Moises Saman for The New York Times
Hundreds of Qaddafi supporters rallied Sunday in Tripoli. “It was the best news I had ever heard,” one girl said. “We had taken the whole country back!”
Published: March 6, 2011
TRIPOLI, Libya — Residents here were awakened before dawn on Sunday by the sound of artillery and gunfire in the streets. When they tuned into state television broadcasts, they heard stunning news: the Libyan military had routed the rebels seeking to oust Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. The gunfire, they were told, was in celebration.
Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Rebels fired at a government helicopter as they were pushed toward Ras Lanuf, Libya. Fighting was heavy all day Sunday.
“Before I turned on the television I was very worried and very scared,” said Noura Al-Said, 17, a student who went to celebrate in Green Square in central Tripoli. “But it was the best news I had ever heard. We had taken the whole country back!”
But Sunday was just another day spent through the looking glass of the oil-financed and omnipresent cult of personality that Colonel Qaddafi has spent 41 years building in Libya. Few of the claims by the Libyan state media lined up with the facts — there was no decisive victory by his forces — and the heavy firing in Tripoli on Sunday morning was never persuasively explained.
But accuracy and logic have never been the tenets of Colonel Qaddafi’s governing philosophy, and their absence is especially conspicuous now, as rebels pose the greatest challenge to his four decades of enigmatic rule.
Not a day passes in Tripoli without some improbable claim by Colonel Qaddafi or the top officials around him: there are no rebels or protesters in Libya; the people who are demonstrating have been drugged by Al Qaeda; no shots have been fired to suppress dissent.
Yet a segment of the Libyan population appears to admire his defiant promotion of his world view, and confusion and obfuscation help explain how he keeps his rivals off balance.
Foreign news organizations were reporting, based on firsthand observations, that rebel forces remained in control of the eastern half of the country, as well many pockets in the west. The government’s only victory over the weekend appeared to be in its effort to drive rebels from the town of Ben Jawwad, which they had taken Saturday night. And both sides continued to prepare for a decisive battle in the Qaddafi stronghold of Surt.
But many Tripoli residents seemed happy to ignore such reports on Sunday and chose to accept Colonel Qaddafi’s narrative — that his loyalists were at the gates of the rebels’ headquarters in the eastern city of Benghazi, or were in control of it already, or had captured rebels’ top leader.
For more than four hours, Qaddafi supporters fired triumphant bursts of machine gun fire into the air from cars and among crowds in the downtown area. As many as 2,000 of them waved bright green flags and bandanas — and, in many cases, guns — as they rallied in Green Square, and several hundred of the pro-Qaddafi demonstrators were still at it at sunset.Many of the people in Green Square lashed out at the Arabic news channels Al Jazeera and Al-Arabia, calling them liars who had confused and inflamed Libya’s young people. The crowd’s fist-pumping ardor was a testament to the strength of the mythology of epic heroism that Colonel Qaddafi has instilled into Libyans during the 41 years since he seized power at the age of 27.
He did it in part by making sure that his was virtually the only voice in public life that most Libyans heard. News reports tried not to refer to other top government officials, or even soccer players, by name, ensuring that Colonel Qaddafi was virtually the only public figure in Libya.
Colonel Qaddafi has also built a persona, in particular as a revolutionary still tilting at distant colonial powers, that in some ways resonates with Libyans who remember their bitter experiences under Italian rule. His personal mythology has also helped him stay on top of a fractious, tribal and deeply divided society for longer than any other living leader in North Africa or the Middle East.
“He may have been mad,” said Prof. Diederick Vandewalle, of Dartmouth, a Libya specialist. “But there was certainly a method.”
It is hard to know what combination of fear, opportunism and sincere adoration drives supporters to attend the Qaddafi rallies that have erupted across Tripoli this week —the manic crowds pumping their fists and chanting “God and Muammar and Libya, enough.” The cult of Qaddafi began to take shape in 1975, just six years after the bloodless coup that brought him to power, when he published the “Green Book,” a grandiose and quasi-coherent work of a Stalin who aspired to become a Marx.
Government institutes were set up for its exegesis. A generation of Libyans grew up studying it as a great work of social and political theory. Tabletlike statues of its three volumes were erected in seemingly every town.
