CLASSROOMS STAY EMPTY IN LIBYA - KIDS SUPPORT GADDAFI

A Libyan school bombed by NATO.

Under Gaddafi, education was free and the literacy rate was high.

On 5 October 2011, the New York Times reports on schools in Libya:

Schools in Libya Struggling to Adjust

1. The New York Times reporter visited the Dawn of Freedom middle school.

"The classrooms ... were empty."

The neighborhood, Abu Salim, supports Gaddafi.

2. The new York Times notes "etchings inscribed by students in dozens of desks."

The etchings are pro-Muammar-Gaddafi.

For example: "God and Muammar and Libya and that's all" and "Down, down Sarkozy".

3. The school was hit by NATO and has "walls pierced by artillery shells."

4. At the empty Anniversary of the Revenge High School, "shards of glass from windows shattered by a NATO bombing littered a classroom floor."

A student, Mahmoud Najem, 17, said "Most of the boys want Qaddafi".

5. At the Abdulrahman bin Aouf elementary school a teacher "delivered a lecture on the significance of Feb. 17, the day Libyans consider the start of their latest revolution...

"The young students ... stared back blankly."

6. At the Sayyida Zeinab school, "children had refused to sing the new national anthem, and someone had torn the school's official new flag.

"They’re still loyal to him," said Ms. Ramadan, referring to Gaddafi.

A Mr. Ashtar said: "So many schools were destroyed."



According to the Washington Post, it is not just NATO that has wrecked schools.

Supporters of the new government have been attacking schools.

"The Tareq Abu Zeyad middle school lies in ruins.

"Villagers in this isolated, dusty hamlet in Libya's western mountains say revolutionary forces carried out the attack last week to avenge their past support for Moammar Gaddafi."

(Destroyed school, ransacked homes raises troubling questions.)