![\"Freedom](\"http:\/\/www.matthewvandyke.com\/images\/freedom-fighter-matthew-vandyke-rebel-sirte-libyan-war.jpg\" "\\"Freedom")
Freedom Fighter Matthew VanDyke in the Libyan Civil War<\/p><\/div>\n
If I die, please tell your friends about me.<\/em>\u00a0 On February 25, 2011 when my friend Muiz made this request, the revolution against Gaddafi had been going on for a week.\u00a0 On the streets fighting\u2026fighting with hands\u2026but we have no guns\u2026people dying for Libya<\/em>.\u00a0 His brother in law had already been killed, and Muiz was resolved to die as well.\u00a0 You have to know something, we Libyans aren\u2019t scared to die anymore.\u00a0 I love Libya and I don\u2019t want anything to happen to it.\u00a0 I will die for it.<\/em><\/p>\n I never imagined having such a conversation with a friend on the internet.\u00a0 The last time I saw Muiz in Tripoli he was happy, smiling, \u00a0and carefree, a computer engineer and fellow motorcycle enthusiast with his whole life ahead of him.\u00a0 Now his city was under siege by the mad man Gaddafi, one of the worst dictators of our time, and Muiz\u2019s world was being destroyed.<\/p>\n Muiz was part of a group of a dozen Libyan bikers who had become good friends of mine during my time in Tripoli in 2008.\u00a0 Hitem was their leader, a heavy-set, jovial biker with a heart of gold and smile always on his face.\u00a0 He was a master mechanic, and lived and breathed motorcycles.\u00a0 I asked Muiz if he had talked to Hitem.\u00a0 He said he tried to call him but there was no answer.<\/p>\n I had been introduced to the bikers by Tarik, who had gotten me into the country at a time when Americans were not being issued tourist visas to Libya.\u00a0 He had bribed an official to get me a business visa that said I worked for a company I had never heard of, for what was supposed to be a one week \u201ctour\u201d of the country.\u00a0 Tarik let me stay in his office instead of a hotel, and I remained in Libya for six weeks before he was brought in for questioning by the regime and told by an official that he had to get me out of the country within 48 hours.\u00a0 We drove over 1,000 kilometers from Tripoli to Tobruk in one day to make sure I got out in time.\u00a0 We did, and Tarik had no problems from the regime.<\/p>\n He had problems now, like everyone else in Libya.\u00a0 My lawyer cousin was shot in the leg yesterday while protesting.\u00a0 And Abdou, the bald guy who\u2019s always with us, his\u00a0 cousin was shot with an anti-aircraft gun where Hitem lives. Two pieces when buried.\u00a0 I was out and saw three gunned down right in front of me by snipers.<\/em><\/p>\n Tarik had made his decision.\u00a0 I\u2019m going to see if I can buy an AK-47 tomorrow morning from a guy in the army.\u00a0 This is a duty.\u00a0 What has to be done shall be done.<\/em><\/p>\n The words of my friends haunted me.\u00a0 I watched the news as the revolution began to unfold.\u00a0 The international community appeared to be doing nothing.\u00a0 There was no appetite for military intervention.\u00a0 Gaddafi had the weapons, the ammunition, the tanks, most of the army, and his air force.\u00a0 The rebels had some pickup trucks with machine guns mounted in the back and Kalashnikov rifles.\u00a0 It was a dire situation, and the world seemed to not care.<\/p>\n Muiz asked me why nobody is helping them.<\/p>\n That was it.\u00a0 I told him I would be there.\u00a0 I called my mother and told her I was flying to Libya to help my friends.\u00a0 She understood and was supportive.\u00a0 I then called my girlfriend at work and told her that she should come home soon because I was leaving for Libya that evening.\u00a0 She was naturally not as understanding or supportive.<\/p>\n I wasn\u2019t going to sit by and watch as Gaddafi killed my friends and their families.\u00a0 Tarik was right, it was a duty, and what had to be done would be done.\u00a0 I would go and stand by my friends, fight with them for victory and freedom, or die with them trying.<\/p>\n I had spent years living and working in the region, filming a motorcycle adventure documentary in eight Arab countries, and had witnessed and occasionally experienced firsthand what life was like under authoritarian regimes<\/a>.\u00a0 The Arab Spring was a pure revolutionary movement, one that was long overdue, and one that was noble, just, and necessary.\u00a0 There would be only one opportunity to overthrow the regimes, because each would learn from the mistakes of the other, and each would arrest the troublemakers and spread the fingers of their security apparatus so deep into society that they\u2019d have children informing on their own parents by the time it was over.\u00a0 There was only one chance to get it right, all or nothing, before the regime could get back on its feet.<\/p>\n My ideological belief in freedom and democracy<\/a>, formed by years in the region, combined with my strong friendships in Libya compelled me to take up arms as a freedom fighter.\u00a0 I would not have gone if it weren\u2019t for my friends.\u00a0 I would also not have gone if the war was taking place along mere ethnic, religious, or sectarian lines.\u00a0 I would have had no role in such a fight, even to help my friends.\u00a0 But when my friends were fighting for freedom I could not abandon them.<\/p>\n So I went.\u00a0 My plan was to go to Benghazi, join the revolution in whatever capacity I could (as a fighter or civilian volunteer, if they refused my participation as a fighter), check on my friends in Tripoli when the war was over, and come home.\u00a0 When I got to Benghazi I called my Libyan friend Nouri Fonas, whom I had met in Mauritania in 2007.