Saya teringat pengalaman saya sebagai koresponden "Tempo" meliput kenaikan
Khomeyni di Teheran dulu.
Saya berada di Teheran bersama Nasir Tamara yang ketika itu dikirim "Sinar
Harapan" dan lebih dahulu dari saya sampai di Teheran, bersama Khomeyni dari
Perancis.
Situasi di Teheran ketika saya berada disana tidak seseram seperti yang
diceritakan wartawan ini, tapi saya masih ingat ketika saya liwat pakai taksi
didepan mesjid di kompleks Unversitas dan tiba-tiba ada berondongan senapang
mesin dari berbagai arah.
Sopir taksi segera meloncat keluar dan tiarap disamping mobilnya...
Selama beberapa menit saya terpaku tidak bergerak. Baru kemudian saya juga
tiarap, tapi didalam mobil hingga baku tembak berakhir.
Bagusnya pihak yang baku tembak ketika itu, yaitu Mujahiddin dan pendukung
Syah, tidak menembaki mobil dijalanan.
--
A wake-up call in Libya's Ras Lanuf
By Ben Wedeman, CNN
March 8, 2011 -- Updated 0049 GMT (0849 HKT)
A rebel runs for cover during a government airstrike in the area of Ras Lanuf,
Libya, on Monday.
A rebel runs for cover during a government airstrike in the area of Ras Lanuf,
Libya, on Monday.
Editor's note: CNN's Ben Wedeman filed this first-person account of the scene
in rebel-controlled Ras Lanuf, Libya, as Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's forces
prepared to launch an aerial strike against the town Monday.
Ras Lanuf, Libya (CNN) -- "Down! Down!" the man at my hotel room door said. It
was 4:30 a.m. Monday in Ras Lanuf, and I had hoped to get a decent night's
sleep for the first time in weeks. Yet again, my hopes were dashed.
Through the haze of sleep deprivation and exhaustion, I could say nothing. I
understood nothing.
The staff of the Fadeel Hotel was going from room to room, telling guests --
journalists only -- that they had to leave, at once.
I quickly dressed, packed my bag, and went downstairs.
It was still pitch black outside, and the lobby was teeming with still
photographers, cameramen, translators, fixers, producers and print and TV
reporters, all trying to understand why the urgent need to leave.
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There were plenty of rumors, and no facts.
"Poison gas! Poison gas! Gadhafi is using poison gas!" one of the fighters told
me.
"The army is coming here, they'll be here soon," said another.
"You must go now," the hotel manager told me. "It's not safe in Ras Lanuf."
The television in the lobby was tuned to the Arabic satellite news channel
Al-Arabiya, which was flashing that Libyan government forces had taken up
defensive positions around Ras Lanuf, which had been taken over by anti-Qaddafi
rebels two days before.
The rebels had advanced beyond Ras Lanuf, by about 30 kilometers, to the town
of Bin Jawad, but were pushed out within hours. Their advance westward, begun
in the refinery town of Al-Brega, had come to a screeching halt.
And now it was beginning to look as if the tide was turning.
As we waited in the lobby, I had visions of the Libyan army pulling up outside
the hotel, rounding us all up and taking us back to Tripoli, hands bound and
blindfolded, to be put on trial. Libyan state television had announced that all
journalists who had entered the country from Egypt without visas would be
considered outlaws and, worse, collaborators with al Qaeda. As the first
Western television journalist to enter Libya from Egypt during the current
crisis, I had reliable information I was high on Tripoli's wanted list.
I watched as the Ras Lanuf press corps bundled into cars, or onto the back of
pickup trucks, and drove away in the dark. We decided to wait until first light
before moving.
In the meantime, the hotel staff was removing the big flat-screen TV in the
lobby, and desktop computers and printers from behind the reception desk and
back offices.
After the other journalists had left, the cleaning staff -- migrant workers
from Bangladesh -- cleared away dozens of paper coffee cups, mopped the floor
and emptied ashtrays overflowing with the butts of dozens of jumpy journalists.
When it became light, instead of going east -- away from the supposedly
advancing Libyan army -- we and a crew from the BBC went west, toward Bin
Jawad, to see if there was any truth to the claims Gadhafi's men were on the
move.
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We drove slowly, stopping regularly to survey the terrain, to ask any fighters
along the way about what they had seen and what they knew about the front lines.
The few we met assured us the government forces were still on the outskirts of
Bin Jawad and weren't moving forward. It was disconcerting, however, that as we
continued to drive, there was almost no one to speak with. The usual gatherings
of boisterous, friendly rebel fighters gathered around cars, pickup trucks and
Chinese- and Soviet-made anti-aircraft guns were nowhere to be seen. The road
was almost empty.
We stopped one last time about five kilometers east of Bin Jawad. Three
kilometers away we could see something blocking the road. The BBC crew, who had
a bigger and better camera, went a bit further to get a better look, but after
about five minutes came racing back, lights flashing.
Meanwhile, we heard a jet overhead. We'd had two close misses with bombs a few
days before, so we jumped to the side of the road, ready to lie flat in the
sand in case they bombed again.
In the distance we heard the loud, hollow pop of anti-aircraft fire. The plane
flew in a wide arch twice above us, but dropped no bombs. When it flew on, we
regrouped with the BBC crew, who recounted that while videotaping down the
road, a shot had been fired over their heads. The cameraman said he saw in his
viewfinder vehicles pointing east toward Ras Lanuf, and men who were all
wearing identical uniforms. That didn't sound like the motley opposition
forces. And if they had been opposition forces, they would have opened fire
with everything they had on the jet above. But they didn't.
In other words, those dots down the road were probably soldiers from the Libyan
Army.
Driving back toward Ras Lanuf, we saw a huge plume of black smoke and brown
dust a few kilometers up ahead. Libyan Air Force jets were attempting to bomb
rebel targets again. It was just one of many such air strikes in the area
Monday.
Along the main Benghazi-Tripoli road that skirts Ras Lanuf, we found groups of
opposition fighters chanting and joking about Gadhafi "the dog," Gadhafi "the
donkey," but it was beginning to all ring hollow. There seemed to be less of
them about, and fewer and fewer appeared to be moving to the front.
We returned to the hotel in mid-afternoon. It was open again, but the staff had
fled. The new "staff" was comprised of men and teenagers with machine guns and
rocket-propelled grenades. They were going from room to room, turning on the
TVs, using the bathrooms, calling to their friends from the balconies. In the
parking lot outside, they regularly fired rounds from their automatic weapons.
Although I didn't see it, a print reporter friend told me they had spent much
of the afternoon smoking hashish. To borrow a line from one of my old scripts,
"morale is high, and so are the troops."
In the coffee shop, more fighters were crowded behind the bar, helping
themselves to whatever was available, handing out bowls of cornflakes with milk
and chocolate syrup. Everything was free.
Pickup trucks had pulled up in front of the hotel, and they were loading them
with food and crockery from the kitchen. Theoretically, I suppose, they were
commandeering supplies for opposition forces in the area.
All the while, they were eager to reassure the few journalists who had returned
in the hopes of spending another night in the Fadeel Hotel that all was well,
that they would be safe, that they would sleep soundly.
The more insistent their reassurances, however, the more tenuous the prospect
of a night at the hotel became. The thought of stoned adolescents armed to the
teeth stumbling around the halls at night, in addition to the very real
possibility of a nighttime assault by the Libyan army on Ras Lanuf, was more
than even the most battle-hardened war correspondents cared to ponder.
The CNN crew was among the last guests to leave the hotel just after sunset.
There was no need to settle the bill or return the keys.
------------------------------------
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