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Friday, August 19, 2011

The Tawergha Massacre

August 19, 2011
last update Sept. 20


To start, simply a news story I saw pop up, brand new to me, as I was looking to see if anyone's written yet about the unsolved slaughter of 30-34 civilians, their bodies found in a tree farm outside Qawalish. That was blamed by rebels, as always, on Gaddafi's forces, like they had with the earlier stash of six Gaddafi soldiers found in a well outside Qawalish, one beheaded. The new atrocity should have trumped the old, but has instead been silent until now trumped, by a wide margin, by this:


Libyan rebels claim to have found mass grave containing bodies of 150 civilians slaughtered by Gadaffi forces

The Daily Mail, 18 August.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2027465/Libyan-rebels-mass-grave-150-civilians-slaughtered-Gadaffi-forces.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
Libyan rebels claim to have found a mass grave containing the bodies of 150 civilians slaughtered by forces loyal to Colonel Gadaffi.
A spokesman said rebel forces had found the buried bodies of civilians about 60 miles to the west of the city of Misrata.
He claimed in addition to the grave, troops had discovered video 'showing kidnappers cutting the throats of people'.

The spokesman said: 'We discovered a mass grave containing 150 bodies in Tawargha. These are the corpses of civilians kidnapped from Misrata by Gaddafi’s loyalists.'
What type of people? Under what circumstances were their remains found? How many were killed by slit throats or beheadings? What exact co-ordinates should NATO bomb in retaliation? How long had they been dead? Etc.? Too many questions for now. Too much context I could add if I had the time for this breaking story. The rebel purge of Tawergha, long-promised, is sure to have produce horrors. The Gaddafi regime might even have started, finally, to behave as barbarically as their enemies at this late and (reportedly) desperate stage.

No promises of anything, myself, until next week. The comments below, who knows?

The story continued immediately with:
Rebel troops are now believed to be working their way up the coastal road outside the town of Hisha about 100 km west of Misrata as they advance towards Tripoli.
It's expected they'll discover more mass graves there, of people killed right about the time they pulled in. Gaddafi will keep leaving scores of vague dead in mass graves until the "bloodbath," to quote Mr. Abdel-Jalil, starts in Tripoli. That'll teach 'em to not get falsely blamed for shooting protesters once.

Updates in the space below.
---
Aug 19, later: Wikipedia has this, no sources given:
Another abuse that was documented was the mass graves in Tawergha, where 150 men, women and children had been buried. This was before the capture of the town by anti-Gaddafi forces. It is said that 40-50 men who were buried were actually Gaddafi soldiers who wanted to have a break from fighting because of ramadan, others say that they didn't want to fight anymore and some say that they wanted to defect. Many of the rest of the bodies were those of egyptian workers and their families and the rest were libyan civilians.
That's sure a lot to know from dead guys. How many wanted to defect?

There's nothing else I've found yet.
---
Aug 24:
A tweet from al Jazeera's Mr. Simmons, 20 August: "Visited site of alleged mass grave just outside Tawergha before heading to Zliten. Can confirm one badly decomposed headless body."
http://twitter.com/memorylane_uk/statuses/104995371968761856

London Evening Standard, Aug 18:
Mass grave 'hides Gaddafi massacre'
Libyan rebels say they have found 150 buried bodies they claim are civilians killed by Colonel Gaddafi's forces.

Rebels from Misrata made the find in the town of Tawergha. A spokesman said: "We discovered a mass grave ... civilians kidnapped from Misrata by Gaddafi's loyalists."
That's an article?
---
Sept. 20:

As I noted in another recent post, there are mass graves of Gaddafi loyalists all around Misrata, at least per alleged behind-the-scenes bragging noted in this new post. A Misrata commander complains to the NTC's military spokesman about the lack of appreciation for Misrata's criminal contributions:
"Think about the armies we destroyed, Man, we destroyed 16 battalions in Misurata, there are MASS GRAVES of Gaddafi soldiers, but we are not supposed to talk about it. Who destroyed them?
When did this order come through?Before or after they talked about the one mass grave in Tawergha, transparently blaming it on Gaddafi loyalists?

Other news on the massacre:
I missed an earlier tweet to Simjazeera, August 20:
acarvin: RT @simmjazeera: Alleged mass grave site near Tawergha. Needs independent investigation. No excavations made yet.
http://www.r-shief.org/twitter/acarvin-rt-%40simmjazeera-alleged-mass-grave-site-near-tawergha-needs-independent-176474/
And another tip, August 20:
@Thanku4theAnger "@simmjazeera: Tawergha alleged mass grave: Headless corpse I found covered in blankets in shallow grave."#feb17 #Libya

Otherwise, no actual news. Human Rights Watch and the Red Crescent are working 14 mass graves in Tripoli and Qawalish in the west, but not to my knowledge at Tawergha. The bodies are probably long gone now anyway, never to be examined by anyone. And at least about 150 of the missing will likely stay that way forever.

