Libyan rebels embarked on the job of getting the capital up and running again Saturday, while keeping up the battle against Moamer Gaddafi’s forces and the hunt for the elusive strongman.
While fighting was still under way on various fronts, with the insurgents working to consolidate their hold on Tripoli, focus was increasingly turning to a post-Gaddafi era, with calls for reconciliation and a peaceful transition. The spokesman for the rebels’ National Transitional Council, Mahmud Shammam, said they would start distributing 30,000 tons of petrol to Tripoli residents immediately, and would be providing cooking gas within the next 48 hours.
They were also working to restore the Zawiyah refinery, Shammam said, pleading for patience and calling on all public, private and oil sector employees to return to work.
“We are starting from point zero in this situation. Do not ask for miracles, but we promise to try to make this difficult period as short as we can,” Shammam said.
“The problems and accidents we are facing are less than in any other experience in an international war,” he said. “We don’t have chaos. We don’t have fire everywhere. We are in control.”
But he admitted there was still resistance left. “Anybody who thinks that there is not a fraction of people who support Gaddafi or that there is no fifth column who will try to trouble the peace of Tripoli would be mistaken.
“After 42 years of dictatorship we will find a problem of people trying to harm our society. We are a city liberated for just a few days.”
Electricity in the capital is out for several hours a day. Many districts have no water, while others only have undrinkable groundwater. The price of food and petrol — when it can be found — has skyrocketed.
Mountains of rubbish have piled up on the sweltering city’s streets since the rebels entered the capital a week ago, battling Gaddafi’s forces until they stormed his compound on Tuesday and then mopped up. The rebels late Friday captured the Ras Jdir border post on the frontier with Tunisia, which it was feared Gaddafi, his henchmen and family might use to escape.
