THE SOUND of sing-song chanting carries from where children play on a balcony in Abu Salim, a rundown neighbourhood renowned as one of the most staunchly pro-Gadafy districts in Tripoli. “Allah, Muammar, Libya wa bas [that’s all we need],” they trill, most likely in imitation of elders heard professing a once ubiquitous loyalist slogan.
The bleak, dun-coloured apartment blocks of Abu Salim, located a short distance from Gadafy’s Bab al-Azizia compound, produced many of his most devoted supporters and fighters. It was one of the last areas of the capital to fall to the rebels, and only then after heavy fighting.
The ferocity of the battle is clear from the charred shell of the fire station opposite, which locals said had been used as a field hospital for Gadafy forces that retreated from Bab al-Azizia after it was overrun by rebel fighters. The residential blocks across the road are now pocked with bullet marks and holes gouged by artillery fire. The street is littered with shell casings and empty cartridges. In a room on the ground floor of one apartment building lie army boots and the remnants of green uniforms belonging to Gadafy forces who had fired at the advancing rebels from the windows.
In contrast to the watchful yet jubilant mood of opposition strongholds, the atmosphere here is subdued. Of those who have not fled, most are wary as they observe the changing order, and wonder where the man they looked up to for more than four decades has disappeared to. Their comments are guarded, and very often ambivalent. “We are neither with Gadafy nor the revolution now,” says Khalifa, a shopkeeper transporting gallons of water in a wheelbarrow. “We just want security.” He points out that, as a 30-year-old, he has known nothing but Libya under Gadafy. “He has been with us for 42 years. How could we say that we didn’t like him?” There are murmurs of agreement from the men around Khalifa when he says he is worried over what might come next. “I’m not optimistic about the future. We don’t know what these rebels will bring. We have no water, power or security now. It is a chaotic situation already, and we are very, very afraid that a tribal war may break out.”
Far more forthcoming is the man who approaches and identifies himself as a former official in Gadafy’s intelligence services. He claims that the loyalists that appear to have melted away in Tripoli and elsewhere are only biding their time. “We are waiting for the end of Nato’s intervention,” he says in English. “When Nato finishes its mission, the muqawama [resistance] will rise up.”
He continues: “If Muammar had no sons, it may have been different and everything would have been over by now, but since he has several sons, they will organise the muqawama.”
Similar rhetoric from Gadafy and his son Saif-ul-Islam in recent days has been largely dismissed by most Libyans, but anxiety over loyalist “fifth columns” remains. There was some apprehension that they might choose yesterday’s 42nd anniversary of the military coup that brought Gadafy to power to stage a counterattack – in a recent audio message Gadafy had promised a “surprise” on September 1st – but the day passed off without incident.
Ridar Mohammed lives in an apartment facing the burnt-out fire station with his uncle, Farhat, an unemployed musician, and several cousins. All had escaped by the time the rebels reached Abu Salim. Ridar points out large holes ripped by artillery fire on the balcony and an exterior wall, but says he is not bitter or angry. One of his cousins flashes a victory sign at a rebel convoy passing on the street outside. “Now we are with the revolution,” Farhat says. “Gadafy’s propaganda made us fear the revolutionaries. It turned people against the revolution but when they came here they didn’t rape or pillage as we had been warned. They fought Gadafy’s forces and went looking for arms in the area. What we had been told by state media was not true.”
Farhat and his nephews may have been won over to the rebels’ cause but it will take time for others here, and in other pockets of Libya, to accept the new reality, if they ever do.
At a farmhouse across the city, I met one man who had worked on Saif-ul-Islam’s youth programme when the regime was still in place. In a drab room, where a TV was tuned to the pro-Gadafy channel that broadcast an audio message by Saif-ul-Islam earlier this week, he complained about the rebels. “They give the impression that anyone who is not with them is against them,” he claimed. “This should not be about being pro-Gadafy or pro-revolution but patriotism. My greatest fear is that if civilised people don’t come in swiftly to organise the country, there will be chaos and Libya will be a battlefield.” He questions how much the National Transitional Council, now considered Libya’s interim government, will be prepared to accommodate people like him.
“A lot depends on how people like me are treated. If they are badly treated, I’m sure there will be retaliation. I don’t want to be humiliated. We all lived under Gadafy, we were working for our country,” he says.
“If [the NTC] is not able to bring such people on side, Gadafy could benefit.Will we be like the Iraqi people who were saying that life under Saddam was better than what they faced after he was toppled?”