The Tripoli Massacres: Mapping out the Roundabout

December 6, 2011
last edit June 14, 2012
(see new images: Jerome Sessini - other updates long overdue, but will have to wait)
12-2-2017 restoring image

<< The Tripoli Massacres
      << Slashing and Dumping at the Roundabout

The "roundabout" area, circular road exchanges separated by grassy islands just outside the Bab al-Aziziyah compound (Google maps), was the host of some two dozen or more reported victims of execution as the rebels took Tripoli. Some of these mainly black, executed men were famously shown to the world on August 25, across the grass between lanes of dead traffic. Some of that traffic was smashed, thrown open, and abandoned near the dead.

This post will seek to sort out, visually, how many corpses there were in the area, just where, and when. And while we're at it, it might establish when these corpses can be verified as seen there. I'm well into this sub-project already, but still putting together the documentation, and seeking further input on bodies, locations, timeline, etc. The smashed and abandoned cars in the area are also of interest here, and I'm somewhat mapping and counting those, although it's hard to tell often which vehicles to count.

Imagery establishing the area (various lighting):
Youtube videos:
The loyalist encampment in March
Al Jazeera Aug 23 tents at 2:10
Al Jazeera Aug 24 tents and two dead at 0:20-25
Al Jazeera Aug 25 1:30 onward, various views of the destruction here
Encampment after the violence, great video - original link here, copy video (graphic - victim stabbed in the top of the head with a sword?)
CNN reports from the roundabout Aug 25
AFP video, Aug 25
Reuters Aug 25
Reuters, Aug 24, late afternoon: eight more victims shown, outliers, in a different area

Photos:
Torn-down tent (any bodies beneath?)
The Atlantic: Medical tent, interior
Telegraph: Medical tent
Telegraph: Roundabout
RFERL: Roundabout victory
Central Island
HRW: Central island victims
Central island, west end
West end, fighters
Victim there, close-up (Graphic - from Life.com, re-posted until I can re-locate the original and get its date)
More good photos coming...

New photos, June 14:
Jerome Sessini, Getty images
Aug. 24 images, late afternoon, showing "loyalist soldiers executed by Ant-Gaddafi rebels," among the east-end bodies (#1-7 below, might change now...)
East end bodies, three, looking north
The northernmost body - tells the story of Libya right there. It's intense - a shattered right arm, braced up, forced to fight again left-handed, brains blown out on the sidewalk.
East end bodies, another three - one looks like an old man
same with fighter and better scenery
another one not seen before, splattered in the street by there - right hand smashed off with a block?
Bodies 18 and 19 as below, late afternoon
Sessini, Aug. 25:
Blindfolded man executed ... some way that made his body "deflate" and slump grotesquely. The chain is from the barrier knocked over, perhaps used to bind or torture as well... Location unclear -perhaps the Abu Salim fire station?
Sessini Aug. 26 (roundabout area?)
Bodies removed in Abu Salim


The graphic is nearly ready to post, placing the 25 victims I can see. Most of the eight victims shown by Reuters on August 24 are a little arbitrary, but I think I have the right general area. The rest are verifiable from multiple angles. If we include the 7 piled just north of there, we'd have at least 32. The number doesn't include the charred legless body at the medical tent, which I haven't seen, nor any others I haven't seen, yet.

One oddity is how apparently one batch of bodies stood out on the 24th, generally on the east half of the map. The man draped in a (green) Libyan flag is near the middle of the map, just a hundred feet from the seven bloated bodies so visible the next day. And the next day these had apparently been replaced with these fresh bodies we all were shocked by - bloated and crawling with maggots already.

Can anyone find proof that the main body of victims here, across the central island, were present on the 24th? If not, we may be dealing with body-planting after all, about two days after rebels took the compound area. The one clear problem is victim #9 (as given below). His left arm has advanced decay an/or burning, and his blood across the sidewalk suggests more than 24 hours elapsed since an on-site execution. Was he there on the 24th and just kept from the media's view somehow?

Another clue: The August 24 victims in particular have a penchant for falling dead right between sets of tire skid-marks. One had bullets fired at that very low wall next to him.

