Libyan genocide: Difference between revisions
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The '''Libyan genocide''', also known in [[Libya]] as '''Shar''' ({{Lang-ar|شر|lit=Evil}}),<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Ahmida |first=Ali Abdullatif |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YujyDwAAQBAJ |title=Genocide in Libya: Shar, a Hidden Colonial History |date=2020-08-06 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-000-16936-2 |pages= |
The '''Libyan genocide''', also known in [[Libya]] as '''Shar''' ({{Lang-ar|شر|lit=Evil}}),<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Ahmida |first=Ali Abdullatif |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YujyDwAAQBAJ |title=Genocide in Libya: Shar, a Hidden Colonial History |date=2020-08-06 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-000-16936-2 |pages=46 |language=en}}</ref>{{Rp|page=98}} was the [[genocide]] of [[Libyans|Libyan]] [[Arabs]] and the systematic destruction of [[Culture of Libya|Libyan culture]], particularly during and after the [[Second Italo-Senussi War]] between 1929 and 1934.<ref name=":2">{{Citation |last=Ahmida |first=Ali Abdullatif |title=Eurocentrism, Silence and Memory of Genocide in Colonial Libya, 1929–1934 |date=2023 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-world-history-of-genocide/eurocentrism-silence-and-memory-of-genocide-in-colonial-libya-19291934/2F6A0A6F7010B944D4C13A4A6425A0A1 |work=The Cambridge World History of Genocide: Volume 3: Genocide in the Contemporary Era, 1914–2020 |volume=3 |pages=118–140 |editor-last=Kiernan |editor-first=Ben |access-date=2023-12-10 |series=The Cambridge World History of Genocide |place=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-108-76711-8 |editor2-last=Naimark |editor2-first=Norman |editor3-last=Straus |editor3-first=Scott |editor4-last=Lower |editor4-first=Wendy}}</ref> During this period, between 83,000<ref name=":3">{{Cite book |last=Duggan |first=Christopher |title=The Force of Destiny: A History of Italy Since 1796 |date=2008 |publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt |isbn=978-0-618-35367-5 |pages=497 |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":7">{{Cite web |title=Fascist Italy and the forgotten Libyan genocide |url=https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/libya-italy-fascism-colonial-past-forgotten-genocide |access-date=2023-12-10 |website=Middle East Eye |language=en}}</ref> and 125,000<ref>{{Cite book |last=Shahmoradian |first=Dr Feridoun Shawn |title=Reign of the Essence: Encyclopedia of Critical Thinking |date=2022-08-02 |publisher=AuthorHouse |isbn=978-1-6655-6662-9 |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":6">{{Cite web |title=Twentieth Century Atlas - Death Tolls |url=https://necrometrics.com/20c100k.htm#Libya |access-date=2023-12-10 |website=necrometrics.com}}</ref> Libyans were killed by [[Italian Libya|Italian colonial authorities]] under [[Benito Mussolini]]. Over 50% of the population of [[Cyrenaica]] had been killed, with the majority taking place in concentration camps, resulting in a [[population decline]] from 225,000 to 142,000 civilians.<ref name=":3" /> In totality, Libyan deaths during the [[Italian colonization of Libya|entire Italian colonial period]] is estimated to be much higher, with estimates placing the number at 250,000–300,000,<ref name=":6" /> 500,000<ref name=":8" /> and up to 750,000.<ref name=":6" /> |
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This period was marked by a brutal campaign characterized by widespread major Italian [[War crime|war crimes]], including [[ethnic cleansing]], [[Mass killing|mass killings]], [[forced displacement]], [[Death march|forced death marches]], [[settler colonialism]], the use of [[Chemical weapon|chemical weapons]], the [[Italian concentration camps in Libya|use of concentration camps]], mass executions of civilians and [[No quarter|refusing to take prisoners of war]] and instead executing surrendering combatants.<ref name=":3" /> The indigenous population, particularly the nomadic [[Bedouin]] tribes, faced extreme violence and suppression in an attempt to quell [[Senusiyya|Senussi]] resistance to colonial rule.<ref name=":2" /> The Italian military killed half of the Bedouin population of Libya between 1928 and 1932.<ref name=":4">[[Ilan Pappé]], ''The Modern Middle East.'' Routledge, 2005, {{ISBN|0-415-21409-2}}, p. 26.</ref> |
This period was marked by a brutal campaign characterized by widespread major Italian [[War crime|war crimes]], including [[ethnic cleansing]], [[Mass killing|mass killings]], [[forced displacement]], [[Death march|forced death marches]], [[settler colonialism]], the use of [[Chemical weapon|chemical weapons]], the [[Italian concentration camps in Libya|use of concentration camps]], mass executions of civilians and [[No quarter|refusing to take prisoners of war]] and instead executing surrendering combatants.<ref name=":3" /> The indigenous population, particularly the nomadic [[Bedouin]] tribes, faced extreme violence and suppression in an attempt to quell [[Senusiyya|Senussi]] resistance to colonial rule.<ref name=":2" /> The Italian military killed half of the Bedouin population of Libya between 1928 and 1932.<ref name=":4">[[Ilan Pappé]], ''The Modern Middle East.'' Routledge, 2005, {{ISBN|0-415-21409-2}}, p. 26.</ref> |
