Al-Rahiba and the Escalation Toward Genocide

In the preceding article we followed the Battle of Bir Bilal in the spring of 1923, a victory of the Cyrenaican Senussi Bedouin fighters under the leadership of Umar al-Mukhtar ﵀ against an Italian expeditionary column in the southern Saharan zone. We saw how the outcome of the battle in its consequences gave a confirmation to the guerrilla strategy of the resistance, and how the Italian reaction unfolded in a gradual strategic revision that in its consequences entailed an extensive military and political reorientation. This article follows the gradual escalation of the conflict in the years between 1924 and 1929, and in particular the gradual deployment of the Italian strategy of starvation and collective punishment under General Pietro Badoglio and thereafter under General Rodolfo Graziani, a strategy that in its final form would bring forth what in modern historiography is designated as the Libyan genocide.

The Italian strategic revision

The role of the Italian colonial administration

The Italian colonial conduct in Cyrenaica between 1929 and 1931 unfolded in its entirety under the extensive general direction of a colonial administration that in its composition reflected the Italian Fascist administrative tradition of its time. The principal figures in this administration comprised Pietro Badoglio as governor-general of Libya, Rodolfo Graziani as military commander-in-chief of Cyrenaica, and additional colonial officials who under their direction conducted the local administration in practice. For the general coherence of the Italian colonial conduct, this administration formed in its entirety the administrative bedding upon which the measures of extensive collective punishment could be carried out.

In the administrative practice of the Italian officialdom unfolded the developments in which the general Fascist ideological direction was joined to the extensive local colonial practice in a common framework. For the modern historiography of the Italian colonial conduct in Libya, this administration forms in its entirety the administrative framework to which the extensive legal and moral responsibility for the human catastrophe in its full scope must be assigned.

In the course of 1924 and 1925, the Italian high leadership under Mussolini carried out a strategic revision of the Libyan colonial enterprise, in a decision-making process that in its full outcome replaced the existing approach of gradual military expansion with a broader and harsher approach. The principal elements of the new strategy comprised, first, the expansion of the Italian military apparatus in Libya to approximately thirty thousand men by 1927 and to more than one hundred thousand by the peak of the operations in 1930. Second, the gradual construction of extensive forts and logistical posts in the Jebel Akhdar zone, with the explicit intention of encircling and isolating the resistance in its natural bedding. Third, the gradual introduction of measures of collective punishment against the local Bedouin population, which in its full scope aimed at a fundamental severing of the general logistical support of the resistance.

Under General Pietro Badoglio, who was appointed governor of Libya in 1929, and under General Rodolfo Graziani, who took up the military supreme command over Cyrenaica in 1930, this strategy came to its full execution in the following years. The combination of Badoglio’s administrative direction and Graziani’s military execution formed therein the common framework within which the Italian colonial policy carried out its methods against the Cyrenaican population.

General Rodolfo Graziani

General Rodolfo Graziani, born in 1882 in Filettino in Central Italy, was an Italian colonial officer who in his preceding career in Libya, in Eritrea and in Somalia had acquired an extensive practical experience in colonial military suppression. In his Cyrenaican assignment he carried out a series of gradually harsher methods, in which the ordinary Italian colonial conventions were elaborated in a distinctly Fascist sense. For the Cyrenaican population, his appointment meant in its consequences the beginning of a phase of increasing suffering, in which the existence and the cohesion of the local communities would be damaged in their full scope.

Graziani’s methods comprised in their coherence several fundamental elements that in the coming years would be elaborated in their full form. He carried out executions of the local Bedouin men who stood under suspicion of supporting the resistance, he undertook extensive destructions of the local palm groves and water sources, in a conduct that in its outcome damaged the general economic foundation of the communities, and he gradually carried out the construction of extensive concentration camps in which the ordinary Bedouin population would be brought together in a condition of forced displacement.

The concentration camps

The construction of the concentration camps in Cyrenaica unfolded in its entirety from 1929 onward, in a movement that in its outcome brought the entire local Bedouin population of the Jebel Akhdar zone into a forced displacement into the sand plains of the eastern Saharan zone. The principal camps were established at the places al-Agheila, al-Magrun, Suluq, Sidi Ahmed Magrun and at several other remote locations, and they received in their entirety approximately one hundred thousand Cyrenaican Bedouin under conditions of hunger, thirst, disease and general oppression.

For the ordinary Bedouin families, the deportation to the camps meant a loss that unfolded in many forms. In this movement they were forced to leave their ancestral grazing lands in marches of several hundred kilometres under Italian military escort, and some of them succumbed in these marches to exhaustion and to Italian neglect of provisioning. In the concentration camps themselves, the subsequent privations unfolded, with mass mortality from hunger and diseases, on a scale that, according to modern demographic estimates, cost approximately forty thousand Cyrenaican Bedouin up to the end of the nineteen-thirties. For the general Cyrenaican population, which in 1928 numbered approximately two hundred thousand souls, the outcome of the camps was in its entirety a demographic catastrophe that fundamentally damaged the general cohesion of the Cyrenaican Bedouin people.

