Massacre of Blacks in Libya

..A Ghanaian victim’s accounts

SPECIAL REPORT: RICHMOND KEELSON

The setting might not be the same; yet, gauging by the magnitude of the deliberate slaughtering of humans in the Libyan carnage, it would be a suicide mission for anybody to call for a similar spectacle, in whatever form, elsewhere on the continent.

In the light of the Libyan madness, observers fear the gusto call by Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to his supporters to resist, by all means possible, the imaginary rigging of the 2012 election, in his infamous All Die Be Die debacle, is likely to be carried through, by whatever interpretation by party hardliners on the 2012 election day, to stage a theatre that can be similar to what is happening in Libya.

Already the New Patriotic Party’s presidential candidate’s call is being interpreted by many NPP zealots as a win-win situation for the elephant party and that only a possible rigging could hand the ruling party a second four-year term.

The popular belief was corroborated by many party faithful who participated in the campaign launch of one Lawyer Adwoa Safo, an aspirant of the NPP’s Dome-Kwabenya primary.

This reporter had gone underground to seek their opinion on the All Die Be Die mantra and it emerged from interactions that they would not take anything short of an NPP win, even if all pointers show that the NPP had lost the 2012 election.

As a mark of their seriousness and total consummate in the new battle-cry, All Die Be Die, now constitutes a party slogan and has virtually replaced the age-long NPP slogan of Kukrudu…eshie…wrado…wrado…

They were heard shouting and gesturing in the All Die Be Die mantra with some wearing T-shirt with the inscription “All Die Be Die” embossed on and other NPP paraphernalia embossed with the same inscription.

But, a tale narration by a Ghanaian, who escaped the obvious Libyan genocide, is so chilling and harrowing that perhaps, Nana Addo and his fellow hardliners would not need a video footage to shift their stance.

Many such hardliners believe the NPP virtually surrendered victory to the NDC in the 2008 election because of the general apathy exhibited by the leadership of the NPP.

Therefore Nana Addo’s call is just what is required from the sleepy leadership to rekindle the dormant aggressive instincts of party fanatics.

But by the account offered by the Ghanaian (name withheld for security reasons) is so frightening that war in whatever form should not be countenanced by anybody, irrespective of how he or she might be aggrieved.

According to the victim, opponents of the Libyan president are deliberating killing blacks on accusation that the Libyan government has recruited West African nationals to fight on its behalf in the over one month strife in the North African country.

Indeed the international media reported last week that the Libyan government recruited some nationals from Mali, precisely the Tuaregs, who share border with the North African country to fight on its behalf.

Apparently, with its juicy monetary enticement, the Tuaregs, according to the report, could not resist the offer and agreed gleefully to offer support to the beleaguered Gaddafi and his government.

With the help of government forces, the mercenaries stormed many of the opposition strongholds to lead the bouts of intense massacre of opposition forces and their supporters.

Muammar Gaddafi has run a very unprofessional army since his almost 42-year reign.

That approach, investigations have shown, was a deliberate attempt to keep at bay and distance any possible threat to his rule.

Apparently a makeshift army was put in place for fear that a professional armed forces was always going to be a threat to his regime; and just as a professional Colonel in the Libyan army, he exploited the expertise acquired in the professional Libyan army to topple King Iddris.

He thus replaced the Libyan army with some form of militias drawn on ethnic lines.

Unfortunately, Gaddafi seems to be stabbed by his own arrangements because most of the militias feel that they are not properly taken care of by him (Gaddafi) like he does to the militias drawn from his ethnic tribe.

So the rebels are drawn largely from militias from other ethnic groups except that of Gaddafi.

Therefore Gaddafi has to rely on external support to deal with the marauding onslaught from the rebels.

“At first the rebels could not identify the identity of the assailants because they were put in special military vehicles where they shot indiscriminately at anyone at opposition strongholds,” the victim explained.

He further narrated that when the massacre became so intense, the rebels managed to pull the brakes on one of the vehicles only to find out that the occupants were blacks.

“That is where our problems started. They killed every occupant of the vehicle and later set their eyes on every black, whether you were from the Tuareg ethnic group or not,” the victim disclosed, adding that “I bet you many Ghanaians and Nigerians and other nationals of south of the Sahara have been killed and murdered.”

“They put the dead bodies in mass graves, while they still pursued others. Sometimes we had to dig deep and wide holes to hide ourselves for fear of being identified by the opposition forces,” he said, and added “We had to eat from refuse dumps and although most of us had monies on us we dare not go out in the open to look for food.”

He further disclosed that the rebels reduced their attack when they found out that it was only the Tuaregs who were employed by Gaddafi and not necessarily all blacks domiciled in Libya, yet the victim disclosed that the rebels had given all foreign nationals up to the 18th of March to leave Libya or continue with their killings.