Aisha upsets the Algerians

The outspoken Aisha Qadhafi caused controversy and embarrassment for her Algerian hosts this month when she broadcast a four-minute message calling on Libyans to rise up against their new rulers, whom she described as 'traitors who have broken their oath of allegiance.' The colonel's daughter fled Libya in late August in an armed convoy with 30–60 family members and close supporters, including her mother, half-brother Mohamed , brother Hannibal , and a number of their children.

The convoy was allowed into Algeria on spurious humanitarian grounds because Aisha allegedly gave birth to a baby girl. This was miraculous because she would be Aisha's second baby in eight months – her last one having been killed in a NATO bombing in April when she was four months old. She told the Syrian Arrai television that Qadhafi was alive and still fighting and declared, 'The great leader is doing well. He carries weapons and is fighting on the fronts.'Aisha's comments did not go down well with her Algerian hosts. Algerian Foreign Minister Mourad Medelci denounced the broadcast as 'unacceptable.' Medelci, who was attending the UN General

Assembly in New York, pledged to 'take measures' against Qadhafi's relatives. This condemnation seems to have prompted reports in the El-Khabar newspaper – which is controlled by Algeria's notorious Département du Renseignement et de la Sécurité (DRS) intelligence service – that Aisha was among a party of eight of Qadhafi's relatives who left Algeria for Cairo. Egyptian security forces have denied the reports, however, and Egypt would in any case be an unlikely destination for Aisha, or anyone else from the Qadhafi family, because of both its own ongoing instability and the fierce dislike of the Qadhafi regime among Egypt's revolutionaries.

As for the whereabouts of other Qadhafi family members, there were reported sightings of Mu'atassim in Sirte this month and rumours that Saif al-Islam is holding out in Bani Walid. Meanwhile the Muammar Qadhafi is proving as elusive as ever.

He continues to release statements insisting that he is still in Libya although where he will eventually turn up is anyone's guess. All the time he is on the loose his spectre will loom large in the minds of the Libyans.

For more news and expert analysis about Libya, please see Libya Focus and Libya Politics & Security.

© 2011 Menas Associates

Ghana: Government trying to evacuate near 10,000 Ghanaians from Libya

The Ghanaian government is taking steps to evacuate an estimated 10,000 nationals from Libya in view of the serious deterioration in the security situation in the country. On 25th February the Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement announcing the establishment of an Evacuation Task Force comprising representatives of the Foreign Ministry, the Ministry of Information, the National Security Council, the National Disaster Management Organisation, the Ghana Immigration Service, the Ghana Police Service and the Ghana Armed Forces.

Liaison offices have been set up on the Libya-Tunisia and Libya-Egypt borders in addition to the Ghana Embassy in Tripoli to process relevant documentation and other arrangements for the evacuation exercise. Reception centres have been set up at the El-Wak Stadium and the Trade Fair Centre in Accra to receive evacuees.

So far 60 Ghanaian nationals who have been evacuated from the Libya-Egyptian border, arriving safely back in Accra aboard an Air Egypt flight.

Protesters are said to be targeting sub-Saharan Africans, as dozens are now feared killed, while hundreds are in hiding. According to commentators, African migrant workers are targeted because they are suspected of being mercenaries hired by Muammar Qadhafi. Ghanaian construction worker Rashid Mohamed told a Time Magazine reporter, “They said that Qadhafi brought the black people to fight…so the Libyans, when they see the blacks, they will kill them.” There are still thousands of Ghanaians waiting to be evacuated from Libya. No Ghanaian has yet been reported dead in the political crisis.

For more news and expert analysis about Ghana, please see Ghana Politics & Security.

© 2011 Menas Associates

Qadhafi tribe play-down influence

A member of Muammar Qadhafi's tribe, the Qadhadhfah, published two letters on a Libyan opposition website this month defending his tribe against all sorts of accusations. There is a strong perception both inside Libya and within the opposition abroad that the Qadhadhfah are, to all intents and purposes, in control of Libya.

The Qadhadhfah are an Arabised Berber tribe that traces its roots back to a well-known wali (saint), Sidi Qadhafaddam, who is buried in Al-Gharyan, south of Tripoli. They consider themselves to be murabitoun (saintly) and Ashraf (i.e., they claim descent from the lineage of the Prophet).

The tribe moved away from the Al-Gharyan area over two centuries ago. Some settled in the lush pastures of the Cyrenaican plateau but were driven out to the barren deserts around Sirte by an alliance of tribes from the Sa'adi confederation, led by the Bara'sa (the tribe that Qadhafi's wife, Farkash al-Haddad al-Bara'sa, comes from) and the Maghara.

The Qadhadhfah are a small and rather insignificant tribe by Libyan standards, hence the importance for Qadhafi of making strong alliances with other key tribes such as through marriage and by drawing his security personnel from tribes such as the Warfalla.

It is true that the Leader has consolidated the role of the Qadhadhfah in the ruling elite and appointed family members to key positions in his regime. However, this does not mean that he has supported all members of the Qadhadhfah tribe, or that they are all in positions of power.

As the author of the letter asserts,'We Qadhadhfah have a number of officers but they are old. They form just 2 per cent [of the regime].' Simply being part of the Qadhadhfah does not automatically entitle one to special privileges, and many of the Qadhadhfah young are unemployed and suffering just like everyone else.

The author of the letter asserted that the whole of the Qadhadhfah tribe cannot be held responsible for what is happening in the country and that the importance of the Qadhadhfah is diminishing because the Leader's children, who are now appointing officials themselves, have stronger relations with the Bara'sa, the tribe of their mother.

In addition, he claimed that Mohamed Qadhafi, the Leader's eldest son but who has a different mother from his half-brothers and is from Tripoli, insists on appointing his assistants and bodyguards exclusively from Tripoli rather than from Sirte, which is where Qadhafi's branch of the Qadhadhfah are from.

The author recounted how, despite having a masters degree in communications from the UK, he was rejected by Mohamed when he applied for a position in the Libyan Post and Telecommunications Company because 'I am Qadhadhfah.'

For more news and expert analysis about Libya please see Libya Focus and Libya Politics & Security.