In 2009, while Gaddafi hosted the heads of more than 40 countries—who had come to congratulate him on the 40th anniversary of the Gaddafi-led revolution— Jamal Elhaji stood some hundred meters away from the event, giving an interview to CNN in which he said the host was a lunatic dictator who should step down as the ruler of Libya. Elhaji would pay for those and other words with time in prison. Now free, Elhaji recalls the long road to freedom.
Mr. Elhaji, tell us about your struggles during the “years of live coal.”
In 2009, while Gaddafi hosted the heads of more than 40 countries—who had come to congratulate him on the 40th anniversary of the Gaddafi-led revolution— Jamal Elhaji stood some hundred meters away from the event, giving an interview to CNN in which he said the host was a lunatic dictator who should step down as the ruler of Libya. Elhaji would pay for those and other words with time in prison. Now free, Elhaji recalls the long road to freedom.
Mr. Elhaji, tell us about your struggles during the “years of live coal.”
I had many writings from the ‘years of live coal’, as I chose to call them. I was very frustrated when some opposition members abroad described the Libyan people as cowards; the people of dancing and loyalty and the people of the dead who fear death, echoing the unfair words of an Algerian elder describing the Libyan people.
Weren’t you ever afraid of death?
Many expressed fear for my fateful doom at the hands of the tyrant and his associates because of my direct encounter with his regime from inside Tripoli, and only a few meters away from his fort within the walls of Bab Azizia Camp. But my confidence in the Libyan people prompted me to face it, knowing that these people would rise up one day.
I feel ashamed to talk about bravery and heroism in front of the Libyan freedom fighters. By the way, most of those who helped me inside Libya were girls and women who played the most serious roles, including the transfer of highly sensitive information and reports abroad and also to me while I was inside the tyrant’s fortified prisons, such as the political prison “Al-Rwaimi”. History must detail those epics one day.
When did you sense that the situation in Libya might change?
I realized that the revolution in Libya was only a matter of time. I had that conviction since 2004, and I openly declared it in 2006 when interviewed by Mr. Hassan Al-Amin who asked me if I had any connections with Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi or whether he attempted to contact me. “I had nothing to do with them, I never have and won’t ever meet them. Saif and his brothers should not implicate themselves in any political role in that fragile, dilapidated and deteriorated regime. Anyone who is shoved into power would simply be implicated,” I replied.
I also had a very dangerous meeting in May 2010 at the Danish embassy in Tripoli with a German Parliamentary Delegation comprising several dignitaries, including the German Ambassador and the Danish Chargé d’affaires who were on a two-day visit to Libya. I had to get out of hospital so as not to miss the opportunity of meeting them in order to convey a clear message to the world that the revolution was no doubt coming, the Libyan people had no choice but to revolt and that it was meaningless to talk about power succession or false reform.
It is difficult to describe how those hours passed, especially since I was an observer. The meeting with the parliamentary delegation was arranged through my mobile. I knew they were being watched, but I was determined to send that message to the world at any cost, and I found them to be highly responsive and sympathetic. One of them told me they knew about the smallest details I wrote, and I briefed the Danish Chargé d’affaires about what might happen to me because of that meeting. I also asked my family to contact Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and other human rights organizations and personalities in case I failed to contact them.
Many people hear about activist Fathi el-Jahmi, but his biography has been concealed by the former regime. Through your relationship with him, how do you describe him, and how did he become a martyr?
There were three of us: martyr Fathi el-Jahmi, engineer Muhammad Zenkoli and I. We knew very well that Gaddafi and his associates must be uprooted as the only option for taking the country out of its crises, and we tried our best to achieve that goal. It would be ungrateful not to attribute the main role in the peaceful political movement in Libya since 2004 to Fathi el-Jahmi, when he unleashed his famous protest against Gaddafi, the despot, through Al-Hurra channel, describing him as the dictator and demanding him to step down from as the ruler of Libya. That was the first step that paved the way for the internal movement, broke the barrier of fear and directly harmed the state prestige.
