For Libyan rebels, a poignant homecoming                            
        
        
            
                            

        
        
            
                
                    
With much of Tripoli in rebel hands, fighters and exiles alike return to a city they haven't seen in months.
Ruth Sherlock.                           Last Modified: 28 Aug 2011 12:08                                            
                
                                 
                                    
            
        
        
            
                



Last week much of Tripoli fell to rebel forces, but some areas of the capital remain contested [EPA]
 


Fireworks  and tracer fire lit up the Tripoli sky as the rebel boats docked. Relatives who  hadn’t seen their loved ones for months waited expectantly on shore, crying and  cheering. This was the victory sail of rebels who had spent the  last six months fighting to oust Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi in front lines  across the country.
For  months this tug boat had secretly traversed Libyan waters, smuggling fighters,  weapons and aid to the besieged city of Misrata in the battle against Muammar  Gaddafi’s regime. This time they were coming home to the capital city they  thought was theirs.
“We  are going to clean up Tripoli,” said fighter Muftah Islam, 34, "to find and  finish Gaddafi once and for all”.
But  as the hundred men, crammed among bags, ammunition and rifles on board, spoke of  their military success, loyalist snipers continued to pose a threat to the city  streets.
The  fighters on board were a cast of characters from Libya’s six-month  uprising.
Islam  was hit by a "Grad" BM21 rocket on the front lines in eastern Libya in early  March. With only one leg, he then moved to Misrata to man anti-aircraft guns.  This was to be his first time in Tripoli since the uprising began. “My  family don’t know I am coming; it is a surprise,” said Islam, his crutches lying  beside his FN rifle.
Groups  of men gathered around Masud Buisir, the "musician of the revolution". He  strummed the folk song that has become famous among the rebels:
“My mother, don’t be  worried
We know how to fight
We know how to make  freedom
We know for what we  die.”
On  the first day of the uprising in early February, Buisir had played this song  sitting on the steps of Benghazi’s court house, as police fired live rounds upon  crowds of protestors. With long curly hair, a knitted hat bearing the tri-color  rebel flag, and wearing a khaki print T-shirt emblazoned with the words "Free  Libya", Buisir took his guitar to every front line of the civil war.
I  first met Buisir as he battled just outside the oil refinery in Brega in March,  guitar in one hand, gun in the other. “That day my best friend was captured,”  recalled Buisir on the boat. “He and I were married on the same day just three  months before the uprising, and both our wives are pregnant. I just received a  call from him from to say he is alive in Tripoli!”
Roaming  among the fighters, camera in hand, was Buisir’s 16-year-old Irish nephew Yehyia.  Born and bred in Ireland to Libyan parents, Yehyia spoke with a Dublin accent as  he explained that he and his 18-year-old sister had made their way by themselves  to Libya.
Yehyia  founded the "Libyan Irish Youth Organisation" with other exiled Libyan youths. Giving speeches on the Libyan conflict and holding meals in fancy hotels in Ireland,  together they raised over 100,000 euros.
With  cut-throat competition for university spots in the UK, they decided to plunge  into Libya for his sister’s journalism college application. “I am helping my  sister put together the portfolio for her college application,” said Yehyia.
For  Yehyia’s father, the fall of Colonel Gaddafi is a matter of personal revenge.  Ibrahim Buisir was a freelance journalist covering the world’s major wars, and  running a humanitarian aid agency until the "Brother Leader" accused him of  giving funds to terrorists. The Buisir family was known for their opposition to  the regime.
“The  United States put him on a blacklist, and Interpol woke us up at 6am with house  raids,” said Yehyia. “All the Irish papers published our home address, we  received lots of abuse. At school other kids called my dad a terrorist.”
Now  the case is being reviewed by legal bodies in the UN, explained Yehyia and Masud.
The  rebels passed the hours on board fasting for the holy month of Ramadan, and  praying, until finally they saw the glow of Tripoli’s shoreline. A second rebel  boat pulled alongside, and fighters jumped into the water, crossing onto each  other’s boats under the starry night sky.
Most  of the fighters came under the command of Anwar al-Magariaf, the brother of the  co-founder of key Libyan opposition group the National Front for the Salvation  of Libya (NFSL).
Like  so many men on the boat, Anwar dedicated his life to removing the man that had  become a personal nemesis. “He took my life. I lived  outside of Libya, unable to speak to my friends and family, I was put in prison  in ’76, I was made to witness public hangings at the age of 11.” They will not  rest until they catch him. 



 




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