After Gaddafi: A New Libya Emerges

May 2011

Through the city of Derna, piled on to the shoreline like a shipwreck, and the outpouring of roadside graffiti, daubed in English, French and Arabic: "We are freedom addicts not drugs"; "No to extremism"; "Yes to pluralism"; "Libya is a unified country, Tripoli is our capital"; "Our struggle is for democracy".

At the next town of Baida a banner hangs from a partially burned-out former regime building on the far side of the square: "Tout le monde doit savoir que les insurges Libyens n'appartiennent pas à Al Qaida. Nous nous sommes sacrifiés pour la liberté." Opposite is an open-sided crimson tent whose sides are covered with photos and stories of the many victims of Gaddafi's serial outrages, from this latest conflict and the wars he sent Libyans to fight across the continent in exercises in lunatic adventurism. Here are the dead from Chad, Egypt, Algeria, Uganda and the ongoing revolution. Cartoons of Gaddafi strapped to a rocket, as devil-horned, forked-tailed monster. This is the beginning of the long reckoning ahead.

A group of young men Bluetooth me photos of the recent protests in quickfire succession. One plays a mobile-phone video which he says shows Khamis Gaddafi, who runs his own brigade of killers, training African mercenaries. Hapless black recruits approach a table where they are cuffed over the head and forced to eat large chunks of dog flesh. One by one, they grimace, retch and vomit. Then they are shoved across to the back of a truck and made to French-kiss the dogs' severed heads.

Night-time in Benghazi. City lights twinkle, doubled in the dark waters of Benghazi Lake. Until a few weeks ago it was known as July 23 Lake, in honour of Gamal Abdel Nasser's 1952 military coup in Egypt. Soon Libyans may call it February 17 Lake.

Precise details of the post-Gaddafi government to come are yet to emerge, understandable amid the chaos and Twitterfog of war in the west. The quietly spoken Mohammed Fanoush, former director of the National Library in Benghazi, is the local director of communications. He says the National Transitional Council (NTC) is working on a proposal for a new constitution, to be drafted by an elected committee and then submitted to Libyans in a future referendum. No one envisages a five-year government of national unity or anything so protracted.

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