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The genocide was based on a racist and [[Italian fascism|fascist]] colonial plan to [[Italian settlers in Libya|settle poor Italian peasants in Libya]] and crush the resistance of the [[Senusiyya]], led by [[Omar al-Mukhtar]]. About 110,000 Libyan civilians were forced to march from their homes to the harsh [[Libyan Desert|Libyan desert]] and were then interned in [[Italian concentration camps in Libya]]. Between 60,000 and 70,000 mostly rural people, including women and children, and their 600,000 animals died of diseases and were starved to death.<ref name=":2" /> Rochat estimates that 90 to 95% of the sheep, goats, and horses, and possibly 80% of the cattle and camels, died by 1934. <ref name=":0" /> The annihilation of animals to a semi-nomadic people condemened the population to [[famine]]. |
The genocide was based on a racist and [[Italian fascism|fascist]] colonial plan to [[Italian settlers in Libya|settle poor Italian peasants in Libya]] and crush the resistance of the [[Senusiyya]], led by [[Omar al-Mukhtar]]. About 110,000 Libyan civilians were forced to march from their homes to the harsh [[Libyan Desert|Libyan desert]] and were then interned in [[Italian concentration camps in Libya]]. Between 60,000 and 70,000 mostly rural people, including women and children, and their 600,000 animals died of diseases and were starved to death.<ref name=":2" /> Rochat estimates that 90 to 95% of the sheep, goats, and horses, and possibly 80% of the cattle and camels, died by 1934. <ref name=":0" /> The annihilation of animals to a semi-nomadic people condemened the population to [[famine]]. |
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News about the genocide was heavily suppressed by [[Fascist Italy (1922–1943)|Fascist Italy]], evidence was largely destroyed, making remaining files in Italian concentration camps in Libya difficult to find even after the end of Fascist rule in Italy in 1945. The |
News about the genocide was heavily suppressed by [[Fascist Italy (1922–1943)|Fascist Italy]], evidence was largely destroyed, making remaining files in Italian concentration camps in Libya difficult to find even after the end of Fascist rule in Italy in 1945. The only camp we have a record of prisoners on is the Swani al-Tariya camp. However, the mass graves still attest to the genocide. |
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The history that Libyans recorded in their [[Arabic]] oral history has remained hidden and unexplored in systematic fashion.<ref name=":2" /><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Kiernan |first1=Ben |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NLbHEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT141 |title=The Cambridge World History of Genocide: Volume 3, Genocide in the Contemporary Era, 1914–2020 |last2=Lower |first2=Wendy |last3=Naimark |first3=Norman |last4=Straus |first4=Scott |date=2023-01-31 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-108-80627-5 |pages=141 |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=40}} As a result, Italian colonization and atrocities in [[Italian Ethiopia|Ethiopia]] are better studied and more well known than Libyan cases.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=40}} It was not until 2008 that [[Italy]] apologized for its killing, destruction and repression of the Libyan people during its colonization of Libya, and stated that this was a "complete and moral acknowledgement of the damage inflicted on Libya by Italy during the colonial era".<ref>''The Report: Libya 2008''. Oxford Business Group. 2008. p. 17.</ref> |
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The Libyan Genocide also has a direct link to the [[The Holocaust|Holocaust]], as the death camps were visited by Nazi notables like [[Heinrich Himmler|Himmler]] and [[Hermann Göring|Goering]]. |
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== Etymology == |
== Etymology == |
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I[[Italo Balbo|talo Balbo]], field marshal and an architect of the colony, planned on settling 500,000 Italians by 1950, particularly in the [[Jabal al Akhdar|Jebel Al-Akthar]] region ("Green Mountains" in Arabic) by displacing the local Libyan population to the desert. |
I[[Italo Balbo|talo Balbo]], field marshal and an architect of the colony, planned on settling 500,000 Italians by 1950, particularly in the [[Jabal al Akhdar|Jebel Al-Akthar]] region ("Green Mountains" in Arabic) by displacing the local Libyan population to the desert. |
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== Death |
== Death Marches == |
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[[File:A map of the forced deportation.png|thumb|A map of the forced deportation drawn by Historian Yusuf Salim al-Barghathi, 1983]] |
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The most common case of forced displacement was from the [[Jabal al Akhdar|Jebel Al-Akthar]] region, to make way for Italian settlers, to Sirte, an inhospitable city on the edge of the Sahara desert. There were also several displacements from oases to the Sahara desert proper; such as such as the Magharba, and Zuwayya, Fawakhir, Firjan, and Hussun tribes who lived near Ijdabiyya, west of Benghazi. These displacements were harsh with a high mortality rate, done under the coercion of the Italian Army who were given orders to kill any person or animal who did not hurry. These arduous marches, if survived, took Libyans to their final destination in one of the main 16 concentration camps. Coupling these marches with the mass famine that was induced by the intentional killing of nearly all cattle, drove many to die. |
