Benghazi police mutiny after U.S. Libya envoy killed
Wed Sep 19, 2012 10:07pm GMT
By Peter Graff
BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) - Libyan police in Benghazi have mutinied and
refuse to serve under the man appointed by the government to take over
security following last week's storming of the U.S. consulate in which the
ambassador and three other Americans were killed.
With no one clearly in charge in Libya's second city and major oil port, the
officer named by the government in Tripoli to replace both Benghazi's police
chief and the deputy interior minister responsible for the eastern region
told Reuters that he had asked for the army to be sent in if he could not
start work.
But as the appointee, Salah Doghman, spoke late on Tuesday, police
threatened to walk out en masse if the leadership switch was forced through
and accused central government in the capital of making local officials
scapegoats for its own failures.
Global attention has been focused on security in Benghazi since September
11, when a residential villa being used by the U.S. mission was stormed
after a violent protest about a film that has provoked anger among Muslims
worldwide. U.S. ambassador Christopher Stevens died of smoke inhalation
while trapped alone inside the villa, and three other Americans were killed
in the attack and during a rescue attempt that followed.
The incident highlighted the lack of central security powers in Libya and a
proliferation of militias, a year after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in a
revolt backed by the Western powers.
Wanis al-Sharif, the Libyan deputy interior minister based in the east of
the country, and Hussein bu Ahmeida, the chief of police for Benghazi, were
both fired by the interior ministry in the wake of the attack, and Doghman
was named to take up both of their positions. But neither Sharif nor Ahmeida
has left his post and Doghman said he was unable to take up either job.
"THIS IS A MESS"
"These are very dangerous circumstances," Doghman told Reuters in what are
believed to be his first public comments since being named to the two
security positions four days ago.
"This is a mess," he said during an interview at his apartment in a rundown
district of the city where the 2011 uprising was born among a population
Gaddafi had long scorned.
"When you go to police headquarters, you will find there are no police,"
Doghman said. "The people in charge are not at their desks. They have
refused to let me take up my job.
"I have a paper, I have a statement from the minister himself, saying I
should take these two jobs. If I do not take up these two jobs, people will
not respect the government.
"I phoned the office of the interior minister. I told them, 'You must take
action, even use the army if you have to, to force the police to let me take
up this job'."
At a news conference held inside the Benghazi Interior Ministry headquarters
across town, however, a spokesman for a union of senior police officers
loyal to the old police chief said colleagues from across eastern Libya had
met and threatened to resign en masse if the dismissals were upheld.
"We see the decision taken by the minister of the interior as an attempt to
find a scapegoat for the minister's own failure to address the security
issue and to cover up the ineptitude of his administration," said the
spokesman, Izzedin al-Sazzani.
SECURITY VACUUM
Benghazi, 1,000 km (600 miles) from Tripoli across largely empty desert, is
in the grip of a variety of armed groups, including some made up of Islamist
militants who openly proclaim their hostility to democratic government and
the West.
Some of these have been identified by local people as being among those who
were at the consulate protest last week. U.S. officials have described the
violence as a "terrorist attack".
The absence of a police chief in Benghazi is certain to add to U.S.
exasperation after what seem to have been fatal security failures on the
part of both the State Department and the Libyan authorities obliged by
treaty to protect foreign diplomats.
Amid security chaos in Benghazi, home to about one in 10 of Libya's six
million people, U.S. investigators have as yet been unable to visit the
burnt-out mission. A senior U.S. official said on Wednesday that information
so far suggested that the assault was not planned for the anniversary of the
September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States but was "opportunistic" and
"evolved" over several hours out of the events in the area.
The Libyan government says it intends to track down the perpetrators and has
announced that it has made some arrests, but it has not named any suspects
nor given a full explanation of who it believes was behind the attack.
Doghman, who described himself as a 27-year veteran of the Libyan police,
said he had not been briefed on the investigation because he could not take
up his new job. But he blamed the attack on militia which were able to
flourish because the police force had not been properly managed by his
predecessors.
"The militias have taken power because of the lack of police," he said. "I
will increase and improve the police force, and then we can take power back
from the militias step by step.
"America, Libya, the world, should know that in this situation they should
have the right person in place. Libyans should know that there is firm
leadership. If there had been wise leadership, this attack could not have
happened."
(Additional reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi; Editing by Alastair Macdonald)
C Thomson Reuters 2012 All rights reserved
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Received on Wed Sep 19 2012 - 18:31:16 EDT
