Detienen a centenares de inmigrantes
subsaharianos acusados de ser “mercenarios del régimen”
Africanos bajo sospecha
Por J. M. Muñoz
Desde Trípoli
El País, 06/09/11
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Emigrantes
subsaharianos prisioneros: se ha desatado una ola de
xenofobia y racismo |
Aterrorizados, sin dinero, sin
pasaporte. "Volver a nuestro país no es una opción",
asegura Walter Ojeme, un nigeriano en la treintena, uno más
del millar de hombres y mujeres que viven en una cárcel al
aire libre, a 25 kilómetros al oeste de Trípoli, vigilados
por cuatro de los rebeldes que derrocaron a Muamar el
Gadafi. "Mi esposa y mi hijo están en Nigeria.
Dependen de mí. Llevó aquí dos meses. Tuve que escapar de
mi casa para salvar la vida, pero nos quitaron el dinero y
todo lo que teníamos. No sé si eran gadafistas o
rebeldes", añade junto a los barcos de pesca varados
en un puerto que les sirven de refugio.
Centenares de africanos negros han sido
detenidos por los rebeldes libios. A plena luz del día, y a
sabiendas de que los periodistas observaban, los puñetazos
y las patadas a estos desdichados formaban una estampa común
en los primeros días del asalto de los sublevados a la
capital, hace dos semanas.
"Hay cientos de miles de
inmigrantes que siempre han sufrido el racismo. Pero ahora,
además, son acusados de mercenarios. Hemos documentado
redadas masivas de personas de Chad, Nigeria, Sudán, Malí
y Somalia, pero también de libios. Arrestan a todos los
negros y los llevan a colegios. Ahora están reuniéndolos
en instalaciones oficiales, donde el potencial para los
abusos decrece. En Bengasi también hubo violencia, incluso
linchamientos", explica Fred Abrahams, investigador de
Human Rights Watch.
Las penurias de la comunidad negra
comenzaron desde el inicio del alzamiento, en febrero. Fue
entonces cuando Gift William, una mujer de 26 años, supo
que habían matado a su marido. "Disparaban
indiscriminadamente. Vine a Libia hace cuatro años para
trabajar en las casas. Aunque mi padre murió en 2007, todo
iba bien, pero ahora lo he perdido todo", lamenta junto
a una cacerola que añade calor a la canícula. Gift no es
la que peor suerte corrió; varias mujeres han denunciado
violaciones. Un tipo sentado a su lado le dice a Gift que
llore y se moja el dedo con saliva para simular una lágrima.
Pero la mujer no está para bromas. La historia se repite.
"He perdido a mi hermano, no sé
si está vivo o muerto. Yo tengo lo que ves", dice
Efuso señalándose la camiseta raída, los pantalones
cortos de paño que viste y las chanclos. "Si salimos
de aquí, nos detienen", añade este ghanés paupérrimo
cuyo nombre significa riqueza. "No puedo volver a mi país
sin nada. Si mi padre me ve regresar con lo puesto...".
Efosa trabajaba pintando viviendas. A destajo. Hasta que caía
el sol. "Antes de la guerra", continúa,
"prefería irme a casa antes del anochecer porque los
chavales se divertían apedreándonos".
Viven de los alimentos que entregan
algunas ONG. Se las apañan como pueden. Hacen cola para
utilizar los servicios de los barcos anclados en tierra; ya
hay una pequeña tienda que regenta una mujer enérgica y en
las tripas de un buque se lee: "barbería", y una
flecha que apunta a cuatro hombres ociosos. "Yo ganaba
hasta 2.500 euros al mes", sorprende Anthony, que
asegura haber soportado el racismo de muchos libios jóvenes.
"Tenemos miedo porque si antes de la guerra no era fácil,
ahora el odio a los negros aumentará. Cuando los rebeldes
tomaron Trípoli nos sentaron a todos, pistola en mano, nos
obligaron a gritar fuck Gadafi y nos quitaron el dinero y
los móviles, aunque también algunos libios traen comida.
Tenemos que empezar la vida otra vez". Ojeme dice que
no será en Libia. Pero ignora dónde. "Tampoco",
afirma, "nos dan trabajo en Túnez".
Las nuevas autoridades libias no dan
abasto. "La mayoría son trabajadores empleados por
libios que pueden venir a recogerlos y que no han luchado
junto a Gadafi", admite Mohamed Ali, uno de los
responsables de la seguridad en Trípoli, que parece quitar
hierro a las aberraciones: "Los nervios estaban
desbordados. Esto es una revolución".
Libyans
Turn Wrath on Dark–Skinned Migrants
By
David D. Kirkpatrick (*)
New
York Times, September 4, 2011
Tripoli,
Libya.– As rebel leaders pleaded with their fighters to
avoid taking revenge against “brother Libyans,” many
rebels were turning their wrath against migrants from
sub–Saharan Africa, imprisoning hundreds for the crime of
fighting as “mercenaries” for Col. Muammar el–Qaddafi
without any evidence except the color of their skin.
Many
witnesses have said that when Colonel Qaddafi first lost
control of Tripoli in the earliest days of the revolt,
experienced units of dark–skinned fighters apparently from
other African countries arrived in the city to help subdue
it again. Since Western journalists began arriving in the
city a few days later, however, they have found no evidence
of such foreign mercenaries.
Still,
in a country with a long history of racist violence, it has
become an article of faith among supporters of the Libyan
rebels that African mercenaries pervaded the loyalists’
ranks. And since Colonel Qaddafi’s fall from power, the
hunting down of people suspected of being mercenaries has
become a major preoccupation.
