Sunday, March 27, 2011

Libya Turmoil 54

The story of the woman in the Rixos Hotel, observed from Europe by watching the video’s.

It’s obvious that Gaddafi is not popular with the international press.
They are all sitting in the Rixos and they are more or less closely watched by the Libyan security. This is by personal on the spot observation.
I went in and out of the Rixos when I wanted, took a taxi, no security with me, and went where I wanted.
I never took a taxi in front of the hotel, I am crazy from time to time but not stupid.
My taxi was never stopped and I saw no traffic barriers. I left the day before the No-Fly circus started. Meanwhile it probably changed.
But while I was there I heard the whining of the middle-level press people, never from the seasoned war horses nor from the camera-men and technicians, they are the cream of the mass media and would do anything for their job. Amazingly the women reporters impressed me most.
Anyway, it seems that the international press is frustrated that they can’t shoot gory pictures and pieces of human bodies. They can’t go on military secret locations and/or bombed military locations, in short they are not part of the American way of going to war with the boys inbedded.
I have news for you, you are not with the US army, you are with a Beduïn army which is very, very mad at your countries and could really drink your blood because your governments, which you elected and for which you are democratically responsible, is bombing the shit out of their army, you know human beings in uniform?
Your countries have decided that a part of 1 million people from the East, in cahoots with Al Quaida and other fundamentalists, should take over 5,5 million Libyans and their riches. That’s the plain truth and you damn well know it.
So while you are taking your breakfast there is this woman coming in yelling and screaming rape and giving her name.
This woman didn’t go to that hotel straight from the prison or lock-up where she says she had been kept and I think it’s even possible that she was in a lock-up. She didn’t go straight to the hotel from the lock-up because she was fresh and her clothes were in order.
I couldn’t make head or tails out of her screaming and I wonder who translated what she said. For my readers information, Libyan Arabic and more so Benghazi Arabic are not easy for other Arab speakers and definitely not while shrieking, unless the video’s I saw were not the clear or good ones.
A raped Libyan woman goes to her family for revenge and the father, husband, brother, son takes care of it, while at the same time keeping their distance from the woman from that point in time onwards. This is not Gaddafi’s fault, this is their damn Muslim Beduïn culture.
Gaddafi didn’t do anything else but improve the situation of the women in Libya, he is known for helping women in distress and for berating the Libyan men to honor their wives, not that the men listen too carefully.
But for a frustrated press corps this was “gefundenes fressen”, nothing else was happening that day except some bombed Gaddafi-loyalist soldiers, they had it coming to them anyway.
No this shrieking woman was the final proof that Gaddafi should be bombed and liquidated.
Nobody knows the real story about this woman, in any case she came freely in a well guarded hotel and she knew she would have maximum 5 minutes, which she lost in uncomprehensible shrieks, as far as I could hear. If she spoke English I didn’t hear one word of it.
I have asked my friends to find out the real story of this woman, I don’t think she will be very happy right now, her performance in front of the international press definitely didn’t make her any friends with the Gaddafi-loyal security services, they will consider her a traitor. And don’t forget, that country is now AT WAR with the whole world while they didn’t attack anybody.
This is actually in shrill contrast with the several news items in Benghazi of black Africans, taken out of their cars with their families, molested, locked up and killed because they were considered black mercenaries for Gaddafi!!! This was never reported in extenso although half of the world’s media are in Benghazi. 2 wrongs don’t make it right, but there is a difference in approach, isn’t there?
Remember the women, beaten, raped, shaved bald and thrown to the mob naked after the war in 1945. Their sole “supposed” mistake being to have loved a German soldier, worse to have had a baby from them. Those women were locked up and treated much worse than this Libyan woman, by so called civilized citizens of Europe and not by Bedouin warriors without real civilized education.
Mind you I don’t support the bad treatment of that woman and if I would have been there I would probably have pleaded for her like I did for others, but Libya is at war, not in a video-game but in a real bloody war against the whole world, they don’t have nightmares because of the rough treatment of a single woman nobody knew anything about.

It’s sad, it’s rotten, it’s war in all its aspects, but the Gaddafi- loyal Libyans didn’t start it.

6 comments:

  1. A Gadaffi spokesman, Musa Ibrahim, has promised that female members of the international press will be allowed to interview this woman in the next two or three days. We'll see.

    Atl.

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  2. I thought it seemed rather implausible and the timing convenient, with the military action not succeeding so far, in whatever confused goals it had. Plus the letter published by the Figaro that morning, from the leader of the rebels, asking foreign military to leave? Nothing in the UK about that which is very strange.
    I also did wonder how she escaped, if she were in prison, or why they let her go, and how she got into the hotel. I heard women's rights in libya were classed one of the best in the arabic world. The problem with this ill thought out war is it has now caused escalation in tensions and more suffering for people.
    CAM

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  3. If Mr Ibrahim is true to his word the controversy surrounding the previously alleged rape, current whereabouts and well-being of the woman concerned should become a whole lot clearer to all parties concerned. Like I said before - the onus is now on Mr Ibrahim to remain true to his word - we'll see.

    Atl.

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  4. I'd also urge Mr Ibrahim, a self-confessed western educated individual (a charismatic young man with impeccable manners and considerable media savvy) NOT to allow himself to become the Libyan equivalent of the former Iraqi Minister of Information, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf.

    Atl.

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  5. Lets face it both sides in a war use propaganda to make out that what they are doing is for the good of the people. The only trouble that is that in the west we are only seeing one side of the story produced by our media and governments. The reporting is making out that gaddafi is 'evil' and the rebels are 'the good side'.

    I had to laugh out loud the other day when watching a report on french news. The reporter was standing alongside the road saying the rebels are lightly armed and are no match for the gaddafi troops. Then behind the reporter a rebel convoy appears with mobile missile launchers. The report quickly ended.

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  6. News from Tripoli, also published by The Times.

    "TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — Libya's government says a woman who stormed into a Tripoli hotel Saturday to tell reporters that government troops raped her is now with her family. A government spokesman alleges she's a prostitute and has refused a medical examination. The spokesman says four men have been interrogated in the case."

    The prostitute story was to be expected, after all it's an easy one to ruin her reputation.

    ReplyDelete