1986, Libya: I Was There When The Americans Bombed

Suhail Shafi in Malta

April 15, 2002

The exact date I tend to forget, but it was on a crisp April night in

1986 that it happened. In Tripoli, the city that I was born in, and where

I had spent all of my six years in.

I remember something, though not everything of that eventful night.

I do not know whether my degree of recollection is surprising, or not

surprising at all - it was after all fifteen years ago, but then again I do

suppose that something dramatic to that extent could not have been

completely forgotten by anyone, not even or perhaps certainly not by

an impressionable child.

The night before the Americans bombed was, for me and so many

others in the coastal Libyan capital city, a night like so many others, at

least to start of with. I was the younger child of an Indian couple, who

were both physicians, both employed in Libya for over a decade. I had

been born and educated in Libya, and it was the only country I ever

called home for several years to come. Life in Libya had it's negative

and positive aspects, we seldom complained, being grateful for every-

thing that we had, and despite, or perhaps because of everything, I look

back at myself as pretty much a child like so many others - going to

school, being chided by my parents, studying with my books, playing

with my toys.....need I say more ? Quintessentially the life of every child

around the world is pretty much the same, as are the needs and expectations

of childhood.

The night our neighbourhood was bombed my mother was feeling

sick. I don't know what she had, but as an impressionable child I remember

seeing in pictures people being nursed sitting upright, so I instructed her

to sit upright in her pillow in an upright position. ``Sit like that mummy,

and you will feel better in the morning'' I had advised, just before taking

my teddy and going to bed opposite hers. The next day was school, so

I had to sleep early, and the next thing I remember I was in bed dozing.

The first thing I remember distinctly was the little alarm clock that

had been placed on the shelf right next to my bed.....it had jumped up

abruptly, coinciding with a deafening noise, that sounded like a massive

explosion. I remember, in my pajamas, being seized by my mother, and

pulled out of bed so fast I could not even grasp what was going on. I

heard a girl's voice that betrayed a gasp of horror, and I remember the

four of us, my parents, my sister, and myself running out of our flat's

door into the dark corridor's of our building. We were rushing down the

stairs and I remember my little feet being pierced by pieces of glass that

came from the windows that had been shattered by the blast of American

missiles that had landed in the neighbourhood behind us.

We rushed down into the carpark where I remember hundreds

of our neighbours who lived in our building and in the three others

adjacent to it crowding the outside of the building. We were for the most

part Indian, Eastern European, and Filipino expatriates who lived in the

apartment blocks opposite the street from a large Tripoli hospital where

my father worked. We usually kept our distances from one another, but

we were all there tonight, united in our horror. Whether the horror was

matched by a comprehension of what was going on is something that

will always be lost to me.....I was only six. But a few images will stay

for me forever.....I saw a Filipino woman, probably a nurse crying

pitifully in the parking area, I also saw our next door neighbour, a

Macedonian nurse walking out of our building. I was almost relieved to

see her walking out so fast. ``Where are you going'' I had asked her

desperately, in the hope that she would tell me she was going some place

safe, where we could all accompany her. ``Where can we go'' came the

reply.

We walked across the street to the hospital where my father

worked. I felt a sense of relief in going to the hospital, but it was a sense

of relief that I felt in my heart of hearts was somewhat misplaced. I could

not bring myself to believe that anyone would want to bomb a hospital,

but then, after the horrors of that night I did not know what to believe

in anymore. Clad as I was in a light pair of pyjamas, I felt colder on that

frigid April night like never before - I shivered almost uncontrollably in

the hospital park. Later on, as my father herded us onwards into a building

in the hospital complex, I saw a number of lights in the sky - I did not and

still do not know if they were real American fighter planes or whether they

were anti-aircraft missiles fired by the Libyans but what I do remember

distinctly that they filled me with an acute and indescribable sense of terror

that can be expected from a six year old seeing, or thinking he sees a

fighter jet in the heavens aiming at him. I hid behind a car as I ran towards the

entrance of the hospital building. I remember screaming out to my mother -

``do they really want to get us, is it us that they are aiming at '' - with an

utter lack of comprehension or understanding of what was going on that

could come only from the tongue of a six year old in that situation.

I remember being spirited away to the relative safety of a small

closed room where there were a number of other people. It was dark, and

the presence of what sounded like incessant gunfire from the outside,

probably emanating from anti-aircraft missiles. I remember my elder sister

telling me that it was not the planes that were causing the horrific noises

from outside, but flying objects that were meant to destroy any aircraft.

But if it was supposed to make me feel any better, it clearly did not work.

I spent several dreadful hours in that cold, dark, overcrowded room

screaming, crying and wailing.

It was only several hours later when the screaming sounds of

the anti-aircraft missiles died down that my father took me to his office in

another building in the complex, where I and my family spent the night.

There were mattresses and I managed to get a number of hours of much

need, if surprisingly peaceful sleep.