19 comments:

  1. The Tarwegha Massacre was comitted by rebels , Tripoli condemned that act by nato.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Of course that's what my instincts tell me. But I await the evidence, if any is forthcoming, and will try to keep an open mind. That's my edge over other "pro-Gaddafi propagandists" and "useful idiots."

    Thanks for the comment.

    ReplyDelete
  3. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903532804576564861187966284.html

    ReplyDelete
  4. Also ethnic cleansing is a crime!

    NATO rebels provide ethnic cleansing of the town of Tawerga with 10,000 inhabitans ! (other source did report 30,000 people!)

    Rebel officer: "We said if they didn't go, they would be conquered and imprisoned. Every single one of them has left, and we will never allow them to come back."

    Look how cleverly the newspaper hides ethnic cleansing in the title !

    telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandind­ianocean/libya/8754375/Gaddafi­s-ghost-town-after-the-loyalis­ts-retreat.html

    Before NATO "punish bombed": www.youtube.com/watch?v=15Eds2B6HlU44

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hey... two submissions in a row I had already included. It seems it was only that hard to get on top of about all there is reported in English about the Tawergha situation. Thanks though, to both.

    Except this, which Felix added to another post:
    The pick up truck is lettered for the Army or Military Council of the Town of Misrata. - Al-Majlis Al-Askari Mdina Misrata. It gets a name check on a forum which quotes the Army Rumour Service "arrse"
    "As long as the Misrata majlis al-askari gets a major say in Libyan politics prior to the elections, things should be OK. (Just not, btw, for the largely loyalist blacks of Tawargha, who I warned would get a shitty welcome from Misrata once my guys pushed southeastwards- and have).
    My khatiba- al-Ghabra- is currently garrisoning an electricity station in Tripoli. They're bored and want some action, and volunteers are being mustered for Bani Walid.

    And if it did come to a civil war- and I don't think it will, though they may be a few minor scraps before the dust settles- then without NATO/Qatari support the NTC forces, or 'Libya National Army', would lose heavily and quickly to Misrata, and I suspect the Berbers. Who'd come out on top politically? Whoever Qatar wants on top. ""

    notice "my guys"

    ReplyDelete
  6. Sorry that data is becoming very complex. I post here because the number 150 seems similar to 157.

    More Gadaffi insinuated crimes: 157 bodies here

    Image BIN JAWWAD,

    Better image and seems to be 2011?

    Washington Post at it again. UN report, Human Rights abuse.

    The number '157' appears once more?

    Seems images are circulating hoping the sheeples won't remember?

    Also rumoured that Libya will split, Jabril confirms. Presumably the bit with the oil will go to Western puppets?

    Although unrelated this information is quite different and seems that expats have been imported to create entrepreneurial ventures?

    What's happened to the mass of Green Libyans? I get the feeling that there is some vast culture differences here used by the West to destroy something that is quite unique?

    Caustic, your collection is very valuable as an objective analysis of the Libyan debacle, yet I find it difficult to get an understanding of what it was really like living under Gadaffi. It's all one-sided and those happy there seem not to contribute. Is there anyone posting who can explain what it was really like? Most unhappy types seem to have buggered-off, made a life elsewhere, indoctrinated offspring to hate the Regime, and welcomed the US enhanced NATO decimation to go back to a life they 'lived' decades ago, grasping on Western manipulated Media to enhance some personal affectation, not realising the consequences of their actions.

    This is somewhat OT but, for me, someone living there saying, yes, there were restrictions, such as....., but we were happy. The more intellectual/avaricious/political types were not.

    EQW

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I grew up in east-germany , no bloody event in 1989 like now in Libya but perhaps the same "writing a new history" like it happens to me. my daughter is now 14 and she grew up with that "new history" in the kindergarden, in the school, in "documentary on tv" and so on. there was a brainwashing propaganda 88/89/90 with "...so was it to live in east-germany....and so....and so.... and the restrictions and the "stasi" (secret service) and....and ...."
      and I sit in this washed and new hisory, what says, that it would discribing my life before 89 and I have to agree: yes, perhaps, I was living, growing up on the mars or the moon or elsewhere, because I cant remember the life, which is said, I lived on , because before 89 came, I must have been blind or being a child or ...
      I think its important to look for young peoples in their now 14/15/16 to ask about their lives before 2011 because you get the real rebelstatements, the real critical statements, the real problems in growing up and live in Libya before 2011.
      Most of "my" people took the (west)-money and their (brainwash)-shower-gel and tell their children , when they ask for our lifes because it is a lesson in school about this time : yes, your history-book is right, yes, your teacher teaches you right, yes your discribings about my life before 89 is right, yes....and so on...
      The only thing I do with my daughter and her schoollessons is to tell her "my life", not to denaunce the other story about the living in the GDR which she had to learn and if the teachers ask for to repeat.