\u00a0 Nouri, who was a hippie the last time I had seen him in 2008, had become a warrior.\u00a0 When I saw him now in his military uniform and flak jacket, a man who had travelled the world for ten years in the name of \u201cpeace and love\u201d but who now talked of it being \u201cthe time for war,\u201d I knew that yes, it was the time for war, and that I could join the ranks of the Libyan rebels.<\/p>\n Starting that first day I was working for the revolution, helping to repair the pickup truck we would be using, moving weapons and ammunition, and planning for the war.\u00a0 I called Americans I knew with military experience to ask for advice on weapons.\u00a0 We worked tirelessly to get ready for our departure to the front lines, as Gaddafi\u2019s forces swallowed one town after another on their way towards Benghazi.<\/p>\n On March 12 I went to Brega on a reconnaissance mission with three other men while Nouri continued his work at an army base in Benghazi.\u00a0 On March 13 we were captured in an ambush.\u00a0 Knocked unconscious during the ambush, I have no memory of what happened.\u00a0 I woke up in a prison cell to the sounds of a man being tortured in the room above me.<\/p>\n I was kept in solitary confinement for 165 days, undergoing severe psychological torture<\/a>.\u00a0 The Gaddafi regime denied having me for over\u00a04 1\/2\u00a0months.\u00a0 The world thought I was dead.\u00a0 Finally they\u00a0admitted I was in\u00a0custody but refused to say where I was.\u00a0 I was in Libya\u2019s most notorious prison, Abu Salim.<\/p>\n On August 24 escaping prisoners broke the lock off my cell and we ran for our lives from Abu Salim Prison.\u00a0 I waited in Tripoli for Nouri to arrive from Benghazi, and checked on my Tripoli friends I had come to fight for.\u00a0 Muiz, Hitem, Tarik and the others had all survived.\u00a0 Nouri and I returned to the war.<\/p>\n Some people in America questioned my decision to return to the front lines.\u00a0 I had just spent five and a half months undergoing psychological torture in solitary confinement in one of the world\u2019s worst prisons, and they thought I should come home.\u00a0 So did my girlfriend.<\/p>\n My mother didn\u2019t pressure me to come home.\u00a0 She knew what I would do after prison.\u00a0 She was the one who raised me to keep my commitments.\u00a0 I had made a commitment to the revolution when I went to Libya, a commitment to my friends and to the men I was captured with that I would not leave Libya until Libya was free, and I was going to honor that commitment.\u00a0 She also knew that I wouldn\u2019t leave behind the men I was captured with.<\/p>\n Nothing had changed just because I went through a horrible experience in prison.\u00a0 I was still alive, still physically able to continue service, and I had an obligation to return to duty.\u00a0 If anything I owed more because I had not been able to contribute during the time I was in prison.<\/p>\n My reasons for fighting in the war had changed, however.\u00a0 My friends in Tripoli were now safe.\u00a0 But there was no way I would leave Libya while the three men I was captured with, Ali, Mohammed, and Sharif, might still be alive in prison somewhere in Libya.\u00a0 Furthermore, as a POW I wouldn\u2019t leave the country if there were any POWs still being held in Libyan prisons.\u00a0 When all cities in Libya were free, then I would go home.<\/p>\n Nouri and I returned to the front lines together.\u00a0 We joined the Ali Hassan al-Jaber Brigade of the National Liberation Army of Libya.\u00a0 I was issued a Libyan military ID and we were assigned a jeep, which we outfitted with a Dushka heavy machinegun.\u00a0 Nouri was the driver, and I was the machine gunner.\u00a0 We had 40 engagements with the enemy, mostly at the Battle of Sirte, and were nearly killed a few times.\u00a0 We served honorably and helped defeat Gaddafi\u2019s forces in Sirte.\u00a0 On October 20 Gaddafi tried to escape Sirte, and was captured and executed.<\/p>\n With the war over, Gaddafi dead, and all POWs free, I said goodbye to my friends in Tripoli and Benghazi, boarded a plane, and came home.\u00a0 The men I had been captured with in Brega were never found, and the information we have suggests that they were executed by the regime with many other prisoners shortly before Tripoli fell in August.<\/p>\n I have no regrets about fighting in the Libyan Civil War. \u00a0I would do it again without hesitation, and if Libya ever faces the threat of authoritarianism again, I\u2019ll be there helping to overthrow that regime as well.<\/p>\n My experiences in the war and in prison changed me forever.\u00a0 Serving with brave and honorable men on the battlefield, suffering in solitary confinement, hearing the cries of those tortured by the regime echo through the prison walls, and seeing people\u2019s faces as they celebrated freedom for the first time radically transformed me.\u00a0 I am now defined by an unyielding opposition to authoritarianism, and will do whatever I can to remove this blemish from the pages of human history.<\/p>\n A wave of democratization is sweeping across the world.\u00a0 Authoritarian regimes will fall like dominoes, and I will do whatever I can to help kick those dominoes over, including participating again as an armed combatant<\/a>.\u00a0 This begins with the Arab Spring, but it ends with the Iranian<\/a>, African, and Asian Springs.<\/p>\n The 21st century is the century of freedom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Why I Fought in the Libyan Civil War (The Libyan Revolution) (also available in French here) If I die, please tell your friends about me.\u00a0 On February 25, 2011 when my friend Muiz made this request, the revolution against Gaddafi … Continue reading