After the execution of the Dictator Muamar al-Qaddafy at the hands of the masses, Misrata people began to organize themselves in order to carry what, up to date, would be the best organized city in favor of the masses from the entire Libya.
As a first measure, and despite the huge leadership crisis which are totally collaborationist bureaucrats and bourgeoisies, they created an organization which they called “al-Tihad al-Thwar” (The rebel union, or revolutionaries). This body was primarily created to satisfy the basic needs of all who fought in the revolution.
Moreover, as another strategy in the masses’ disarmament policy from the bourgeois leaderships who try to expropriate the revolution, they created the “Jahfal” (military fields of arm storage and training) with a huge administrative apparatus, with the excuse to join the rebels to the “new army”. This strategy didn’t have the desired effect in Misrata, since the militiamen were the ones in charged of their own representatives in the “Jahfal” and took them out when they saw they didn’t work, and prevented those places from being occupied by the Qaddafyst generals painted as revolutionaries.
In that way, getting the “legalized papers” from the Jahfal, which gave evidence that one had participated in the battle front during the revolution, and presenting them in the Tihad al-Twar, one got priority for getting job in any of the factories which were producing again.
The start-up of the production in Misrata started with workers’ assemblies to revoke the old foremen, who collaborated with the dictatorship regime, and designate new ones. The bourgeois tried to get into this process and, although they manage to sneak their bureaucrats, it was always under an extremely strong control of the workers’ ranks who still have their rifles and heavy weapons in their houses.
The worker militiamen assemblies, organized by them, terrorized the bourgeoisie, which immediately gave the demands of wage increase that went up to 70% and in some cases over 100%.
One of the measures taken by the city militiamen was to literally create a “Border” in the outskirts of the town, as a preventive measure to stop the entrance of the Qaddafists that were trying to return after the war, and in some way to avoid the massive arrival of bourgeois and bureaucrats attempting to expropriate the revolution, something that was very clear in Bengasi and of course in the capital of the country.
Such is the revolutionary feeling in Misrata that today more than ever you can see in the walls paintings with the slogan “La lilaydun”, which means “No to those who return”, since they are accused of being cowards for running away in the middle of the insurrection and returning now. The rejection to the “aydun” is popularly expressed and can be understood as class hatred, because the “aydun” belong to upper middle class.
As it happened with the Nazi generals at the end of Second World War, the masses went to look for the Qaddafist generals where they were, the murderers of their husbands, brothers, their women and children. When the revolution finished, the militiamen also created a body called “Operations Room”. Its goal was to carry out intelligence operations and finish capturing the Qaddafists that remained in Libya. They began to operate and have a great success, capturing relatives of the dictator exiled in the south of the country, and even in Tunisia and Egypt. The new bourgeois government tried to intervene but the body was re-named “Shared Operations Room” and imposed that these operations had to be “shared” with the operation command center that was in Tripoli, as a strategy to centralize the power over these “actions”.
It is still today the government can’t recapture Qaddafy’s son, who is in power of the militia men within Libya. These know that if they sell him out to the NLC, it will give him international impunity by selling him out to UN, which will put him in a shelter; the opposite of what CIA has done when it captures Abu Anan.
Regarding the actions carried by the bourgeoisie to achieve the disarmament of the masses, in Misrata and Bengasi they tried to force the militiamen to join the “Army Forces” of the state as “reserve forces”, under an institution called “al-Deraa” (“the shield”). Even so, the militiamen that joined didn’t respond to the chain of command of the “Qaddafist generals of the new regime” and kept controlling the cities almost totally. In this way, after several attempts of the pro-imperialist bourgeoisies in Bengasi, after traps, deceptions and reactionary marches, they managed to dissolve the militiamen. However they couldn’t in Misrata.
The fact is that around here the militiamen never stopped raising the slogans and demands of the masses. They were the ones that led the protest in which, with their cars, anti-aircraft guns and rifles, surrounded the building where the NCL was being held demanding the withdrawal of the “ex-Qaddafists”. Even the protests went beyond, demanding the withdrawal of those who had lived as refugees in USA and Europe during the Qaddafi times, considering them cowards.
Before this, the bourgeoisies try to spread hatred between the militiamen of the different cities to be able to continue with the fratricidal wars claiming that “Misrata is always on the side of its citizens and not for the welfare of the country” or that “in Misrata everyone is racist and selfish and they only think of themselves”, etc.
It is that the attempts to disarm the militiamen from Misrata, the city with the greatest war potential in hands of the masses in the entire Libya, utterly failed. Since the experience carried out by their militiamen was accelerated and they could realize in time that going to war with the neighbor cities was only a part of the policy of mass disarmament conducted by the mixture of bourgeois that today try to expropriate once and for all the revolution of all the oppressed initiated in February of 2011.
All these facts show that despite and against the bourgeois leaderships, pro-imperialist and collaborative, the workers’ organization is what has reached the furthest in all the aspects of this revolution that, mainly in Misrata, and to a lesser extent in other parts of the country, is today still more alive than ever. The need today is to set up a revolutionary leadership that can clearly mark who the friends are and who the enemies are of the revolution, and open the way for the working class to take power.
From Misrata
Correspondent