Dec 7: The graphic is ready. This is draft one (or 1.2), sufficient for now. The tents especially, and cars, are not filled in or placed perfectly. The version I had up for one day was messed up in spots. The new version is still incomplete on cars and tents, but accurate on seen bodies. Bodies are actually visible in the pile of seven just north of here, and perhaps at the roundabout (#9 in particular has a blob of pixels there). But the tents, their remains, and the cars rammed to a halt road-warrior-style are mostly all visible in this satellite view I hear is from August 29. So I added translucency on these layers to see where they tend to be pre-marked for me. I will re-do this after some time to get more info, if that seems worthwhile.

First note, tip to Felix: Victims 19 and 20, side-by-side, are shown on the 24th, by Al Jazeera's video of that day (0:20). These are the only two corpses I've yet seen shown ... actually I'm not sure they were seen on the 25th as well. Will need to look into that...Otherwise we still seem to have two distinct batches, one for each day. And the maggots seen on victims #11 and 12 don't grow overnight.

Next note, Dec. 8: As Petri points out, I had some things wrong I fixed above and at least one other I didn't. The "prominent green flags" in the southeast corner are set wrong. As the Al Jazeera Aug 24 video and the graphic one clarify the flags are atop the flag poles curving right by victims #17 and 18, just north of the medical tents. That's the first thing I'll change for the final version.

Benghazi Protests in December and After

December 28, 2011
last update Jan. 25, 2012

I haven't been trying to follow the news out of Libya closely, but I just saw a dispatch in the Dec. 27 news page at the Libya S.O.S. site about new protests in Benghazi against the NTC government. Doing a news search, I find that there were huge protests reported in Benghazi in mid-December anyway, demanding the resignation of NTC chairman Mustafa Abdel-Jalil. I'm not sure yet whether the Western news is being hugely censored and manipulated here, if the S.O.S. is a little, er... over-informed, or if both types of protests have been happening at different times.

Solidarity with Tripoli
The top, or last, entry on the S.O.S. dispatch, apparently a summary, reads "22h/ BENGHAZI - People of Benghazi in solidarity with the people of Tripoli , raising the pace of protests until the Jalil 's government falls, and him and other puppets go back to the West." From the usual tone of the site, "the people of Tripoli" sounds like Gaddafi loyalists unhappy with their recent "liberation." And it has Benghazi protests, not Tripoli ones showing support for that. No sources are given, but a photo (uncredited) is attached, presumably as evidence. For anyone who can read the sign or place the photo in time or space, here it is:

Same day, earlier development: "11h/ BENGHAZI - Protesters from Benghazi Libya say somebody shot at them with snipers. It seems that NATO has same snipers ready for each and every FalseFlag or ScareFlag - > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhO3Wu10gvk" The source here is a videoof people who do seem agitated over some damage, and are shouting.Are these thesame green solidarity protesters implied in the later entry? For those who can understand what they're saying:

And earlier yet, the protesters were making their own offensives.
"09h/ BENGHAZI - Demonstrators are breaking into the so-called local Council of Benghazi, and surrounding its members, which resulted in Bboshna suspending the membership of each of employees of the local council, so as not to be able to implement any demonstrator's demands through them."
Previous days' dispatches seem to give more on the protesters and how they got started, citing a wave of them in virtually every Libyan city in recent days, all apparently demanding a return to the previous green system.

Anti-Reconciliation Protests
But I had to see what the mainstream sources, who do give more details and sources, are saying. It's roughly the opposite. A Google News search seems to unearth nothing about pro-Gaddafi/Jamahiriya protests anywhere in December until now. But it does have nods to some timid demonstrations in Tripoli against armed militias still freely roaming the city, and quite a fair amount about multiple days of rowdier protest in Benghazi.

For one thing, the demonstrators were reportedly mad at the uncertainty over whether Benghazi would be the "economic capitol" of Libya. They quickly recieved assurances from Tripoli that, whatever makes the most actual sense, they will be that. And they took offense to statements by Abdel-Jalil about pardoning (or perhaps "forgiving") pro-Gaddafi fighters in the name of reconciliation and/or avoiding future violence.

