, they must take place before Ramadan, no matter what. In fact a jumbo jet arrived from Shanghai on Monday with the voter registration pamphlets, and logistically the country is gearing up. However on Wednesday there was suddenly a rumor floating around that by evening the Prime-Minister, Minister of Health, Minister of Interior and Minister of Defense would be axed. This has yet to happen, but if it does, this might mean elections being postponed. The Prime-Minister is currently very unpopular. The Minister of Health is being blamed for allowing 1.8 Billion Dinars to be lost in bogus claims from fighters who were sent abroad for treatment, and it now turns out that they have been staying for months in five star hotels in Jordan, the UK, etc. And then the Minister of Defence is from Misrata, and the Minister of Interior is from Zintan, and the two of them hate each other, because of the ongoing tension between the two cities. Hence why one or both need to go.

Here they love spicy food, today I ordered couscous and asked that it not be too spicy. The waiter replied, “We call that European couscous, if you order at a restaurant any dish, just say European, that means not spicy”. I found that amusing.

SIM cards, what has happened to them? Someone somewhere is eating them. It is impossible to get hold of a SIM card for less that 100 USD, and even if you are willing to pay that price, it’s tough to get your hands on one. No one seems to have an explanation as to why this is the case. Contrast this with Mali, where you can buy a SIM card for about 1 USD, and it comes with about 1 USD credit on it. Or with Libya three years ago where you could buy a SIM card for 5 USD. Someone told me that the phone companies are limiting distribution, but again, no one can explain why.

On that same tangent, I find the relationship that Libyans have with their cellphones remarkable. The more important someone is/thinks he is here, the more cell phones he has. I have seen many people with two (mind you these are not people traveling out of the country with a foreign SIM card in one, and a local card in the other), some with three, and even one or two people with four. When you start a meeting, the first thing you do is spread your phones out on the table in front of you, this is an implicit sign of your importance. And then during any given meeting there will always be at least one phone call. The thought of not answering the call because you are in a meeting… well that simply does not exist. As opposed to the West, here they have not made the big switch to emails as a method of business, so phones are the main form of communication.

Watching this extensive use of cellphones made me wonder what the Middle East was like without cellphones. Any of you who have spend time in the Mid East will appreciate how mind-boggling that thought is, the Arabs without cellphones…

Below are pictures of cars where the owner covered the word ‘the republic’ as a sign of Libya’s newfound freedom. This is the case with almost every car on the road here.

Back to Blogging

Apologies… my last post was in 2009, as I left Gaza. Just to catch everyone up to speed, I then spent three months in Beirut, working at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and had every intention of blogging from there, but after my experience in Gaza, had a hard time finding things as new and interesting to write about. Then came two years in London, and a year in Geneva. But finally I am back, and blogging about my experiences in Libya. I got here six days ago and through my dozens of meetings and walks through Tripoli am getting a sense of the place. I am here conducting an assessment mission for a project that we will be carrying out in Libya over the next two years.

Tripoli… I am not sure what I was expecting. I expected a distinctly Arabic city, that would have something of Morocco and Egypt combined together, with maybe a hint of the Mali-style West African vibe. However this is not what Tripoli is at all. The first thing that struck me is how European it feels. The Italians left in 1969, but they left behind more than an attractive downtown with boulevards and 1930s typical Italian-style buildings, they left behind a country a sincere love of pasta and pizza, and a population OBSESSED with cafes. All of them roughly copy Starbucks in terms of the décor and layout, the fancy coffees with the flavored syrups, the cheesecakes and the doughnuts. 

My first night in town I was taken to a hip new place called Café Roma, which has the two pages of fancy cream-topped coffee concoctions, a wide choice of pastas, and sappy Italian love songs blaring on speakers across the terrace. The view from the terrace of the coastline is magnificent by the way. The long road where the coffee shops are all lined up also houses the European brand stores, from Diesel to Naf Naf to Cotton.

What you realize very quickly is what a wealthy country this is. The population, I hear from people here, is 6.5 million. The landmass is one of the biggest in Africa, and the amount of money coming in from oil revenues on a daily basis, even when the country is not extracting at its full capacity, means that this country is wealthier, locals claim, that the United Arab Emirates. In fact, apparently Sheikh Zaiyed of Dubai came here for an eye operation in the 60s, saw Tripoli and said in an interview with the press that his dream was that one day Dubai might be able to emulate Tripoli….

