The Libya pathway to Democracy

Piece my story amid the turmoil of the revolution in Libya, the country ruled by the dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

Revolution in Libya influenced by the revolution in the two neighbouring countries, Tunisia and Egypt. The revolution in the Arab countries has it roots fro the revolution in Tunisia or known as the Jasmine revolution. Boazizi, is the man who gave birth to the revolution through his self-immolation as a protest to the government. His death followed by the revolution in Tunisia that began on the 14^th of january 2011. The aims of the revolution was to ousted the 30 years dictator, Zein al-abidin ben ali. People of Tunisia won the revolution and Ben Ali finally stepped down.

Revolution in Tunisia sparked the birth of revolution in other Magreb countries, Egypt succeeded in overthrowing the dictator Hosni Mobarak. Tahrir Square was the centre of the Revolution in Egypt, which finally succeeds to ousted Hosni Mobarak, the dictator of the country, even thought the revolution in Egypt caused many protesters death during the revolution.

My journey began in Tunisia, then Egypt and Libya afterwards. From Tunis, the capital city of Tunisia I took a flight to Cairo, Egypt”s capital. I and another crew left Cairo at night, so we can arrive in Shaloum the border of Egypt and Libya in the morning. As I recall we arrived at the border at about nine in the morning, then after getting out of the Egyptian border, we stepped into musaad in Libya.

In Musaad, I can feel the differences as I can see many civilians with firearms in their shoulder. From the border we need to go to the main base of the rebel group, which is in Benghazi, the second biggest city in Libya after Tripoli. We do not know anyone in this country so the only way we could get into the town is to trust the people at the border.

Some people offered us a ride to Bengazi for a bunch of money of course, and we have no choice so we were agree to pay the amount they asked, although honestly we don’t even know whether we can trust those people or not. I only know several basic words in arabics to speak with them, and those people didn’t speak english at all. So, that time we can only pray that those people had a good intention, and thanks God, they were.

We finally arrived in Benghazi around 5 p.m, the driver dropped us in a hotel at the city centre. I cannot even remember the name of the hotel, but to be honest, it was quite pricy. Just like what people used to say, war makes everything more expensive.

My Journey in Libya began that day, in the city of Benghazi I can see firearms, gun and anti-aircrafts gun everywhere. Mostly the civilians here had those weaponry, and sometimes they fired the fire arms with no point, and they also fired it to show happiness after took over some areas from Gaddafi’s troops or if there is some fighters died at the front line. Everyone I met here kept saying this bullet is for Gaddafi (pointing the bullet in their gun), which clear enough for me that they hate the dictator so much.

The revolution in Libya started with a demonstration on 15 February 2012 in front of a court building or known as Medan Mahkamah in the city of Benghazi and enlarged on February 17^th, which later on set as the milestone of the revolution. Gaddafi reacted to the movement by a massive attack that killed many civilians, and after that the international community esp. NATO took action and started to attacked Gaddafi’s troop and also his compound under the flag of “protecting the civilians”. The quick response by the international community seems a bit contrast if we compare it to what happened in Yemen, Syiria and Bahrain. As the Syiria even experienced genocide I think, but the International reactions wasn’t that quick so far. Is it because of the oil that Libya has? A big question mark for me.

Back to the journey, the day after, we went to the front line, from Benghazi, we took a ride to Ajdabiya. Arrived at the western gate of Ajdabiya, I can see many fighters (usually called as rebels) and here I can see they use anti aircraft gun and anti aircraft missiles, although in fact on March 19, 2011, or about one month since the revolution, United Nations implemented no-fly zone in Libya and NATO started to attack Gaddafi’s troop in order to protect the civilians. Means since that Gaddafi did not use any aircraft to attack people.

As a journalist at the front line, we face double risk as we might be the targets of the Gaddafi’s troop or we can also be the victims of those untrained opposition forces. We supposed to be protected and those who fought were not supposedly to attack journalist, but in fact we become the victims, as if we covered the war and embed with one side, for the other we might be dangerous as we’re gonna spread the news that might cornered them.

Sometimes, when I remember what I’ve been through in Libya, I realised maybe we were a bit insane that time. We went to the battlefield between Ajdabiya and Brega, and once we were trapped in Ajdabiya when NATO mistakenly hit the opposition tank which caused several people at the front line died. The opposition response by strike back, using the anti aircraft missiles from the city of Ajdabiya. we were stuck in the middle of  the town, and chose to stay, although I and 2 other colleagues know well that this means we put ourselves in a situation which was completely wrong and dangerous. But we were too curious to witness what happened here.

Some rebels keep shouting death … death … to remind us that if we insisted to stay, we could have died. Thanks God we survived that time, even though we were not aware of similar fortune again.

After a huge battle that day, we finally decided to leave the city of Ajdabiya late noon, and met a number of other journalists in the region near the city of Benghazi, which then made us realised that we were the only journalist left in Ajdabiya when the opposition forces strike back (or maybe there are other but we didn’t meet them).

The incident left at least five opposition forces were killed and NATO refused to apologise for reasons very fluid situation on the ground, and at that time they did not know the opposition forces are using tanks in the town of Ajdabiya and Brega, NATO assumed those were Gaddafi’s military tank.

I was in Libya for about two weeks, witnessed the battle on the front lines, see the freedom started to grow in this country, experienced the warmth and kindness of the Libyan people, especially when I always told them that I came from Indonesia, the largest Muslim Countries in the world. I’ll always remember, how people’s struggles were finally succeed to overthrow the dictatorship regime. And now, the country is trying to adapt to democracy, certainly will not be easy especially various other problems will arise. Some problems they will face including the fact that there are many different tribes there and the firearms in the civilians’ hand.

Both of these problems would be a big homework for the next leader of the country. Will Libya be better? I think this question needs a long time to be able to get the answer. I can only pray that Libya pathway to democracy will be smooth and without any further casualties and if Democracy wont be the right choice for Libya, just please no more war and victims.

*Sorry for bad grammar and typo