Uneasy questions for Libya's rebels

DEAD Gaddafi soldiers are a touchy subject for the rebels fighting to overthrow the Libyan dictator, as they seek to present themselves as being against the man himself, not those who, as they see it, are forced to fight for him.

So when this week we found five uniformed corpses floating and bloated in a water tank, it smacked of a hurried attempt to cover up an extrajudicial killing, not the result of combat.

Who the men are and what happened to them, just miles from the rebel front line town of al-Qawalish in the Western Mountains remains a mystery.

The green uniforms were the same as those worn by men fighting for Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi in Libya's civil war. No-one from the rebel side claimed the corpses, or declared their loved ones missing. There was no funeral, or call to the media to see the "atrocities committed by the regime".

The military council for the Western Mountains vehemently denied the men were loyalist captives killed and dumped by rebel soldiers.

"The day of our first assault on al-Qawalish we found the bodies there, and they were already in bad shape," said Colonel Osama Ojweli, military co-ordinator for the region. "This is not unusual in Gaddafi's army. In other battles we have found men, their hands tied behind their backs with dusty wire and executed - shot in the head by the regime."

It is possible that the killings were committed by the regime. Both a defected colonel now fighting with the rebels, and loyalist captives in a rebel hospital in the mountain town of Yefren both told me desertion was punishable by death in the regime forces.

"I heard officers planning to kill to soldiers who they thought might defect," said an elderly prisoner.

"If they think you might leave, they will shoot you," said the colonel, who managed to escape to the rebel side last month.

But why then did the rebel military council in the Western Mountains embark on what some said was a cover-up operation? When we later returned to the site, we found a bulldozed patch of land that left no trace of the water tank or the men in it. Some drivers refused to take journalists the site and said they were following military orders.

The rebel army is aware of the importance of image in its campaign to remove Gaddafi. "The main goal and purpose for our fight is to build a civil society, and any such mishap will impact negatively on our whole war," said Col Ojweli.

In Benghazi, Misrata and in the Western Mountains rebel prison guards have made a public show of treating captives well. It is vital that the rebels do not behave at odds with the Nato mandate to protect civilians and infrastructure, or with the ultimate pledged goal of a free society.

Yet a report by Human Rights Watch last week found that rebel fighters and supporters had burned homes, looted hospitals and shops, and beaten some individuals alleged to have supported government forces in four of the mountain hamlets they have been systematically capturing on their route to Tripoli.

Indeed, The Scotsman recently found homes in the mountain village of al-Awaniya ransacked, and shops and schools smashed and looted. The town, now empty, was inhabited by the Mashaashia tribe; a group traditionally loyal to the regime that have long-running land disputes with surrounding towns. Was the looting an act of revenge?

Such questions are dangerous for a rebel group that still plans to end the war by conquering cities one by one until they reach the capital. If reprisals and tribal rivalries are put in play, the capture of the traditionally loyalist town of Sabha, and of the Gaddafi garrison town of Gharyan could be ugly affairs.

Wary of scaring off their international allies, rebel leaders are keen to curb these concerns. The Libyan Transitional National Council flew officials to the Western Mountains this week to investigate the claims.