In a Libyan Town, Elders Take Charge
At a Town Hall Meeting in Baida, Prominent Citizens Mark a Return to Freedom and a Shift Away From Youth Movement
By CHARLES LEVINSON
BAIDA, Libya—A day after the last forces loyal to besieged Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi in the country's east were defeated, this coastal town's elders met to begin rebuilding.
Masouda al-Alamy, a distinguished professor of animal science at the city's Omar Mukhtar University, called the meeting to order on Wednesday, her voice cracking with emotion. "Today, we meet and can speak freely for the first time," she said. "For the first time we feel we are free."
At Baida's airport on Wednesday, civilians examine debris that was left after some of the fiercest fighting during the uprising in eastern Libya.
Around 200 locals, including tribal sheikhs, university professors and prominent businessmen, met in a town meeting hall with green plush seats. It was built in the time of the monarchy to house the Libyan parliament, but more recently it was the meeting place for the town's Revolutionary Peoples' Committee, the closest thing Libyans have had to representative government under Mr. Gadhafi.
"We were a hopeless people, an immoral country forgotten to the world, and in three days all that has changed," said Abdullah Mortady, an architect. "For 42 years we didn't speak. For 42 years this whole country was only for one man and his sons."
Top items on the agenda at the meeting included forming committees to take charge of security, food and fuel distribution, reopening schools, and collecting weapons pillaged during the protests. Another key challenge facing these elders: how to rein in the revolutionary zeal of the region's youth, charged with emotion after days of violent battle culminating in a historic victory.
Mr. Mortady came home on the first night of the uprising to find his 16- and 19-year-old sons gone. His worried wife told him they were in the streets protesting. When they returned home well after midnight, they were both armed with guns from pillaged police stations.
The Battle for Baida
Anti-Gadhafi protesters demonstrated outside City Hall Wednesday in Baida.
"I was very scared, but now I'm quite proud," Mr. Mortady said.
Like youth all over eastern Libya, Mr. Mortady's sons had transformed themselves from peaceful protesters into armed pro-democracy rebels in a period of about 48 hours. That is a worrying specter for many of the town's elders, who fear a breakdown of law and order now that police and army forces have been replaced with bands of young revolutionaries.
The elders stepped in quickly to take responsibility for the hundreds of pro-Gadhafi soldiers captured by the young pro-democracy fighters in recent days. Masoud Abdullah, a professor of management science at the local university, and his older cousin, a prominent tribal leader in the area, were among those who called an urgent meeting to decide what they were going to do after the first batch of prisoners were taken Saturday morning.
"The young people wanted to kill them, and we said no way," Mr. Abdullah said.
Outside that meeting, angry youth had heckled their elders. "They called us hypocrites and traitors," Mr. Abdullah said. "One kid yelled at me, 'They killed my two brothers. How can you forgive them?' "
On Wednesday morning, the pro-democracy fighters' anger was still evident. At Baida's airport, the site of some of the fiercest fighting of the uprising in eastern Libya, 30-year-old ambulance driver Tareq Tajori pointed to dried bloodstains on the asphalt outside the terminal. "That was my friend," he said. "They shot him. Now they need to be shot."
But when the elders ordered restraint, the youth obeyed, thanks to a strong tribal order that still holds sway here, and which many say will help ensure order as Mr. Gadhafi's government melts away. "When the tribes say stop, the youth stop," Mr. Abdullah said.
Among those who have assumed a prominent role in Baida is Mr. Gadhafi's former Minister of Justice Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, who resigned when firing on protesters began.
But other figures associated with Mr. Gadhafi's government are less welcome. When a group of town leaders retreated to a private annex on Wednesday, a shouting match erupted. They grabbed one man by the collar and ejected him from the room.
"He worked for the secret police," said Hassan Abdel Razaq, among those in the meeting. "He used to send reports for the intelligence service on all the townspeople. There will be no place for people like him in the new country we are building."
Among those who have assumed a prominent role in Baida is Mr. Gadhafi's former Minister of Justice Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, who resigned when firing on protesters began.
But other figures associated with Mr. Gadhafi's government are less welcome. When a group of town leaders retreated to a private annex on Wednesday, a shouting match erupted. They grabbed one man by the collar and ejected him from the room.
"He worked for the secret police," said Hassan Abdel Razaq, among those in the meeting. "He used to send reports for the intelligence service on all the townspeople. There will be no place for people like him in the new country we are building."
The prisoners taken during the uprising, which in Baida number around 300, are being held in secret locations around the town to keep them out of the hands of youths seeking revenge. On Wednesday, a group of Western journalists was taken to one of those locations, an elementary school on the town's outskirts.
The three-car convoy, trying to shake a car driven by unknown youngsters, wound in and out of side roads, made U-turns, split up and rejoined. "We are very worried," said Ahmed Jabreel, a Libyan diplomat until recently posted to the United Nations in New York, who is now on the side of the pro-democracy rebels in Baida. "People are very angry here and they want revenge, but this is not our way."
At the school, a few young men with heavy machine guns and ammunition slung around their necks stood sentry.
About 100 prisoners, some bandaged, lay sprawled shoulder to shoulder on mattresses in the school's classrooms. Most of the prisoners spoke Arabic and said they were from Libya, while four said they were from Chad.
The elders said they were contacting detainees' families and tribal leaders to come pick them up. "We are not killers," said Mr. Abdel-Jalil, the former justice minister. "Gadhafi made us killers."
Write to Charles Levinson at charles.levinson@wsj.com
