Libia, rivolte, tribù
– Se si gratta la superficie, si scopre che molti nuovi dirigenti, molti dei quali passasti presto dalla parte dei ribelli, provengono da vecchie tribù e famiglie che servivano la monarchia Senussi.
– La tribù Harabi di al-Idriss è una potente storica tribù-ombrello dell’Est, la cui influenza è diminuita con Gheddafi, che ha confiscato ampie porzioni dei terreni dei suoi membri, ridistribuendole a tribù più deboli e fedeli.
– Provengono dalla tribù Harabi molti dei leader che stanno emergendo nell’Est, compreso il capo del governo provvisorio di Bengasi, Abdel Mustafa Jalil, e Abdel Fatah Younis, che all’inizio della rivolta ha svolto un importante ruolo guida nei ranghi militari defezionati.
– In oltre 4 decenni al potere Gheddafi ha usato la strategia del divide et impera, dando potere ad alcune tribù, ed indebolendone altre.
– Ora sia Gheddafi e che i suoi oppositori si disputano appoggi tribali per far pendere la bilancia a proprio favore.
– Sulla difesa di Brega dall’attacco dei fedeli di Gheddafi, gli sceicchi tribali dell’Est Libia raccontano che le tribù dei Zuwawa e dei Mughariba, da anni in lotta per la terra e altre risorse, per la prima volta si sono unite, consentendo la difesa di Brega contro Gheddafi che aveva tentato senza riuscirci di conquistarsi la fedeltà delle due tribù offrendo aiuto, denaro e armi.
– Per secoli i leader del Nord Africa hanno derivato potere e legittimazione dalle tribù.
– L’ordine religioso dei Senussi, che per oltre 150 anni ha governato di fatto la Libia orientale (ma anche parti di Chad, Niger e Sudan) deve il proprio successo alla capacità di unire le tribù della regione sotto l’ombrello di una versione flessibile dell’islam, aperta ai vari costumi tribali.
– Il successo dei Senussi nella Libia Orientale (Cirenaica) spiega in parte perché i colonialisti italiani hanno dovuto disputare la regione dal 1911 alla Seconda guerra mondiale.
o Mentre nella regione che è oggi la Libia Occidentale le tribù hanno combattuto separatamente,
o nell’Est le tribù hanno organizzato unì’opposizione unificata al dominio italiano.
o La repressione dei ribelli dell’Est operata dagli italiani ha causato la morte di circa la metà degli abitanti della Libia dell’Est, molti dei quali in campi di concentramento fuori da Bengasi.
o Il re Idriss Senussi, predecessore di Gheddafi, ha mantenuto il potere con l’appoggio della guardia del castello, nota come Forza di difesa cirenaica, composta quasi esclusivamente da membri delle tribù Saady della Libia orientale.
– Nel primo periodo del proprio governo Gheddafi ha colpito le potenti tribù orientali, ridistribuendo la loro terra ad altri, e riservando loro solo poche posizioni influenti.
– La spina dorsale del suo regime proveniva da tre tribù, la sua piccola tribù Gadhafa residente a Sirte che aveva occupato una posizione marginale nella società dei senussi, la Mugharha, concentrata a Sebha, e la grande tribù Warfalla nell’Ovest.
– I Werfalla persero l’appoggio del regime negli anni Novanta quando alcuni membri furono implicati in un tentativo di colpo di Stato.
– Sirte e Sebha rimangono le due regioni più legate a Gheddafi. Il potere di queste tribù più deboli spiga perché i sostenitori di Gheddafi appaiono più attaccati al potere dei loro corrispondenti in Egitto o Tunisia: sanno che le cose per loro andranno male se il regime cade.
– La tribù di Hasoony ha sperimentato cosa potrebbe capitarle nel dopo Gheddafi, da cui è stata finanziata ed armata contro i ribelli a Bin Jawad:
nella prima fase della rivolta il suo capo tribù, che aveva aiutato il capo dei servizi di Gheddafi ad abbandonare la città, è stato ucciso dai ribelli.
Groups Sidelined by Gadhafi Form Opposition’s Core; Ancient Allegiances Bear Upon Battle for Brega
– BENGHAZI—On Saturday night, rebel fighters charged into the Libyan coastal village of Bin Jawad, stronghold of the Hasoony tribe, after residents there assured them the town would welcome forces opposed to Col. Moammar Gadhafi.
– Instead, rebel fighters say, they walked into an ambush. Hasoony tribesmen—who leaders from other tribes said had been armed and paid off in recent days by Col. Gadhafi—opened fire. Rebels suffered at least a dozen deaths, according to various accounts, and retreated.
– The Hasoony tribesmen’s decision to back Col. Gadhafi illustrates how tribal allegiances are helping to guide the battle to control a fractured Libya. Many members of the new ruling class taking shape in eastern Libya are from long-privileged tribes that were relegated to second-class status under Col. Gadhafi.
