[tw]

The Economist of 24 February 2011 provided best reasons for a Libyan uprising.

Mr Qaddafi did nothing for this region. Despite its oil wealth, the east appears devoid of infrastructure apart from its oil industry. Oil is stored in first-world depots, water in concrete pits. The only ships docking at Tobruk's jetties are tankers, and despite the energy flow there are blackouts. So poor is health care that Libyans with enough money head to Egypt or Tunisia for treatment. An elderly teacher points out the spelling mistakes in the graffiti daubed across the town. Until recently, foreign languages were banned from the syllabus; they were enemy tongues, and talking politics with foreigners carried a three-year prison term. "None of us can speak English or French", laments the teacher. "He kept us ignorant and blindfolded."

"All our wealth went abroad", says a law student distributing food. "He built towers across Africa, but we don't even have a playground." Tobruk had a cinema, old-timers recall, but Mr Qaddafi closed it soon after taking power to guard against public gatherings. Without entertainment, the town shut down after dark. ...


Libya's second city, Benghazi, staged the first demonstrations on February 15th. Barely 60 youths showed up. Similar protests erupted in other cities over the next two days, and were met by security forces with heavy weapons. In Tobruk and Beida protesters kept the anti-aircraft cartridges as evidence, but four deaths and 80 people injured only spurred larger numbers onto the streets. In Beida and other cities, youths who despaired of confronting African mercenaries' heavy-calibre machineguns with stones resorted to dynamite used for catching fish. They broke into the compounds of the security forces, ransacked them and put them to the torch.

In most barracks along the eastern coast, the armed forces quickly stood down rather than turn on their countrymen; sometimes at the cost of their lives. Protesters breaking into the Benghazi army base found 15 officers shot dead, apparently for refusing orders to open fire.