Snatched and detained: Libya’s ‘jungle law’

Reuters reports: Abdulnasser Ruhuma was asleep in his bed when the militia fighters barged into his Tripoli home. The shouting woke the Libyan bank worker and he rushed downstairs to find around 40 men pointing their rifles at him.

Moments later they started beating him. Ruhuma’s wife and relatives begged the intruders to stop but they dragged him and his uncle away. Punched, hit with rifle butts and cut with knives, Ruhuma was taken to a makeshift detention center in the middle of the night.

In a stark reminder of the lawlessness that prevails in Libya eight months after the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi, the gunmen never told Ruhuma why they abducted him. He says it stems from a family issue – a relative wanted revenge, so he called on the help of an armed brigade.

“We weren’t told anything, we were just beaten – our hands, our legs, our bodies,” the 42-year old father-of-two said.

“I thought I would never make it out alive.”

Libya’s aspirations to replace Gaddafi’s repressive rule with an ordered, democratic nation are being undermined by increasingly wayward volunteer militias who operate outside the control of fragile state institutions.

The militias attract most attention when, mounted on their battered pick-up trucks with anti-aircraft guns welded to the back, they fight pitched battles in city streets against rival groups, usually over some perceived slight or a dispute over territory.

But it is their less visible activities that have done the most to puncture the sense of euphoria and freedom that followed Gaddafi’s downfall.

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3 thoughts on “Snatched and detained: Libya’s ‘jungle law’”

  1. dickerson3870

    RE: “Libya’s aspirations to replace Gaddafi’s repressive rule with an ordered, democratic nation are being undermined by increasingly wayward volunteer militias who operate outside the control of fragile state institutions.” ~ Reuters

    MY SNARK: Not to worry, Susan Rice will take care of everything pursuant to R2P. Because we really, really care about human rights (as opposed to oil and AFRICOM’s hegemony). Really, we do. Seriously! (Lol)

    SEE: “The imperial agenda of the US’s ‘Africa Command’ marches on”, by Dan Glazebrook, Guardian.com, 6/14/12
    With mission accomplished in Libya, Africom now has few obstacles to its military ambitions on the continent

    (excerpt) . . . Libya was a test case. The first war actually commanded by Africom, it proved remarkably successful – a significant regional power was destroyed without the loss of a single US or European soldier. But the significance of this war for Africom went much deeper than that for, in taking out Muammar Gaddafi, Africom had actually eliminated the project’s fiercest adversary.
    Gaddafi ended his political life as a dedicated pan-Africanist and, whatever one thought of the man, it is clear that his vision for Africa was very different from that of the subordinate supplier of cheap labour and raw materials that Africom was created to maintain. He was not only the driving force behind the creation of the African Union in 2002, but had also served as its elected head, and made Libya its biggest financial donor. To the dismay of some of his African colleagues, he used his time as leader to push for a “United States of Africa”, with a single currency, single army and single passport. More concretely, Gaddafi’s Libya had an estimated $150bn worth of investment in Africa – often in social infrastructure and development projects, and this largesse bought him many friends, particularly in the smaller nations. As long as Gaddafi retained this level of influence in Africa, Africom was going to founder.
    Since his removal, however, the organisation has been rolling full steam ahead.     It is no coincidence that within months of the fall of Tripoli – and in the same month as Gaddafi’s execution – President Obama announced the deployment of 100 US special forces to four different African countries, including Uganda. . .

    ENTIRE COMMENTARY – http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/14/africom-imperial-agenda-marches-on

  2. dickerson3870

    RE: “Not to worry, Susan Rice will take care of everything pursuant to R2P. Because we really, really care about human rights (as opposed to oil and AFRICOM’s hegemony). Really, we do. Seriously! (Lol)” ~ me (above)

    FROM GLENN GREENWALD (6/22/12):

    (excerpt) . . . But it never ceases to amaze that every time there is some new American Enemy to rail against or attack — in Iraq, in Iran, in Syria, in Libya — and defenders of American militarism claim to be motivated by opposition to human rights abuses and repression of freedom, there are hordes of people willing to believe that these noble, magnanimous considerations actually drive U.S. policy. What else would the U.S. have to do to prove this is false? The people in the region — whom the American media loves to patronizingly scorn as propagandized — have no trouble watching the close U.S-Saudi alliance or Hillary Clinton’s close family friendship with the Mubaraks and seeing the emptiness of American rhetoric about freedom and democracy. Perhaps it isn’t they who are the ones drowning in propaganda. . .

    SOURCE – http://www.salon.com/2012/06/22/the_u_s_and_the_saudis/singleton/

  3. Joe

    The same will happen in Syria if Asad goes — I hate to say that, because who could be under any illusions about Asad? But look at Libya, with its Wahhabi style crack downs, and its savage racism against black Libyans.

    I have the highest respect for Islam and I feel the greatest sympathy for Arabs, given the fact we all know there IS a war on Islam on every front you can imagine ( and many we can’t imagine, USA/UK/Israel are so unpleasant in their deep hate for Islam).

    But I have to conclude that Arabs are , more and more, their own worst enemies, especially when they collude with and allow Salafi and Wahabbi sects to take control over how their liberation struggles are going to be fought.

    There is nothing Israel and America and UK loves more than when Arabs show themselves up to be intolerant Wahabbi repressive, violent, racist, uneducated, reactionary nut cases.

    Wake up Arabs, or it really will be too late. Every time Israel or USA/UK want to make you look bad, stupid, corrupt — you go ahead and prove them right.

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