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Human Rights Investigations has been following the situation of the Tawergha closely and here we draw the information together and find, based on the reports of witnesses, journalists and human rights workers, the situation of the Tawergha is not just one of ethnic cleansing but, according to the legal definition, genocide.

Captive of the rebels in Sabha

HRI has grave concerns, not only for dark-skinned people in Libya generally, but also for pro-Gaddafi tribes including the Gaddafa and al-Meshashyas. We also have particular concern for the Tuareg of southern Libya who are being accused of being ‘mercenaries’ and under attack from NATO and rebel forces. But the greatest concern is perhaps for the Tawergha.....

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Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Yeah, this was a problem during the revolution itself,...

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Originally posted by Niki2:

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they want to move all the blacks over that line or kill them....there really wasn't anything wrong with him other than that he wouldn't sign our trade treaties

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Oh crap; welcome back, DT. I think. Things were somewhat saner while you were gone...sigh...

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Originally posted by dreamtrove:

Our media has had trouble demonizing Qaddafi, because there really wasn't anything wrong with him other than that he wouldn't sign our trade treaties, so the we've had to silence our criticism and hold back to a very general "another hitler" model without any closer investigation. We can't of course admit that we are supporting genocide, and we can't admit that there are atrocities on our side, esp. if we can't point to matching ones on the other side.

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Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
....and its not genocide either.

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http://humanrightsinvestigations.org/2011/09/26/libya-ethnic-cleansing
-tawargha-genocide/

The Genocide Convention

Article 2 of the United Nations issued Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide states:

“any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group as such:

1. Killing members of the group;

2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

4. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

5. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

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http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/06/07/going-rogue-natos-war-crimes-i
n-libya/

It’s a story CNN won’t report. Late at night there’s a pounding on the door in Misurata. Armed soldiers force young Libyan women out of their beds at gun-point. Hustling the women and teenagers into trucks, the soldiers rush the women to gang bang parties for NATO rebels—or else rape them in front of their husbands or fathers. When NATO rebels finish their rape sport, the soldiers cut the women’s throats.

Rapes are now ongoing acts of war in rebel-held cities, like an organized military strategy, according to refugees. Joanna Moriarty, who’s part of a global fact-finding delegation visiting Tripoli this week, also reports that NATO rebels have gone house to house through Misurata, asking families if they support NATO. If the families say no, they are killed on the spot. If families say they want to stay out of the fighting, NATO rebels take a different approach to scare other families. The doors of “neutral homes” are welded shut, Moriarty says, trapping families inside. In Libyan homes, windows are typically barred. So when the doors to a family compound get welded shut, Libyans are entombed in their own houses, where NATO forces can be sure large families will slowly starve to death.

These are daily occurrences, not isolated events. And Gadhaffi’s soldiers are not responsible. In fact, pro-Gadhaffi and “neutral” families are targeted as the victims of the attacks. Some of the NATO tactics may have occurred in hopes of laying blame on Gadhaffi’s door. However the attacks are back firing.

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“Rape parties” are the most graphic examples of NATO’s loss of moral control. One weeping father told the fact-finding delegation how a couple of weeks ago NATO rebels targeted seven separate households, kidnapping a virgin daughter from each pro-Gadhaffi family. The rebels were paid for each kidnapped girl, just as they are paid for each Libyan soldier they kill— like mercenary soldiers. They hustled the girls into trucks, and took them to a building where the girls were locked in separate rooms.

NATO soldiers proceeded to drink alcohol, until they got very drunk. Then the leader told them to rape the virgin daughters in gang bang style. When they’d finished raping the girls, the NATO leader told them to cut the breasts off the living girls and bring the breasts to him. They did this while the girls were alive and screaming. All the girls died hideous deaths. Then their severed breasts were taken to a local square and arranged to spell the word “whore.”

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http://humanrightsinvestigations.org/2011/09/26/libya-ethnic-cleansing
-tawargha-genocide/

The main town of the Tawergha region, Tawergha itself (aka Tawargha, Tawurgha. Arabic: ???????), was a town of an estimated 31,250 people (United Nations Environment Program, 2005). It has been emptied of its entire population: its people having either been killed or fled, amidst reports the remaining population in the area are being picked off as they try to find water and food. The town of Tawergha lies about 30-40 miles south of Misrata/Misurata, along the western coast of the Gulf of Sirte. Areas of Misrata occupied by the Tawargha have also been ethnically cleansed, according to the Wall Street Journal.

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It is highly likely many black refugees from Misrata fled to the town of Tawergha. Many of them and the original residents may have moved on prior to the actual assault, especially as the Misrata brigades were firing Grad rockets at the town. It also seems likely some of the fighters may have escaped to Sabha, Sirte or Bani Walid, where they are currently making a last stand, sure in the knowledge that they are unlikely to survive capture.

However, a report by David Enders, reporting from an empty Tawergha, indicates ethnic cleansing occurred after the rebels took full control:

"According to Tawergha residents, rebel soldiers from Misrata forced them from their homes on Aug. 15 when they took control of the town." (Our emphasis)

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Since the collapse of the Gaddafi government in western Libya in late August 2011, mass graves containing the bodies of people killed during the conflict have been reported on a weekly basis in Tripoli and other areas, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

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http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/09/13/123999/empty-village-raises-conc
erns.html#ixzz1d1igcZP9

"The Misrata people are still looking for black people," said Hassan, a Tawergha resident who's now sheltering in a third camp in Janzour, six miles east of Tripoli. "One of the men who came to this camp told me my brother was killed yesterday by the revolutionaries."

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http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=19674

Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC) must do more to protect black Libyans, Amnesty International said today, after allegations that members of the Tawargha tribe were detained, threatened and beaten on suspicion of fighting for Gaddafi forces.
Some Tawarghas who’ve been detained in Tripoli are said to have been made to kneel facing the wall and then been beaten with sticks and whips. Others have simply vanished after being arrested at checkpoints or taken from hospitals by armed revolutionaries (thuwwar).

Tawargha, a western Libyan town that remained loyal to Colonel al-Gaddafi and was used as a base for his troops, is associated in the minds of Misratah residents with some of the worst human rights violations committed during the conflict.
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In addition to Tawarghas, other black Libyans including from the central Sabha district as well as sub-Saharan Africans, continue to be at particular risk of reprisals and arbitrary arrests, on the basis of their skin colour and widespread reports that al-Gaddafi forces used "African mercenaries" to repress supporters of the NTC.

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How many of us have visited an Arab country? ...How many of us would know a Libyan? ....

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By and large what most people know, they know from a few media soundbites, a scanning of an article here and there. Not really enough to give a picture of what is happening and what is likely to happen.

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Originally posted by Fremdfirma:

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss...

Told you so.

-F

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Originally posted by Bytemite:
...is it corruption on the level of individual NATO soldiers, or does it go higher up?

...But I also want to know whether the higher-ups have had any INVOLVEMENT with the whole pay-for-kill/girl thing.

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Originally posted by RionaEire:
I don't want all the Toirig to get killed, ...

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