      (next commentar)

      Delete
    2. Perhaps now, you could get some remembered living before 2011 - stories, in a year or 5 years you will only or mostly hear what the schoolbooks say about it, not only from children or teens or perhaps twens, you can ask a man or a woman in the 40 and hear the same... You will hear all phrases which are now on their way to become "the truth"...
      Do you read the "news" from Sirte, the interviews with a ca 50 years old man their: Yes, Gaddafi was here, yes, his familie lived here, yes, we were not "rebels", but..... and so on. The people of Sirte must live now in Sirte, live in Libya today, there is no chance to hold the lived past, you must take the new turn into the new written history and you can only hope, that no one ask deeper, when you tell your news about the living before, because there are no remembers, no remembered pictures, smells, tasts and so on, which you can give as a fundament of your stories, you have to take other pictures, other men remembered sense impressions to do this and you will do this again and again and after repeating this impressions for a little time, you think, its your own impression, its your live, what is discribed in history-books and it goes better and better to live the life , you have to live now...
      I dont wat to say , all school-lessons to a live before 89 here in Germany are fiction, no! But to make new school-books for the libyan children is the best way to delete/cancel the hole memories because everybody wants to have a "good life, a calm life, a..." and you only get it accepting the new truth.
      But the teens in their rebellion against whats/who is older then 18 or 20 struggle in such a time... Most of them become brave citizens of the new state but some never come out of this struggeling, they have no place to become calm. they cant clean their memories in opposition to everybody who tries to say them, what they should think, do...and ...remember...
      Dont know, if young Libyans were writing in blogs before 2011, dairy-blogs like many other young peaple here... I cant read, understand arabic , but perhaps some arabic-learn-students could be found to translate such offen simple-written blogs. you have to rummage through heartache-stories, but at the edge there are the best discriptions of individual life ...

      sorry,a roman, I`m afraid,
      but I have the same interest and look for good impressions since the beginning ... I read "Escape to hell... and other stories" and found a little bit of Gaddafis struggle with the youth , the development in Libya, but its a impression from his place, so I can only imagine, whats going on "on the ground" ...

      Delete
    3. @EQW: Thanks for that tip. Bin Jawad massacre(s) post finally coming soon. An old story from HRW (Google Whitson, and "stomach-turning"), and this one, maybe the same or not, which is fascinating already. The guy at Dr.Salem's missing persons thing happened to find two of his brothers among the 157 probably half-black, mostly loyalist bodies killed with guns and rocket attacks and maybe swords.Discovered December, the careful case only ready to announce now and let the commission announce itself.

      On people who know Libya, no amazing ideas who to talk to, sorry. Some are around that might be level-headed

      jg: Thanks for the thoughts. As they say, however, tl;dr (too long, didn't read) for now. Just passing through really. G'nite!

      Delete
    4. Bin Jawad:

      This bloke mentions BJ here
      Site found via Google Image search from elsewhere. Date unknown. Not sure it helps?

      @jg yes, have Escape 2 Hell, yet go hot-cold re such as Miranda Films. They are in UK but a D&B not conclusive about ownership except BBC buys a lot of stuff from them. Enough said!!

      The Malta youth (Ismael Zmirli) appears sponsored by Nescafe and is running a website: Libyan Tweepforum from Malta (??) that pertains to Libya??

      The UN report I find astonishing, to quote:

      "The report includes a litany of alleged crimes sanctioned by Gaddafi’s regime, including the use of lethal fire against unarmed demonstrators and the torture and murder of detainees at numerous government facilities, including a “boy scouts’ camp” used by Gaddafi’s forces as a military camp in Al Qalaa.

      The evidence included a videotape of a “purported senior regime figure giving instructions to ‘crush’ demonstrators in Benghazi and a firsthand account of an order from Moammar Gaddafi to suppress demonstration ‘with all means necessary.’ ”

      Witnesses also uncovered a mass grave at the site, with the bodies of 34 men and boys, blindfolded and with their hands tied behind their backs.

      In another case, Gaddafi loyalists threw hand grenades into a warehouse packed with prisoners; of 157 detainees, only 51 were confirmed to have survived."

      There must be some way we can get them to consider the data herein? It makes no sense for them to arrive at this crap, especially as Saif is shortly to go under the 'hammer?'

