My journey into Libya’s Heart of darkness

It has, by any standards, been a dramatic year on the global political stage. During the spring, events moved quickly in different parts of North Africa and the Middle East. Protests in Tunisia and Egypt escalated into full scale revolutions. Dictators were overthrown. It looked like a spring tide, a full-scale changing of the guard. There have also been uprisings in Bahrain, Yemen and Syria – where President Bashar al-Assad has dealt brutally with insurgents and protestors with up to 2,000 people being killed by Government forces.

Inspired by what had been happening in other Arab countries, and the sense that we might be seeing the dawn of something radically new in the Arab world, Libya too erupted. The initial protests were peaceful. Historians will interpret the events that followed with the benefit of hindsight, but what does seem clear even now is that when the President, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi made the decision to kill civilians in his attempt to restore order, he lost forever the iron grip that he and his family had exercised on the country for over 40 years. What had begun peacefully became a violent armed revolution and Libya became engulfed in a bloody civil war.

There were anti-Gadaffi protests too on the streets of Dublin, as members of the Irish Libyan ex-pat community expressed solidarity with their families and friends back home. Emotions ran high as word filtered back to Dublin about loved ones who had been slain. It is hard, observing events like this from a distance: there is a feeling of powerlessness, of somehow being less than committed, as others in the mother country are faced with having to stand up to the forces of oppression and go out to risk their lives on a daily basis.
For some, it transpired, looking on from a distance would not be enough.

JOINING THE REVOLUTION

“When the revolution began, for me the nail in the coffin was the raping of women and the oppression,” says Hussam Najjair, a young Dublin engineer, whose father is from Libya. “I couldn’t stand it.”
Najjair arrived in Libya for his cousin’s wedding in the capital Tripoli just as the protests were beginning. He could have returned home, but that would have seemed like abandoning his kinsmen and women to their fate. Instead, he made the decision to join up with the nascent rebel cause.
“I hadn’t been to Libya for ten years,” he explains. “Then the whole thing started kicking off in Tunisia and everything changed.”
He joined the insurgents and became directly involved in armed combat, working as a sniper. It’s not, as he memorably put it, rocket science. But that doesn’t make it easy.
“My brother-in-law’s a commander of the Tripoli Revolutionary Brigade,” he says, five days in advance of the brigade’s surge into the Libyan capital. “We are the largest brigade. We’re made up of people from Tripoli. There’s about 600 of us now and growing every day. Our goal is to liberate Tripoli.”
They had been closing in on the capital for weeks. Soon after I’d spoken to Najjair, and as we went to press, the word came through that Gadaffi was ready to negotiate. The battle it seems may be over. If so, its unlikely Irish combatant will have survived to tell the tale.

The 32 year-old son of an Irish mother and Libyan father, Najjair admits that warfare was something he would never have contemplated. He was used to working as a building contractor and partying hard in boom-time Dublin: it was quite a change to find himself handling weapons, shooting at members of the Libyan army and putting his life on the line. In fact, he has been learning on the job in all sorts of ways, multi-tasking between media work, intelligence gathering, logistical work and hardcore combat.
He speaks in a pronounced Dublin accent but one that also bears the heavy toll of war. Food and water have been difficult to come by during the conflict, especially over the past few weeks during Ramadan. It is evident that he is tired. Worn out.
Comparing the revolution to what happened in Ireland in 1916, however, Najjair is adamant that the rebels aim is to bring democracy and development to the country.

“The plan for it is to be a free Libya,” he says. “They’ve fought for 42 years against one man. Even if he was the best President in the world, we’re just sick of him. I’ve been through loads of villages, and they’re totally left behind. If you think of the billions and billions in wealth that’s in Libya, and then you see that there are no roads, no hospitals, no health, no education. Everything is basic: it’s a way to keep the people down. His policy has been to keep the people down.”

THE AFTERMATH OF WAR

The National Transition Council is acting as the political wing of the revolutionary forces. As the civil war reaches its denouement, there is intense interest in who the leaders of the revolution really are – and what plans they have for the country.
Fears have been voiced in certain sections of the western media that Al Qaeda or other Islamic extremist groups may have infiltrated the rebel movement and these concerns were amplified when the National Transition Council’s military Commander-in-Chief Abdul Fatah Younis, who had defected from Gaddafi’s side in February, was killed in murky circumstances in July. Rumours have abounded that he was killed because he was believed to be a Gaddafi informant.

“I could only speculate about the rumours of there being Gaddafi informants,” says Najjair of Younis’ death. “We’re in a war situation. I’d never seen this side of life. You don’t really have time for law or justice and stuff like that. It’s war and in war, there are certain ways you wouldn’t be used to living. You have to be prepared to go through it.”
However, Najjair firmly rejects accusations that there are Islamic extremist elements in the rebel army.
“That line is being used by Gaddafi. In Libya, for normal people, extremism can be someone who prays a little too much and is a bit religious,” he says. “My beard is getting long now because I haven’t had time to shave it. I don’t want to be going round looking slick. When people are going through life-threatening situations, they start to think about God. And when you think about God, you think about the Prophet and how he used to be – or the way of the Prophet. That’s about it. It’s nothing to do with Al Qaeda or Bin Laden or any of that crap.”
Najjair believes firmly that the National Transition Council, which has been recognised by 33 countries, has the mandate of the Libyan people.

“On the revolutionary side, if you look at any of the liberated cities, you’ll find everything intact,” he declares. “The people there couldn’t believe how properties and shops were left intact. If you think of how it would have been if it was the Gaddafi side, it would have fallen into anarchy and chaos. There would be riots and looting and all kinds of stuff.
“There’s people from all walks of life, all cities of Libya, ordinary working people who support us. The only people who are against us are people who own property, who profited through the oppression of others. And you’ve the brainwashed kind, brought up by Gaddafi. Then you have his close family. Your normal everyday, working-class citizen or anyone with a notion in their head have all picked up what’s going on – and they support the revolution.”
And what if Gaddafi were to fall into the rebels’ hands? Recent images of Egypt’s former strongman Hosni Mubarak lying on a stretcher in a cage during his trial have raised some concerns in the West. Najjair believes a not too dissimilar fate would await Gaddafi.

“They’d move to catch him alive and try him. I’d love to see the death penalty, I suppose, for what he’s done. He’s trapped now and he has absolutely nowhere to hide. He screwed up.”
Assuming everything goes to plan over the next week and this war is truly over, will Najjair remain in Libya for long? It’s unlikely. He hears Ireland’s call and the home comforts it promises ringing loudly from beyond the battlefield.
“I’d love to get back to Ireland as soon as it’s over,” he states. “I miss a drop of rain pouring over me. I miss the cool weather, friends and family. I have had to endure months of no running water, no electricity, days and weeks with no sleep. It’s been very hard.”
Indeed it has. But then this was history in the making. Let’s hope that the ending is a happy one...