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One of the most documented is the deportation of the Marmarica tribes and the Butnan tribes in the [[Jabal al Akhdar|Jebel Al-Akthar]] region to Sirte, in a grueling forced walk of 657 miles. The final destination were concetration camps built in Sirte, a city chosen for it's remoteness and inhospitability. There was also the case with the Abaidat tribe, who were forced to march in the winter season for a long distance of 1,100 kilometers to the concentration camp of Braiga in the Sirte desert region. |
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We do not know how many people died on the forced marches, but many survivors attest to their family members dying en route to the death camps, especially the elderly and infirm. |
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⚫ | |||
The colonial state spent 13 million Italian liras on the construction of the camps. There were over 16 major camps, the most significant being Agaila, Slug, Braiga, and Magrun, where 65% of the deported were interned. Historian Ali Abdullatif Ahmida places the number of interned, in his lowest estimate, at 110,000 and the numbers of deaths at 60,000. Libyan historian al-Barghathi places the death toll higher – at between 50 and 70,000. |
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[[E. E. Evans-Pritchard|Evans-Pritchard]], an expert on Cyrenaica (Barqa), wrote, "In this bleak country, in the summer of 1930, 80,000 men, women, and children, and 600,000 beasts were herded into the smallest camps possible. Hunger, disease, and broken hearts took a heavy toll of the imprisoned population. Bedouins died in a cage. Loss of livestock was also great, for the beasts had insufficient grazing near the camps on which to support life, and the herds, already decimated in the fighting are almost wiped out by the camps." |
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Braiga concentration camp, which held 30,000 interned individuals. Of the 30,000, a mere 13,000 came out alive in 1934, according to Libyan Arabic sources. Most of the interned came from the ‘Abaidat and Magharba tribes. |
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Agaila was the most brutal, especially constructed for the families of rebels. The main tribes sent here were the Awaqir, Mnifa, Masamir, Qut’an, and Abadlla tribes. Arabic sources state the total number of the interned was 20,000, and only one-third of them survived the ordeal by 1934.<ref name=":0" /> |
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It was in Slug camp that [[Omar al-Mukhtar]] was hanged in front of 20,000 interned civilians, to send a message to the native people, on September 11, 1931. A shrine to commemorate [[Omar al-Mukhtar]] is found there today, after a Libyan located his body by witnessing [[Omar al-Mukhtar|al-Mukhtar]]'s secret burial by the Italians after he was hung. |
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⚫ | |||
The primary concentrations camps Agaila, Slug, Braiga, and Magrun. |
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⚫ | Magrun camp interned 18,000 from the Bra’sa, Dressa, and ‘Urufa tribes. According to Libyan Arabic sources, only half of those imprisoned remained alive by 1934. Those interned were forced to walk hundreds of miles from Toubruq to Susa and then to Magrun. In the Magrun concentration camp a "school" was set up for parents to enroll their children in. The parents were incentivised to give their children over to be provided food, a choice many made during the famine. Thousands of these children became colonial soldiers and were used by the colonial military to fight as cheap labor in the invasion of Ethiopia in 1935. The number of these young soldiers started at 12,000 and had increased to 40,000 by 1940 when they were sent to fight in one of World War II’s major battles along the Libyan–Egyptian border. <ref name=":0" /> |
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Agaila was by far the most brutal. |
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The Swani al-Tariya camp is the most historically documented, with a 70 page record found that details the interned civilians names. Over 500 families were interned here and the majority were from ‘Urufa, Dressa, Fuwakhir, and Bra’sa tribes. |
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⚫ | In the Magrun concentration camp a "school" was set up for parents to enroll their children in. The parents were incentivised to give their children over to be provided food, a choice many made during |
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== Genocide == |
== Genocide == |
