New York Times Editorial, "A New Start for Libya": Road Apples

Those desk jockeys over at the New York Times editorial board are at it again, telling us from New York in "A New Start for Libya" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/10/opinion/a-new-start-for-libya.html?_r=1&hp) that in post-Qaddafi Libya, there are encouraging "signs of progress on military, diplomatic, economic and political fronts." Of course, they do happen to mention:

"Nonetheless, the new regime faces many challenges. Among the most troubling developments is the brutal treatment of dark-skinned Africans rounded up by vigilantes and the regime’s security forces.

The overwhelming majority of sub-Saharan Africans in Libya are migrant workers. Two and a half million worked there before the rebellion. Roughly two million remain. Colonel Qaddafi is thought to have hired several thousand Africans to fight for him in February. How many stuck with him to the end is unclear. But Western journalists saw no evidence of mercenaries in Tripoli when the city fell.

What they have seen is Africans being rounded up and treated differently from Libyans who fought for the dictator, many of whom have already been set free. Some Africans accused of being mercenaries were lynched after the rebels captured Benghazi in February. To maintain its international credibility, the transitional government must release innocent Africans and make sure that those who fought for Colonel Qaddafi are treated fairly."

Imprisonment, torture and murder of dark-skinned Africans by the Libyan rebels? Why should that interfere with the determination by the New York Times editorial board that progress is being made?

However, as observed in a Washington Post article entitled "In Libya, the peril of being black" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle-east/in-libya-the-peril-of-being-black/2011/09/09/gIQAY2FoFK_story.html?hpid=z3), written by Leila Fadel from Tripoli (Fadel grew up in Saudi Arabia and of course speaks Arabic), a somewhat different picture is being painted:

"More than 1.5 million sub-Saharan Africans are thought to work in Libya, a country of 6.5 million, according to Refugees International, most of them as day laborers in low-paid jobs. The International Organization for Migration said that it has evacuated about 1,400 migrants from the capital and that about 800 others have taken refuge in the fishing port of Janzour, just west of the city.

. . . .

At a makeshift camp in the port, the migrants sleep under decrepit boats hung with blankets and cook in tin pots over fires. Some said they were forced out of their homes at gunpoint. Others said they ran when they lost family members or heard of friends being killed. With no money, they say, they don’t want to go home but feel that they cannot stay in Libya.

Peter Bouckaert, the emergencies director for Human Rights Watch, said there was violence throughout the uprising against black Libyans and sub-Saharan Africans in the capital, adding that his group had confirmed Gaddafi’s use of foreign mercenaries there. The persecution, he added, was still going on.

'It really is racist violence against all dark-skinned people,' Bouckaert said. 'This situation for Africans in Tripoli is dire.'”

Also, there is no mention by the editorial board of The New York Times of past links between Libyan rebel commander Abdel Hakim Belhaj and al-Qaeda and the Taliban, or of the heat-seeking missiles, which can be used to down airliners, that have gone missing from Qaddafi's warehouses.

But why should any of this darken the Manhattan skyline?