"Earlier in the week the media was reporting that Zlitan had been taken over by the rebels and some reports had said that the town was empty. Both of these couldn’t have been further from what I witnessed. As I entered the city was busy with life continuing as normally as it can amidst heavy NATO bombing (and electricity and telecommunications blackouts and fuel shortagages) amongst families who have many of their loved ones fighting on the frontline. Green flags were everywhere in sight on peoples houses."

2.30 am I have so far heard over 25 NATO bombs drop about 3 km from where I am in central Tripoli, smoke is filling the sky. Friends have told me that the Fernaj suburb, where the al-Fatah university is based has been hit and a number of houses and a farm were targeted. People have been martyred and many injured.

Smoke over Bab Alziza more than half an hour after the bombing

I could see myself that the famous Bab Alziza compound which has already been bombed many times has also been repeatedly hit tonight. Just like every night there are sure to have been civilians there as since the crisis begun it has become a space where people gather every night in defiance of the NATO aggression.

Despite this terror which the NATO nations unleash every night and day across Libya, the English have made another admission that would further confirm my conviction that they will be defeated here. They admitted to one of their warships coming under fire by Libyan missiles.

Government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim repeatedly insists that the Libyan are nowhere near using their full military capability, and that if and when the time comes, then the Libyans will unleash hell on NATO and its allies, many of whom are just across the Mediterrannean.

In the day time I visited the city of Zlitan just  a few kilometers away from the front line. I was reassured to see the road to Zlitan chequered by checkpoints that have been set up by civilian volunteers or the Libyan army, I have yet to see a rebel flag anywhere.

Earlier in the week the media was reporting that Zlitan had been taken over by the rebels and some reports had said that the town was empty. Both of these couldn’t have been further from what I witnessed. As I entered the city was busy with life continuing as normally as it can amidst heavy NATO bombing (and electricity and telecommunications blackouts and fuel shortagages) amongst families who have many of their loved ones fighting on the frontline. Green flags were everywhere in sight on peoples houses.

Approaching the city we saw the first sign of NATO’s attempts to destroy the will of the people as we passed the rubble that was left from its bombing of one of the people’s checkpoints.

We made our way first to the family home of Musta al Mrbeti which lay in ruins after a NATO rocket from the sea landed on its roof causing the house to cave in on top of his sleeping wife, Ibtisam, and their two son, five year old Motaz and three-year old Mohammed. They have now joined the hundreds of Libyan men women and children who have been martyred – they will be rememberd as heroes who paid the highest price from freedom from imperialism that stains the world with blood.

As a friend said to me as we stood amongst the ruins of that family’s once complete life, rooves are normally symbols of safety, but under NATO’s “protection of civilians” campaign, they have become something to fear.

Throughout our visit NATO planes flew overhead and in the distance we could hear the bombs they continue to cowardly unleash.

We went to pay our respects at the funeral reception of Mustafa’s martyred family, the local community enraged, a small boy related to the family told us in tears of his pain.

Person after person asked us why they were being targetted when they had nothing to do with the military or the government, and Mustafa described his refusal to withdraw into himself as many would do and instead his determination to fight the criminal NATO aggression that had taken everything away from him.

Standing by him was his friend, Fathy Ab al Siame, who a few weeks ago had his son stolen from him when english apaches assasinated him and his three friends as they drove to go and have an evening meal. He said “when they (the west) lose someone the whole world knows about it forever, when we do you don’t hear a peep”.

We then went on to visit another of those military bastions that had been targetted by NATO, a primary girls school that was all but unrecognisable after it had been crushed by four NATO rockets. For every adult martyred the number of children martyred beside them is multiplied.

We have also been hearing from ordinary people as well as non-governmental organisations, particularly women’s organisations about the more than one hundred children who were kidnapped from orphanages in Misurata and never seen since they boarded Turkish and European ships.

The swelling resistance to NATO is centred not merely for a principled hate for foreign intervention but also around the people’s memories and love for what Libya was like before this crisis under leader Muammar Gaddafi. That is all they want and are fighting for, that life back.

The frustrations within Libya were centred around a few corrupt individuals in the government, who have now been flushed out when they proved their roteness by defecting to the belegaured opposition at the beginning of the crisis. If this filtering of those hated individuals hadn’t come at such a great human cost it could be called a silver lining. The sooner NATO stops trying to destroy all of Libya’s unprecedented development, the quicker the Libyan people and tribes will be able to being their healing and enjoy a stronger country without those parasites in any effectual position.

Lizzie Phelan

The Author: Lizzie’s Liberation blog is authored by journalist and political activist Lizzie Phelan. It is dedicated to supporting and learning about people’s struggles across the world against the past half a millenium of US-Euro imperialist oppression, and celebrating those who are struggling towards a world where people are collectively in control of their own destinies.

To achieve this goal, the end of US-Euro hegemony and progress towards  a multipolar world, whereby countries which have struggled for centuries against that hegemony are now increasingly asserting themselves, is viewed as a crucial historic advance.  This blog will analyse these developments and their many repercussions.

Source: Lizzies Liberation