A Chicago Man Assists The Rebels Of Libya
CHICAGO (CBS) -- A suburban Chicago area businessman is just back from a harrowing experience, CBS 2's Mike Parker reports, assisting the rebels seeking to oust the Gadhafi regime in Libya.
Waheed Burshan is a Libyan American who has returned for his daughter's college graduation and fully intends to rejoin the Libyan revolution soon. When he goes back, he knows "we're all targets for the government."
Burshan used his technical knowhow to restore telecommunications in the cities seized by the rebels. There's more work to be done, and he is willing to do it, at his own risk.
Gadhafi, he says, "is a tyrant against his own people. So literally, they are defending their homes now, their children."
What began with peaceful protests, Burshan says, has become a government reign of terror and murder. He says he has seen government snipers "shooting at anybody that moves. We were there, we were in the streets. We were trying to help out some of the young, 10 or 15 years old."
Does he think of himself as a revolutionary? "I wasn't thinking of myself that way 2 or 3 months ago," he says, "but I guess it is something that's within everybody. When it comes up in all of us, it comes up at the right time, defending our children and our homes and our beings." He likens it to "a test."
Burshan says the devout Muslims of Libya, like himself, are interested only in restoring democracy, justice and liberty to their country. He had strong words about the death of Osama Bin Laden. He said it removes "a monkey from our backs."
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