Qaddafi was certainly aware of the dangers posed by the tumultuous events in Tunisia and Egypt. He felt all too keenly that he was suddenly outflanked, exposed on both sides. He also knew that the grievances affecting the Libyans were not that dissimilar to those of their neighbours. The possibility of the ‘domino effect’ was something the now ageing Colonel could not ignore. He moved quickly to condemn the events in Tunisia, declaring: ‘There is none better than Zine [El Abedine Ben Ali] to govern Tunisia.’ He also dismissed the Tunisian protests as the criminal actions of a minority, asserting: ‘Tunisia now lives in fear … families could be raided and slaughtered in their bedrooms and the citizens in the street killed as if it was the Bolshevik or the American revolution … And for what? In order for someone to become president instead of Ben Ali?’2 His words put him completely at odds with the masses in the Arab world. Here was someone who had championed the people and anti-imperialism all his life, defending one of the most reactionary and pro-Western regimes of the region. Yet he had no choice.
In typical ‘Qaddafiesque’ style, the Colonel also pontificated that the turmoil in Tunisia would be justified if it resulted in its adoption of the Jamahiriyah system! However, the message was clear: Qaddafi was going to do his utmost to ensure that what had happened in Tunisia was not going to happen in Libya.
To this end he employed a two-pronged approach. On the one hand, he did his utmost to convince Libyans that he was taking their concerns and demands seriously. Following the Tunisian revolution, he embarked upon a series of showy public consultations, holding meetings with Libyans from all walks of life, in which he played the part of the magnanimous listener, keen to get to the bottom of what was upsetting the people. In Derna, for example, he met with a cross-section of residents, who complained about unemployment, housing, the lack of infrastructure, low salaries and administrative corruption. The Colonel responded with noble promises, insisting that the state was on the verge of solving these very problems. Predictably enough, these meetings were not all smiles and niceties: Qaddafi peppered his promises with stern warnings, threatening journalists and social networking activists not to take part in rioting, and making it clear that their tribes would bear full responsibility if they did anything to destabilize the country.3
As part of his charm offensive, Qaddafi also courted the country's tribal leaders, hosting them in lavish ceremonies in specially erected tents. He even went so far as to invite the families of the victims of the 17 February 2006 riots to Tripoli, where he honoured them by giving them medals. In a particular sop to the east, the Colonel sent his son Saadi to Benghazi to try to convince local inhabitants that the regime was serious about tackling development problems in the region. Choosing Saadi for this task was a curious move. Saadi had a particularly antagonistic relationship with the eastern city that dated back to the late 1990s. Residents had not forgotten how the Leader's son had arrogantly bulldozed their football stadium and relegated their much-loved football team, Al-Ahli – Benghazi. He had done so as punishment for their having sent a donkey into the street wearing a football shirt bearing his number, in protest at his repeated rigging of matches to ensure that his favoured team, Al-Ahli – Tripoli, won. Sending Saadi to Benghazi, therefore, was hardly going to calm tensions. Saadi's approach was even more bizarre. He told the local radio station: ‘I have taken permission from my father, so he can give me Benghazi. No one will come near it, I am coming to live there. I am even bringing my clothes.’4 Saadi's efforts clearly were not cutting it, and he soon found himself trapped and under siege in Benghazi's Ozo Hotel, from where he had to be rescued by security forces and spirited out of the city.5
On a more practical note, the regime also began talking about raising salaries, hoping that it could deter the Arab Spring's arrival in Libya by buying people off. There were hints, too, that at long last there was going to be some political reform. It was mooted that the hugely unpopular General People's Committee was about to be sacked.6 However, such gestures were fairly inconsequential to a population saturated with endless promises of change. The Libyans were in no mood for more talk of reform.
