Rights Group: Evidence Emerges of Revenge Killings Across Tripoli

Arbitrary Regime Killings Give Way to Arbitrary Rebel Killings

by Jason Ditz, August 28, 2011

As the city of Tripoli was falling to the rebel forces, Human Rights Watch is reporting “strong” evidence that the Gadhafi regime troops launched a series of arbitrary killings citywide, including massacring 120 civilians held in a hangar near a military base.

The spiteful last gasps of the Gadhafi regime appear to be all but over, but they giving way to the spiteful first gasps of the rebel regime. In compounds across the city, corpses lay stacked around makeshift hospitals. Many of them show signs of torture, some were bound before being executed.

Atrocities abound across the city, with plenty of blame to go around from both sides. But those expecting things to dramatically improve with the ouster of Gadhafi got a rude awakening last week, with the discovery of a field hospital full of executed Gadhafi soldiers, prompting the UN to issue a warning to the rebels against revenge killings.

The rebels deny any part in the killings, but they continue with a policy of mass arrests against black people in the capital, believing that anyone with unusually dark skin is liable to be a mercenary for the regime. Many are being held and reports say that a number of migrant workers, captured for being in the wrong country at the wrong time, are being threatened with execution.

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