Gadhafi Compound Razed

Gadhafi's Compound is Razed by Bulldozers to make room for new public park.

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http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2011/10/15/2011-10-15_libyan_revolutionary_forces_bulldoze_moammar_khadafys_main_tripoli_compound.html

TRIPOLI, Libya - Libyan revolutionary forces bulldozed the green walls surrounding Moammar Khadafy's main Tripoli compound on Sunday, saying it was time "to tear down this symbol of tyranny."

The sprawling, fortress-like compound known as Bab al-Aziziya has long been hated by Libyans who feared to even walk nearby during Khadafy's more than four decades in power and its capture was seen as a turning point in the civil war as revolutionaries overran the capital in late August.

Ahmad Ghargory, commander of a revolutionary brigade, said the area will be turned into a public park accessible to all Libyans.

"It's the revolutionary decision to tear down this symbol of tyranny," Ghargory said. "We were busy with the war, but now we have the space to do this."

Already, the courtyard in front of Khadafy's former house, which he used for many fiery speeches trying to rally supporters during the uprising, has been turned into a weekly pet market. Tripoli residents roam the premises as if at a museum, with vendors selling revolutionary flags and other souvenirs.

Libyans are eager to move on after decades of repression, even though fighting persists on two fronts and tensions between supporters of the former regime and revolutionary forces remain high - even in Tripoli. The continued instability has delayed efforts by the transitional leadership to move forward with efforts to hold elections and establish democracy.

The Bab al-Aziziya compound, surrounded by high walls lined with barbed wire, had been a mystery to most Libyans though it is one of the city's largest landmarks. Many Tripoli residents said they wouldn't go near it, fearing security guards on the compound's high green walls would get suspicious and arrest or shoot them.

"I cannot explain these feelings," Farouk Alzeni, 25, said, standing against a backdrop of piles of rubble. "I have never touched this wall because of this place's heavy security."

The compound was a main target for NATO airstrikes during the months leading to Khadafy's ouster in late August.

Fighters forced their way into the area on Aug. 23 during the battle for the capital, jubilantly rampaging through the remnants of barracks, personal living quarters and offices seen as the most defining symbol of Khadafy's nearly 42-year rule.
Khadafy's residence, now gutted and covered with graffiti, was also targeted in a U.S. bombing raid in April 1986, after Washington held Libya responsible for a blast at a Berlin disco that killed two U.S. servicemen. A sculpture of a clenched fist crushing a U.S. fighter jet that had been erected after the strike has been removed.

Khadafy entertained guests in a Bedouin-style tent pitched near two tennis courts about 200 yards (meters) from the family home.

"All the bad things that happened, happened inside these walls. And he kept his mercenaries and tortured people inside these walls," said Tarek Saleh, a 25-year-old revolutionary. "Before we were never able to enter this site, and we're tearing these walls down so we don't have to remember those dark days."

Revolutionary forces have squeezed Khadafy loyalists into one main district in his hometown of Sirte after weeks of fighting, but some said fears of friendly fire as well as a lack of coordination and communications were slowing their advance. Fighters from the eastern city of Benghazi and Misrata to the west were trying to reorganize themselves to solve that problem.

"We have them cornered in a 900 by 700 meter area, but the fighting is difficult because we are worried about firing on our own forces, they are mixed together," Benghazi field commander Khaled al-Magrabi said Sunday.

Commanders said they have agreed to divide the remaining loyalist area between them to prevent confusion.

Libyan fighters also faced discord over the looting of buildings, including the airport and houses in Sirte, on the coast 250 miles (400 kilometers) southeast of Tripoli. Trucks were seen carting off tractors, industrial generators and heavy machinery on the road from Sirte to nearby Misrata, which was under siege by Khadafy forces for months and saw some of the fiercest fighting of the war.

Associated Press reporters also saw trucks carrying equipment from Sirte's airport, including red-carpeted mobile staircases, baggage carts, airplane towing vehicles and security screening equipment, all apparently meant for Misrata's badly damaged airport.

Smaller pickups were loaded with rugs, freezers, refrigerators, furniture and other household goods, apparently taken by civilians and fighters to be used in their homes or resold.

The looting was an indication that reconciliation and unity may be difficult to achieve in post-Khadafy Libya.

