Opinion Stones will never hurt them

I spoke to Uncle Mahmoud,my father’s youngest brother,minutes after his release. He was keen to demonstrate that,regardless of what the regime had done to him,he was still very present. Every sentence he spoke started with,“Do you remember?” Shortly after we hung up I began to miss his voice all over again. I waited half an hour and called him back.

Fourteen days later Libya erupted. People did what was never before possible: they gathered on the streets and spoke their minds. A couple of days ago I finally got through to one of my cousins. “We are all OK,” he said. Then he told me what I feared but expected: “All the young of the family are fighting. Mum is worried sick and doesn’t want us to go outside. But how are we to win our freedom if we stay at home?”

Relatives,some as young as 16,who only days ago ran businesses or held jobs,are now facing a well-equipped army made up mainly of foreign mercenaries. The Gaddafi forces have tanks and aeroplanes. All that my cousins have are old hunting rifles and captured artillery. Some rebels are using slingshots,knives and sticks. “Treachery,cousin,treachery,” my cousin said when I asked what he had seen. “Gaddafi’s army forced the women and children out into the streets and placed snipers on the rooftops. Whenever we tried to approach,they shot at the civilians.” He went on to describe the horror of seeing a child shot in the head with a 14.5 mm round: “The skull exploded like a pomegranate.”

The courage and humanity of Libyans has been extraordinary: I’ve been told of foreign mercenaries captured in Benghazi who were fed and given access to doctors,then taken to the courthouse,with their passports in their hands,asked to choose a lawyer and told they were going to be put on trial.

I am convinced the rebels will win. But there are practical things the international community can and must do to help. Doctors,fighters,men and women all over the country have told me of severe shortages of medical supplies and essential foods. The rebels also hope that the international community will soon set up a no-flight zone to prevent Gaddafi from bombing his own people and importing mercenaries from abroad.

Nonetheless,fighters are adamant they can win this themselves. They don’t need or want foreign troops on the ground. They do,however,need better weapons. And Philippe Sands,a law professor at University College London,told me that the UN Security Council resolution that imposes an arms embargo on Libya needs to be amended so that the rebels can get the equipment they need to “level the playing field”.

Throughout the uprisings,protesters have been carrying the pictures of those Libyans who,over nearly half a century of Colonel Gaddafi’s rule,have disappeared or died calling for justice. The men in these photos,like my father,were carving with their bare hands the early steps to this revolution,while countries like Britain,Italy and the US were treating Colonel Gaddafi with the respect due an international statesman. Libyans will have their own revolution. But the international community,which helped fortify Colonel Gaddafi’s dictatorship and now has a great moral responsibility to our new nation,must act to assist the uprising and limit the soaring loss of innocent life.

Matar is the author of the novel ‘In the Country of Men.’

The New York Times