Gaddafi Brutalizes Foes, Armed or Defenseless
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK | The New York Times
 | | At least 6,000 innocent civilians have already been killed by Gaddafi, in the past ten days. |
Gaddafi militia's actions seemed likely to stir renewed debate over international intervention to limit his use of military power against his own citizens, possibly by imposing a no-flight zone.
About 30 miles outside the capital, the elite Khamis Brigade, a militia named for the Gaddafi son who commands it, surrounded the rebel-controlled town of Zawiyah and opened fire with mortars, machine guns and other heavy weapons, witnesses said, in two separate skirmishes.
Others spoke of violence directed against unarmed civilians. "I cannot describe the enormity of the violence they are committing against us," one resident said in a telephone interview, with gunfire in the background.
"This is the first time they have used gas," one veteran of the protests told a journalist as he retreated. "When you leave they will shoot us with machine guns."
But the militias did not wait. Moments later, with news cameras still rolling, they unleashed bursts of Kalashnikov fire. Sporadic gunfire rang out for over an hour.
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Traumatised Libyan people tell of fear and massacre
By John Lyons | The Australian
 LIBYA is a country in trauma. You see and hear it everywhere - as people who have endured 42 years of brutality under Muammar Gaddafi's dictatorship struggle to comprehend protesters coming under fire from the government's heavy weapons.
He describes two buildings where people were taken to be tortured. One is east of Tobruk. The other, in the west of the country, he came across by accident while working on a project.
"I could smell the burning of human flesh and we could hear people screaming," he says. "I said to everyone, let's finish this project." He is convinced that in 1996 Gaddafi sent his forces into a prison to massacre 1200 political prisoners. He believes Gaddafi brought in concrete trucks to bury them in a field nearby. One day the remains will be discovered, he says. The son says his two brothers in Tripoli told him that Gaddafi's secret police have been going to the homes of people suspected of being sympathetic to the uprising, taking away a family member and telling the others if they join protests, the family member will be killed.
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Libyan ambassador:
The U.S. must do more to stop Gaddafi's massacre
By David Kenner | Foreign Policy
 Libyan Ambassador to the United States Ali Aujali, who joined the opposition in the early days of the crisis, issued an urgent plea for the United States to take more aggressive actions against the Libyan government in an interview with Foreign Policy today.
Aujali strongly supported the implementation of a no-fly zone over Libya, calling it "a historic responsibility for the United States." He also criticized the arguments about the risks of no-fly zone, which have been made by U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and other military officials. "When we say, for example, that the no-fly zone will take a long time, that it is complicated -- please don't give this regime any time to crush the Libyan people," he said. Aujali warned that further delay in organizing an international response raised the risk that Gaddafi would be able to reconstitute his strength. "Time means losing lives, time means that Gaddafi will regain control," he said. "He has weapons, he has rockets with about 450 kilometers' distance, and we have to protect the people. These mercenaries now are everywhere." Once Gaddafi was no longer under threat from the United States, Aujali said, he felt that he had a freer hand to crack down on his own people. "The way he treats his people, the way he punishes people, the way he kills his people -- it is only Mussolini and Hitler who have done that," he said.
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The Arab Spring
By Rashid Khalidi | The Nation
Suddenly, to be an Arab has become a good thing. People all over the Arab world feel a sense of pride in shaking off decades of cowed passivity under dictatorships that ruled with no deference to popular wishes. And it has become respectable in the West as well. Before, when anything Muslim or Middle Eastern or Arab was reported on, it was almost always with a heavy negative connotation. Now, during this Arab spring, this has ceased to be the case. An area that was a byword for political stagnation is witnessing a rapid transformation that has caught the attention of the world.  These talking heads who pass for experts have ceaselessly affirmed that terrorists and Islamists are the only thing to look for or see. They are the ones who systematically taught Americans not to see the real Arab world: the unions, those with a commitment to the rule of law, the tech-savvy young people, the feminists, the artists and intellectuals, those with a reasonable knowledge of Western culture and values, the ordinary people who simply want decent opportunities and a voice in how they are governed. The "experts" taught us instead that this was a fanatical people, a people without dignity, a people that deserved its terrible American-supported rulers. Those with power and influence who hold these borderline-racist views are not going to change them quickly, if at all: for proof, one needs only a brief exposure to the sewer that is Fox News.
Today Turkey does provide a model of how to reconcile a powerful military establishment with democracy, and a secular system with a religious orientation among much of the populace. It also serves as a model of economic success, of a workable cultural synthesis between East and West, and of how to exert influence on the world stage. In all these respects, it is perceived as a more attractive model than what is widely seen in the Arab world as a failed alternative: the thirty-two-year-old Iranian theocratic system. Read Full Article
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The International Forum for Democratic Studies Issues two Reports on:
Democratic Transitions in Tunisia and Egypt
JAN 31, 2011
Tunisia: The Problems of Transition, the Challenge of Democratization
 On January 31, 2011, the National Endowment for Democracy's International Forum for Democratic Studies and Georgetown University's Democracy and Governance program convened a forum of democracy assistance practitioners and leading experts on Tunisian politics, democratic transitions, electoral and constitutional design to identify potential obstacles to reform and options that Tunisians might draw upon as they attempt to craft a democratic transition.
This summary highlights some of the main insights, dilemmas, conclusions and action points arising from the discussion.
Download the summary here :: PDF
FEB 11, 2011
Egypt's Transitional Process: a Briefing Note
 On February 11, 2011, the National Endowment for Democracy's International Forum for Democratic Studies and Georgetown University's Democracy and Governance program convened a forum of government officials, democracy assistance practitioners, leading experts on Egyptian politics, political transitions, electoral and constitutional design to identify the challenges and options for indigenous Egyptian efforts to initiate a transition to democracy.
The following summary highlights some of the key issues arising from the discussion. A later document will provide further detail on options for constitutional and electoral reform that may help inform the deliberations and decisions of Egypt's political actors.
Download the briefing note here :: PDF
An additional memo on "Egypt: Electoral System Options for Free and Fair Elections" by John Carey and Andrew Reynolds is available for download here :: PDF
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HISTORIC PHOTOS
Tunisia-inspired protests spread through Middle East, North Africa
Motivated by recent shows of political strength by neighbors in Tunisia and Egypt, demonstrators in the Middle East and North Africa are taking to the streets of many cities to rally for change.
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