My reaction to the events the night before when I woke up

in the bright daylight of the next morning was a curious one. It was not

so much of fear, or impending doom, or of shock - it was one of denial.

I pretended as if the events of the night before were no more than a dream,

no more than an illusion that everyone was, predictably talking about, but

which I was insistent, nothing more than a non-event that everyone was

talking of, but which I was completely insulated from. I remember telling

everyone I met that there was this dreadful dream from the night before

that had happened, but that I could not remember it, or that I could not

relate to what had happened. Whether this was a manifestation of shock,

of embarrassment of my terror from the night before, or a deep seated

wish that what had happened hadn't happened is something that a child

psychologist specializing in treating pediatric victims of post-traumatic

stress disorder in the aftermath of disasters would be best placed to

comment on. I know for sure I did not wish to fully face up to what had

happened - perhaps there is a small part of me that still does not want

to face up.

My sense of denial did not last much longer than that morning when

Tripoli faced up to it's loss fully. The neighbourhood that

had been at the receiving end of the brunt of the American laser guided

bombs was a civilian neighbourhood like so many others in Tripoli that

was, unlike the apartment blocks we lived in populated almost entirely

by middle class Libyan families. The houses were modern, attractive and

comfortable, and would not have felt too out-of-place in any other

European or Mediterranean city. I remember my father taking our car out

into the neighbourhood right behind our building the day after the night

we were bombed, and I remember the scenes of seeing destroyed homes

and gutted buildings. Of collapsed roofs and of windows smashed in by

the force of the explosions. The explosions that destroyed the homes

together with the families that lived in them were the same that had woken

me up the night before. The were the same explosions that had made the

alarm clock so close to my head on the shelf besides my head over the

night shoot up into the air. Now I saw with my own eyes what they had

done to our neighbours. What I did not see was the true cost - the

remains of the men, women and children sleeping unpretentiously the

night earlier who were blown to pieces, possibly before even knowing

what was going on. I must confess that I did not find the sight of the

remains of the houses too disturbing at the time - I had only seen what

I had, after all, expected to see, and even then I was quite disappointed

when my father did not allow me to enter the homes that had been damaged.

Among the buildings destroyed included a number of homes. Also gutted

was a building used by the French as their embassy and a children's

park full of evergreen and hibiscuses and slides and

merry go rounds where I had played on not a few occasions.

Our own building, by contrast had sustained relatively

mild damage. A few windows on the main corridor's were broken,

scattering glass all over the place. It was, however, a sobering thought

that had the American fighters dropped their bombs a few score of

metres ahead of where they did, they might have destroyed our building

as well as or perhaps even instead of the homes they did. Perhaps the

international outcry and chorus of condemnation in the aftermath of the

Tripoli bombing would have been greater if the reports from Tripoli

had spoken of a building full of Eastern Europeans and Asians had been

destroyed rather than a neighbourhood full of Arabs families. The idea

is not far-fetched. When my mother saw the yellow ball of fire

descending from the skies, she heard a deafening noise only moments

later - she later confessed she thought it was the sound of the building

we were living in collapsing over our heads, floor by floor. Mercifully,

it was not the case, but then again, might not it be considered to be an

accident of fate that the bombs landed on the neighbourhood a few dozen

metres across the main road from us and not on us. Interestingly, for the

next several years while we were living in that apartment complex, my

mother used to repeatedly tell me not to lean on the balconies, as she

reasoned that they could have been weakened by the force of the blasts

and could give way under too much force.

For the next few nights, my nightmare, instead of

fading away, came to life again and again. At dusk we were whisked

away to the hospital complex, where doctor, patients, friends and

family members were made to wait for the night to pass while the

sound of screeching anti-aircraft missiles filled the skies. There were

small red pieces of light which lit up the night sky, sent in the hope of

destroying any fighter jets that happened to be there at the time, or

is that what I now reckon they were ? All I know for sure is that they

filled me with an indescribable terror, not just reflecting my fear of a

repeat of what had happened the night earlier, but, more importantly,

a fear of the unknown that can be expected from only a six year old

who looks up at the sky seeing lights that he knows not what they are,

and feels that he, together with all that he has known could be blown

to pieces, like so many others any moment. I remember screaming and

wailing every one of the nights after the bombing, to the extent that my

sister later said that she and everyone else around me were scared not

because of the bombardment, but because, hysterical and paralysed

with terror as I was, I might faint or require medical intervention

because of my reaction.

I remember on one of those nights having to

go, together with my mother and sister to a basement under one of the

wards, together with sick children from the hospital, and seeing a girl,

a few years older than me with a disfigured face that had been cause by

some skin condition that my father could have been treating. I also saw

one girl crying in the dark, presumably due to the same terror that I too

had experienced. It was not the worst of thing, given all that I had been

through, but I have not forgotten.