And in keeping with its precepts, Colonel Qaddafi eventually gave up any official title in the Libyan government, giving rise to one of the prime examples of Libyan doublespeak. While everyone in Libya regards Colonel Qaddafi as the all-powerful ruler behind every decision of the state, he often answers critics calling on him to surrender power by saying it is too late — he already has.
“I led the revolution in 1977, and I went back to my tent,” as he put it in a speech last week.
Behind his aloof and flamboyant public image, though, Colonel Qaddafi has remained not only in charge but intimately involved in even minor details of the Libyan government. Cables from the United States Embassy in Tripoli that were published by Wikileaks reported that he personally managed the cases of high-profile political prisoners, and even dictated the response to a specific travel request from the embassy.
He personally vets every Libyan government contract worth more than $200 million and examines many of much less value as well, the cables said. He doles out “plum contracts” to loyalists who can extract various fees for themselves, in part to buy their support, the cables said. He also displayed a mastery of details involved in complicated transactions like an attempt to revive an aborted 1970s deal to buy C-130 cargo planes from the United States.
“Al-Qadhafi’s mastery of tactical maneuvering has kept him in power for nearly 40 years; however, the unholy alliance of corruption and cult-of-personality politics on which the system has been based is ultimately limiting,” Ambassador Gene Cretz wrote in one cable, adding, “The reality is that no potential successor currently enjoys sufficient credibility in his own right to maintain that delicate equilibrium.”
What’s more, Colonel Qaddafi maintains a strong interest in American books about public affairs. In one cable, the embassy reported that Colonel Qaddafi assigned trusted aides to prepare Arabic summaries of Fareed Zakaria’s “The Post-American World,” Thomas Friedman’s “The World Is Flat 3.0,” George Soros’s “The Age of Fallibility: Consequences of the War on Terror” and President Obama’s “The Audacity of Hope.” Another of Zakaria’s books, “The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad,” was said to be a Qaddafi favorite.
At least until his brutal efforts to crush the Libyan uprising drew reprimands from Washington, Colonel Qaddafi was evidently a big fan of President Obama. The Libyan leader repeatedly sought to meet with the new American president, the embassy reported, and after his election wrote him a gushing note “on behalf of all Africa” and “in the name of all Arab leaders as I am their dean.”
“The black man is not less competent than the white man,” Colonel Qaddafi told Mr. Obama. “I salute the American people who have chosen you in these historical elections for such a high position, so that you may lead the change that you have promised them.”
Since the uprising here began Feb. 16, Colonel Qaddafi has repeated a series of wildly false assertions. In a speech to the Libyan General People’s Congress, for example, he declared there had been no demonstrations against him and that he was beloved by all the Libyan people.
He blamed the uprising on the distribution of drugs by Osama bin Laden, and he has insisted that a radical Islamist emir had taken over a city in the east, imposed Islamic law and begun daily executions of those who violated it.
But in the same speech, he demonstrated the peculiar bond he maintains with core supporters.
At several points during the three-hour speech, he paused to ask the audience for help with his memory — the name of a certain newspaper, for example, or a reminder to return to the subject of the drugs. His audience readily obliged.
His canniness is hard to gauge, but certainly, some of his predictions have proved to be far sighted. In his first response to the uprising, long before the rebels had armed themselves, he declared the tumult was sure to become a civil war.
And he warned that such strife would invite Western interference; he can now point to American warships off the coast, reports of British special forces in the East and a debate about Western air strikes to enforce a no-flight zone.
At other times he has appeared to put perhaps too much trust in his own propaganda.
His government invited some 130 foreign journalists to Tripoli last week and promptly bused them to areas where anti-Qaddafi protesters have burned buildings or taken over towns. Perhaps Libyan officials expected the foreign press to corroborate the government’s view that the insurgents were violent Islamic extremists.
But there was no evidence of an Islamist connection, and the rebels described far greater violence from the government forces. By Friday, the Libyan government appeared to be struggling to contain the journalists.
What started the gunfire in Tripoli early Sunday could not be determined. Protesters suggested that there had been a fight between members of his security forces, since they are the only ones with guns in the capital.
But the heavy celebratory gunfire that continued for four hours — and occurred again sporadically throughout the day — was an effective show of force to anyone who might have thought to challenge Colonel Qaddafi.
