Is Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi finally on the ropes as the wave of protests sweeping the middle east has swept into his once seemingly iron-fisted controlled country? If he isn’t on the ropes he’s close to it: reports continue to surface of brutal repression that is spurring on more protest, the country’s Justice Minister has resigned in protest over the violent crack down on demonstrators, and a central government building has been set on fire.
(UPDATE: Tweets — which are unconfirmed — indicate the regime is trying to slice off communications more than ever and reports continue to surface of of “massacres” and other politically associated killings. Several Tweets say mercenaries are being used to shoot protesters.)
A central government building in the Libyan capital Tripoli was on fire Monday, a Reuters reporter said, in the latest sign that the revolt against Moammar Gadhafi is gathering strength.
“I can see the People’s Hall is on fire, there are firefighters there trying to put it out,” the reporter said. The building is where the General People’s Congress, or parliament, meets when it is in session in Tripoli.
The privately owned news website Qureyna said flames were seen leaping from the building, and that the headquarters of the Olympics Committee was also on fire.
Early Monday, protesters also took over the office of two of the multiple state-run satellite news channels, witnesses said.Protesters were calling for a new protest at sunset Monday in Tripoli’s Green Square, setting up the likelihood of new clashes.
Already, armed members of pro-government organizations called “Revolutionary Committees” were circulating in the streets hunting for protesters in Tripoli’s old city, said one protester, named Fathi.
In Libya’s second largest city, Benghazi, protesters were in control of the streets Monday and took over the main security headquarters, known as the Katiba.
A Today Show report on the situation:
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The BBC:
Col Muammar Gaddafi’s regime is under pressure amid unprecedented protests in the Libyan capital and defections by senior diplomats.
Security forces fired live ammunition and tear gas on protesters in the streets of Tripoli late on Sunday.
Benghazi, the country’s second city, now appears to be largely under the control of protesters.
But Col Gaddafi’s son, Saif al-Islam, has warned that civil war could ignite.
In a lengthy TV address, he offered political reforms but also vowed that the regime would “fight to the last bullet” against “seditious elements”.
He acknowledged, though, that the eastern cities of Benghazi and al-Bayda had fallen to the opposition.
Justice Minister Mustapha Abdul Jalil has become the latest senior official to resign. He said he was leaving his post because of the “excessive use of violence”, privately owned Quryna newspaper reported on Monday afternoon.
On Monday, reports from Tripoli suggested the streets were mainly quiet, with government forces still patrolling Green Square after crushing protests in what witnesses called a “massacre”.
Gaddafi’s son — who sounds like he has planned to go into the family business — is warning of civil war:
Saif al-Islam Kadhafi, 38, who holds no formal government post but wields vast influence as his father’s heir apparent, suggested that Benghazi was out of government control.
“At this moment there are tanks being driven by civilians in Benghazi,” he said, insisting the uprising was aimed at installing Islamist rule and that it would be ruthlessly crushed.
Some 500 Libyans meanwhile stormed and looted a South Korean construction site near the capital, injuring about 15 Bangladeshi as well as three South Korean workers, Seoul’s foreign ministry said.
In Cairo, Libya’s envoy to the Arab League said he had resigned to “join the revolution”.
Tripoli’s ambassador to Delhi also quit, as did a lower-level diplomat in Beijing who said Gaddafi may have left the country, Al-Jazeera television reported.
And it sounds like it might have an impact on oil:
Oil prices soared on the turmoil, with benchmark Brent North Sea crude for delivery in April surged to $US105.08 per barrel, the highest level since late September 2008, before pulling back slightly to $US104.53, up $US2.01 from Friday’s closing level.
New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for March, known as West Texas Intermediate, hit as high as $US89.50. It later stood at $US89.14, up $US2.94 from Friday.
British energy giant BP said it was preparing to evacuate some of its staff from Libya, which holds Africa’s biggest oil reserves.
The death toll so far? An estimated 233:
The estimated death toll from four days of protests in cities across Libya has risen to at least 233 according to information from hospital sources in Libya, Human Rights Watch said today. From Benghazi, staff at Al Jalaa hospital said they recorded 50 dead on February 20, 2011, while the 7 October hospital reported another 10 dead the same day, giving a total of 60 killed in Benghazi on February 20. This raises the overall death toll from protests in five Libyan cities to 233 since February 17. Human Rights Watch was unable to contact two other hospitals in Benghazi.