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By 1931, more than half of the population of Cyrenaica were confined to 15 Italian concentration camps where many died as result of overcrowding, lack of water, food and medicine. The Italian government experimented poison gas in violation of the [[Geneva Protocol|1925 Geneva Protocol]] against [[Weapon of mass destruction|chemical and biological warfare]]. Badoglio had the Air Force use chemical warfare against the [[Bedouin]] rebels in the desert. This caused the [[Nomad|nomadic]] way of life of the Bedouin to decline. Cyrenaica had a population of about 200,000 in 1911 during the [[Ottoman Empire|Ottoman]] period, however it declined to 142,000 by 1931, with 40,000 dead and 20,000 in exile in [[Egypt]].<ref name=":5" /> Historian [[Ilan Pappé]] estimates that between 1928 and 1932 the Italian military "killed half the Bedouin population (directly or through disease and starvation in camps)."<ref name=":4" /> Italian colonial authorities committed [[ethnic cleansing]] by forcibly expelling 100,000 Eastern Libyan [[Bedouin|Bedouins]], half the population of Cyrenaica, from their settlements that were given to [[Italian settlers in Libya|Italian colonist settlers]].<ref>Cardoza, Anthony L. (2006). Benito Mussolini: the first fascist. Pearson Longman. p. 109.</ref><ref>Bloxham, Donald; Moses, A. Dirk (2010). ''The Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies''. Oxford, England: [[Oxford University Press]]. p. 358</ref> Less than 40,000 Libyan survivors left Italian refugee camps, following their release in 1934.<ref name=":1"/> |
By 1931, more than half of the population of Cyrenaica were confined to 15 Italian concentration camps where many died as result of overcrowding, lack of water, food and medicine. The Italian government experimented poison gas in violation of the [[Geneva Protocol|1925 Geneva Protocol]] against [[Weapon of mass destruction|chemical and biological warfare]]. Badoglio had the Air Force use chemical warfare against the [[Bedouin]] rebels in the desert. This caused the [[Nomad|nomadic]] way of life of the Bedouin to decline. Cyrenaica had a population of about 200,000 in 1911 during the [[Ottoman Empire|Ottoman]] period, however it declined to 142,000 by 1931, with 40,000 dead and 20,000 in exile in [[Egypt]].<ref name=":5" /> Historian [[Ilan Pappé]] estimates that between 1928 and 1932 the Italian military "killed half the Bedouin population (directly or through disease and starvation in camps)."<ref name=":4" /> Italian colonial authorities committed [[ethnic cleansing]] by forcibly expelling 100,000 Eastern Libyan [[Bedouin|Bedouins]], half the population of Cyrenaica, from their settlements that were given to [[Italian settlers in Libya|Italian colonist settlers]].<ref>Cardoza, Anthony L. (2006). Benito Mussolini: the first fascist. Pearson Longman. p. 109.</ref><ref>Bloxham, Donald; Moses, A. Dirk (2010). ''The Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies''. Oxford, England: [[Oxford University Press]]. p. 358</ref> Less than 40,000 Libyan survivors left Italian refugee camps, following their release in 1934.<ref name=":1"/> |
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The intentional killing of cattle to a semi-nomadic population General Graziani, who was charged with |
The intentional killing of cattle to a semi-nomadic population was especially destructive, similar to the targetted destruction of buffalo in America. General [[Rodolfo Graziani|Graziani]], who was charged with war crimes but never prosecuted, boasted about this destruction in eastern Libya. He admitted that the livestock of Barqa was reduced to a critical point that required the import of 160,000 animals from western Libya in 1933–1934.<ref name=":0" /> |
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{| class="wikitable" |
{| class="wikitable" |
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|+The Destruction of Native Animal Wealth In Eastern Libya (Cyrenaica), 1910–1933<ref name=":0" /> |
|+The Destruction of Native Animal Wealth In Eastern Libya (Cyrenaica), 1910–1933<ref name=":0" /> |
Revision as of 08:02, 20 March 2024
![]() | It has been suggested that this article be merged into Second Italo-Senussi War. (Discuss) Proposed since January 2024. |
Libyan genocide | |
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Part of the Second Italo-Senussi War and Italian colonization of Libya | |
![]() Inmates at the El Agheila concentration camp | |
Location | Italian Libya |
Date | 1929–1934 (main phase) |
Target | Libyan Arabs |
Attack type | Genocide, ethnic cleansing, mass killings, forced displacement, forced death marches, settler colonialism, chemical warfare, concentration camps and no quarter |
Deaths |
|
Perpetrator | Italian Empire |
Motive | Italian fascism, imperialism, anti-Arab racism, Islamophobia |
The Libyan genocide, also known in Libya as Shar (Arabic: شر, lit. 'Evil'),[1]: 98 was the genocide of Libyan Arabs and the systematic destruction of Libyan culture, particularly during and after the Second Italo-Senussi War between 1929 and 1934.[2] During this period, between 83,000[3][4] and 125,000[5][6] Libyans were killed by Italian colonial authorities under Benito Mussolini. Over 50% of the population of Cyrenaica had been killed, with the majority taking place in concentration camps, resulting in a population decline from 225,000 to 142,000 civilians.[3] In totality, Libyan deaths during the entire Italian colonial period is estimated to be much higher, with estimates placing the number at 250,000–300,000,[6] 500,000[7] and up to 750,000.[6]