The days and weeks after the bombing were,

despite the horrific memories of bombardment, remarkable by their

uneventful nature. I watched without too much emotion the funerals of the

civilians killed - I still remember all of them being draped in green Libyan

flags - one I distinctly remember had a Lebanese flag. I remember the

sight of Western diplomats at the funerals - they did not seem to be

singled out for any more harassment or ill-will, any more than the

staff at the British school where I studied back then. I distinctly remember

the sight of a dead child on TV - not more than three being picked up

by Gaddafi himself, and I remember the anti-American protests on

TV too. I even remember a BBC radio broadcast mentioning one of the

victims - an 18 year old Palestinian girl visiting Libya who had bombshell

fall into her bedroom. Looking back on it, that sort of reporting actually

seems quite remarkable - Western media reports have a tendency to

mention Arab casualties in general as statistics, not as stories. Another

ill effect of the bombardment - I was always unnerved, occasionally

even terrified by the sound of planes in the sky. A child's ear is not

trained to distinguish the drone of civilian or military aircraft - I remember

at least one occasion when I asked my father politely and matter of factly

- ``I can hear a plane in the sky - have the American's come to bomb us

again ? ''.Then again, many children have been through worse - there were

no emotional outbursts, no open anger, no nightmares, and none of the

instantly recognizable symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder. Life just

continued as normal, just as it always had. I remember at school, when we

were once asked to write about war in the context of the brave British

soldiers who lost their lives throughout history, I wrote simply that war

was very bad, war once came to Libya for a few days, I was very scared

and I hope it never came again.

The events of April 1986, did however have at

least one very sinister aftereffect - an absolutely and utterly insane if some-

what understandable sense of hatred towards America. I will never know

how many times I must have cursed America and it's government, and

the then American President Reagan for what had happened.I t seemed

only predictable back then that I did not have too much of an understand-

ing as to why our neighbourhood had been bombed and frankly I did not

bother to understand, either because it was not worth understanding, or

perhaps in my eyes there simply was nothing to understand. The people

who bombed our neighbourhood were simply insane monsters who, at

that time I believed were worthy of all the resentment I had in my heart

for them and more. I once remember seeing a magazine with President

Reagan on the front page, and I was so filled with hate I remember

slowly, bit by bit and painstakingly mutilating his face on the paper. It

was a dreadful thing to do, but then again perhaps it was for the best

that my bitterness manifested itself in a relatively benign way....after all

it was only a piece of paper that was disfigured. Perhaps the action

allowed me to get my feelings off my chest in a well...perhaps therapeutic

way.

My desire to talk about my experience with

bombing is motivated neither by a necessity nor a need to talk about it

to come to terms with what happened...after all sixteen years is a pretty

long time, nor by a desire for sympathy. For a long time, I actually wanted

to put behind the memories of the bombing as if they were no more than a

closed chapter. However, in the wake of the unspeakably tragic events in

the US and Afghanistan, I am obliged by my conscience to dig up an

unpleasant if distant experience in order to make people realize that

behind every headline, unfortunate or otherwise, people's lives are being

affected, and any understanding of news stories without scratching the

surface and seeing what events mean for ordinary people is not only

incomplete, but abysmally so. One thing that struck me every time the

news story of America's bombing of Libya sixteen years ago is

concerned is that the event is whitewashed, with people referring it as being

the ``American attack on Libya '' as if it were nothing more than that.

The people who died, the majority of whom were Libyan civilians, men

women, and children in their sleep whose only crime was to be living in

the wrong part of town are seldom if ever mentioned, and the attack it-

self was widely viewed as being just another measure in the fight against

terror. It is precisely this lack of appreciation for what military actions of

any sort mean for ordinary innocent people in places like Afghanistan,

Yugoslavia, Palestine, Iraq and elsewhere that I find unacceptable and I

feel compelled by my conscience to say - enough - even if we have to

use military force to achieve an objective - just as it may seem, it should

always be seen as the very last and most undesirable option that should

only be used when all else fails, and even when it is used, no expense

should be spared to minimize the harm done to non-combatants. Civilians

who are harmed during the course of a conflict must never be seem as

``collateral damage'' or, even worse as statistics, which may or may not

be mentioned depending on the whims of the journalist. Dehumanize the

innocent victims of conflict and we are dehumanizing all of ourselves. If

the innocent victims of Tripoli are seen as nothing more than statistics,

then there is really no overriding reason why the potential victims of an

impending conflict anywhere in world could be viewed as being `collateral

damage'', who although blameless, are perceived as being unimportant

nevertheless.

If I am to heed the advice of a six year old boy

terrified by the sound of jet fighters in the sky and exploding bombs on

the ground, I feel I must encourage people to view the news not just in

terms of headlines in ink, not just in terms of stories on TV and radio

but also in the context of people whose only crime is to be at the

wrong place at the wrong time, and whose offence is no greater than that

of children huddling in fear in the basements of hospitals.

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