The Christian Science Monitor reports protests are growing as fear crumbles:
“My sense that the regime’s willingness and eagerness to use not only extreme violence but all sorts of horrific tactics, shooting with the intent to kill, tricking people into a sense of safety and coming near the gates of buildings and then shooting them, hiring mercenaries to attack people and to go to protesters’ houses and damaging their property and so on … is working against it,” says Hisham Matar, a Libyan-American novelist in touch with people in Libya. His 2006 novel “In the Country of Men” was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize.
“There’s absolutely no turning back, is the sense that I’m getting,” he adds. “People have been provoked by the violence of the regime, crowned by that speech we all heard yesterday which seemed to take no responsibility for the killing.”
The crumbling of fear has been the binding factor in protests happening from Algeria to Iran. A near-totalitarian state like Qaddafi’s, a run-of-the-mill autocracy like Egypt, a monarchy like Bahrain, and a religiously guided state like Iran are all very different.
Some have been in the Western fold for decades. Some, like Iran and Libya, are pariahs of the West. But in all of these countries, their people are refusing to be cowed or distracted by efforts to blame outsiders for domestic ills they know stem from their leaders.
“People speak of not being afraid anymore,” says Mr. Matar, whose own father, a Libyan dissident, was kidnapped by the Egyptian authorities in Cairo in 1990 and spirited to a secret prison in Libya, with little news of his fate since. “One person said to me that ‘only now I realize that someone has been at my neck all these years, and it’s been stifling me, that fear.”
Ibrahim Sahad from the National Front for Salvation of Libya predicts Gaddafi will not survive this crisis:
ALI MOORE: As we just heard, Dr Bethaher referred to that speech earlier today by Colonel Gaddafi’s son. He pointed out that Libya is not Egypt or Tunisia and he says his father will fight to the last man standing. Can Gaddafi survive this challenge?
IBRAHIM SAHAD: Well, the speech of the son of Gaddafi was a disaster. He misrepresented the facts on the ground. He described the protesters with different descriptions, are not true. We know that the protesters, engineers, judges, university teachers, lawyers, from all sectors of the society.
And then he was talking about the casualties in Benghazi as 14 people dead. We know that in Benghazi over 200 people was killed during the last few days.
And then he started threatening the Libyan people: “Either me and my father or you get civil war, or you will burn the oil fields,” and so on.
So the speech itself represented what Gaddafi and his son was thinking and what they actually represented during the last 40 years. I don’t think Gaddafi will survive this because now all the Libyan people in the streets and they are raising their voices, they want Gaddafi to go.
On Twitter, at this writing (go to the link to check the latest) here are some of the Tweets you find under “Tripoli”:
AJEnglish Al Jazeera English
293 Retweets
Libya revolt spreads to Tripoli: Gaddafi’s sons warned of civil war, tribal leaders broke ranks and army units d… http://aje.me/hb6TkW
12 hours ago Favorite Retweet Reply
Promoted by Al Jazeera EnglishJnoubiyeh Sarah Abdallah
Al Jazeera BREAKING: Eyewitness in #Tripoli confirms another massacre in Green Square. Too many bodies to count. #Gaddafi #Feb17 #Libya
13 hours ago Favorite Retweet Reply
Top TweetBBCBreaking BBC Breaking News
Protesters in Libyan capital, #Tripoli, sacked state television HQ and set fire to offices of People’s Committee overnight, from AFP
7 hours ago
Top Tweetshamsery Zahir shamsery
ALL Cellphone networks DOWN in #Tripoli . Some landlines still working
1 minute agotituswillenews sim
EU:get rid of all this corrupt leadership profitng personnally from Gaddafi!Gaddafi is a murder,EU leaders too!#Tripoli#Gaddafi#Libya
2 minutes agoComradeGeorge George Orwell II
For access to internet in Libya dialup: 00494923197844321 & http://www.libyafeb17.com/?p=1413 #gaddafi #LIBYA #benghazi #Tripoli #feb17
2 minutes agorv_ltn Bronze Revolution
All contact with #Tripoli #Libya seems to be severed, with occassional reports of a ‘massacre’. Twitter traffic is decreasing.