This period was marked by a brutal campaign characterized by widespread major Italian war crimes, including ethnic cleansing, mass killings, forced displacement, forced death marches, settler colonialism, the use of chemical weapons, the use of concentration camps, mass executions of civilians and refusing to take prisoners of war and instead executing surrendering combatants.[3] The indigenous population, particularly the nomadic Bedouin tribes, faced extreme violence and suppression in an attempt to quell Senussi resistance to colonial rule.[2] The Italian military killed half of the Bedouin population of Libya between 1928 and 1932.[8]
The genocide was based on a racist and fascist colonial plan to settle poor Italian peasants in Libya and crush the resistance of the Senusiyya, led by Omar al-Mukhtar. About 110,000 Libyan civilians were forced to march from their homes to the harsh Libyan desert and were then interned in Italian concentration camps in Libya. Between 60,000 and 70,000 mostly rural people, including women and children, and their 600,000 animals died of diseases and were starved to death.[2] Rochat estimates that 90 to 95% of the sheep, goats, and horses, and possibly 80% of the cattle and camels, died by 1934. [1] The annihilation of animals to a semi-nomadic people condemened the population to famine.
News about the genocide was heavily suppressed by Fascist Italy, evidence was largely destroyed, making remaining files in Italian concentration camps in Libya difficult to find even after the end of Fascist rule in Italy in 1945. The only camp we have a record of prisoners on is the Swani al-Tariya camp. However, the mass graves still attest to the genocide.
The history that Libyans recorded in their Arabic oral history has remained hidden and unexplored in systematic fashion.[2][9][1]: 40 As a result, Italian colonization and atrocities in Ethiopia are better studied and more well known than Libyan cases.[1]: 40 It was not until 2008 that Italy apologized for its killing, destruction and repression of the Libyan people during its colonization of Libya, and stated that this was a "complete and moral acknowledgement of the damage inflicted on Libya by Italy during the colonial era".[10]
The Libyan Genocide also has a direct link to the Holocaust, as the death camps were visited by Nazi notables like Himmler and Goering.
Etymology
In Libya, the death in the camps during the genocide is commonly referred to as "Shar" (Arabic: شر, lit. 'Evil'), an Arabic word meaning "evil". The term is derived from the Qur'an, as the opposite of good. However, in this context it also has the second meaning of 'starvation', as this was the main cause of the genocide.
Prelude
During the Italian invasion of Libya in 1911, the Italians were portrayed as the liberators of Libya from Ottoman rule, concurrently concealing any evidence of repression campaigns and massacres during the war, such as the ones following the battle and massacre at Shar al-Shatt. On the other side, the Arabs were described as 'beasts' that needed to be civilized by the Europeans.[11] Reportedly, both Italian officers and men had declared that "we must destroy the Arabs". Official reports into the atrocities emphasized racial hatred, vindictiveness and "psychological flaws" as their underlying causes. Such brutal Italian war crimes in Libya were primarily associated with the Fascist era, as well as the Italian Liberal regime, albeit in a less systematic manner.[12] Upon gaining entry in Libya, Italy promptly initiated racist and discriminatory practices of class division, including the construction of concentration camps, where approximately 50,000 Libyans lost their lives during the 1930s. Libya was of strategic importance to Italy, thus prompting the latter to annex the former as its "Fourth Shore" to allow Italians an expanded trade route area which greatly benefited Italy.[13]
Motivation
Italy's colonisation of Libya was motivated by a desire to compete with other European powers, who had their own colony. Libya was one of the last African countries to be colonised, along with Abyssinia. Additionally, Libya was viewed as the Fourth Shore, Mussolini's concept of the a Greater Italy that harkens back to the Roman Empire. Libya was viewed in a similar lense as how England viewed Ireland, or France viewed Algeria.
Italo Balbo, field marshal and an architect of the colony, planned on settling 500,000 Italians by 1950, particularly in the Jebel Al-Akthar region ("Green Mountains" in Arabic) by displacing the local Libyan population to the desert.
Death Marches
The most common case of forced displacement was from the Jebel Al-Akthar region, to make way for Italian settlers, to Sirte, an inhospitable city on the edge of the Sahara desert. There were also several displacements from oases to the Sahara desert proper; such as such as the Magharba, and Zuwayya, Fawakhir, Firjan, and Hussun tribes who lived near Ijdabiyya, west of Benghazi. These displacements were harsh with a high mortality rate, done under the coercion of the Italian Army who were given orders to kill any person or animal who did not hurry. These arduous marches, if survived, took Libyans to their final destination in one of the main 16 concentration camps. Coupling these marches with the mass famine that was induced by the intentional killing of nearly all cattle, drove many to die.