– The Libyan leader, in more than four decades of power, empowered some tribes, weakened others and employed a divide and rule strategy, say Libya experts and tribal leaders. Now, both Col. Gadhafi and his opponents are competing for tribal loyalties to tip the balance in their favor.
"Having the tribes on your side means you have the people," said Maj. Gen. Ahmed el-Ghatrani, a defected Libyan army commander now serving the rebel forces.
The dynamic was visible days before the Bin Jawad ambush, when rebels repulsed Col. Gadhafi’s forces when they tried to take Brega, an oil-refinery city just east of Bin Jawad.
– Rebel fighters credited their fighting prowess for Brega’s defense. Tribal sheikhs in eastern Libya offered a different explanation: Col. Gadhafi had in recent days tried to woo either the Zuwawa or Mughariba—two tribes who have for years feuded over land and other resources—with aid, money and weapons that would give them the leg up against the other. Both resisted.
– "The two tribes united for the first time," said Hamad Gobaily, a resident of the area and rebel volunteer. "That was the key to our success."
– Leaders have for centuries derived power and legitimacy from the tribes in this stretch of North Africa. The Senussi religious order that for more than 150 years effectively ruled eastern Libya—as well as parts of Chad, Niger and Sudan—owed its success to its ability to unite the region’s tribes under a flexible vision of Islam that made space for different tribal customs.
– The Senussis’ success in eastern Libya—a region known as Cyrenaica—partly explains why the Italians struggled as colonial ruler there from 1911 until World War II.
– In what is now western Libya, tribes waged separate struggles. But in the east, tribes mounted a unified opposition to Italian rule. Historians say the Italians, in repressing the eastern rebellion, were responsible for the death of about half of eastern Libya’s population, many of them in concentration camps outside Benghazi.
– Col. Gadhafi’s predecessor, King Idriss Senussi, maintained power with the support of his privileged castle guard, known as the Cyrenaican Defense Force. Their ranks were filled almost exclusively with members of eastern Libya’s Saady tribes.
– Early in his reign, Col. Gadhafi targeted Libya’s powerful eastern tribes, redistributing their land to others and awarding them few influential posts.
– The backbone of Col. Gadhafi’s regime instead came from three tribes—his own small Gadhafa tribe, based in the town of Sirte, which had occupied a marginal place in Senussi society, as well as the Mugharha, concentrated in Sebha, and the large Warfalla tribe in the country’s west.
– The Warfalla fell out with the regime in the 1990s when members were implicated in a coup attempt. Sirte and Sebha remain the two Libyan regions most firmly under Col. Gadhafi’s control.
– These weaker tribes’ empowerment helps explain why Col. Gadhafi’s supporters appear to be clinging to power more desperately than their counterparts in Egypt or Tunisia, where tribes play a less prominent role. "These guys know they aren’t going to fare very well if the regime goes down," said Jason Pack, a Libya scholar at Oxford University.
– Before standing up to rebel forces at Bin Jawad, members of the Hasoony tribe had a taste of what may lay in store in a post-Gadhafi Libya.
– Early in the uprising, armed rebels stormed the farm of the Hasoony tribe’s leader in Benghazi, Hillal Hasoony, and killed him, say tribal leaders and local officials. Rebel officials say Mr. Hasoony helped Col. Gadhafi’s intelligence chief, Abdullah Senuissi, to slip out of the city as the regime’s hold collapsed last month.
– "The Hasoony had problems with the youth, and then Gadhafi came and paid them a lot of money and gave them arms in Bin Jawad," said Sheikh Mohamed al-Idrissi, the leader of the Harabi Tribe in Benghazi. "Gadhafi is offering the tribes anything they want in exchange for their support."
Other senior Hasoony members have fled Benghazi, and tribe leaders couldn’t be reached for comment. Col. Gadhafi has said he enjoys broad support among Libya’s people and tribes.
– Mr. al-Idrissi’s Harabi tribe is a historically powerful umbrella tribe in eastern Libya that saw their influence wane under Col. Gadhafi. The Libyan leader confiscated swaths of tribal members’ land and redistributed it to weaker and more loyal tribes, Mr. al-Idrissi said.
– Many of the leaders now emerging in eastern Libya hail from the Harabi tribe, including the head of the provisional government set up in Benghazi, Abdel Mustafa Jalil, and Abdel Fatah Younis, who assumed a key leadership role over the defected military ranks early in the uprising.
"If you scratch the surface, you’ll find a lot of the new leaders, a lot of those who defected to the rebels early, are from old tribes and families who served the Senussi monarchy," Pack said.
—Margaret Coker in Tripoli, Libya, contributed to this article.