2 minutes agoFay_Libya Fay
My fellow brothers are being killed, all my libyan people, PRAY FOR THEM INSHALLAH. PRAY PLEASE. YA 7AYA QAYOOM! #libya #benghazi #tripoli
2 minutes agojentingting Jen Schultes
RT @Jnoubiyeh: Al Jazeera Confirmed-At least 61 #Libyans massacred this morn by #Gaddafi forces in #GreenSquare of #Tripoli. #Feb17 #Libya
2 minutes agoOya_libya Oya libya
PLz Follow@alitawil he s in #Tripoli and still #alive
3 minutes agoMichaMeskalinas Micha Meskalinas
RT @feb17voices: @ajarabic: Dr. Mahmoud al-Werfelli says hospitals in and around #Tripoli are overcrowded. #Libya #Feb17 (via @twazzup)
3 minutes agoFay_Libya Fay
Omg Tripoli started. Inshallah yaaa rab yi7mihum! PRAY FOR LIBYA PLEASE! I BEG YOU! PRAY PRAY PRAY! #libya #benghazi #tripoli
3 minutes agoHendOfPalestine Hend
Aljazeera: Phones cut in #Tripoli amid ‘massacre’ in Green Square!! Death toll from clashes in Tripoli – Today around 5pm = 61 #libya #feb17
3 minutes agolojiboji Loj Guinmapang
RT @LibyanDictator: CONFIRMED: PLEASE! MASSACRE IN #TRIPOLI RIGHT NOW. THEY NEED INTERVENTION. MERCENARIES KILLING ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING.
3 minutes agoArkabYaGirdi ArkabYaGirdi
@andersoncooper @BBCBreaking @cnnbrk : Phones cut in #tripoli amid “massacre” in town square in #libya: http://www.libyafeb17.com/?p=1441
3 minutes agopanemarmellata Lara
RT @LibyanDictator: Contact in #Tripoli: Massacre going on right now!! We need help! #Libya #Feb17
5 minutes agoFarsiKanga speakfree
RT @saskiaiserief: RT @Libyan4life: Tonight will be very considerable and marked in #Tripoli. #Gaddafi will tr… (cont) http://deck.ly/~yLQTb
5 minutes agoannfinster One Who Laughs
“@sumyasalem: People of #tripoli #libya PLEASE go donate blood. Pro-gaddafi men stolen the blood banks at hospitals overnight. @BarackObama
5 minutes agoFay_Libya Fay
My sister @juhina_ just got interviewed with BBC. They need people to interview in libya. Reply if u can. #libya #benghazi #tripoli
5 minutes agoFarsiKanga speakfree
RT @jeejia: WHERE IS THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY WHERE THE LIBYANS ARE BEING MASSACRED! #Libya #Tripoli
5 minutes agoshablibi shablibi
BREAKING: Madar mobile phones have all been automatically recharged for 10 dinars #Libya #Tripoli #Benghazi
6 minutes agotituswillenews sim
Libya:crimes against humanity are committed without that US and EU are taking sanctions against Gaddafi&family!#Tripoli#Libya
6 minutes agohabdessamad Dr. Hasan Abdessamad
“@Dima_Khatib: Reuters: 2 Libyan fighter jets landed unexpectedly in Malta on Mon, both single seater Mirage jets #libya #feb17 #Tripoli”
6 minutes agoTheNewsBlotter Chris
/@LibyanDictator: PLEASE! MASSACRE IN #TRIPOLI rt NOW. THEY NEED INTERVENTION. MERCENARIES KILLING ANYTHING & EVERYTHING. #Libya #Feb17
6 minutes agoOya_libya Oya libya
Mercaniies snipers and gunfires massacre #Tripoli
6 minutes agoRiverh2o JObigsister
RT @SultanAlQassemi: Page grab from Al Jazeera of large Libyan anti-Gaddafi protest http://yfrog.com/h77l4xyj #Tripoli #Libya #Feb17
6 minutes agofreelibyanyouth Shabab Libya
Dr Htewish, head of Zawia Hospital in #Tripoli has been shot by gov’t officials! By the government, but nothing serious. #libya
6 minutes agoperthtones tony serve
RT @jeejia Contact in libya just informed me that their homes are being jumped in tripoli by mercenaries PLEASE do something #libya #tripoli
6 minutes agoFreedomCounts4U Tom Tom
@
@Dima_Khatib That would be really interesting, Malta ist part of the European Union. They should send them back #Libya #Gaddafi #Tripoli
7 minutes agokate1956 kate mayer
Libyan activist Motaaz Orfaly call 00218925337811 please media only possible massacre in the city of Jedabya #libya #tripoli #feb17
7 minutes agosotaliraq Sotaliraq ??? ??????
