Legacy of Suspicion, Betrayal Haunts Libya

April 20, 2011

A man passes graffiti caricatures related to Moammar Gadhafi and Brega, during a funeral in Benghazi, April 19, 2011

A former diplomat is giving an interview in a semi-public part of a Benghazi hotel. The elevator doors open, a man walks out, stays for a moment, then leaves. A few minutes later, he returns, uses a shoe shine machine in the corner, hovers for a bit longer, then leaves again.

"This one is - was - working in our intelligence," noted the ex-diplomat. "I know him. He's my colleague. Our offices were facing each other. So maybe they will write reports. I don't know. To whom I don't know. To this new council, or the old regime, I don't know."

Across the east, where people have thrown off Colonel Gadhafi's government, old habits die hard.

Watch your back

In Ras al Hilal, at a vacation house of Colonel Gadhafi's sons, a worker hesitates over a question. A man standing next to him asks "Why are you scared? Libya is free now." The worker shakes his head. "You don't know who's with you and who's against you."

In Qasr al Jady, a man from Tripoli grants an interview and, moments later at a checkpoint, a self-styled policeman demands to see the video, suspicious of what a potential spy from the capital might have said.

Amina, 33, a working mother and graduate student in Benghazi, says it has been this way all her life.