Tripoli: A city of corruption and chaos, The Guardian reports

The Guardian has reported that seven years after the fall of Gaddafi and his regime in Libya, the Libyan people in Tripoli are now intimidated by a rule of militias and gangsters who control all of state institutions as well as the UN-brokered government in the capital. 

“Seven years after Muammar Gaddafi was deposed and killed in the Arab spring revolution, Libya has gone full circle from dictatorship through revolution, democracy, chaos and back to a new kind of tyranny. Except this time there is not one dictator but dozens, in the form of the very militias who defeated him.” The Guardian’s Francesca Mannocchi reported from inside Tripoli on Saturday.

The report shows that in Tripoli there is no way for foreign journalists to move around freely and ask whoever they want to make their story saying that now Libyans are as appalled as they used to be under Gaddafi’s regime.

“I can buy coffee at one of the city’s ubiquitous coffee bars, but I can’t talk to the customers as I have no permit. Nor can I talk to the thuggish young men, little more than boys, lolling outside. They wear expensive branded clothing and play with machine guns, clustered around their shiny black Mercedes. They know they are the true power in this city, and so does everyone else.” The reporter added.

Tripoli has seen waves of fightings among militias who were vying for power and political gains. Many civilians were killed, houses were destroyed, properties seized and families displaced due to the clashes among the militias inside Tripoli.