Before the Libyan Civil War, Tawarga was an agricultural city of some 10,000, mostly black people, with an economy centering around palm trees and date production. Today, it is entirely empty, and declared a “closed military area” by the rebels.
But where did the Tawargans go? That’s not such an easy question to answer. The rebels rounded them all up and herded them into “refugee camps” in Tripoli. But reporters that went to Tripoli found the camps empty as well, with the only person there, someone looting scrap metal out of one camp, declaring that they had “gone to Niger.”
Tripoli residents near the camp, however, report that the Tawargans had indeed been in the camp at one point, but that the camp itself was attacked by forces from Misrata. They beat the men, rounded up the women and children and took them away in trucks. They believed the troops were taking them to another camp in another part of Tripoli. That camp too was empty.
Black people have been disappearing all across Libya, with rebels arresting people simply on the basis of skin color, but how does a whole city go missing? It may be quite some time before we learn exactly what happened, but we have hints in media reports dating back to June, when Misrata rebels began openly talking about “cleansing” the region of blacks and were saying that black Libyans might as well pack up because “Tawarga no longer exists, only Misrata.”
Fast forward nearly three months from this proclamation, and we have an empty city where Tawarga once stood. The only sign saying Tawarga has been covered up with a new sign saying “New Misrata.”
Perhaps some of them are on their way to Europe? We need look no further then our own president for welfare-mooching, illegal aliens from Africa.
You never hear of uncle Omar? Good old drunk driving Omar, who was going to call the white house on the cops who pulled him over? What a blast he is. How about auntie Zeituni? What a piece of work she is. Obama's trainwreck extended family would be media fodder if he was white. Look how Jimmy Carter was crucified over his brother Billy. But Obama gets a pass because he's black. Your juvenile resorting to vulgarty, insults and rudeness doesn't alter the truth of what I say.
But you have no problems using african oil from Nigiria,Angola,Guinea Equatorial,Libya, Algeria etc…IDIOT.. Shame on you.
Huh? Why shouldn't we buy the products from these countries? What are you saying? A Cuba-style boycott? What is the shame in trade?
An entire town of farmers is disappeared, and all you can do is snark about them reappearing on the welfare rolls of European countries. Scumbag!
Reprisals are inevitable. Human nature. It's all fine and dandy to spout forgiveness, BUT when it's your own flesh and blood, your own baby you have nurtured and loved, and experienced the first smile, the first words, the first hug, the first kiss – my friends, you too will turn savage against anyone who kills or harms your baby. Ask any mother, any where, about this.
A word I received from Libya is that were it not for the black mercenaries, Ghadaffi would have had no armed forces. The rebels have uncovered atrocities that corroborative evidence indicates strongly were committed by the mercenaries. Revenge is thus expected.
Nothwithstanding, I abhor the slaughter of innocents, and wish I had the power to stop it, most especially when committed by my US countrymen. I pray God will help and keep the innocents.
The "Black mercenary" nonsense again? LOL. So, in oder to take revenge on Black mercinaries from OTHER countiries, it's "inevitable" that reprisals occur against Black LIBYANS and an entire city of LIBYAN city is disappeared? Ridiculous.
Your comment is atrocius. "Word you received from Libya" PLease it's been reported in the news.
Your all over the map here in your comment which tries to hide your apparent glee that these people are being exterminated based on skin color.
Libya has a large black service population. People who do work for Libyans. The "mercenaries" are a small percentage of them. The "rebels" hate black people. That's all there is to it.
And racist Obama supports them.
Most people who comment here have never been to Africa and don't know the first thing about how these countries operate. Most of them would be lucky to avoid a fate like Amy Biehl.
Obama Hates Blacks. He's a Racist
President Obama supports the mass extermination of Black people in Libya and in Africa.
There is no other interpretation. 10,000 people dissapeared. In other words those that couldn't get away were killed. Children, kids.
This is the president we have. A racist.
someone should tell Obama?
Better yet let's name this fiasco "Operation Enduring War Crimes". What "black" Africa ought to do is unite and expel the foreign invaders and inperialist to save Africa. They could then take over Libya and protect the continent.
Then, African states could be in the big leagues and initiate their program of imperialism.
We didn't do a blessed thing to help the blacks being murdered in Rwanda years ago; what makes anyone think we're going to lift a finger to help the blacks in Libya now? We've got our oil and resource contracts and the corporations are fat, dumb, and happy so whatever else happens is just 'collateral damage' and 'tribal warfare' and the like.
We can mobilize NATO to prevent a massacre of Libyans, but we can't mobilize NATO to prevent a massacre of blacks? The hypocrisy is astounding.
How about we just stay out of both Rwanda and Lybia?
I am shocked that I have to search far and wide to get this story. I'm not hearing a peep about it in the major media. Why is that? Do these black Africans in Libya mean less than the brown Africans to this administration and to the media? By the way, Antiwar.com, thanks for updating us.
I was in Libya until shortly after the “fall” (ie massacre) of Tripoli.
Roughly around a week before the fighting began in Tripoli, at a press conference the head of the Tawergha said that his tribe along with the government had ordered the evacuation of the town, because it was being targetted by the rebels and heavy fighting with armed volunteers and the Libyan army would ensue. The evacuation was ordered in order to try to minimise the civilian casualties that would otherwise take place. (This slightly contradicts your report that they were ordered into refugee camps by the rebels.)
On the same night I spoke to a friend who had set up a refugee camp inside Tripoli for internal refugees and she said over one thousand refugees had showed up from Tawergha.
I spoke to a friend in Tripoli today and she indeed verified that the refugee camps set up in Tripoli by ordinary people, ie volunteers, had now gone.
Wherever the rebels have gone, starting in Benghazi and Misrata, the persecution, public lynchings, rape and cutting off of breasts of Black Libyans and migrants from elsewhere in Libya has been a systematic policy.
As Dan Glazebrook states in an interview on Russia Today
the fact that the NTC/rebels are racist is not just an unsavoury byproduct, but from the viewpoint of the west it is essential for the new government to be racist. One of their main reasons for intervening in Libya is to squander Gaddafi’s moves to unite Africa, and there is no way better to do this then to put Arab supremacists at the helm.