Libya

Black Men Mistaken for Mercenaries
By Jason Koutsoukis
The Sydney Morning Herald, March 6, 2011
"Thousands of African workers were attempting to flee eastern Libya last week in fear for their lives after facing accusations of being mercenaries Media reports have quoted countless eyewitness accounts of African men being paid by dictator Muammar Gaddafi to put down the February 17 uprising that has brought his regime to the brink of collapse But the international advocacy group Human Rights Watch has told The Sun-Herald that it is yet to confirm a single case of a mercenary being used in the conflict. Peter Bouckaert, the emergencies director for the group, said that, of the hundreds of suspected mercenaries detained in the east, all had turned out to be innocent workers or Libyans in the regular army. 'I cannot speak for the west of the country, in Tripoli, where reports of mercenaries being used are widespread, but of all the people interviewed by Human Rights Watch so far, we have not identified one mercenary,' he said. Mr. Bouckaert also condemned some media outlets for purporting to identify alleged mercenaries, saying the reports were untrue. He said rumours surrounding the alleged use of mercenaries had incited a level of hysteria that had led to people being lynched. The Sun-Herald has seen images depicting the bodies of alleged mercenaries killed in Bayda, a city in eastern Libya between Benghazi and Tobruk. In video taken on a mobile phone, a black man accused of being a mercenary is shown being harassed and then beaten by a crowd. On February 25 The Sun-Herald was taken to the morgue of Jalla Hospital, Benghazi, and shown the uniformed bodies of black men who had been killed in fighting in Benghazi between February 17 and February 21. Representatives of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said they knew of the difficulties faced by African workers and had helped hundreds leave."