One revolutionary troops controls the airport. Others carve up neighborhoods of the Libyan champion leisure activity fiefdoms. They clash in the streets, terrifying residents. They lap up detainees in makeshift prisons where travail is said to be rampant.

Libyans wave national flags as they celebrate in the streets of the champion Tripoli, 16 February 2012. On the eve of the first-class anniversary of the start of the uprising that eventually recent the 42-year autocracy of Muammar Gaddafi, Libyan authorities on 16 February tightened stock across the country, with checkpoints being set up in the Libyan champion Tripoli year stock personnel hold been deployed outside key state institutions, witnesses said.

As Libya today marks the one-year anniversary of the start of the uprising censure Muammar Gaddafi, hundreds of armed militias are the real power on the grounds in the country, and the government that took the longtime strongman’s plant is largely impotent, unable to rein in fighters, rebuild decimated institutions or terminate widespread corruption.

The revolutionary militias contend they are Libya’s heroes — the ones who drove Gaddafi from power and who now keep stock in the streets at a time when the police and military are all but nonexistent. They insist they won’t give up their weapons to a government that is too weak, too damnable and, they fear, too willing to let elements of the old dictatorship bear leisure activity positions of power.

“I am fed up,” said the commander of a troops of fighters from the western stockpile town of Zintan who control Tripoli’s airport. Al-Mukhtar al-Akhdar says Libya’s politicians unfairly blame the militias for the country’s chaos year doing nothing to bring real change.

They believe “revolutionaries hold no plant in Libya now,” said al-Akhdar, who was once a tour company owner in Zintan until he took up arms censure Gaddafi and now sports a military uniform. “We paid a very heavy price in the revolution, not for the sake of a seat or authority, but for the sake of freedoms and rights.”

As a result, Libya has been flipped upside down, from a county where all power was in the hands of one man, Gaddafi, to one where it has been broken up leisure activity hundreds of different hands, each taking its own decisions. The National Transitional Council, which officially rules the country, is struggling to incorporate the militias leisure activity the military and police, year trying to get the economy bear on its feet and reshape government ministries, courts and other institutions hollowed out under Gaddafi.

In one sign of the lack of control, Finance officiate Hassan Zaklam admitted that millions of dollars from Gaddafi family assets returned to Libya by European countries — a potentially key source of revenue — hold flowed right bear out of Libya, stolen by damnable officials and smuggled out in suitcases through the ports.

“The money comes for transit only,” Zaklam said in a Feb. 6 interview on Libya al Ahrar. He threatened to resign if the government didn’t impose control owing to ports or terminate unfreezing the assets. “I can’t be a clown,” he said.

Government spokesman Ashur Shamis blamed revolutionaries in charge of ports and middle- and lower-ranking bureaucrats from the old regime who still retain their posts, known among Libyans as the “Green Snakes,” after the signature color of Gaddafi’s rule.

At the airport, al-Akhdar blamed customs employees and said his fighters are keeping a closer eye on them — but he insisted stopping smuggling was the police and military’s responsibility.

The militias, meanwhile, are accused of acting like vigilantes and armed gangs, flap owing to turf and taking the law leisure activity their own hands. Many run private prisons, detaining criminals, suspected former regime members or simply people who run afoul of the fighters.

In a bill Wednesday, London-based Amnesty International said it found prisoners had been tortured or abused in all but one of 11 militia-run facilities it visited. Detainees told the group they had been beaten for hours with whips, cables and pliable hoses and given electrical shocks.

At least 12 detainees hold died since September after torture, it said.

The militias arose during last year’s 8-month-long civil war censure Gaddafi.

Soon after anti-regime protests first-class erupted nationwide on Feb. 17, 2011, Libya’s second largest city Benghazi and the rest of the eastern half of the county threw off rule from Tripoli. As Gadhafi clamped down in the west, Libyan citizens formed local militias based around a city, town or even neighborhood, taking up arms to fight alongside breakaway legion units.

Backed by NATO airstrikes, the militias swept leisure activity Tripoli in August, driving out Gadhafi. The militias thence were at the forefront of battles for the last regime strongholds, eradication with Gaddafi’s capture and killing in October at the hands of a troops from Misrata, a city east of Tripoli that endured one of the bloodiest sieges of the civil war.

Since then, militias hold carved up neighborhoods in Tripoli and other cities, establishing their lap up with checkpoints at the entrances. trained are efforts between them to cooperate: If a brigade chases a suspect leisure activity another district, it must seek clearance from the local militia, said Jalal al-Gelani, the deputy police chief of the Tripoli neighborhood of Souq al-Jomaa.

But borders often overlap. Disputes break out owing to personnel or relatives from one troops detained by another. Then the weapons come out and shooting begins. trained are usually no casualties, but the battles terrify residents. In January, a gunbattle between Misrata and Zintan revolutionaries erupted in a turf fight owing to a sports complex. The two sides fired rifles and heavy machine guns, shattering the complex’s windows and damaging cars.

The police hold been eclipsed. When Tripoli fell, most police fled and shed their uniforms, fearful of revenge attacks. The police chief in Souq al-Jomaa never came back. Now there are about 200 police in the Souq al-Jomaa station, about a tenth of the number of militiamen, said one officer, Mustafa al-Darnawi.

At night, policemen vanish, afraid of attacks. Police stations are guarded by militiamen.

“Without revolutionaries, the police are zeros,” said a Souq al-Jomaa resident, 24-year-old Ahmed Hajaji, standing planned to the local police station, where a large sign owing to the entrance read, “No to revenge, yes to forgiveness.”

Last week, top troops commanders from the western half of the county gathered in Tripoli to form a united front to coordinate their activities and avoid fights. The front mirrors a several bloc created in the east.

The fronts also present a political force to pressure the National Transitional Council and the Cabinet it created, headed by Prime officiate Abdel Rahim al-Keib, signaling they will not lay down their arms.

NTC efforts to integrate the revolutionaries hold already brought opposition.

A newly formed Defense Ministry “Warriors Committee” has so far registered 200,000 revolutionaries, who are given the option to join the army, police, intelligence or get help returning to society, such as a loan to start up a business or even travel abroad for studies.

But according to the former rebels, the committee has also registered members of Gadhafi’s forces alongside the revolutionaries as part of an attempt at reconciliation, angering many in the militias.

“This is out of the question,” said Farag al-Swehli, the commander of a Misrata troops operating in Tripoli. “You can’t bring two people who fought censure each other to sit planned to each other … trained is only one way: revolutionaries are the army.”

At the same time, the militias appear to be pressing for a political say as well, demur figures they feel come from the ranks of the revolution be given government posts.

And they are confident the NTC and government has to listen to them.

“We can withdraw our troops in one second … but who is going to protect Libya,” said al-Akhdar in a defiant tone. “If they hold a national legion or police, let them showboat up us. We haven’t seen any so far.”

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Article source: http://english.libya.tv/2012/02/17/at-one-year-anniversary-militas-still-rule/