These ‘sweeteners’ dovetailed with the regime's tried and tested method of raw intimidation. Expecting trouble to arise first in the east, the Colonel bolstered his security presence in the eastern regions, posting top security chiefs, such as Abdullah Sanussi, to Benghazi and moving members of the revolutionary committees to the 7 April military camp there. The regime also tried to stop the Day of Rage from taking place; it was in this context that Fathi Terbil was arrested. The dangers of the Day of Rage were serious enough for the young lawyer to be questioned by Abdullah Sanussi himself. Sanussi tried to intimidate Terbil into calling off the day of protest. Yet the brave Terbil remained defiant. He told the feared security chief that the Day of Rage was out of his hands, and that the regime's best bet would be to pull its security forces from the streets and leave people to demonstrate peacefully. Sanussi, who was in the company of several major figures in the regime, including Qaddafi's cousin Omar Ishkal and key revolutionary committee stalwart Tayib Saafi, retorted: ‘We won't submit and we are capable of confronting people.’7
Yet the most memorable effort by the regime to pre-empt the Day of Rage was Qaddafi's bid to arrange mass public demonstrations of his own. Pro-regime rallies were organized in all the major cities, and sports clubs were all issued with instructions to hold special celebratory festivals to mark the anniversary of the Prophet's birthday, which fell on 15 February. Qaddafi went on a special glory tour of Tripoli. Who could forget the scenes of the grinning Leader waving to the crowds from an open-top limousine, as he was driven through the streets of the capital? Demonstrating his lack of understanding of the seriousness of the situation, the Colonel even quipped that, because they were part of the ‘state of the masses’, the Libyan people had no need to revolt; they could not rise up against themselves. It would not be long before his cruel joke would be turned against him to devastating effect.
Indeed, the regime's efforts to stop the Day of Rage were a case of too little too late. As news of Terbil's detention reverberated through Benghazi, the families he was representing began gathering at the gate of the general security directorate in Benghazi to demand his release. They were joined by lawyers and other professionals, who added their voices to the calls for Terbil to be freed. The Day of Rage was kicking off a day early. To make matters worse, these seeds of protest were soon catapulted into the international arena. A Benghazi-based writer, Dr Idris Mismari, took the brave decision to give a telephone interview to the Al-Jazeera satellite television channel, in order to tell the world what was going on in the country's second city. As he talked, Mismari found himself being chased by the security services. In dramatic scenes, a breathless Mismari called on the outside world to come and protect the Libyans, before his telephone line was abruptly cut.
Under the glare of the international media, the regime decided to release Terbil. However, he was called back to the security directorate the following day. But by then it was too late, and the citizens of Benghazi had got the bit between their teeth. They knew that this was their chance to break the yoke that had been crushing them for decades, and nothing was going to stop them. The 17 February saw demonstrations erupt at various spots across the city, while the lawyers and families of the victims of the Abu Slim massacre began a full-blown protest in front of the Benghazi courthouse, where they were soon joined by other demonstrators. Some protested outside the revolutionary committee mathaba and others outside the offices of the Green Book Studies Centre, while others set fire to police stations. The slogans calling for reforms and a constitution were replaced with far bolder demands: the people wanted an end to the regime. Protesters also began holding up the flag of pre-Qaddafi Libya – a flag that was to become one of the enduring symbols of Libya's new revolution. It was suddenly looking as though the remarkable scenes that had been played out in Tunisia just weeks before were about to be replicated in Libya.<
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The ruthless Qaddafi determined to do whatever it took to preserve his regime. Showing none of the restraint exercised by his Tunisian counterpart, the Colonel lashed out hard. Security forces were instructed to put down the unrest by all means necessary, and they began firing on the unarmed protesters. On 17 February, thirteen people were killed and a further two hundred injured in Jamal Abdel Nasser Street alone, while eight were killed in Omar Bin Al-Aas Street. Similar scenes were replicated across the city. The regime's heavy-handed response did not, however, deter the dissent, and things became even more heated on 18 February: in a show of defiance, demonstrators gathered for Friday prayers in front of the Benghazi courthouse, after which they began protesting against the regime. The young and the old, Islamist and liberal, the comfortably off and the poor – all united by the desire for change and all sensing the first, tantalizing taste of freedom – thronged into the streets to call for an end to tyranny.