And they were fumed about the retention of one single Gaddafi-era official, the NTC's finance minister Taher Sharkas, appointed "by Gaddafi" (by the government at the time) on August 18, as rebels closed in on the capitol itself. Anyone with any history deeper than that was already well outside the bounds of employment. That this one last-minute appointee was allowed to stay on was a major scandal that had people demanding Abdel-Jalil's ouster. Not encouraging.

Most specifically, as Rami al-Shaheibi reported for AP on Sharkas' Christmas resignation, "the government has said it is open to some reconciliation with former regime officials, but protesters are mostly opposed." As AFP reported, Dec 12 "The people want another revolution!" chanted the crowds as they waved Libya's new flag." It's a powerful drug. I didn't imagine they'd be happy with the one hit they were allowed.

By this, the masses have spoken, and want no reconciliation, so peaceful merging of all remaining Libyans. Grudges and exclusion are to rule the day, the sore winners say, and what else to do with the people not embraced? Lock them all up? make them "go away?" Leave them at liberty to launch an insurgency?

I want to hear more now about these more sane, inspirational, perhaps excessively bold, green Libyan protests. I do hope they're happening, and they force at least some kind of rational compromise. Libya needs one that doesn't insult the intelligence and dignity of those who know how massively their country was just screwed. I fear it's not possible with what both sides have been left with, and Libya faces a prolonged dark age. Whether the darkness is carried only in the hearts of the defeated green masses like it is now, or in the violence they inflict and absorb trying to right things, only time will tell.

Dec. 29: Partly answering the question I started with about the two types of protest, Libya S.O.S. today add this: ’PRO-GADDAFI PROTESTS’ AND ’REBEL ANTI-NTC PROTESTS’ SHAKING LIBYA AT THE SAME TIME

Leader of the military local council of Tripoli resigned due to the mass demonstrations against him on Monday. Meanwhile, rebel protesters want a "course correction" of the Revolution, by pressuring officials of the city in order to meet their demands.

Nothing in the news on military council resignations since al-Madhi Hatari stepped down to return to Ireland or, actually, to Syria. More protests are reported in Tripoli and Tarhunah, and another image, at right. Marches are being led by a man named Arafat, it's said. In Tarhouna, protests are escalating, the S.O.S. reports.

In respect of the events in Tarhunah, a witness from the city, said in a telephone conversation with the "Arabs today," that after a clashes broke out, angry demonstrators burned the building of local radio in the city and blew up a vehicle of the Supreme Security Committee, and siezed a range of weapons and three four-wheel vehicles.
The source, who preferred not to be named, said that head of the security committee was injured as a result of hostilities between the NTC battalion and pro-Gaddafi protesters, result was that a number of fighters from NTC battalion called "loyal Tarhunah" got killed.

Also, an armed group of unsatisfied Pro-Gaddafi citizents attacked the headquarters of the local rebel military council in the Sakra, city of Sabha, with RPGs mortars, at least on person was killed.

Update Jan 25:
Deputy head of Libya's NTC quits after protests
Oliver Holmes, Reuters, Jan. 22, reports on fiercer protests yet in Benghazi.

The deputy head of Libya's ruling National Transitional Council (NTC) said on Sunday he was resigning after a series of protests against the new government which the country's leader warned could drag Libya into a "bottomless pit".
[...]
Late on Saturday, a crowd demanding the government's resignation forced their way into the NTC's local headquarters in Benghazi while the NTC chief was inside, in the most serious show of anger at the authorities since Gaddafi's ouster.
[...]
The location of the protests is particularly galling for the NTC. Benghazi, in eastern Libya, was the birthplace of the revolt against Gaddafi's rule and the site of the NTC's headquarters during the revolt.

The NTC was formed in the early days of the revolt against Gaddafi from a hastily-assembled group of lawyers, government officials who defected, Muslim clerics, tribal leaders and civil society activists.

At the time, Gaddafi's troops were using automatic weapons to fire on protests in Benghazi and elsewhere [wrong], and there was little time to vet the members [if premised on the first, wrong].

But nearly six months on from the moment the rebellion took control of the capital Tripoli, Libyans are started to question the council's legitimacy.

The complaints still include too many people with previous government service back when Gaddafi was the figurehead, but they're showing more savvy as well, it seems.

