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发帖数: 3343 | 1 www.nytimes.com/2011/10/25/world/middleeast/libyas-interim-leaders-to-
investigate-qaddafi-killing.html?_r=1&hp
October 24, 2011
In Libya, Massacre Site Is Cleaned Up, Not Investigated
By KAREEM FAHIM and ADAM NOSSITER
SURT, Libya — In the parched garden of the Mahari Hotel, volunteers on
Monday scrubbed signs of a recent massacre. They collected dozens of bodies,
apparently of people executed on the hotel grounds several days ago, but
left other evidence behind, like the plastic ties that were used to bind the
hands of victims and shell casings, scattered on the dead grass in patches
of blood.
The volunteers said the victims included at least two former Qaddafi
government officials, local loyalist fighters and maybe civilians. The
killers, they believed, were former rebel fighters, belonging to anti-
Qaddafi units that had used the hotel as a base in recent weeks. It appeared
to be one of the worst massacres of the eight-month conflict, but days
after it occurred, no one from Libya’s new government had come to
investigate.
The interim leaders, who declared the country liberated on Sunday, may
simply have their hands full with the responsibilities that come with
running a state. But throughout the Libyan conflict, they have also shown
themselves to be unwilling or incapable of looking into accusations of
atrocities by their fighters, despite repeated pledges not to tolerate abuse.
The lack of control came into sharp focus last week, when former rebel
fighters arrested Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. In videos of the capture on
Thursday morning, victorious fighters were shown manhandling Colonel Qaddafi
, who appeared to be bleeding and distressed but conscious. This was moments
after he was pulled from a large drainage pipe where he had hidden after a
NATO air assault destroyed part of his convoy. Subsequent video shows his
bruised corpse, with at least one bullet wound to the head.
On Monday, Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, the chairman of the Transitional National
Council, as the interim governing body is known, announced the formation of
a commission of inquiry into the death of Colonel Qaddafi.
In his announcement, Mr. Abdel-Jalil acknowledged that pressure from foreign
powers and rights groups — including some that supported the rebellion —
had prompted the decision to investigate how Colonel Qaddafi wound up dead
with a bullet to the head. Mr. Abdel-Jalil referred to “demands of the
international community” for an investigation.
But it was unclear from his comments how much authority the committee would
have to pursue an investigation and whether anyone might be held accountable
. He also suggested that anti-Qaddafi fighters may not have been the ones
who killed him, hinting that the fatal bullets might even have come from
Colonel Qaddafi’s own supporters. That suggestion is sharply at odds with
the video evidence that has surfaced of Colonel Qaddafi’s death.
As in several previous instances during the uprising when anti-Qaddafi
fighters were suspected of abuses or of extralegal killings, the leaders of
the rebellion face a delicate balance as they try to bolster their own
legitimacy by courting or coddling powerful militia leaders. The interim
leaders have also failed to establish a chain of command among the armed
militias, despite repeated attempts to form a national army.
Some of the anti-Qaddafi fighters have been accused of arbitrary arrests and
torture, and others have been implicated in killings. In August, Gen. Abdul
Fattah Younes, the rebel’s top military commander, was killed in Benghazi
along with two of his aides, Mr. Abdel-Jalil also said then that there would
an investigation, asserting that no one, not even the highest officials,
would be immune.
At the time, Mr. Abdel-Jalil suggested that Colonel Qaddafi’s loyalists
might have been responsible, even as his colleagues conceded that rebel
fighters were the chief suspects in the killings. No one has been prosecuted
for the killing.
On Monday, in offering his new theory for how Colonel Qaddafi may have died
at the hands of his own disciples, Mr. Abdel-Jalil suggested that they may
have feared he would implicate them in atrocities if he had survived and
been put on trial.
“Let us question who has the interest in the fact that Qaddafi will not be
tried,” he said. “Libyans want to try him for what he did to them, with
executions, imprisonment and corruption. Free Libyans wanted to keep Qaddafi
in prison and humiliate him as long as possible. Those who wanted him
killed were those who were loyal to him or had played a role under him. His
death was in their benefit.”
This theory appeared to be an attempt to deflect sharp international
questions about the government’s handling of Colonel Qaddafi’s final
moments. The body, which has been on public display since Thursday in the
western city of Misurata, was scheduled to be buried on Tuesday in a secret
location in the desert, according to a Transitional National Council
official, Reuters reported. Saying that the “corpse cannot last longer,”
the official said Muslim clerics would attend the ceremony.
The colonel’s death has ended the fighting for now, but abuses by former
rebel fighters continue: they were seen looting generators, cars and an
exercise bike in Surt on Monday.
The Mahari Hotel, which overlooks the sea, was filled with suspicious signs
about the killers, but nothing conclusive. The names of anti-Qaddafi
brigades were scrawled on a whiteboard in the lobby, including brigades
called Tiger, Lion, Panther and the Sand. Several of the brigades listed
were from Misurata.
At a graveyard near the hotel, a local doctor looked after the massacre
victims, photographing the bodies and pulling a tooth from each victim,
collecting evidence for the men’s families and for a criminal trial, should
one take place. He ordered an assistant to splash water and spray insect
repellent on the decomposing corpses that were waiting for burial.
Several of the victims wore fatigues. The hands of one man, who looked to be
in his 20s, were bound behind his back. Several victims wore bandages,
leading the volunteers to speculate that they had been patients at the city
’s main hospital who were detained when the former rebels captured it.
Another doctor, watching, shook his head. “What kind of democracy costs all
this blood?” he said.
The doctor, who requested anonymity because he feared retribution by former
rebel fighters, said that if the killings were not investigated, the
inaction would fuel dangerous resentments. “There will be no peace in Libya
for years,” he said.
Kareem Fahim reported from Surt, and Adam Nossiter reported from Benghazi,
Libya. Rick Gladstone contributed reporting from New York. | s*****s
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