One of the most documented is the deportation of the Marmarica tribes and the Butnan tribes in the Jebel Al-Akthar region to Sirte, in a grueling forced walk of 657 miles. The final destination were concetration camps built in Sirte, a city chosen for it's remoteness and inhospitability. There was also the case with the Abaidat tribe, who were forced to march in the winter season for a long distance of 1,100 kilometers to the concentration camp of Braiga in the Sirte desert region.
We do not know how many people died on the forced marches, but many survivors attest to their family members dying en route to the death camps, especially the elderly and infirm.
Death Camps
The colonial state spent 13 million Italian liras on the construction of the camps. There were over 16 major camps, the most significant being Agaila, Slug, Braiga, and Magrun, where 65% of the deported were interned. Historian Ali Abdullatif Ahmida places the number of interned, in his lowest estimate, at 110,000 and the numbers of deaths at 60,000. Libyan historian al-Barghathi places the death toll higher – at between 50 and 70,000.
Evans-Pritchard, an expert on Cyrenaica (Barqa), wrote, "In this bleak country, in the summer of 1930, 80,000 men, women, and children, and 600,000 beasts were herded into the smallest camps possible. Hunger, disease, and broken hearts took a heavy toll of the imprisoned population. Bedouins died in a cage. Loss of livestock was also great, for the beasts had insufficient grazing near the camps on which to support life, and the herds, already decimated in the fighting are almost wiped out by the camps."
Braiga concentration camp, which held 30,000 interned individuals. Of the 30,000, a mere 13,000 came out alive in 1934, according to Libyan Arabic sources. Most of the interned came from the ‘Abaidat and Magharba tribes.
Agaila was the most brutal, especially constructed for the families of rebels. The main tribes sent here were the Awaqir, Mnifa, Masamir, Qut’an, and Abadlla tribes. Arabic sources state the total number of the interned was 20,000, and only one-third of them survived the ordeal by 1934.[1]
It was in Slug camp that Omar al-Mukhtar was hanged in front of 20,000 interned civilians, to send a message to the native people, on September 11, 1931. A shrine to commemorate Omar al-Mukhtar is found there today, after a Libyan located his body by witnessing al-Mukhtar's secret burial by the Italians after he was hung.
Magrun camp interned 18,000 from the Bra’sa, Dressa, and ‘Urufa tribes. According to Libyan Arabic sources, only half of those imprisoned remained alive by 1934. Those interned were forced to walk hundreds of miles from Toubruq to Susa and then to Magrun. In the Magrun concentration camp a "school" was set up for parents to enroll their children in. The parents were incentivised to give their children over to be provided food, a choice many made during the famine. Thousands of these children became colonial soldiers and were used by the colonial military to fight as cheap labor in the invasion of Ethiopia in 1935. The number of these young soldiers started at 12,000 and had increased to 40,000 by 1940 when they were sent to fight in one of World War II’s major battles along the Libyan–Egyptian border. [1]
The Swani al-Tariya camp is the most historically documented, with a 70 page record found that details the interned civilians names. Over 500 families were interned here and the majority were from ‘Urufa, Dressa, Fuwakhir, and Bra’sa tribes.