      EQW

      Delete
    5. http://i40.tinypic.com/2yll3ea.jpg

      Return the bodies of missing young people, mostly executed by al-Gaddafi in the period between February and March of 2011

      Today the funeral prayer was held on the bodies of 163 martyrs
      They found the new Libyan authorities yesterday in a mass grave near the area of ​​Bin Jawad

      http://www7.0zz0.com/2012/03/05/22/420005517.jpg
      http://www7.0zz0.com/2012/03/05/22/473792597.jpg
      http://www7.0zz0.com/2012/03/05/22/482197853.jpg
      http://www7.0zz0.com/2012/03/05/22/551350293.jpg
      http://www7.0zz0.com/2012/03/05/22/620743348.jpg
      http://www7.0zz0.com/2012/03/05/23/590592179.jpg
      http://www7.0zz0.com/2012/03/05/23/174327057.jpg
      *****************************************************************************
      Shehoumi/Computer Engineer/ Benghazi
      http://www.maxforums.net/customavatars/avatar33405_7.gif
      صور رمزية الشحومي
      /seNse/3D Director / Mansoura - EGYPT
      http://www.maxforums.net/customavatars/avatar94694_49.gif
      Inass/Senior Member/Tripoli
      http://www.maxforums.net/showthread.php?t=210425

      Delete
    6. @ felix : any resamblance ?

      http://i40.tinypic.com/2q83cqq.jpg
      http://www.maxforums.net/customavatars/avatar94694_49.gif

      http://vimeo.com/37650955
      http://www.maxforums.net/showthread.php?t=210425

      Delete
  7. http://samenews.info/5090/libyan-militias-accused-of-torture/

    115 people with torture-related wounds since it started work in Misrata in August. A majority of the detainees, which includes a large number of sub-Saharan Africans, is accused of being loyal.
    The Guardian UNITED NATIONS, New York -- Libyan militias remain heavily armed and uncontrolled causing. The majority of the detainees are accused of being loyalists of the deposed leader, the late Muammar Gaddafi, and include a large number of citizens of sub-Saharan.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LJ4TZzxuJg

    LIBYA War Crimes: NATO Rebels Justify Persecution Of Tawergha On Gaddafi Loyalty & Rape Accusation

    ReplyDelete
  8. TOWERGHA

    Armed idiots of Misurata destroy homes Torghae residents.
    http://www.youtube.com/user/Artem0618#p/u/2/BJO_6UvO5_Q


    http://www.youtube.com/user/Artem0618#p/u/4/529VCVUN4uk
    Bloody Monday. Janzour. The massacre of black Libyans.February 6, 2012



    http://libyaagainstsuperpowermedia.com/2012/02/29/libya-the-list-of-the-ntc-barbarians-who-did-the-massacre-in-janzour-february-29-2012/

    ReplyDelete
  9. Libyans are tortured in the most brutal fashion in history - WORLD SILENT!! (Warning - Horrendous Torture Photos)

    http://ozyism.blogspot.com/2012/03/libyans-are-tortured-in-most-brutal.html
    Libyans are tortured in the most brutal fashion in history - WORLD SILENT!! (Warning - Horrendous Torture Photos)

    We Should be very worried now about #Libya , So worried
    http://egyptianchronicles.blogspot.com/2012/03/we-should-be-very-worried-now-about.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EgyptianChronicles+%28Egyptian+chronicles%29


    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2V7jsmZiMkk&feature=player_embedded
    Les rebelles de Misrata explosent un mausolée et un cimetière à Taourga

    ReplyDelete
  10. It's in arabic, on Al-Jazeera uploaded late in 2011,November 13: قصص التعذيب الذي قامت به كتائب القذافي Stories of kidnappings, torture carried out by al-Gaddafi [in Tawergha especially the suburbs] against Misratans http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7Dyg2B3Fys 3 witnesses interviewed... long after the event. The official narrative - it was Gaddafi who dun it. Is the building at 1.00 where the torture was alleged to have taken place?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. they talk all the time abt zjemma [ mosque]

      Delete
  11. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zx8EWlssIjY&feature=youtu.be

    RRowleyTucson Robert Rowley
    VIDEO: Capturing some of #Gaddafi’s mercenaries in #Tawarga youtu.be/Zx8EWlssIjY #Libya #feb17

    ReplyDelete
  12. The latest via the Libyan Herald:
    Tawerghans say mass grave bodies mis-identified, demand neutral investigation – Ahmed Elumami, 16 may 2013

    Exhumed bodies found in a mass grave discovered earlier this week are not civilians from Misrata but are people from Tawergha, the town’s local council in exile has said, demanding that a neutral committee be formed to investigate the grave.

    ReplyDelete

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