Since then the money has been severely mismanaged, with roads in terrible shape, no form of public transport, the hospitals in horrific condition (I visited one the main hospital of Tripoli today and was in shock), etc on the one hand, and places like the Rixos Hotel on the other. The hotel, a Turkish chain, was erected in the lead up to an Arab League conference which was hosted in Libya a few years ago. Apparently, six months prior to the conference, Saif al-Islam decided that they needed to have somewhere swanky to entertain their visitors. He had the Rixos, a Turkish hotel chain, construct the hotel in its entirety in Turkey, dismantle it and bring it in pieces to Tripoli, and reassemble it all within six months. The place is impressive, reminding me of five star hotels in Dubai, Singapore or Bangkok, and is so prohibitively expensive that the only people one sees there are government officials entertaining visiting guests.

My friend, who is driving me home from a coffee in the Rixos, turns on the radio, which is blasting Rihanna. He smiles and says to me, “This, this is because Ghaddafi is gone!” Under Ghaddafi, all ‘Western’ music was banned on the radio. He went further, English language classes were banned in all public schools, because of his hatred of all things Western. This is why very few people here speak English, and are quick to express their frustration about this fact. One of the biggest perks Ghaddafi offered to families who were Green, i.e. ‘on his side’, were scholarships to study abroad. Until recently therefore you could assume that anyone with a good level of English was linked to the former regime. Now this is changing, with the large number of previous political exiles flooding back to Libya to rejoin their brethren in rebuilding the nation.  As the Rihanna song finishes, we pass a walk covered in Graffiti, and out of the blue, scrolled on the wall, instead of the typical slogans of freedom, anti-Ghaddafi rhetoric and words of peace, are the words ‘Armin van Buuren’ and about ten meters later ‘DJ Tiesto’. I guess this really is a sign that he is gone.

The other sign is license plates. In front of license plate numbers is printed ‘al Jamahiriya’, i.e. the republic. The way the public has signaled their newfound freedom is by spray-painting over ‘the republic’. See pictures above. I found this quite an interesting display of independence. The reason this sign is used, is because Ghaddafi, among his many claims, said that he ‘created’ the Libyan Republic, ignoring the fact that this is entirely historically inaccurate.

Many more posts to come…

Goodbye Gaza

I apologize for not posting anything for the last month and a half. I was working in Gaza up until the beginning of May, and was extremely busy wrapping up all of my work and distributing more funds that I received. I then left and have been on the road for the last month with minimal computer access.

The situation in Gaza has not improved at all, in fact it has taken a turn for the worse. From afar I continue to fundraise and support families that are struggling to survive. Many people ask me what will happen, what is the future of Gaza and the West Bank? I do not have a good answer, just some theories. But the response that I get from most Gazans is that the moment Egypt opens up the border, over 40% of the population will leave, and only Hamas members will remain. Then Israel will launch another more aggressive attack and wipe out the Gaza Strip. Let us hope that this is not the destiny of Gaza.

My experience in Gaza was incredible and taught me so much personally and professionally. I met people that are living in the most dire of circumstances and yet they showed me more hospitality and warmth than I have seen elsewhere. These people are the victims of international interests and politics and continue to suffer because of our governments, and yet somehow they manage to stay positive.

I want to thank everyone who has supported my efforts in Gaza and hope that you realize the good that you have done. I will be working at the UN in Beirut as of July and will hopefully start blogging again at that time.

Hamas.

I want to preface this post by saying how much it bothers me that people think that if they are anti-Israel they must be pro-Hamas. In addition I cannot stand the misconception that by being critical of Hamas; one is automatically condoning the international rejection of its legitimacy, and Israel’s desire to remove it from power. There are many governments that one can accept as legitimate and any international move to reject them would be outrageous, and yet one can also be critical of the way they are governing. Too many pro-Palestinian foreigners who come here are too scared to be openly critical of Hamas because they are scared to ‘hurt the cause.’ Others simply swallow the message Hamas feeds them, however one visit to a hospital to see the torture victims at the hands of the government must make one become a little more critical.

Though I think that Hamas should have been accepted as the democratically elected party, I am extremely critical of its practices, this is also how every Gazan friend of mine feels. Of course because I am working in the field of human rights, I am dealing with a specific sector of the population, much more liberal and left-wing. However, I have also heard criticisms being leveled at Hamas’s regime from every taxi driver, shop keeper, and waiter that I have discussed politics with. Again, I live in Gaza City, and if I were in Khan Younis or Rafah I would probably meet many more Hamas supporters.

The two largest local NGOs, Al Mezan and PCHR have boycotted the courts since 2008, when Hamas illegitimately installed Hamas judges, not something that the party was allowed to do. In addition it does not allow NGOs to visit prisoners to monitor their conditions, for the most part. However I have seen countless pictures of victims tortured for being members of opposition parties, art schools ransacked and closed for teaching inappropriate subjects, and heard the stories of wives whose husbands were kidnapped and murdered by the secret police. Hamas’ trademark is ‘shooting your kneecap to the ceiling’; this is reserved for those that criticize the government’s practices too openly: a gun is fired from under the knee upwards and blows one’s kneecap out of one’s leg.

