In order to get the title ‘martyr’s mother,’ Suad claimed that her oldest son, Ibrahim, who was killed while fighting with Gaddafi’s Khamis brigade, which fiercely tried to suppress the revolution, died while fighting with the rebels.

In order to get the title ‘martyr’s mother,’ Suad claimed that her oldest son, Ibrahim, who was killed while fighting with Gaddafi’s Khamis brigade, which fiercely tried to suppress the revolution, died while fighting with the rebels.

Suad came to this decision when she realized how the families of rebels in the February revolution were granted privileges like: medical treatment abroad, help with the Hajj and Umrah and a fixed monthly salary. She believed that these should include the families of the killed members of Gaddafi’s battalions because their families lost their breadwinners.

“I claimed that my three sons joined the rebels after they arrived in Misurata, and that Ibrahim went missing after the liberation proclamation. I also claimed that some saw him with the rebels who fought at the Bani Walid front and that he remained missing for more than ten months after liberation, before the official authorities informed us of his death,” Suad said.

Brainwashing

“My son was brainwashed and influenced by the lies broadcasted by Gaddafi’s channels. Now, I don’t get any advantages from the state although my son is Libyan and died complying with the orders of the state,” she said, justifying her actions.

Suad’s case is not much different from that of Fatima who claimed that she was a martyr’s mother too, hoping to go on pilgrimages at the expense of the state, even though her son was killed while fighting with Gaddafi’s brigades. Unfortunately, she could not deceive those organizing pilgrimage trips and they quickly discovered her deception. “He was not a civilian volunteer, but a soldier at the Libyan army,” Fatima said in defense of her son.

A martyr’s testament

While Suad, Fatima and others lied to have their sons included amongst the revolution martyrs, the martyrs’ families decisively reject holding the brigades’ killed as equal to their sons.

“I know that there is a group that fought under the influence of misinformation and promises were made to them by their leaders, but they were all confident that the rebels did not violate sanctities or commit atrocities as was promoted against them. Thus, those who fought with Gaddafi should have dissented once they knew the truth about the rebels,” said Mohsen Hassadi, who lost his eldest son while fighting with the rebels on the Brega front.

A picture of Hassadi’s son, carrying his testament, was placed in a main street in Tripoli. “Just comparing the rebels to the tyrant’s soldiers insults the martyrs’ blood. If some have forgotten or overlooked their sacrifice, the martyrs’ testaments placed in squares will remind them of what they did,” he added.

Non-bloodstained

“I did not fire a single bullet at the rebels in Zawiya, and I promise I will not do it in Misurat,” Salem Mubarak said, repeating the words of his son Wael, who had been a member of Khamis Brigade, in their last meeting before being transferred to Misurata, 200 kilometers east of Tripoli.

“His colleagues told me he was killed by the brigade’s soldiers because he refused to shoot the rebels in Misurata,” Mubarak added.

According to director of the Office of Information at the Ministry of Martyrs, Wounded and Missing (MMWM), Hamad Maliki, Wael’s family and the likes must substantiate the killing of their sons for refusing to fight the rebels. “They must prove it so as to have their sons deemed martyrs and enjoy the benefits of martyrs’ families,” he said.

Suggesting that MMWM worked according to a fatwa from the Libyan Grand Mufti and required two witnesses to testify killing of the martyr while fighting against Gaddafi’s brigades, Maliki said: “Some families submitted evidence that their sons were killed by brigade members for refusing orders made by their leaders, and the ministry included them in the lists of martyrs.”

Casualties of war

Many of the brigades’ casualties were killed on the front, especially by NATO warplanes that bombed military caravans heading to points of contact, at the top of which was the so-called March 19 caravan, which was heading to Benghazi before French warplanes shelled it.

According to statements by the former spokesperson of the Libyan Ministry of Defense, Colonel Ahmed Bani, there were 28,000 people in this caravan. However, there are no official statistics about their numbers or the number of people killed by the shelling.

The claim of many families that their sons were killed with the rebels prompted MMWM, under the previous government, to conduct thorough reviews of martyrs’ lists, which delayed salary payment to the martyrs’ families until last March.

Maliki said MMWM had nothing to do with the brigades’ dead whose families received their bodies, because they were “war casualties” who died while “killing Libyans.” However, the spokesperson for Libya Association for Human Rights, Nabeel Sokni, said families of the brigades’ dead were not targeted by his association.

Deferred file

“The association was about to open this file, but it has not completed its follow-up with respect to the martyrs’ families so far, and we are now going to follow up the file of prisoners and torture in prisons,” Sokni added.

He ruled out opening such a file in the near future, suggesting that the Ministry of Social Affairs (MoSA) was supposed to pay attention to this file. However, MoSA Undersecretary, Zeidan Suleiman Twili, said MoSA did not take any action regarding this group of citizens, although it did not see a difference between Libyan families in terms of delivering services.

Losing battle

Considering the situation of families that may have lost their breadwinners who were fighting with Gaddafi’s brigades, last June, ‘Future Libya’ newspaper published that a Libyan team of lawyers was commissioned to bring lawsuits against members of Gaddafi’s family on behalf of members of the “armed people” brigades and volunteers who had been involved by Gaddafi’s regime in a “losing war.”

The newspaper reported that the lawsuits were based on the fact that “Muammar Gaddafi, as the Supreme Commander of the Libyan Army, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, who admitted that he was in command of the army with his father, and the rest of Gaddafi’s family participating in the war, were responsible for implicating Libyan army members and volunteers in this war. They did not observe adequate precaution to be taken according to the Libyan military laws.”

Disparaging Libyans

“Libyan military leaders of Gaddafi’s family and senior officers of the regime disparaged the lives of Libyan soldiers and volunteers throughout the war battles,” according to the testimony of those who filed the case.

“Parents and families of those killed in the battles, whether soldiers forced to fight or volunteers believing Gaddafi’s misinformation, have the right to judicial, criminal and civilian prosecution of Saif al-Islam, Al-Saadi, Hannibal, Muhammad and Aisha Gaddafi.”

If this legal procedure is to be in favor of the military personnel families who meet the conditions, it may open the door to families of Gaddafi’s tens of thousands of victims from past wars waged against many countries—such as Egypt in 1977, Uganda in 1979, and Chad from 1982 to 1987— to demand their rights, whether material or moral.