I was with him in his house along with Mr. Zenkoli that night. He was firm and brave in his adherence to his position. He was followed by martyr, Daif Al-Ghazal, who was the most prominent, honest and brave blogger. He repeatedly called for the fall of the regime, which had ultimately cost him his life as he was kidnapped and killed; his limbs were cut off and thrown in a garbage dump. At the same time, the courageous writer Abdul Razek Al Mansouri emerged among many others who will all be remembered by history.
Fathi el-Jahmi died after being deprived of treatment for a heart ailment for over a year during his imprisonment, which resulted in the deterioration of his health and led to his death, according to his doctor who followed up his case.
What is the difference between internal and external opposition?
I do not know much about Libyan opposition abroad. My relationship with it was limited to some persons with whom I had maintained direct coordination and cooperation.
As for the local opposition, it started its activities in 1969, and since then, Gaddafi executed, displaced and imprisoned our people at home; anyone who was not with Gaddafi was considered an enemy. Over the past 42 years, the Libyan people faced all types of suffering, prompting the deep-seated and widely revered Libyan opposition to take up arms. Its members made great sacrifices under Gaddafi’s regime, which deliberately used the policy of collective punishment with them.
Martyrs el-Jahmi and Al-Ghazal began a different phase, and were the nucleus of internal peaceful political movement, which overthrew Gaddafi. They broke the barrier of fear and spread the movement all over Libya with the power of words. The Internet played an instrumental part in the internal mobilization and coordination among the opponents at home. Libya’s freedom fighters also played a great role through the media support achieved via the Internet.
Given its clandestine and long-lasting activities spanning more than four decades, internal opposition needs a full volume to narrate the heroic sacrifices made by its members who were supported by the great Libyan people.
You were imprisoned in a number of Gaddafi prisons, which was the worst prison? Why?
There were no prisons in Libya. There were rather concentration camps similar to those that existed during the Nazi era. They were under the intelligence services, which neither the judicial police nor any other authorities other than intelligence elements could enter. Certainly, the worst of them was Al-Nasr concentration camp, supervised by a jailer named Abdulhamid Sayeh, one of the perpetrators of the Abu Salim massacre.
It had dirty unventilated 60×190 cm solitary confinement cells, guarded by the lowest people ever— irreligious, immoral, illiterate thieves, evildoers and drug addicts who were absolutely loyal to their superior officers. There was no chance at all to penetrate them, and they enjoyed torturing innocent people. This camp was designated for detainees classified as dangerous and used to be thrown in these cells for several days.
I spent two six-month terms there; the first was in solitary in 2008 and the second was in 2011 before the revolution.
You were arrested before the February revolution, when did that exactly happen, and what was the charge?
It was on February 1, 2011, around the sunset prayer, only hours after publishing a communiqué in which I called on all Libyans to go out to the street and raise the slogan of “We are the Libyan people, who are you?” and called for forming an interim government. That was the main reason.
How did you follow the events of the revolution from within prison?
In the first phase of my imprisonment I was in solitary confinement. Therefore, I knew about the situation through the jailers’ behavior and movements and the sound of bullets and guns through the prison walls. After about five months, and more specifically after June, and in view of the camp’s circumstances and the large number of detainees, they had to put me with the prisoners because they needed the ward I was kept in. I remained in solitary confinement, yet I met some detainees for a few minutes from time to time and heard about the news. We went through a lot of strange and astonishing situations, which I would one day mention in detail.
Some argue that many countries are trying to impose their hegemony on Libya after the revolution. Have they succeeded? How well can the Libyan people re-write their history on the ground?
Many international powers tried to play a major role in Libya, given its importance in all respects, be it in terms of resources, location or wealth. I think they have come to the conclusion that it is difficult to dominate these people.
As for Libyan people’s writing of their history on the ground, few and important experiences have proved their ability to do so, whether as revolutionary people, or as a people yearning for freedom. They have practically proved that through the elections, which passed peacefully despite the millions of weapons distributed all over Libya. The people’s will to make the elections a success has made all the difference.
As we approach the first year anniversary of the triumph of the Libyan revolution, where do you see Libya today?
I see an unstable Libya and attribute that to the need for a national leadership, capable of taking courageous decisions and putting people’s interests at the top of its priorities.