I have seen criticisms of many Hamas policies, for example I was at a workshop of Hamas and Fatah officials a few days ago where the majority of the audience (non-Hamas) was begging for Shalit to be given back, with one Hamas official flatly refusing.

It is totally understandable that a regime like this has taken power, given the circumstances that the Palestinians have been living under. No one can criticize the Palestinians for Hamas winning the elections by a landslide. However, refusing to criticize Hamas is not helping the Gazans. The situation here is bad enough due to the siege, but the refusal to acknowledge the repressive regime’s conduct makes it worse.

Unfortunately the international community exacerbated the situation. It was almost inevitable that this kind of party would take power (supported, I might add, a few times by Israel to counter the PLO) and the only way to let the situation correct itself is to let Hamas rule. The Gazans keep confirming what had always seemed to me to be the case- because Hamas has a extremely weak foreign policy, and only knows how to deal with internal issues, and even internally makes mistakes, it would have failed on its own. The people in the next elections would see that a change was needed, and they would vote in a change (they proved that they were capable of using the elections for change before). The international community needed to let Hamas do its job, and let the Palestinians decide for themselves. But instead by ignoring Hamas, they galvanized the Gazan community and made those that supported other parties flock to Hamas just because of what it represented, and because this was a form of rebellion against the West.

Unfortunately Fatah was not perfect either, and corruption was rampant. And Fatah’s willingness to follow the international community in delegitimizing Hamas was completely unacceptable and it holds responsibility for worsening the situation as well. People here were sick of the failings of the previous government and wanted a change; however the situation changed for the worse. Now many people live in fear; I cannot tell you how many friends of mine are too scared to leave their homes because they are Fatah, and they have been sitting at home jobless for 3 years. At this point most people say to me that though they are not pro-Fatah, it is the lesser of the two evils and that they would rather return to a Fatah government then keep the existing regime. But because Gaza has been cut off by the siege, there is no way for them to implement a change. I always am astounded when I hear Israel calling for the Gazans to get rid of Hamas, how on earth can they if they have been locked up, the key has been thrown away, and Hamas is in power? Where is the room to initiate change?

The Batran Family

In the last major attack in Al Boreij refugee camp, on January 16th, six members of the Batran family were killed. The father is a Hamas official, and happened to be in the living room while his wife and five of his children were in the dining room and this is where the bomb hit. The youngest son (1.5 yrs) survived, as did his father, who ran with one daughter to the hospital, though she died soon afterwards. The other 4 children and his wife were immediately killed. I met their aunt, who is now taking care of the youngest son. He is not speaking yet, but when he sees the pictures of his mother, he keeps grabbing at the image of her. The aunt described to me how they had to search for the body parts of each child so that the hospital could sew them together so the bodies could be presentable for the funeral. They were finding hands, legs, feet, not knowing which child they had belonged to. The oldest son’s head was found on a tree outside the house. The doctors needed to use wooden sticks to hold the parts together. The aunt was hugging her daughter, and kept repeating how her daughter had wanted to have dinner at their house that night, and she had said no. This was the only reason that she could be holding her daughter right now. “You can only go through so much as a human being, I feel as though I have fallen apart and can never recover from this.”

The Writing on the Wall

I visited one home were a battalion of the Israeli army had lived for two weeks. They trashed the kitchen and bathroom, and knocked holes through the walls in each room to make snipper portals. And they also decided to decorate the walls of their new home; there were little drawings of faces, Jewish symbols, phrases in Hebrew which I cannot read unfortunately. But they were kind enough to leave some messages in English expressing their love of blood and their enthusiasm to kill. The family who lives in the home and has moved back into the rooms downstairs asked me to translate what is written because none of them can read English.

Gazans are very proud people. The families that I gave money to were appreciative but also mortified. The idea of charity and begging does not come easily to this culture, in that way the society is very different to other countries where people do not feel ashamed to ask for help. Here the thought of living off the kindness of others is horrific. One man who I met in the remains of an area where there had been 35 houses said to me “I don’t want money, I just want to live. Let me buy bricks to rebuilt my house, and let me buy equipment to rebuild my factory, I don’t need handouts.” Among the rumble I saw many families trying to salvage the few bricks that could be reused, and with homemade cement they were building little huts, using a combination of the bricks and tents provided by the UN. Israel still is not allowing any building material in.