It was not long before things turned violent. Police and security centres were torched, as were revolutionary committee offices. The situation became especially tense after security forces opened fire on mourners attending the funerals of those already killed in the violence. The bloody-minded brutality of this act set off a spiral of violence, as the regime did its utmost to control a situation that was fast getting out of hand. Indeed, it was not only in Benghazi that people were protesting. Other towns in the east had shed their fear and were rising up in solidarity with those people in Benghazi. The regime employed a similarly heavy-handed response: on 17 February security forces killed thirty people in Al-Baida, six in Derna and ten in Ajdabia.
Yet the more the regime used brute force, the more defiant people became. As Libyan diplomat Ahmed Jibreel, who defected to the opposition, explained,
Qadhafi's guards started shooting people on the second day and they shot two people only. On that day we only had 300 protesters in Al-Baida. When they killed two people, we had more than 5,000 at their funeral, and when they killed 15 people the next day we had more than 50,000 the following day … This means that the more Qadhafi kills people, the more people go into the streets.8
For the residents of the east, it was a terrifying time. As one student blogger who had barricaded herself into her home on the outskirts of Benghazi described it:
I've seen violent movies and video games that are nothing compared to this. I can hear gunshots, helicopters circling overhead, then I hear the voices screaming. I can hear the screeching of four-by-fours in the street. No one has that type of car except his [Qaddafi's] people … There are even stories here that he [Qaddafi] has poisoned the water, so we dare not drink. If he could cut off the air that we breathe, he would.9
Although cutting off the oxygen was one trick that was beyond the Colonel's powers, the regime certainly did its best to isolate the city, cutting off telephone lines and internet connections, and interrupting mobile telephone coverage. However, by this point the citizens of the east were being carried on the crest of a wave. As the young blogger also described, ‘It's like a pressure cooker. People are boiling up inside. I'm not even afraid any more. Once I wouldn't have spoken at all by phone. Now I don't care. Now enough is enough.’10 Even the all-powerful Qaddafi was unable to halt the Arab Spring's arrival in Cyrenaica.
However, it was not only in the rebellious east that Libyans were rising up. Al-Zawiya, in the west of the country, came out against the regime on 19 February. Protesters there carried slogans declaring: ‘By our soul, by our blood, we sacrifice ourselves for you, Benghazi.’ The next day clashes broke out in Misarata, where rebels took control of the centre of the city. To Qaddafi's utter horror, demonstrations also broke out in the capital. There were uprisings on 18 and 19 February just metres from Qaddafi's Bab Al-Aziziya residence, although protesters dispersed after a rumour began circulating that Qaddafi had escaped the compound and after police started shooting at the crowds.11 On 18 February, protesters also began gathering at night in Green Square, thinking that this would be the moment they could finally become masters of their own destiny. They were to be bitterly disappointed: the crowds were not big enough to generate any real momentum, and the regime's brutal efforts at putting the protest down were largely successful. Security forces opened fire on the crowd, and speeding vehicles were sent around the square, mowing down protesters, while the regime loyalists in the cars shot into the crowds at close range. Tripoli would have to wait before it could have an Arab Spring of its own.
While the regime may have been able to hold on to the west, by the end of February most of the east was in rebel hands. Reflecting just how little legitimacy Qaddafi and his regime had been able to build in the region, the eastern cities had fallen with breathtaking speed, as Qaddafi's security forces melted away or joined the opposition. It was rapidly dawning on the regime that it stood no real chance against this new-found determination to achieve change on the part of people who, in many cases, had known nothing other than Qaddafi's rule. This realization sent the regime into spiralling panic. Qaddafi was clearly stunned: in a brief and utterly bizarre appearance on state television (made in part to dispel rumours that he had fled to Venezuela), he looked utterly stupefied. The usually verbose Colonel – now unshaven and sporting the most unbecoming deer-hunter hat as he sat in a white golf cart with a large white umbrella – made a speech that lasted for less than twenty seconds. This ‘speech’ consisted mostly of attacks on the foreign media and journalists, whom he described as ‘dogs’. To anyone who knew the Colonel, he looked like a man who had lost it.
