Fleeing Sirte residents:revolution wasnt worth it

05 October 2011

SIRTE, Libya: Families flowed out of Moammar Gadhafi’s besieged hometown Tuesday, exhausted and battered by weeks of hiding from shelling and gunbattles with no meat or vegetables or electricity – but unbowed in their deep distrust of the revolutionaries trying to crush this bastion of the old regime.

The fleeing residents were a sign of how resistance to Libya’s new rulers remains entrenched among those who benefited from Gadhafi’s 33-year-rule. Many of those fleeing Sirte said that the stiff defense against revolutionary fighters who have been trying to battle their way into Sirte for three weeks is coming not from Gadhafi’s military units but from residents themselves, volunteering to take up arms.

“This so-called revolution is not worth it,” said Moussa Ahmad, 31, who sat in a line of cars waiting to go through a checkpoint of fighters searching those exiting the city. “But we can’t say anything now; when we meet the revolutionaries we have to hide our feelings.”

The battle for Sirte, on the Mediterranean coast 400 kilometers southeast of Tripoli, has become the focal point of the campaign by Libya’s new rulers to break the last remnants of Gadhafi’s rule. More than six weeks after the then-rebels swept into Tripoli and ousted the longtime leader, Gadhafi remains on the run, his whereabouts unknown, and his supporters remain in control not only of Sirte but also the city of Bani Walid and parts of the desert south.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Tuesday that the NATO air mission over Libya can’t end and the political process can’t begin until Sirte is taken. Libya’s de facto Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril said Monday that Sirte must fall before the transitional leadership can declare victory and set a timeline for elections.

The fight has been grueling. After three weeks, revolutionary forces have managed to get just two kilometers into the city. Heavy armed Gadhafi loyalists are holed up in the Ouagadougou Conference Center, a grandiose hall built by Gadhafi in the city center for international summits, and in the city hospital, revolutionary commanders said.

Fighters eased shelling Tuesday to allow residents to escape, and hundreds of cars filled with men, women and children lined up at checkpoints at Sirte’s eastern exit. Mothers carrying babies in blankets stood by the side of the road, their children clutching their robes, as revolutionary fighters rifled through their cars, searching through mattresses, clothes and other belongings for hidden weapons.

“We haven’t had vegetables or meat to eat for over a month,” said one of the mothers, Attiya Mohammad. “The water is polluted, and forget about electricity – it’s been out since August.”

The city was a war zone, she said, buildings riddled with bullet holes and parts of the main hospital demolished.

Like many, she had been afraid to step outside her home. “The city was our prison,” she said. “If you left your house you risked being shot and killed.”

There was a palpable dislike between those fleeing and the fighters searching through their belongings, though there was no visible harassment and families said they were well treated, some given food and water. During his rule, Gadhafi turned Sirte into virtually a second capital, pouring in investments and giving residents prominent positions. As a result, support for the regime ran high – and many of those fleeing were dismayed at the fall of the old order.

Many of the fighters besieging Sirte are from the neighboring city of Misrata, which rose up against Gadhafi early and was brutalized under a bloody, weekslong siege by his forces during the revolt. As a result, there is little love lost between the two cities.

One Misrata revolutionary at the checkpoint, Al-Hussein al-Sireiti, said they find four or five cars a day with hidden weapons.

“We also check for people with bullet injuries, because that means they likely were fighting for Gadhafi,” he said. They also search for those on a list of known Gadhafi loyalists wanted for interrogation, he said.

Among those fleeing, Fatima al-Gadhafi – from the same tribe the ousted leader – bent her head over her 5-month-old baby girl and sobbed softly.

“They wanted a revolution – so do it in Misrata and leave the rest of us alone,” she said.

Wearing a black headscarf, her face freckled from the sun, she said she had never met revolutionary forces before Tuesday as she exited Sirte. She told one fighter to stop shooting his rifle so near her family’s car, but he refused.

“He said that Moammar Gadhafi used to do a lot worse than this, but I never saw anything bad from the old regime. We lived in safety and peace always,” she said.

Halima Salem, 44, sat patiently in her son’s pickup truck while he showed their papers to fighters at the checkpoint.

She said she had been reluctant to abandon her home because gangs have been looting houses – she wasn’t sure what side they were loyal to, if either.