Commanders tried to rein in looting by ordering fighters to refrain from entering private homes and to detain anybody not authorized to be in the area. Benghazi fighters arrested three men for looting on Saturday.

Revolutionary forces also distributed fliers at checkpoints leading into the city that read, "Dear Muslims, avoid God's wrath. Do not steal from people's homes, their cars, or take their personal possessions."

Fighting also raged in the desert enclave of Bani Walid, 90 miles (140 kilometers) southeast of Tripoli.

An official with revolutionary forces there, Abdullah Kenshil, said they captured the airport in Bani Walid on Sunday, but further advance was stalled by heavy shelling from Khadafy's forces elsewhere.

A day out at Gaddafiland
Sunday, 4th September 2011
JUSTIN MAROZZI Tripoli

What to do on a weekend in revolutionary Tripoli? There’s no doubt about the city’s most popular family day out. Hundreds of cars and thousands of Tripolines drive into Bab al-Aziziya, theGaddafi family fortress. A vast compound strictly off limits for ordinary Libyans until only a few days ago is now the scene of the unlikeliest traffic jams. Threading their way through shot-up, burnt-out armoured BMWs, drivers wind down their windows, honk their horns and shout out anything that comes to mind, “Free Libya!”, “Fuck off Gaddafi!”, “The rat is finished!”

Gaddafi’s house resounds to cries of “Allahu akbar! God is great!” Crowds mill through with mobile phone cameras to the fore. A friend picks up a stash ofGaddafi propaganda portraits as a war memento, puts them on a shelf for a moment and turns around only to see a thrilled Libyan ripping them up into tiny pieces. “Can you believe all this?” he says to no one in particular, gazing around the dictator’s execrable home. “And the dog Gaddafi used to tell us he only earned 460 dinars a month.”

Across the compound, perched like exuberant sentinels on the top of a domed building beneath the outstretched wings of a faux-bronze eagle, two men wave the Libyan tricolour and scream at the top of their voices. “Ana huna! Ana huna! I’m here! I’m here!” A gaggle of teenage girls giggle 50 feet below. These are the words that a fist-pumping Gaddafi was barking into a television camera in a vainglorious bid to show that neither Nato nor the rebels had polished him off. He hadn’t fled. Now he has. Libyans love how the tables have turned.

We clamber down a metal ladder to traipse along the long passageways of subterranean Gaddafiland. For a man who has consistently derided the rebels as rats, Gaddafi seems to have shown an enormous interest in preparing for life underground. A figure looms from the darkness. “Let’s look in here,” he says, ducking into a chamber. “Maybe the rat’s sleeping down there.” More laughter.
For Ziyad al Shahawi, a human resources specialist at the Libyana Mobile Phone company, it’s the first time in Bab al-Aziziya. He can scarcely believe it. “Every day I feel more free. Today, when I see the bunkers cleared of the rat I feel even safer. He’s gone. He’s really gone.”
This is a tale of two cities. From the astonished euphoria of Bab al-Aziziya we head to Abu Salim, dread words in Gaddafi’s Libya. This was where he had around 1,250 prisoners killed in cold blood in 1996. Libyans say their bodies were fork-lifted into refrigerated trucks and driven away for a secret burial. More victims were gunned down as Tripoli fell on 20 August.

The atmosphere is instantly chilling, the architecture fearful. Metal doors bear the indentations of desperate prisoners banging frantically for medical treatment. Vast exercise yards, dazzling white beneath the sun, lie deep in empty plastic water bottles.

Visiting today for the first time since he was released from a 10-year incarceration in 2005, the political prisoner Omar Saeed Ahmed al Kikli takes us to his former cell, a 20 square metre room that contained anywhere between 10 and 25 people. It reeks of disease. He points out the holes hacked out through thick walls to allow prisoners to communicate and pass inhalers, small phials of medicine.

“Once the door was closed, that was it,” he says. “It was never opened again. This was the only way we could contact anyone. If you were caught you were beaten and put into a tiny solitary cell.” He describes how he was electrocuted during his investigation. When he was first imprisoned, he says, he shared one blanket between three people for 18 months.

His calm descriptions of prison life as we wander through this monument to unspeakable cruelty wipe away the earlier joy of Bab al-Aziziya. But Omar is all smiles. “No, I’m not sad,” he says. “I’m very happy. I’ve got my freedom back.”