Genocide
On 20 June 1930, Italian military officer Pietro Badoglio called for the annihilation of the entire population of Cyrenaica, and wrote to General Rodolfo Graziani: "As for overall strategy, it is necessary to create a significant and clear separation between the controlled population and the rebel formations. I do not hide the significance and seriousness of this measure, which might be the ruin of the subdued population...But now the course has been set, and we must carry it out to the end, even if the entire population of Cyrenaica must perish".[14]
According to Melvin Page and Penny Sonneberg, Benito Mussolini was the person ultimately responsible for "putting 80,000 Libyans in concentration camps, blocking and poisoning wells, building a network of garrisons in troubled areas, bombing villages with mustard gas, killing and confiscating hundreds of thousands of sheep and camels, and constructing a 200-mile barbed wire fence between Libya and Egypt to prevent rebel border crossings".[13]
By 1931, more than half of the population of Cyrenaica were confined to 15 Italian concentration camps where many died as result of overcrowding, lack of water, food and medicine. The Italian government experimented poison gas in violation of the 1925 Geneva Protocol against chemical and biological warfare. Badoglio had the Air Force use chemical warfare against the Bedouin rebels in the desert. This caused the nomadic way of life of the Bedouin to decline. Cyrenaica had a population of about 200,000 in 1911 during the Ottoman period, however it declined to 142,000 by 1931, with 40,000 dead and 20,000 in exile in Egypt.[14] Historian Ilan Pappé estimates that between 1928 and 1932 the Italian military "killed half the Bedouin population (directly or through disease and starvation in camps)."[8] Italian colonial authorities committed ethnic cleansing by forcibly expelling 100,000 Eastern Libyan Bedouins, half the population of Cyrenaica, from their settlements that were given to Italian colonist settlers.[15][16] Less than 40,000 Libyan survivors left Italian refugee camps, following their release in 1934.[11]
The intentional killing of cattle to a semi-nomadic population was especially destructive, similar to the targetted destruction of buffalo in America. General Graziani, who was charged with war crimes but never prosecuted, boasted about this destruction in eastern Libya. He admitted that the livestock of Barqa was reduced to a critical point that required the import of 160,000 animals from western Libya in 1933–1934.[1]
1910 | 1936 | 1933 | |
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Sheep and Goats | 126,000 | 80,000 | 22,000 |
Camels | 83,000 | 75,000 | 2,600 |
Horses | 27,000 | 14,000 | 1,000 |
Cattle | 23,000 | 10,000 | 2,000 |
Links to the Holocaust
There are ample direct connection between the Libyan genocide and the Holocaust. Italian-sponsored Arabic language publications, most notably "Libya al-Musawara", and films from the colonial period indicate numerous visits to Libya by officials from Nazi Germany. Historian Ali Abdullatif Ahmida stated that the extreme violence carried out against Libyans by Italian fascists served as a blueprint for the atrocities that Nazi Germans later committed in Europe.[4]
In April 1939, Nazi German Field Marshal Hermann Göring made an official visit to Tripoli, where he held discussions with the Italian colonial governor general of Libya, Italo Balbo. Upon witnessing the cleansing of indigneous people and the settling of 20,000 Italian peasants, he described the process as “successful”, a key topic for Nazi leaders who had a plan to settle 15 million Germans in Eastern Europe[17]. Hermann Göring would later be in charge of the first ever concentration camp in the Holocaust.
Also in 1939, Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS and the architect behind the concentration camps, also made an official visit to Libya to witness the outcomes of the Italian methods. He is credited with conceiving the idea of the Final Solution.[4]
Historian Patrick Bernhard notes that the Nazi Commissariat organised special programmes to visit the Libyan colony. Visits to Tripoli occured in 1937 and 1938 by high Nazi leaders such as Robert Ley, Rudolf Hess, the head of the SS Heinrich Himmler, and Marshal Hermann Göring. This led to the signing of an agreement to train 150 SS officers in the Italian Colonial School in Tivoli or Rome in 1937. Additionally, German state officials began an active program of fieldwork, examining the Italian colonial experience, contacting Italian officials and conducting fieldwork visits to Italy and the colony of Libya between 1938-1941, with numerous German books and press articles published during this time.[18]
Upon the aftermath of the genocide (1929-1934), 40 villages, aided by scientists, geologists, and agronomists, were built for Italian settlers. The plan was for the arrival of 20,000 Italian settlers in October 28, 1938 who were to be settled in Libya and given the stolen land of the native people. Many German high officials, including the German labor attaché in Rome, were invited to travel with the ships that carried settlers with tremendous fanfare and propaganda by the Italian Fascist state.[19]
Death toll
After coming to power in Libya in 1969, Muammar Gaddafi claimed that half of Libya's total population had died during Italian colonialism, amounting up to 750,000 Libyans.[6][20] During the Allied administration of Libya prior to independence, the United Nations estimated that 250,000 to 300,000 Libyan natives died under the Italians between 1912 and 1942.[6] According to historian Denis Mack Smith, about 20,000 Libyans died in concentration camps, and perhaps 100,000 nomadic Bedouins (half the Bedouin population) died overall.[6] Ali Abdullatif Ahmida estimates that 500,000 Libyans were killed out of a total population of 1,500,000.[7]
An exact number of victims of the genocide can not be determined because there are very few remaining documents on death marches and concentration camps in Italian archives. This is due to the fact that evidence regarding the genocide was largely destroyed by Italian colonial authorities. Additionally, news about genocide was heavily suppressed by the Italian state.[2]
Legacy
The primary legacy is the reframing of colonial history, seeing events that happened in Africa as a precursor to the abuses of the totalitarian regimes in Europe in particular Nazi Germany.
