For Libyan rebels, a funeral is no somber event

As 11 fighters are laid to rest in Benghazi, the mourners celebrate their deaths as bringing the country one step closer to life without Kadafi.

Relatives and fellow fighters at the main cemetery in Benghazi carry the coffin of a Libyan rebel killed the day before near Port Brega. (Gianluigi Guercia, AFP/Getty Images / July 20, 2011)

By David Zucchino
A long convoy of dust-caked gun trucks descended Wednesday afternoon on downtown Benghazi, horns honking and guns blasting skyward.
Rebel fighters had driven nearly 150 miles from Libya‘s eastern front to celebrate the glory of 11 dead comrades — shuhuda, or martyrs. The dead men, killed the day before, lay in caskets that bounced in the beds of the trucks.
They had come home to be buried.
Gunmen accompanying the caskets fired assault rifles and pistols over the rooftops as women on balconies ducked for cover. The men chanted, “A martyr is loved by God!”
In most societies, a funeral is an occasion for solemnity and grief. In eastern Libya, the funerals of martyrs are celebrations, displays of firepower and emotional rallies that curse and condemn Libya’s autocratic leader, Moammar Kadafi.
The caskets snaked through the city toward the Hawari cemetery. The convoy had driven through the desert from Port Brega, about 140 miles southwest, site of pitched battles between the rebels and Kadafi’s forces.
The gun trucks, mounted with antiaircraft batteries and heavy machine guns, rolled through the cemetery gates, past rows of bleached white headstones. Thousands of assembled men and boys greeted them with whoops and shouts.
A whiteboard bore the names of the 11 dead men, from Martyr 1, Ahmed Sharif, to Martyr 11, Mustafa Fouzy. Martyr 4, Col. Adel Rajab Gheriani, was described as “Col. Martyr.”
When the first casket was unloaded, a great roar went up. Everyone cried out, “God is great!”
The fighters loosed deafening volleys toward the white summer sky. Some mourners had brought their own guns, and they raised them high to squeeze off shots.
A machine gun erupted, and then an antiaircraft gun. The ground shook from the blasts. Mourners grimaced and covered their ears. There was a dirty blue cloud of smoke and the acrid stench of cordite.
The martyrs were laid in a neat row in the pale, sandy soil, their graves marked with cement blocks. Each bore the red, black and green flag of the rebels.
One of the first to be lowered was Mohammed Sanoussi Fergani, just 22 when he was blown apart Tuesday by an exploding rocket outside Port Brega. He was an ammo loader on one of the rebels’ ancient Soviet-made T-55 tanks.
His father, Sanoussi Fergani, wandered among the mourners, his face aglow, screaming, “Look what Kadafi did to my boy!”