Human
rights advocates say the rebels’ scapegoating of blacks
here follows a similar campaign that ultimately included
lynchings after rebels took control of the eastern city of
Benghazi more than six months ago. The recent roundup of
Africans, though, comes at a delicate moment when the new
provisional government is trying to establish its
credibility. Its treatment of the detainees is emerging as a
pivotal test of both the provisional government’s
commitment to the rule of law and its ability to control its
thousands of loosely organized fighters. And it is also
hoping to entice back the thousands of foreign workers
needed to help Libya rebuild.
Many
Tripoli residents – including some local rebel leaders –
now often use the Arabic word for “mercenaries” or
“foreign fighters” as a catchall term to refer to any
member of the city’s large underclass of African migrant
workers. Makeshift rebel jails around the city have been
holding African migrants segregated in fetid, sweltering
pens for as long as two weeks on charges that their captors
often acknowledge to be little more than suspicion. The
migrants far outnumber Libyan prisoners, in part because
rebels say they have allowed many Libyan Qaddafi supporters
to return to their homes if they are willing to surrender
their weapons.
The
detentions reflect “a deep–seated racism and
anti–African sentiment in Libyan society,” said Peter
Bouckaert, a researcher with Human Rights Watch who visited
several jails. “It is very clear to us that most of those
detained were not soldiers and have never held a gun in
their life.”
In
a dimly lighted concrete hangar housing about 300
glassy–eyed, dark–skinned captives in one neighborhood,
several said they were as young as 16. In a reopened police
station nearby, rebels were holding Mohamed Amidu Suleiman,
a 62–year–old migrant from Niger, on allegations of
witchcraft. To back up the charges, they produced a long
loop of beads they said they had found in his possession.
He
was held in a segregated cell with about 20 other prisoners,
all African migrants but one. “We have no water in the
bathroom!” one prisoner shouted to a guard. “Neither do
we!” the guard replied. Most of the city has been without
running water to bathe, flush toilets or wash clothes since
a breakdown in the water delivery system around the time
that Colonel Qaddafi fled. But the stench, and fear, of the
migrants was so acute that guards handed visitors hospital
masks before they entered their cell.
Outside
the migrants’ cage, a similar number of Libyan prisoners
occupy a less crowded network of rooms. Osama el–Zawi, 40,
a former customs officer in charge of the jail, said his
officers had allowed most of the Libyan Qaddafi supporters
from the area to go home. “We all know each other,” he
said. “They don’t pose any kind of threat to us now.
They are ashamed to go out in the streets.”
But
the “foreign fighters,” he said, were more dangerous.
“Most of them deny they were doing it,” he said, “but
we found some of them with weapons.”
A
guard chimed in: “If we release the mercenaries, the
people in the street will hurt them.”
In
the crowded prison hangar, in the Tajura neighborhood, the
rebel commander Abdou Shafi Hassan, 34, said they were
holding only a few dozen Libyans – local informers and
prisoners of war – but kept hundreds of Africans in the
segregated pen. On a recent evening, the Libyan captives
could be seen rolling up mats after evening prayers in an
outdoor courtyard just a short distance from where the
Africans lay on the concrete floor in the dark.
Several
said they had been picked up walking in the streets or in
their homes, without weapons, and some said they were
dark–skinned Libyans from the country’s southern region.
“We don’t know why we are here,” said Abdel Karim
Mohamed, 29.
A
guard – El Araby Abu el–Meida, a 35–year–old
mechanical engineer before he took up arms in the rebellion
– almost seemed to apologize for the conditions. “We are
all civilians, and we don’t have experience running
prisons,” he said.
Most
of the prisoners were migrant farm workers, he said. “I
have a Sudanese worker on my farm and I would not catch
him,” he said, adding that if an expected
“investigator” concluded that the other black prisoners
were not mercenaries they would be released.
In
recent days, the provisional government has started the
effort to centralize the processing and detention of
prisoners. Abdel Hakim Belhaj, the leader of the Tripoli
military council, said that as recently as Wednesday he had
extended his protection to a group of 10 African workers who
had come to his headquarters seeking refuge.
“We
don’t agree with arresting people just because they’re
black,” he said. “We understand the problem, but we’re
still in a battle area.”
Mohamed
Benrasali, a member of the provisional government’s
Tripoli stabilization team, acknowledged the problem but
said it would “sort itself out,” as it had in his
hometown, Misurata.
“People
are afraid of the dark–skinned people, so they are all
suspect,” Mr. Benrasali said, noting that residents had
also rounded up dark–skinned migrants in Misurata after
the rebels took control. He said he had advised the Tripoli
officials to set up a system to release any migrants who
could find Libyans to vouch for them.
With
thousands of semi–independent rebel fighters still roaming
the streets for any hidden threats, though, controlling the
impulse to round up migrants may not be easy.
Outside
a former Qaddafi intelligence building, rebels held two
dark–skinned captives at knifepoint, bound together at the
feet with arms tied behind their backs, lying in a pile of
garbage, covered with flies. Their captors said they had
been found in a taxi with ammunition and money. The
terrified prisoners, 22–year–olds from Mali, initially
said they had no involvement in the Qaddafi militias and
then, as a captor held a knife near their heads, they began
supplying the story of forced induction into the Qaddafi
forces that they appeared to think was wanted.
Nearby,
armed fighters stood over about a dozen other migrants
squatting against a fence. Their captors were drilling them
at gunpoint in rebel chants like “God is Great” and
“Free Libya!”
(*)
Rod Nordland contributed reporting.
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