Hannah Arendt would be the first notable thinker to provide a link between colonial genocide in Africa and the Holocaust, describing the abuses during the Scramble for Africa as “Some fundamental aspects of this time appear so close to the totalitarian phenomena of the twentieth century that it may be justifiable to consider the whole period a preparatory stage for coming catastrophes". Although Arendt's focus was primarily on Belgian Congo, it is this idea that has been further followed up in recent scholarship like in "Genocide in Libya: Shar, a Hidden Colonial History" by Ali Abdullatif Ahmida and Patrick Bernhard in “Borrowing from Mussolini: Nazi Germany’s Colonial Aspirations in the Shadow of Italian Expansion”.
Noam Chomsky supports this hypothesis and upon examing the recent scholarship has said “This shattering study, based on remarkable scholarship, not only brings to light the long-suppressed genocidal policies of the Italian Fascist state but also leads to serious rethinking of how colonial history is framed and of the origins of the horrendous Nazi crimes".
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h Ahmida, Ali Abdullatif (2020-08-06). Genocide in Libya: Shar, a Hidden Colonial History. Routledge. p. 46. ISBN 978-1-000-16936-2.
- ^ a b c d e Ahmida, Ali Abdullatif (2023), Kiernan, Ben; Naimark, Norman; Straus, Scott; Lower, Wendy (eds.), "Eurocentrism, Silence and Memory of Genocide in Colonial Libya, 1929–1934", The Cambridge World History of Genocide: Volume 3: Genocide in the Contemporary Era, 1914–2020, The Cambridge World History of Genocide, vol. 3, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 118–140, ISBN 978-1-108-76711-8, retrieved 2023-12-10
- ^ a b c Duggan, Christopher (2008). The Force of Destiny: A History of Italy Since 1796. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. 497. ISBN 978-0-618-35367-5.
- ^ a b c "Fascist Italy and the forgotten Libyan genocide". Middle East Eye. Retrieved 2023-12-10.
- ^ Shahmoradian, Dr Feridoun Shawn (2022-08-02). Reign of the Essence: Encyclopedia of Critical Thinking. AuthorHouse. ISBN 978-1-6655-6662-9.
- ^ a b c d e f "Twentieth Century Atlas - Death Tolls". necrometrics.com. Retrieved 2023-12-10.
- ^ a b Ahmida, Ali Abdullatif (September 2006). "When the Subaltern Speak: Memory of Genocide in Colonial Libya 1929 to 1933". ResearchGate. p. 189.
- ^ a b Ilan Pappé, The Modern Middle East. Routledge, 2005, ISBN 0-415-21409-2, p. 26.
- ^ Kiernan, Ben; Lower, Wendy; Naimark, Norman; Straus, Scott (2023-01-31). The Cambridge World History of Genocide: Volume 3, Genocide in the Contemporary Era, 1914–2020. Cambridge University Press. p. 141. ISBN 978-1-108-80627-5.
- ^ The Report: Libya 2008. Oxford Business Group. 2008. p. 17.
- ^ a b Aruffo, Alessandro (2007). Storia del Colonialismo Italiano: da Crispi a Mussolini. Rome: DATANEWS Editrice. pp. 48–65. ISBN 978-88-7981-315-0.
- ^ Wilcox, Vanda (2021). The Italian Empire and the Great War. Oxford University Press. p. 169. ISBN 978-0-19-882294-3.
- ^ a b Nagar, Dawn; Mutasa, Charles (2017-10-25). Africa and the World: Bilateral and Multilateral International Diplomacy. Springer. p. 171. ISBN 978-3-319-62590-4.
- ^ a b De Grand, Alexander (2004). "Mussolini's Follies: Fascism in Its Imperial and Racist Phase, 1935-1940". Contemporary European History. 13 (2): 131-132. ISSN 0960-7773. JSTOR 20081201.
- ^ Cardoza, Anthony L. (2006). Benito Mussolini: the first fascist. Pearson Longman. p. 109.
- ^ Bloxham, Donald; Moses, A. Dirk (2010). The Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. p. 358
- ^ Abdullatif Ahmida, Ali (July 2020). Genocide in Libya: Shar, a Hidden Colonial History (1st ed.). Routledge. p. 172. ISBN 978-0367468897.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: date and year (link) - ^ Bernhard, Patrick (2013). ""Borrowing from Mussolini: Nazi Germany's Colonial Aspirations in the Shadow of Italian Expansion"". Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History: 617–643.
- ^ "Marshal Goerhing in Tripoli". Libia al-Musawra: 15. 1939.
- ^ Vandevalle, Dirk (2012). A History of Modern Libya. Cambridge University Press. p. 217.
- Italian war crimes in Libya
- Genocides in Africa
- Italian colonisation in Africa
- Ethnic cleansing in Africa
- 1920s in Libya
- 1930s in Libya
- Genocide of indigenous peoples in Africa
- Anti-Arabism in Africa
- Violence against Muslims
- Persecution of Muslims
- Racially motivated violence in Africa
- Anti-Islam sentiment in Africa
- Death marches