"We hoped for security, peace and transparency. We have seen the opposite," said Miftah Al-Rabia, 28, who was standing outside the NTC's Benghazi headquarters on Sunday with a group of protesters.
[...]
"We still don't know who exactly is in the NTC. There is no transparency," said Al-Rabia, a protester standing outside the building with a group of about 30 other men.

Another protester, 24-year-old Mohammed Mahmoud, said he fought against Gaddafi during the revolt and wounded his shoulder and hand.

"We fought on the front line and received injuries but we did not see the NTC with us," he said. "I have one single question: Why has the NTC failed at everything except selling oil? We want to correct the path of the revolution."

Selling oil = selling out. We always knew they'd be good at that and little else.

The government response confirms that the protesters are getting it right. Ghoga complained that, as Holmes put it,"the national consensus [wrong] that helped the country rise up and end Gaddafi's 42-year rule had not lasted into peace-time, giving way to what he [Ghoga] called an atmosphere of hatred." He means hatred of the NTC and for himself, having been jostled bodily by a mob shortly before this. Back when the hate was safely directed only at the Gaddafi government and its millions of supporters, it was nothing but useful and encouraged. For his part, Mr. Abdel-Jalil said, as mobs threatened a sitting government of Libya for the second time in a year, suddenly "there is something behind these protests that is not for the good of the country." Chances are then it is for the good of the country and I encourage more of the same.

Pro-Gaddafi Protests: Green Square Size and Capacity

November 13, 2011
last edits April 4

Intro Part, Will be Moved Later
This is a nicely narrow spot to start sorting out something that's been bugging me for months now. In a war justified as being on behalf of the Libyan people and their roughly universal desire for massive change, we seem to have passed over some pretty clear signs those weren't really the Libyan people that were begging for help overthrowing Gaddafi.They weresome of the people, to be sure, but not all of them nor speaking for all of them.

There have been genuine-seeming public displays of support for Gaddafi from the beginning, like the tribal gathering of May. But of special poignance is the epic spectacle other people of Libya, reportedly a million of them or more, and perhaps as many as one in four Libyans alive at the time, who stood together in the capitol (or in Tripoli plus other cities, perhaps, it's confused) on July 1, in solidarity with the old green Jamahiriya flag and the "Dictator's" unorthodox "rule."

This after "the Libyan people" had already demanded the opposite months ago, seized much of the country, and had the most powerful nations on Earth backing them up with bombs and so much else. A reported 1.7 million from the nation of about 6.5 million still said "no thanks," and did it physically, in the same place and/or the same time. Certainly some number of others agreed but couldn't make it, perhaps on account of the civil war, occupation status, being dead, or finally convinced/dispirited by the weight of power against them, etc.

The videos and commentary are ubiquitous, if the exact reality of the protests of July remains nebulous.  The video and photos of it sure looked impressive, even if it wasn't quite, as the Voice of Palestine website reportedly called it, "the largest demonstration ever in world history."

It was uniformly ignored or belittled by mainstream Western media. Mostly ignored, or dismissed wholesale as a stunt by paid actors or those threatened with death if they didn't show up. But here I'll be drawing primarily on an ambitious seeming, and convincing to most, analysis of the details, run by the American liberal site Daily Kos, July 19. This one only mentions threats, bribes, and even computer animation, as passing back-up arguments, but mainly focuses on the details, sort of: Tripoli Green Square Reality Check, by Clay Claiborne.

This cites a supposed Gaddafi loyalist estimate by leftists and Chinese, of 1.7 million people packed into Tripoli's Green Square on at least one occasion, perhaps thrice. I think that is a straw man tactic, but to be sure will take a separate post. The author conveniently finds this achievement impossible, and then passes on alternate estimates that seem to me ridiculously low - 10,000 to 30,000 tops. 

I had suspected anyone saying even one million in Green Square itself was exaggerating, but not wildly. I would be happy to acknowledge if even that was too generous. But I would be quite surprised to find this opinion of Clay Clairborne's to be anything like reality. 

Green Square Size
To establish basics, I'll start with the definition of Green Square, Tripoli's primarypublic assembly spot. Claiborn says "Green Square is roughly 646 meters long by 238 meters wide." In fact, I get something considerably smaller. In fact I don't know what he's measuring, except maybe the smaller portion, highlighted in red below, but taking feet as meters (I find it's roughly 700 by 300 feet, or 210,000 square feet - surprisingly like his meters).

