'Qaddafi gave us no choice.

• Author: Kamat, Anjali
• Position: LIBYA - Muammar Qaddafi

EARLY THIS FEBRUARY, an underground group of Libyan activists and intellectuals across the country--some of whom knew each other only by the pseudonyms they used in online forums--announced a call for a nationwide protest on February 17. Inspired by the changes sweeping across neighboring Tunisia and Egypt, their demands focused on ending four decades of political repression and unrepresentative rule. Soon after the call, many well-known dissidents were arrested in an apparent attempt to suppress a possible uprising. "The crackdown on our revolution began even before we started coming out onto the streets," recalled Ghaidaa al-Tawati, one of a small number of politically active Libyan women bloggers. Based on her posts on Facebook, the outspoken thirty-three-year-old flora Tripoli was charged with incitement against Colonel Muammar Qaddafi and taken to Abu Salim prison, notorious for the 1996 mass execution of more than 1,200 political prisoners.

Another man who was arrested in this period was Fathy Terbil, a well-known Benghazi-based lawyer working for years with the families of the Abu Salim victims. Spontaneous demonstrations broke out immediately after his arrest, and he was quickly released early the next morning. But it was too late; the spark had been lit. After a week of protests and bloody clashes, Benghazi and cities further east suddenly found themselves free of Qaddafi's iron grip. When I met Fathy in a dusty back room of the Benghazi courthouse a few days later, he had just been elected to the newly formed city council. Unassuming in his worn-down leather jacket and kuffiyeh, and still in a bit of shock over the speed of the unfolding events, Fathy laughed and acknowledged that his arrest had backfired on the regime. At the time, in late February, foreign intervention was nowhere in the cards. "The West and the so-called international community, they always wait to see who will emerge the winner before declaring their alliances," he said when I asked him about the response of the United States and Europe. "They have never supported democracy or freedom, just the strongest party. I hope the international community reassesses its political strategies and supports people and not regimes. But I doubt that will happen," he added.

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Like its counterparts in Tunisia and Egypt, the Libyan uprising began as a largely peaceful and leaderless popular struggle, with the aim of toppling a dictator and establishing a...