At the hotel housing the visiting journalists, Libyan government employees and hotel staff could be seen hugging and even crying over the state media’s good news of the government’s victories. And near twilight at Green Square, many in the crowd of several hundred were pushing forward to tell journalists how happy they were.
“The cities that were in control of the gangs — they were set free!” said Souad Monsour, a 19-year-old student. “People from everywhere are here to celebrate.”
Mohamed Said, 38, interrupted. “All the bloodshed in Libya has been because of Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya,” he said, echoing Colonel Qaddafi’s own accusations. “These bad channels are confusing people and turning them into trouble.”
Several insisted, as Qaddafi has, that the rebels were organized by Al Qaeda. Adle el-Ageli, wanted to talk about Qaddafi: “Muammar is a hawk. He is unique. There is no alternative to him.”
And if the state media reports of great victories prove false on Monday? Ms. Said would not answer directly. “I have a big trust in Muammar Qaddafi,” she said.
Tripoli Residents Try to Sort Out Regime's Claims
TRIPOLI, Libya—Down an alley in the capital's center, two friends sat in a living room taking refuge from the festivities and celebratory gunfire that overwhelmed the streets Sunday after the Libyan regime announced it had routed rebels in several areas in the east and some pockets in the west.
The friends mocked the claims but also expressed anger and apprehension.
Both said they were previously indifferent to Col. Moammar Gadhafi's rule but then turned against it last month following the brutal crackdown on protesters.
One man who identified himself as a government employee said he and his family switched on the television for news after hearing heavy gunfire at the crack of dawn.
"I thought for sure this is not true," he said referring to the government's claims, which were broadcast on several state-owned channels and radio stations, adding it is "impossible."
He said he called several friends in the east who denied the news.
His friend, an oil-sector worker, said his 2-year-old daughter cried for hours after she was jolted awake by the sound of gunfire.
"I am very angry because they are spreading lies," said the oil worker.
He said that despite the regime's massive crackdown against protests or dissent in Tripoli, many residents hoped rebels would advance close enough to the capital to give them courage to come out again on the streets in large numbers.
"I have great hope," he said.
As they spoke, the mother of one of them could be heard in an adjacent room beseeching another son to stay home.
The two friends mused that Sunday's celebrations were a good excuse to stay home and skip work. Most public establishments and private businesses in Tripoli and surrounding areas remain shuttered. But the two friends also speculated that the celebrations were a ploy by the regime to distract residents while its forces finished off rebels in the few pockets they controlled in the western part of the country.
"The talk is that atrocities are being committed in Zawiya as we speak," said one of them, referring to the town about 30 miles west of Tripoli that has been the scene of bloody clashes between government forces and rebels holed up inside.
Zawiya residents reached by telephone Saturday said dozens of people died in the fighting, in which the military deployed tanks and heavy artillery. A government spokesman denied there were clashes. Much of Sunday's celebrations appeared to be choreographed by the regime's hard-core supporters. Several residents said supporters handed out green-and-white baseball caps emblazoned with the Libyan leader's portrait and placards reading "Only God, Moammar and Libya."
On Sunday, Zawiya was completely cut off from the outside world. Cellphone communication with residents was severed Saturday night.
Soldiers blocked road access to Zawiya. A Wall Street Journal reporter who traveled on Sunday in the direction of the town on the coastal highway saw soldiers diverting all traffic to a dirt road that ran through citrus orchards.
Tanks and soldiers closed another inland road leading to Zawiya. There were military checkpoints every few hundred yards on the highway from Tripoli, which was clogged with Col. Gadhafi's supporters honking their car horns, blaring patriotic songs and waving the regime's green banner.
Some of the vehicles were brimming with pro-Gadhafi militiamen wearing green bandanas and brandishing AK-47s.
Children standing in the back of a dump truck chanted and waved green flags. Armed men fired into the air.
"I am sure [Gadhafi] will pardon them," said Zeinab Meslati, 29, referring to the rebels.
Ms. Meslati, a nurse, came out on Sunday with her fiance to the central Green Square to join thousands of people celebrating what they called "the liberation" of the country's east.
Write to Sam Dagher at sam.dagher@wsj.com
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