I've got the basic area as given by Google maps, already re-named "Martyr's Square"over some people who got themselves shot early on. Myself, I'll stick with "green." I'm not sure what counts as the square, and so offer this image in meters. The red outline is the smallest version, that Google's pin points to the middle of. It's about 100-125m at the narrow ends and 210m per long side, plus the side square and perhaps the open air cafe next to that (dead center here, not highlighted).

But across that surrounding street is another much larger public square and surrounding roads and beach front that the crowd could well fill up as well. I excluded the parking lot, which may or may not be fair, but otherwise take this larger version, all that shaded green, which I measured at about 425m (northwest side) by 350m (northeast side).

It's not a complete filling of that square area, although considering the parking lot and southern surrounding streets, the tea house area, and spillover into surrounding streets and perhaps rooftops, using those numbers might be close enough. That says 148,750 sqaure meters, to Claiborne's estimated "just 205,065 sq. meters." That's not "just," it's big - nearly half the size of China's Tiananmen Square (440,000 sq. meters - the second biggest in the world, per Claiborne). It's not quite that big by my measure, but impressive enough considering the China:Libya population ratio of about 220:1.

Theoretical Capacity
Claiborne continues:

205 thousand square meters would appear to be an impossible fit for 1.7 million people

So how many people can you fit into 205,000 sq. meters?.
[...]
using the most dense "mob crowd" of 2.5 sq. ft or .23 sq. m. per person it would appear that Tripoli's Green Square could support a rally of at most 891 thousands people.

He gave sources there, but basically it came down to four people per square meter being fairly crowded, which is true. On my measure, I get only 595,000 people at that density. But four per square meter really isn't the densest it can get, just the densest it can comfortably or safely get. Perhaps 50% more people could be crammed in there hypothetically. I'll have to agree that this wouldn't fit 1.7 million, but something more in the neighborhood of 900,000, roughly what was widely claimed, is not far out there at all. That's not to say it happened, but it could.

How Dense on July 1?
Next, take note that the photos show this up-to roughly one million-capacity space is pretty well filled. To clarify, Claiborne refers to a sequence of three Tripoli demonstrations, whereas I'll focus just on July 1, which seems to have been the largest rally in the capitol (supported the same day by smaller demonstrations in other cities). These images from that date, compiled by Clothcap, were linked to and drawn on by Claiborne.

He uses the following image to suggest a fairly low density. Note both that he's got a point, here, and that in the arch we can see at least some people actually outside the square, over-spilling into surrounding streets and casting doubt on his simple estimates based on the square's limited size.

The following image of the square's west end was not used by Claiborne and shows greater density over a greater area. Note the side-street spill-over in the upper middle of the picture. Solid humanity, unbroken as far as the eye can see and one can only guess how much further back.

Other images suggest an overall density somewhere between these two extremes. It's not the uniform shoulder-to-shoulder packing that could achieve a figure like a million, but not all that shy of it either.

All these photos were taken from the smaller portion of the square as I've identified it, the red western portion.  However, as another image (below) clarifies, the crowd did in fact extend a block to the west of that, perhaps to the waterfront, and presumably across at least part of the much larger public square next door. The green flag, kilometers long, snakes along the dividing street there, between rows of palms, and surrounded by crowds on both sides.

As far as how many people there actually were per square meter, I've done a rough count on the second large image here. I've measured the area captured in that photo as approximately 6,000 square meters on the western end of the smaller portion of the square.

The head/pixel count within that area was done section-by-section, each with a range based on possible over-counting and possible misses. The image below shows these totaled into three broader segments - near, middle and far.

What I got for each section adds up to a range of about 3,195 to 3,740. I feel it's fair to add at least 5% for people too short to have appeared above the others, those just around corners, inside using the restroom, running back to the car for the camera, etc. So 3,355 to 3,927 in or around this part of the square is a nice conservative estimate.

The density by this is about 0.56 to 0.65 people per square meter. That's nowhere near the crowded level of four per. It's not as dense as it looks from the trick of depth. The sparser looking image has about 1,000 people in about 1,500 sqm, so I will in fact consider these numbers pretty representative and do no averaging of densities so similar.

