Exposing The Brutal Truths Of Gaddafi's 'Viagra Totalitarianism'

A French war correspondentrsquos new book recounts the horrors of the Libyan dictatorrsquos rape and torture of women which was a way to subjugate the population On an April day in 2004 15yearold Sorayarsquos life turned into a living hell The Libyan girl remembers thinking that morning that it was going to be a special day ldquoOur leader is doing us the great honour of paying us a visit tomorrowrdquo the principal at her high school in Sirte had said the day before telling everybody to take extra care with their appearance so that they made a good impression Libyan dictator Muammar alGaddafi raped and tortured women to subjugate the population at largeu00a0 Pretty Soraya had been selected to present Muammar alGaddafi a bouquet of flowers When she gave him the flowers the lsquorevolutionary leaderrsquo laid his hand on the girl39s head and stroked her hair Filled with excitement about the visit after school Soraya ran to her mother39s hairdressing salon to tell her all about it What she didnrsquot know was that her life had changed forever the minute Gaddafi had put his hand on her head To those in the know the gesture was a sign that meant I want her The next day at school Soraya noticed that the teachers who were usually quite strict were suddenly very nice to her They asked her strange questions wondering if she was still going to come to class That afternoon when she had once again gone to her motherrsquos salon the door opened suddenly and three of Gaddafirsquos uniformed female bodyguards walked in One of them was Mabruka the most notorious of the female thugs that the press always liked to call with a wink as the lsquoAmazonsrsquo glossing over their brutality The guards said they needed Soraya to come and present another bouquet to Gaddafi and over her motherrsquos protestations they took the girl away She was driven out of the city and into the desert to the dictatorrsquos tent He ordered for her to be ldquopreparedrdquo Soraya was measured weighed washed and shaved A Ukrainian nurse took a blood sample The girl was then made up and clothed in a dress with a deep deacutecolleteacute over a tanga Useless to resist Then she was led back to Gaddafirsquos tent He was sitting naked on his bed Shocked and confused the girl refused to get into bed and the dictator although angry let her go But he shouted at Mabruka ldquoThis whore isnrsquot doing what I want make her understand and bring her backrdquo Mabruka explained to Soraya that it would be a while before she could leave the dictatorrsquos camp that resisting was useless and that Gaddafi would ldquoopenrdquo her But she still resisted when she was brought back to Gaddafi a second time after which she was taken to the Katiba alSaadi barracks in Sirte The next time she was brought to Gaddafi he raped her brutally Over the next few days he whipped the girl raped her again and again even urinated on her After a week Soraya was taken to Tripoli to Gaddafi39s headquarters at Bab alAzizia There she was given a dark damp room in the cellar Soraya wasnrsquot the only girl the dictator was holding there When he felt he had one or the other of them and sometimes several at once in his chambers Afterwards they were sent back down to the cellar Soraya was to spend seven years here as one of many of the dictatorrsquos slaves mdash at the whim of this mostly cocainefueled sex addict and his vicious band of female guards French journalist Annick Cojean recorded Sorayarsquos story as part of her thorough research into Gaddafi39s bizarre ldquosex dictatorshiprdquo After reading her book one gets the impression that Gaddafirsquos Libya was a grotesque and horrendous case of Viagra totalitarianism Gaddafi who in the third chapter of his Green Book sounds off moralistically about the liberation of women and their equal rights used sex systematically as a form of terrorism against his own people He regularly had young girls across the country abducted A usual means of further subjugating subordinates was to help himself to their wives and daughters The extent of the humiliation was such that few even dared talk about it much less rebel Personal stake When Cojean recounts these horrors at first itrsquos impossible to imagine this delicate cheerful woman sitting comfortably before us in the Cafeacute de Flore in St Germain deep inside the chaos of postrevolutionary Libya But this is a star reporter for Le Monde winner of the AlbertLondres Prize Francersquos top journalism award and Cojean had decided to go to Libya in October 2011 to research a story on the role of women during the Libyan revolution Cojean had noticed that unlike Tunisia and Egypt where pictures show many women in the front ranks of protesters this was hardly ever the case in Libya She soon found out why In a country where rape was a routine means of oppression women were forced into greater public reserve But that also meant that they had a particularly strong stake in seeing the revolt through to a successful outcome which they did as behindthescenes organisers and motivators ldquoWomen were the Libyan revolutionrsquos lsquosecret weaponrsquordquo Cojean says ldquoThey had personal agendas against Gaddafirdquo That rape was routine in Libya and that the Libyan leader was the biggest perpetrator of all was an open secret Yet even after the fall of Gaddafi most Libyan women were reluctant to talk about it The sense of shame and the fear of contempt and retaliation were too great As she compiled information Cojean spoke with many doctors and representatives of human rights organisations but in Tripoli she couldnrsquot find a single woman willing to speak about her experience She was just about to leave for Paris mdash mulling over writing a story about how it was impossible to write a story about rape in Libya mdash when a doctor told her that a woman living in the same hotel as him had been reportedly raped by Gaddafi The woman was Soraya Welling out Cojean and her interpreter met the girl now 22 in her hotel room ldquoShe was traumatised Gaddafi destroyed her and her family had cast her outrdquo Cojean recalls Soraya spoke so freely Cojean wondered at one point if what she was saying was true ldquoI believed her she seemed to be telling the truth all she had experienced just welled out of her mdash but I had to follow up and make surerdquo she says She wrote the story for Le Monde and then went back to Libya for five months and listened to Soraya relate the events over and over again following up all possible points she could doublecheck Thus began her own descent into the abyss of Gaddafirsquos sex dictatorship whose victims were as unwilling to talk about it as were its perpetrators This research and additional interviews fills the second half of Cojeanrsquos book It adds up to an impressive journalistic achievement not least because it makes clear that Gaddafirsquos regime of horror was playing out right under the noses of a Western public amused and fascinated by manifestations such as the ldquoAmazonsrdquo without going beyond the farce of the telegenic faccedilade to the underbelly of violence and misogyny Cojeanrsquos book has also been translated into Arabic and is now available in Libya which Cojean says especially pleases her ldquoIt would make me happy if the book contributes even just a little to help advance the cause of women in Libyardquo she says Annick Cojean and Marjolijn de Jager Gaddafi39s Harem The Story of a Young Woman and the Abuses of Power in Libya is due out in English in September