Never one to buckle under pressure, Qaddafi fought back. First, he made the strategic decision to focus his efforts on securing Tripoli. He pulled what forces he had left out of the east and turned his attention to bolstering security in the capital. He also did his utmost to brush the trouble off as a regional problem. He made out that this was not a case of the Arab Spring reaching Libya, but was another instance of those bothersome easterners creating trouble. Given the east's reputation as a bastion of Islamism, he also tried to dismiss the rebels as drug-crazed Islamists with ties to Al-Qa'ida.
At this point, the Colonel believed that, if he could just hold onto the capital, it would only be a matter of time before he could reorganize his forces and re-establish control across the rest of the country. His confidence was born partly out of the well-founded assumption that Libya's experience of the Arab Spring was going to be very different from that of its neighbours. This was largely due to the status of the army. Unlike in Tunisia and Egypt, where the army had taken the side of the people and had been pivotal in forcing Ben Ali and Mubarak out of power, the Libyan army was in no position to be able to force anything. The Colonel, who had fomented his own coup from within the armed forces, had long held a deep-rooted suspicion of the army, once asserting that the military was ‘always inclined to tyranny and even conspiracy’.12 He had purposely kept his armed forces weak and divided – to the point where the army was regularly described as more of a ‘military club’ than a fighting force. When it came to it, therefore, the army proved unable to play any decisive role in the crisis.
Qaddafi also knew that he could rely upon his most important security forces to stick by him. Over the years, he had ensured that his security brigades were dominated by members of his own family and tribe, and, as his sons had come of age, the toughest and most military-minded of them were given their own security battalions. Khamis, in particular, led the much-feared 32 Brigade, which had always had access to the most up-to-date kit. By filling his security battalions with those of his own kith and kin, Qaddafi ensured that their fate was so closely entwined with his own that they were in no position to try to oust him. Similarly, the power of Qaddafi's inner circle of trusted advisors derived almost entirely from their personal connections to him. He knew they were so close to him that they were unlikely to push him out of power, or even to defect. Indeed, the Colonel had crafted a highly personalized ruling system: he sat at the centre of a web of confidants, ma
ny of whom he had known since his schooldays and on whose support he could count.
That is not to say that there were no defections. The first major blow to Qaddafi came early on, when General Abdelfatah Younis Al-Obeidi, who had been at the Colonel's side from the very beginning, resigned from his post as public security secretary (minister) and threw in his lot with the opposition. He did so while in the midst of an operation to protect one of the regime's most important bases in Benghazi. Al-Obeidi's defection to the rebel forces was a major coup for the opposition and gave the revolution some serious legitimacy.
A handful of other members of the regime also defected. However, these were mainly figures from the formal institutions of government or from the diplomatic corps, and, while indeed a setback, the defections were not life threatening to the regime. What was more serious for Qaddafi, however, was the high-profile defection of his trusted intelligence chief, Musa Kusa, who fled to Britain in March. Although Kusa did not join the rebels, the decision by one of the most powerful Qaddafi loyalists to leave what was widely being viewed as a sinking ship did little for the regime's confidence.
Yet, aside from these figures, almost all of Qaddafi's inner circle remained loyal until the bitter end. So, too, did the tribes that had traditionally supported his regime: not only the Qaddadfa, but the Werfella and the Megraha also remained steadfast. While some elements within these tribes did defect, the tribes themselves were so bound up with the regime that they stuck by their Leader until the death. Secure in these elements, the Colonel felt he could carry on and fight back.
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