Before extrapolating, I'll clarify my overall space estimate here at about 3/4 of the full-square 148,750 m sq. Rounding up, that's a bare 111,600 m sq. That makes the segment shown in that photo (6,000 sq m) about 5.4% of the total space available. 18.5 times this total would give us what the whole square would hold at this density.

That yields about 62,000 to 73,000 people. There could be some more or less than this, and my estimates may well be low (I was trying not to go high). But within the square itself, I really doubt there were any more than 90,000 to maybe 100,000 people tops. At the particular moment shown. 

The Time Aspect
Another highly relevant point is that there's simply no need to argue, for either side, that 1.7 million or even one million people needed to be physically in the square at any given time. The July 1 protest, and likely the others, would have been all-day events.  Some people would come in the morning, and some of those would stay, while some would leave after a time. Others would come at mid-day, others in the afternoon and evening, with others leaving for work or other business.In such rotating shifts, there could easily be a million or more total with the square itself never being filled to top capacity at any one time.

Like the problem of spill-over to surrounding streets, Claiborne conveniently ignores the time aspect in his simple geometry equation.

Not that it's easy to consider it with any relevant accuracy. Should we presume the batch seen at this time represents 50% or 10% of the total all day? I think a total of twice what we see is low, and reasonably suggest as many as six times this many passed through at all times combined. Putting this range on the range of totals at filming, this is a reasonably broad range of daily totals: 124,000 at the very low end, to 438,000 sort-of maximum.

We can see that both Clay Claiborne and his sources were grossly wrong topping out at a pathetic 30,000 (and still considering many of those insincere - paid, trucked in, and/or threatened). But unless there's something major I'm missing, any estimate of a million people or anything higher than about half that was also far off. My own initial suspicions it was somewhere between 500 thousand and maybe a million has been challenged to my standards. Politics may have intervened to amplify the numbers, just as it's intervened to lower them, to dismiss all domestic support, to accept as truth every alleged regime crime anyone can imagine to "justify" this war, and so on.

Update April 4: Reader Art Bethea thinks the estimates here are too low, even the high end, and it could be so. The method is what it is and shows what it does. He cites Franklin Lamb, who was probably there and who said that “close to 65% of Tripoli’s population” attended the July 1st rallies.

Art notes: "I read at least ten of Lamb’s articles on the war. He’s one of the most valuable sources that I’ve read and doesn’t seem to reach for data (unlike, say, Thierry Meyssan of the Voltaire Network who accepts the 1.7 million figure). 65% of Tripoli is close to a million people—or was before regime change."

The Tribal Gathering of May

May 6 2011
last updates May 9

Yesterday saw an interesting even in Tripoli, Libya. Some rare good news for the embattled regime of Muammar Gaddafi - a large and representative gathering of socially important tribal leaders, said by the government to have voiced total support for the standing government. The one that was supposedly "finished" in Libya a couple months back.

But predictably, the story is being spun and played down as much as possible by the usual suspects. I started with a link Fox News had about it, but they deleted it already. Old news within 24 hours? I don't think so. Can't be hosting it if it ... supports the regime? Score one for Libyan government story.

The Seattle Post Intelligencer has it:
Libyan regime: Tribal meeting is sign of support
KARIN LAUB, Associated Press
Updated 12:12 p.m., Thursday, May 5, 2011

 In Tripoli, meanwhile, foreign reporters were taken by government minders to a large tent where hundreds of tribal elders had gathered. Reporters were told that about 2,000 chiefs were present, that they represent 850 Libyan tribes and that the gathering was organized by the tribes, not the regime. The government also released a list of what it said were the names of the tribes.

"It's another proof that the Libyan people are rallying behind the leadership," Ibrahim said of the gathering. Several speakers at the conference called for national unity, urged rebels to disarm and demanded that the international community halt its bombing campaign, which began in mid-March with the aim of protecting Libyan civilians against Gadhafi's troops.

An interesting contrast with the decision of outsiders the same day in Italy.