#Gaddafi under threat as revolt hits #Tripoli http://reut.rs/fbsBm9
7 minutes agoExitPass Kelly Lincoln
RT @AJELive: Geneva-based Libyan News Network reports phones cut in #Tripoli, #Libya, amid “massacre” in Gree… (cont) http://deck.ly/~CY3Td
7 minutes agoa_wwolfe amywwolfe
@
@acarvin via @ZubinGulatiALL Cellphone networks DOWN in #Tripoli #Libya where I am.Some landlines still working COM STATUS: RSTRD
7 minutes agosaskiaiserief saskia Iserief
RT @Libyan4life: Tonight will be very considerable and marked in #Tripoli. #Gaddafi will try to make his mark, lives will be lost. We wo …
8 minutes agoLibyanDictator The Dictator
CONFIRMED: PLEASE! MASSACRE IN #TRIPOLI RIGHT NOW. THEY NEED INTERVENTION. MERCENARIES KILLING ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING. #Libya #Feb17
8 minutes agoArkabYaGirdi ArkabYaGirdi
@CNN @BBCBreaking RT @ZubinGulati: ALL Cellphone networks DOWN in #Tripoli #Libya where I am. Some landlines still working COM STATUS: RSTRD
8 minutes ago
AP report on Gaddafi’s son’s address where he claimed death tolls were exaggerated and promised reforms (a word that has now come to mean buying time):
The LA Times:
Snipers opened fire from rooftops on people protesting overnight, the Associated Press reported, citing an unidentified witness. The agency said gunmen driving in cars displaying photos of Kadafi also opened fire on protesters in the streets.
There was no immediate word on Kadafi’s location. But after 41 years in office, his once-invincible hold on power appeared to be faltering.
The violence flared overnight, and witnesses said gunfire was heard across the city in the early morning. Government forces appeared to regain control of the central Green Square by midday Monday, according to the BBC.
Citing witnesses in Tripoli, the network said protesters had besieged the building that houses state-run TV and forced at least one channel off the air.
The reports from the capital came hours after Kadafi’s son acknowledged in comments broadcast early Monday that protesters had seized control of Benghazi — the country’s second-largest city — and several eastern towns. But he vowed that security forces would fight “to the last bullet” against efforts to end his father’s four decades in power.
An AlJazeeraEnglish “Inside Story” report on crushing Libya’s revolt:
Great Britain Foreign Secretary William Hague has formally called on Libya to show restraint but in an interview and his comments to Libyan diplomats:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yf-y7GE0tBU
The New York Times sees Gaddafi losing his grip on power:
The 40-year-rule of Libyan strongman Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi appeared to teeter Monday as his security forces retreated to a few buildings in the Libyan capital of Tripoli where fires burned unchecked, senior government officials and diplomats announced defections, and the country’s second-largest city remained under the control of rebels.
Security forces loyal to Mr. Qaddafi defended a handful of strategic locations, including the state television headquarters and the presidential palace, witnesses reported from Tripoli. Fires from the previous night’s rioting burned at many intersections, most stores were shuttered, and long lines were forming for a chance to buy bread or gas.
In a sign of growing cracks within the government, several senior officials — including members of the the Libyan mission to the United Nations — announced their resignations. And protesters in Benghazi, the city where the revolt began, issued a list of demands calling for a secular interim government led by the army in cooperation with a council of Libyan tribes.
Security forces loyal to Mr. Qaddafi waved green flags as they rallied in Tripoli’s central Green Square Monday under the protection of a handful of police, these witnesses said. But they constituted one of the few visible signs of government authority around the capital.
Tripoli descended into chaos in less than 24 hours as a six day old revolt suddenly spread from Benghazi across the country and into the capital on Sunday.
A CROSS SECTION OF WEBLOG COMMENT:
–-Weasel Zippers:
Would be nice to see the victims of Pan Am Fligt 103 get some mob justice.
The news from Iran looks grim for the regime as well. The country that started to rebel first appears to have joined last in this round. ABC shows footage in this clip of Iranians swarming police vehicles and dragging officers out of them.
In Libya, it appears that Saif al-Islam Gaddafi got his answer to the ultimatum delivered last night. He warned of a bloody reprisal by the regime if protestors did not cease. Now that the rebels have called Gaddafi’s bluff, he has to wonder whether the “five million” in his military will respond to his call, or join the protestors in ridding themselves of Libya’s petty dynasty.
Speaking of which, where is Col. Moammar? If he was still in Libya, wouldn’t he be the man to put on television and rally the army to the regime?
The protests continue to spread in Libya and AFP now reports that the state run television station has been sacked and set on fire. Gaddafi’s son went on TV last night to warn protesters though he remains an unconvincing force in the country. He’s promising the same old reforms that we’ve heard elsewhere but after decades of rule, who could believe such promises?
