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By Patrick J. McDonnell, Los Angeles Times
September 2, 2011
Reporting from Janzour, Libya
They huddle beneath dry-docked boats at the
edge of the Mediterranean, petrified that
the rebel gunmen who now own the streets
will confuse them with mercenaries for the
despot.
"We are workers, we are not soldiers," said
Godfrey Ogbor, 29, voicing a plea shared by
hundreds of men from sub-Saharan
Africa trapped at this makeshift
coastal camp 15 miles west of
Tripoli. "We don't know politics.
We have no guns."
But the new masters of Tripoli suspect that
many are something else: shock troops for a
reviled regime, collaborators who deserve no
pity.
For decades, impoverished young sub-Saharan
Africans came to Libya to work in
construction, hotel, car-repair and other
blue-collar and service jobs. But
Moammar Kadafi also avidly
recruited poor black men, both Libyans and
sub-Saharans, for his security forces.
Government rallies inevitably featured
contingents of seemingly delirious
gun-toting young blacks waving the leader's
signature green flag. Rebels have not
forgotten.
With Kadafi on the run, the hunt for
loyalists has made all young black men
suspect, vulnerable to arrest or worse on
edgy streets where snap decisions substitute
for measured justice.
These days, the world waits to see what kind
of government emerges under new leaders: one
based on tolerance and justice or on
vengeance. The concern is particularly acute
in Europe, where many fear that violence
against blacks and others perceived as
Kadafi loyalists could lead to a desperate
new boat exodus across the Mediterranean.
"I had to run for my dear life to get away,"
said Peter Mbanudo, 32, a Nigerian who
recounted his narrow escape as fighting
raged in Tripoli, where he said he worked as
a house painter. "I'm afraid to go out now.
They may catch me and lock me up. Or kill
me."
Many marooned sub-Saharan migrants are
crammed into an abandoned former military
base turned informal refugee camp along a
desolate stretch of the coast. Now suspected
of being mercenaries, they were once
welcomed as a remedy to a chronic labor
shortage in an oil-rich but thinly populated
country.
The rebellion caused multitudes of African
workers and their families to flee the
country, many in rickety boats that
capsized, causing hundreds to drown. Many of
those who stayed have gone from trusted
worker to suspected fifth column.
Many black men perhaps thousands, no one
knows for sure have been arrested and
warehoused in improvised jails in the
capital and elsewhere. The rebel leadership
has urged its fighters to treat the
prisoners humanely, but amid the bedlam,
independent monitors have not gained regular
access to detainees.
Amnesty International warned this
week of the threat to suspected Kadafi
loyalists, "in particular black Libyans and
sub-Saharan Africans," who, the rights group
said, "are at high risk of abuse by anti-Kadafi
forces."
Rebels routinely detain black men on the
streets and at checkpoints. Beyond skin
color, the evidence against them often seems
scant. A few days ago, a
Kalashnikov-wielding rebel led three tall,
apparently terrified blacks into a Tripoli
school that had been converted to a
detention center.
"They have no job, no family, so probably
they are with Kadafi," the young insurgent
concluded nonchalantly. "We give them food.
We cannot kill them. It is haram,"
forbidden.
Frightened men have clustered in this
onetime military base, which, during the
final months of Kadafi's rule, was a
jumping-off point for boats taking migrants
to Europe, especially
Italy. But no boats are leaving
now.
The men from Nigeria, Gambia, Ghana, Mali
and elsewhere have little food, inadequate
water and no proper toilet facilities. To
create shade in the blazing North African
heat, they have strung blankets from the
idle fishing boats. During the day, many
lounge about, shirtless, with nothing to do.
They fear that revenge-minded assailants
could arrive at any moment.
"Nothing is safe in Tripoli for us anymore,"
said Kelly John, 19, who said he worked as
an elevator maintenance man, earning as much
as $1,000 a month. "It used to be beautiful
here. We had chances we didn't have at home.
We could move up, not down. But now it's
crazy, full of guns and bombs."
Residents say armed men it's unclear
whether they were rebels have raided the
camp and looted their belongings, snatching
life savings at gunpoint. All those
interviewed Thursday said they had never
taken up arms and were neither pro- nor
anti-Kadafi.
"We don't know who is a rebel, who is with
Kadafi," said Zainab Ezukuse, 29, one of a
number of women here. "All we know is
Libyans. I don't speak Arabic. I don't know
politics. We are civilians."
Several small stands sell basic foodstuffs
and bottled juices at inflated prices at the
camp, which is about a mile from the main
road that leads east to Tripoli, west to
Zawiya. Men venture out cautiously each day
in search of water. Many say they have
diarrhea and other maladies. They have
little news from the outside world.
"Some of our brothers [friends] went out and
we never heard from them again," said
Emmersion Abdul Rezak, who said he worked at
a soft drink plant. "We think they are
arrested. Maybe they are dead."
During its life as a military base, the
impromptu camp was heavily guarded, but in
recent in months, several people from the
area said, Kadafi's government facilitated
the entry of Africans hoping to migrate by
boat to Europe. He apparently viewed the
throngs arriving on Italian shores as
payback for the
NATO bombing of Libya.
The military base was run by a Kadafi
operative named Zuhair, according to several
people familiar with its operation. As
rebels approached Tripoli, they said, Zuhair
was seen taking off in a speedboat,
accompanied by his top aide and two
bodyguards.
As the fighting reached the capital,
migrants said, the camp population grew
rapidly. Many sub-Saharans saw their
colleagues being targeted as suspected
mercenaries. It was time to get out of town.
"No place was safe for us, so we came here,"
said Mbanudo, the house painter. "We are
workers. We don't have time for guns. Now
all we want is to get to someplace safe."
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