In Rome, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the best way to protect Libya's people is to get Gadhafi to leave power. "This is the outcome we are seeking," she told representatives from 22 nations and organizations.
[...]
[Libyan spokesman Moussa] Ibrahim said the tribal gathering was a counterpoint to Clinton's call for Gadhafi's ouster. "What voice is more important, Hillary Clinton's voice or the voice of 2,000 tribal leaders of Libya?" he said.

Clinton's way to protect civilians ins't the best one, it's the only one she and her ilk will consider. It's rather suspicious, really. And Mr. Ibrahim's counter-point is a damn good one. But the rebels, always the balanced skeptics, weren't fully convinced. They called on serious discrepancies to suggest the tribal gathering was an inside job.

A rebel spokesman dismissed claims that those attending the Tripoli conference represented all Libyan tribes. "Libya doesn't have 850 tribes," said the head of the political committee of the rebel's Transitional National Council, Fathi Baja, in the eastern city of Benghazi. "Gadhafi is just a big liar. ... He never had any legitimacy. The Libyan people did not choose him."

Na'eem Jeenah, director of the Afro-Middle East Center in Johannesburg, South Africa, has said Libya has about 140 tribes and clans.

Is that it? Someone perhaps confused the words for "clan" and "tribe" and gave a wrong number that anyone could unearth? This is the proof he's a liar about the significance of this gathering? Can anyone name the tribes not involved?

Here's a different take:
Hermes Msafiri: Libyan Turmoil 117 (bis)

The big tribe gathering is a complete success. It's totally live on Libyan TV. Every speaker, maximum 10 minutes and also much shorter, is presented by name and tribe. There is also a list of names in Latin letters.

Still the media claim that they cannot verify, of course since they don't speak a word of Arabic and have no translators, they can always claim they cannot verify. I don't speak Arabic either but I had somebody next to me who translated. It was very revealing, even Eastern tribes were there, it's still going on now. Literally hundreds of tribe and clan chiefs from all over Libya.

The 3 stooges should pay attention, Benghazi cannot bring that tribal gathering, they cannot even reveal the names of 23 Council members of the 31 which are so-called members. [ed: Most names of the 31 National Transitional Council members are not publicly known because of "security reasons"]

The speeches are all defiant and in favor of Gaddafi, those are the civilians the 3 stooges are talking about.

The 3 stooges agreed to give 250 million euro or dollars or whatever to the rebels during their mafia sessions in Rome, peanuts for their shoestring murder scenario, and they still need Qatar as paymaster.

When are they going to realize how ridiculous they really are?

Now, if in this supposedly democratic millieu, all voices came out for Gaddafi staying, I would find that suspicious. I'd like to learn more. Someone should have by now mentioned the old man might sacrifice himself (to the ICC and Milosevic's lonely fate) to save the system. If no one's allowed to even suggest that, well, that's one reason I could buy the system there does need serious change. I wish they could pull off the coup of doing it on their own terms, but that's not happening yet.

One problem with who attended or didn't is a combination of geography and a farkin' civil war.   As Richard Boudreaux notes in the Wall Street Journal (Via Pan-African News):

TRIPOLI, Libya—Hundreds of tribal leaders from government-controlled areas of Libya gathered under a giant tent here Thursday to call for an end to an armed uprising against Col. Moammar Gadhafi and aerial attacks by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on his forces.

But what the government billed as a nationwide show of support drew only limited participation, with tribal chiefs from three regions of western and central Libya in attendance.

One source says at least some eastern tribes, clans, whatever, did have their representatives there. But by this, it was mostly attended from government-held areas - the western two-thirds, the southern half, the largest city and capitol, and everything around the third largest city, Misrata.

This limited attendance could have different reasons. One, it could mean all the eastern tribes who didn't show are firmly against Gaddafi and just refused to add their voices to a "staged event." Or, of course, they feared arrest on visiting Tripoli. I would.

Another possibility is the few loyalist tribal leaders still in the east might be known and stopped by rebel security before getting there. There are only about two roads you can really take to get anywhere in Libya, after all. Government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim did say the "security situation" in eastern Libya limited attendance at the conference.

But here's the thing about the one who did attend - these are the people, leaders of the socially-important tribes, of at least half of Libya. Their fate is in the balance here. The West, Secretary Clinton and the rest, intend to subject these people and those they represent to rule by the "pro-democracy" rebel forces that the WEST, not Libya, has adopted. They control parts of Libya, by the sole grace of NATO air power and other slimy neo-imperialist support. But they are not "the people of Libya."