The shape of the forced displacement

The forced displacement of the Cyrenaican Bedouin population to the concentration camps definitively damaged in its outcome the general Cyrenaican order of seasonal movements between the extensive Saharan winter grazing lands and the Jebel Akhdar summer grazing lands. The ordinary Bedouin households were forced to leave behind their ancestral grazing lands and their extensive herds, whereby the general economic order of the Cyrenaican Bedouin society was fundamentally damaged in its full scope. The herds, which in the ordinary Cyrenaican Bedouin economy formed the foundation of wealth and communal prosperity, were withdrawn from their ordinary owners in a movement of loss or confiscation.

In its human consequences, the forced displacement moreover brought extensive mortality on the way to the concentration camps. From the testimonies of survivors, insofar as these have been preserved in later records, it appears that the marches through the vast Saharan conditions brought forth human losses in their outcome. Elderly people who could not sustain the extensive exertion of the journey, children who succumbed to exhaustion and dehydration, and wounded from earlier armed resistance who died during the march, formed in their entirety counts that in their full scope confirmed the human catastrophe of the displacement.

Al-Rahiba as a specific instance

A specific event in the gradual escalation, an event that has been preserved with particular attention in the Cyrenaican tradition, was the confrontation that took place at al-Rahiba in 1927 or 1928, from which this article derives its specific title. Al-Rahiba, in its geographical position a place in the Jebel Akhdar zone at a distance of approximately forty kilometres south of al-Bayda, was the scene of a specific confrontation in which an extensive Italian punitive expedition against a Cyrenaican village was carried out, in a conduct that showed the general nature of the Italian colonial oppression in its full scope.

The local population of al-Rahiba was placed under suspicion in 1927 or early 1928 of supporting a Cyrenaican adwar unit that had operated in the neighbouring mountains, and the Italian punitive expedition carried out in its conduct a whole of executions, burning of houses, destructions of the local palm groves and deportation of the survivors to the concentration camps. The event was extensively preserved in the local Bedouin tradition, and in the following years it was repeatedly remembered in Friday sermons in the Cyrenaican Muslim communities, in a commemoration that would keep the general morale of the continuing resistance high.

The effect on the resistance

For the Cyrenaican resistance under Umar al-Mukhtar ﵀, the measures of the Italian colonial oppression in Cyrenaica formed in their coherence a strategic crisis, in which the general continuation of the Cyrenaican resistance had to be placed in a fundamental reorientation. The ordinary bedding upon which the resistance had functioned, namely the extensive communal support of the local Bedouin families in the form of food provision, hiding places and general information exchange, was fundamentally damaged in its entirety by the gradual deportation of the Bedouin population to the concentration camps.

For Umar al-Mukhtar ﵀ personally, this meant that he had to carry out a gradual adjustment of his guerrilla strategy, whereby the fighters were placed in an increasing dependence on the Saharan zone and whereby the general operations had to be continued as a struggle of attrition. In these years he conducted extensive discussions with his closest associates on the coming forms of the Cyrenaican resistance, and with spiritual steadfastness he maintained the general morale of the resistance in a remarkable manner.

The Egyptian border line

A specific strategic element that gradually became of central importance in the course of 1929 was the construction, by the Italian authorities, of an extensive border line along the Cyrenaican-Egyptian frontier, which in its design was to fundamentally restrict the freedom of movement of the Cyrenaican fighters between Cyrenaica and the friendly Egyptian territory. The border line, approximately two hundred kilometres long and equipped with an extensive quantity of barbed wire, with fortified posts at fixed intervals, with patrols of Italian troops and with a system of general control, formed in its outcome a fundamental restriction of the general Cyrenaican freedom of movement.

For the Cyrenaican resistance, this border line was in its consequences a strategic challenge, for it fundamentally cut off in its entirety the extensive support of the Cyrenaican refugees in Egypt for the armed fighters in Cyrenaica. Umar al-Mukhtar ﵀ undertook several operations against this border line in 1930 in an attempt to undermine it, but the Italian fortifications were in their outcome sufficient to keep the general result of these attempts limited.

The general shape of the genocide

In modern historiography, the general outcome of the Italian colonial oppression in Cyrenaica in the years between 1929 and 1931 is increasingly designated as genocide, in an assessment that in its entirety places the mass mortality in the concentration camps, the extensive destructions of the local economic foundations and the general Italian political and military oppression in a common framework. The general demographic outcome, with, according to modern estimates, approximately one third to one half of the Cyrenaican Bedouin population succumbing in these years, was in its scale a confirmation of this classification.

