Some 600 people attended Libya’s first Tebu conference in . . .[restrict]Tripoli on Thursday, 1 March. Those at the event included representatives from the NTC as well as various Tebu organisations. Although most of the delegates were Tebus, there were also representatives from Amazigh and Tuareg groups.
The even was organised by three Libyan Tebu societies: The Libyan Society for Tebu Culture, the South Fezzan Center for Humanitarian Development and the Qatrun Centre for Human Rights.
According to Barka Ahmed, a 22-year old student who has lived in Tripoli all his life but whose family comes from the village of Tegerhi between Qatrun and the Niger border, one of the aims of the conference was to create a united civil society to represent Tebus in Libya.
The conference took place against the background of clashes last month between Tebus and the Zway tribe in the south-eastern town of Kufra. The clashes started on 11 February as a result of a killing involving smugglers from the two sides. According to a UN group that visited the town last week the latest ceasefire is holding but the situation in the town is tense. It is reported that at least 130 people died in the fighting.
There has been a long history of rivalry between the two communities in the area, mainly over smuggling but it has recently been exacerbated by growing resentment among Kufra’s Zway community over the power exercised by the local Tebu leader Isa Abdul Majid. The Kufra conflict has been presented in some quarters as an attempt by the Tebu to try and crate a separate state in the south and has this has generated a degree of ill-will and suspicion towards them.
The 2,000-strong Tebu community in the town constitute a small minority compared to the majority Zway, whose numbers are estimated at around 50,000.
It is thought that there are around 15,000 Tebu in Libya. They are also found across the border in northern Chad and in north-eastern Niger. There are some in southern Algeria The Zaghawa people in Sudan’s Darfur province and Chad are related.
Because of events in Kufra, the conference was crawling with local press. The Tebu delegates were clearly pleased about it. “Thank you for coming,” said one elderly Tebu delegate who rushed up to shake journalists’ hands. He felt that his people had been ignored and oppressed for too long.
Also as a result of the Kufra fighting, there was a strong emphasis on national unity among the delegates. On the podium, speakers from the three organisation constantly emphasised of the importance of Tebus playing an active role in the new Libya and their commitment to the country’s unity.
The Tebu were long oppressed by Qaddafi despite his pro-Africa policy. As a result there was a Tebu uprising in the south in November 2008. This led to Qaddafi stripping most of Tebus of their Libyan citizenship in 2009. There were then forced evictions and the demolition of Tebu homes. Consequently, the Tebu joined last year’s revolution from the very beginning. In February, forces led by Isa Abdul Majid briefly liberated Murzuq and Qatrun before being repulsed by Qaddafi forces.
As a result of the stand against Qaddafi, Abdul Majid was later tasked by the NTC with securing the border with Chad and Sudan. However, it is claimed that he used the position to reinforce his power and wealth through smuggling and bringing in more forces from Chad and Darfur.
On Thursday, delegates were keen to stress that the conference was not a response to the Kufra fighting. “It began to be organised 10 months ago in Benghazi”, said Mohamed Salah, vice president of the Libyan Society for Tebu Culture.
“We wanted to show the rest of Libya and the world what the Libyan Tebu had done in the south of Libya in support in the revolution,” said Salah, a petrochemical engineer from Qatrun.
“We need to show that we are united and want to protect Libya’s borders from snuggling of immigrants and drugs,” he said, adding that “we need support from NTC, and from the government to prevent immigration to Europe”.
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