A better answer to that description, if still imperfect, met yesterday in a democratic congress on their future. They may still come around to change, but a solid majority, it sounds like, are firm that it shouldn't happen now, not like this. Not like this. Not if their voices matter. (To Fox News at least, they don't). This "humanitarian" campaign is demonstratably anti-democratic. 

So, let's continue with Boudreaux. He passes on a critique by George Joffee, a Cambridge University professor, who is clearly an anti-Gaddafi activist and thus dismisses the whole event as a Gaddafi stunt with "coerced" tribal leaders. The usual crap. Again, but with some useful detail, he focuses on which tribes were and weren't there and what areas they represent. It doesn't seem to matter what the ones who were there said:

"We reject the fighting in Libya...we strongly reject foreign intervention," declared Abed Abu Hamada , leader of the Megharbah tribe, in a speech to the televised gathering of white-robed elders. "We call on our brothers in the eastern regions – the armed ones, the misled ones – we call them to peaceful dialogue."
[...]
Even among the tribal leaders present, backing for the government was limited. [Plus one then for credibility] ... Nearly every speaker pledged allegiance to Col. Gadhafi. [plus five for relevance] 

Mansour Khalaf, who heads Libya's largest tribe, the Warfalla, told reporters during the conference that although he denounces the uprising and supports Col. Gadhafi's leadership, he would not send armed followers to join the Libyan army's fight against the rebels, as some other tribes have vowed to do.

Government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said the "security situation" in eastern Libya limited attendance at the conference. But he insisted that it was broadly representative and urged Western leaders who have called for Col. Gadhafi's departure to take note.

"Their message is national unity and no to foreign intervention," he said. "They are not siding with someone against someone else. Of course, they're rallying behind the leadership of the country, but they're saying, we want our brothers in the east to come talk to us so we can find a peaceful solution to this crisis."
[...]
Rebel leaders [say] there's nothing to discuss as long as the Libyan leader remains in power.

Update May 7: There's a video on Youtube:

And at least one more:


Update May 7: And at conference's end, a call for a peaceful surrender of the Western-backed winners. Tribal Chiefs Call for Amnesty.

In a meeting that ended in Tripoli late on Friday evening, the National Conference for Libyan Tribes called for a "general amnesty law which will include all those who were involved in the crisis and took up arms".

"The general amnesty law is a means of laying the path ahead for a new era of peace and forgiveness," it said in a statement. No timetable for, nor details on, the proposed law were mentioned.

The statement also referred to opposition fighters as "traitors" and pledged that tribal leaders would not "forsake" or "abandon" Gaddafi. The statement goes on to call for towns "hijacked" by opposition fighters to be "liberated". "The conference also calls all Libyan tribes neighbouring the towns and cities hijacked by armed groups to move peacefully in popular marches to liberate those hijacked towns, disarming the armed rebels," it said.

I have to say, this might not be very realistic.

And, if any journalists or anyone has copies of the list handed out, the statements given, or any primary source materials like that, I'd be delighted to be sent copies at caustic_logic@yahoo.com for publication here.

Update: On the confusion over what "850 tribes" refers to when there are only 140 or so:
http://leonorenlibia.blogspot.com/2011/05/las-2000-tribus.html
Auto-translated from Italian:

I have explained that each major tribe includes several tribes such as the tribe has 4 Zwayer ie tribes within that branch of the tribe who lives in a particular area take a different name and in colloquial language we would say that they are sub-tribes.

Thus each branch of the tribe has sent his own name several people at the big meeting.
The scale would be the major tribes, then the subtribes and then comes the family.

Subtribes word is invented because they call me as well but tribes that belong to a large tribe.

Otherwise, clans. The mammoth Warfalla tribe has 55 clans, for example.

Also, on Eastern representation. WSJ, May 8:

Moussa Ibrahim, a Libyan government spokesman, said about 200 elders from the rebel-held east took part in the conference and would exert their influence back home. But in interviews, two of those elders said they had fled the region weeks ago, after the rebel takeover, and didn’t plan to return anytime soon. [source]