For the Italian state after the Second World War, and in particular after the reckoning with the Italian colonial legacy in the second half of the twentieth century, the Libyan colonial history in its full scope formed a sensitive historical subject, which was only acknowledged publicly in the twenty-first century. The Italian state offered a formal apology to Libya in 2008, in a joint declaration of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and the then Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi, by which the Italian colonial history was placed in a historical reflection.

The scale of the concentration camps

The scale of the Italian concentration camps in Cyrenaica demonstrated in its entirety the Italian colonial oppression in its final form. The principal camps comprised in their separate counts numbers that show the human scale of the deportations in a common picture. Al-Agheila received approximately twenty thousand deported Bedouin, al-Magrun received approximately fifteen thousand deported Bedouin, Suluq received approximately twenty thousand deported Bedouin, Sidi Ahmed Magrun received approximately thirty thousand deported Bedouin, and additional camps received additional counts that in their outcome confirmed the general scale of the Italian colonial conduct in Cyrenaica.

The general living conditions in the concentration camps unfolded in their entirety as conditions of extensive human privation. The deported Bedouin were housed in the camps in tents and ordinary huts, which offered no protection against the vast Saharan weather conditions of heat in the summer and cold in the winter. The food rations were in their composition insufficient for the ordinary human need, with supplies that were poor in protein and that in their outcome brought forth malnutrition among the detainees.

The medical condition

The general medical condition in the concentration camps formed in its course a tragic whole, in which the extensive infectious diseases caused extensive mortality. Cholera epidemics unfolded in the camps in the summers of 1930 and 1931, with a mortality that in its outcome led to thousands of Bedouin succumbing. Tuberculosis epidemics unfolded among the extensive deported population, with longer-lasting consequences that would resonate in the survivors of the camps. Measles outbreaks unfolded among the child population of the camps, with an extensive child mortality that damaged the general demographic condition of the Cyrenaican Bedouin population.

The general Italian medical provision in the concentration camps remained limited, with insufficient medical facilities, with insufficient medicines, and with insufficient medical personnel. For the general Italian colonial authorities, the extensive mortality in the camps formed no cause for concern, and the outcome of the mortality was received in its entirety as a generally acceptable consequence of the colonial pacification.

The turning point

The general outcome of the Italian colonial conduct in Cyrenaica between 1929 and 1931 formed in its entirety a tragedy that damaged the Cyrenaican Bedouin society as a whole. The principal demographic outcomes comprised an extensive reduction of the general Cyrenaican Bedouin population from approximately two hundred thousand souls in 1928 to approximately one hundred and twenty thousand by 1933, a decrease that in its scale is designated as genocide in modern demographic analysis. For the Italian colonial authorities, this outcome meant the final pacification of the Cyrenaican resistance, and therewith the conclusion of the extensive reconquest of the “Fourth Shore” for the Italian colonial enterprise.

The international indifference

One aspect of the Italian colonial conduct in Cyrenaica that confronts the general modern historiography with a moral challenge was the international indifference with which the extensive human outcomes were received in the world of its time. The general League of Nations, as the extensive international organization that had been established in 1920 for international exchange, devoted no formal attention to the Italian colonial conduct in Libya, nor did it undertake investigative missions into the human outcomes of that conduct. The general international press devoted some limited attention to the human consequences of the Italian colonial oppression, but the general reception of the Cyrenaican events unfolded in its entirety under indifference.

For modern historiography and for modern moral reflection, this international indifference forms in its outcome a moral challenge whose outcome still resonates in the modern post-colonial reflection.

Toward the end of the struggle

In this article we have followed the gradual escalation of the Italian colonial policy in Cyrenaica in the years between 1924 and 1929, with the extensive strategic revision under Mussolini, with the appointment of General Rodolfo Graziani as military commander-in-chief of Cyrenaica, with the construction of the concentration camps that caused mortality among the Cyrenaican Bedouin population, with the event of al-Rahiba as a specific example of Italian punitive methods, and with the construction of the Egyptian border line in 1929, which fundamentally restricted the general freedom of movement of the Cyrenaican resistance. We also saw how the general outcome of the Italian colonial oppression is increasingly designated as genocide in modern historiography. To the end of the struggle in 1931, and to the capture of Umar al-Mukhtar ﵀ in September of that same year in an ambush in the Slonta area, the next article will devote its attention.

Sources

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• Ali Abdullatif Ahmida, Genocide in Libya: Shar, a Hidden Colonial History, Routledge (2020), pp. 1–112.
• Ali Abdullatif Ahmida, The Making of Modern Libya, State University of New York Press (2009), pp. 294–334.
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• Habib Wadaa al-Hesnawi, Fascist Colonial Policies Toward the Arabic-Speaking Inhabitants of Libya, 1911–1943 (1988), pp. 168–256.