More tales of journos in Tripoli…
The Fellini-esque circus in Gadaffi’s Tripoli continues. This time, New York Times reporter David Kirkpatrick shares some experiences in a piece titled Qaddafi’s Handling of Media Shows Regime’s Flaws
Even the Qaddafi government escort could not contain his disbelief at the sloppiness of the fraud: bloodstains his colleagues had left on bedsheets in a damaged hospital room for more than a week as evidence of civilian casualties from Western airstrikes.“This is not even human blood!” the escort erupted to group of journalists, making a gesture with his hands like squeezing a tube. “I told them, ‘Nobody is going to believe this!’As the incident of the faked blood shows, the Qaddafi government’s most honest trait might be its lack of pretense to credibility or legitimacy. It lies, but it does not try to be convincing or even consistent.
The announcement this past week that some journalists were going to be kicked out of the country, only to be seemingly forgotten the very next day is indeed a strange environment for reporters. It would seem this is nothing new for the regime.
It is just the chaos of not having institutions in the country,” said one businessman who has worked closely with the Qaddafi family and government, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “When a decision is made, it is not always a decision in truth. Nobody is really in charge, and decisions are made on whim and caprice.”
“Mind Games” appear to be common - truth subjected to mock executions like those endured by the journalists from the BBC.
One Libyan official privately warned a Times reporter last week not to trust information from people speaking over Internet connections from Misurata because some were in fact government agents trying to trap journalists.
Mr Kirkpatrick’s account suggests the propaganda machinery isn’t well-oiled:
For an official press bus trip to the Misurata on Friday, a senior Libyan press official quizzed a Times correspondent about his “predispositions” before making a decision about allowing him to board.
After another official then assured the reporter that he had a seat on the bus, a brief power struggle broke out among three Libyan media officials, who argued over the job of doling out the scarce seats to a crowd of journalists vying for them…And when the bus returned to the hotel, government officials could be heard arguing behind closed doors about who was responsible for the mishap of the tour.
The real status of Tripoli is revealed in the final paragraphs:
But three journalists left behind from the Misurata trip wanted to investigate reports of a sporadic violence against security forces around the city, so one created a diversion to distract a government minder while the others got away.
What they found, they said, was a city locked down more tightly than ever. Heavy contingents of armed men surrounded mosques, and the streets of rebellious neighborhoods were crowded with the white four-door Toyota pickup trucks favored by the pro-Qaddafi militia. Many rode with the barrels of their assault rifles pointed out the windows, making no effort to hide the role of their guns in enforcing the uneasy calm in the city.