—Foreign Policy’s Daniel Drezner:
Indeed, it is striking how utterly incompetent leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya have been at managing their media message. Speeches are announced, then never delivered on time, and then delivered with production values that woulds embarrass a public access channel in the U.S. It’s like political leaders in the region have discovered blogs just as the young people has moved on to Twitter or something. [Er, no, that’s the United States–ed.] Oh, right.
Having just finished a week of intense media whoring, methinks that one problem is that most of these leaders have simply fallen out of practice (if they were ever in practice) at personally using the media to assuage discontent. I’ve been on enough shows on enough different media platforms to appreciate that there is an art, or at least a tradecraft, to presenting a convincing message in the mediasphere. Authoritarian leaders in the Middle East are quite adept at playing internal factions off one another. That’s a different skill set than trying to craft a coherent and compelling media message to calm street protestors no longer intimidated by internal security forces.
What would Human Rights Watch have the free world do? Why, join with teetering and decrepit police-states to wag its fingers and hector the Gaddafis – no, je m’excuse, merely urge them – to “stop the unlawful killing of protesters.” Is there some “lawful” kind of citizen-butchering that Human Rights Watch would prefer?
The democracies dutifully comply, and so we all remain equally useless in our sanctimony. We are doing absolutely nothing to ease the sufferings of the Libyan people or to give them the slightest hope in their hour of greatest and most desperate need. In a typical example, here’s Canada’s foreign minister, Lawrence Cannon, wagging his big finger: “We call on the Libyan government to respect the rights of freedom of expression and assembly and to engage in peaceful dialogue with its people to address legitimate concerns.”
Atta boy, Larry, that’ll learn ‘em. The Gaddafi tyranny, hearing exactly what it had hoped to hear, helpfully complies, offering “peaceful dialogue” while wagging its own finger at the Libyan masses struggling under the Gaddafis’ jackboots. Saif Gaddafi, heir to Moammar’s vast Libyan estate, is now hectoring his own people to lie still and take their beatings like the slaves they are. After all, Libya is “not Tunisia or Egypt,” as though Libyans need a geography lesson about their own country. Why should they lie still? Because their impudence is risking the Gaddafis’ massive and steady income stream from oil: this time, indeed it is all about oil.
Like Human Rights Watch, Bloomberg is equally useless in all this because you can read for yourself what the crackpot Saif Gaddafi had to say for himself, word for word, thanks to Tweetdeck.
Whether they will result in Libya achieving the sort of change experienced by Tunisia and Egypt is impossible to say, but early signs indicate that whatever the outcome, a high price is likely to be paid in human life.
Complicating matters is Libya’s unusual position in world affairs. Not long ago it was a pariah nation. But since 9/11, it has wormed its way back into favor with the United States and Europe because Qaddafi joined the war on terror, cooperating in the Lockerbie bomb investigation, coming down hard on al Qaeda, and kicking out terrorists he had once sheltered. At the same time, he has steered Libya into an increasingly powerful position in world politics because of its vast oil reserves. Libya has an especially close relationship with its former colonial master, Italy. It now provides about 20 percent of all Italy’s oil imports and has invested in sizeable amounts in that country’s energy infrastructure including the transnational energy giant ENI.
Along with their energy deals, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Qaddafi have agreed to work together to stem the increasing numbers of migrants seeking a better life in Europe. In addition to those leaving from North Africa, thousands more have been moving up the Red Sea from Eritrea, Sudan, Somalia and other countries. Their point of entry is Italy–specifically, the small Italian island of Lampedusa, which lies in the Mediterranean midway between Libya and Sicily.
—The Nation’s Robert Dreyfuss:
Hundreds are dead in Libya. Amid reports that the Libyan air force is bombing protesters in the street, major sections of the armed forces have thrown in their lot with protesters. According to some reports, the protesters have acquired heavy weapons and even tanks, and in Benghazi army bases and the headquarters of the security forces have fallen to the revolution. In a bizarre address on television in which he warned of “rivers of blood,” Saif al-Islam Qaddafi, the leader’s son, threatened to mobilize Libya’s tribes for “civil war,” and he added: “The West and Europe and the United States will not accept the establishment of an Islamic emirate in Libya.” Of course, the rebels aren’t planning to set up an Islamic emirate anytime soon, and Qaddafi’s weird prediction that the “West” would rescue his regime is comically absurd. In fact, virtually all of Europe is evacuating its citizens, amid widespread condemnation of the regime’s stunning use of brutal force.
(EDITOR’s NOTE: Gaddafi’s name is spelled differently, depending on the news service. And we have altered it several times for this post but there is no one accepted spelling.)
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.