In this vast country – the fourth largest in Africa – most of its 1.76 million square kilometres of land mass is consumed by the Sahara desert. Libya is around seven times larger than the UK but has only a tenth of the population and not a single permanent waterway throughout the country. The significance of Tripoli’s port is therefore huge. But, instead of the trading which is its hallmark, there we see thousands of migrant workers all waiting to be rescued from Libya. Some are from Côte d’Ivoire, which itself is suffering violent upheaval. But to them even Côte d’Ivoire seems preferable to Tripoli. These foreign workers are castigated by the Libyan revolutionaries, who think they may be Gaddafi mercenaries, while also being victimized by the indigenous population, who resent them for taking their jobs (there is 30 per cent unemployment). We film and interview many of them. Our grumpy taxi driver is anxious to go. He wants to get to the mosque, or anywhere else for that matter. What he doesn’t want to do is hang around for some foreign television crew. For a start, what he is doing will be viewed very dimly by the authorities and he runs the risk of jail or torture or worse. We pay him and he leaves, relieved.
Another man approaches us offering to take his place. He is rotund and middle-aged, with greasy hair, and looks decidedly untrustworthy. ‘Come, I will take you. Where do you want to go?’ he says. He’s seen our interaction with the grumpy cabbie and heard me talking to Martin. ‘Christ, what are we going to do now?’ or something along those lines. I hesitate. There’s something I just don’t like about the man. I can’t put my finger on it and it may well be unfounded but here I don’t want to give anyone the benefit of the doubt. I thank him and move away.
Another gentleman, in his late sixties, is also watching us. He says in an aside to me that the rotund, persistent man begging to be our driver is an undercover Gaddafi agent. I notice he is weaving in and out of the crowd but never going very far away from us. I have no idea whether he is telling me the truth or not but I instantly like the cut of this older, more calmly reassuring man. My instincts tell me he is OK and right now I have nothing else but instinct to guide me. There appear to be very few taxis and certainly none here. We are outside of the official set-up at the Rixos so we are very much on our own. Our office in London can’t help us either. It’s not like you can call up a minicab company or flag down a black cab.
Martin likes this man too, and I reckon if Martin and I think the same of someone it’s usually the right impression. ‘Will you drive us?’ I ask him. ‘We need help.’ It’s his turn to hesitate, but only very fractionally, and it’s immediately more reassuring still. He’s not doing this for the cash or because he’s the real Gaddafi agent. ‘Yes, yes,’ he says. We ask to go to Green Square. (This is one of Tripoli’s most notable landmarks, originally called Piazza Italia, or Italy Square, when constructed by the country’s colonial rulers. Then, during the Libyan monarchy, it became Independence Square, only to be renamed Green Square by Gaddafi, to reflect the political philosophy set out in his Green Book.) The elderly gent is a lovely man, very kind and constantly saying: ‘No problem, no problem. Everything good.’
When we arrive at the Square, there is a demonstration all right but not the type we expected. About half a dozen demonstrators are moving down the middle of the road. Just a week ago – according to witnesses – this square was filled with rebels who were then fired on by government snipers in crow’s nest positions on buildings. It was here that soldiers opened up with live ammunition on those calling for change. But today the small group is waving the green flag of Gaddafi supporters, chanting their love and support for the Brother Leader. We’re disappointed and wonder whether this is going to be the end of our streak for freedom from outside the Rixos. Still, we get out – a little hesitantly – to see what’s going on and film. We realize instantly the marchers are clearly being organized and directed by soldiers on the sidelines. A big banner denouncing the BBC is pinned up on a building. As soon as the small group see Martin’s camera they start chanting enthusiastically. A short time later, a van pulls up in front of the soldiers and it is full of pro-Gaddafi placards and flags, which are handed out to the growing number of his supporters who are gathering or being corralled. The soldiers are more concerned with marshalling the pro-Gaddafi supporters than worrying about whether we have permission or not to be there. And besides we are doing just what the regime wants us to do – filming the support for the Colonel.
I try to do a piece-to-camera – with Martin filming me walking along – and the small group follows me everywhere, filling the background so the ‘crowd’ looks plump and heaving. Even when I keep fluffing my lines and retrace my steps, they too stop and come back with me as I start my walk-and-talk again. It’s almost hilarious, but also frustrating. I am racking my brains as to how we can show this farce in one of our television reports. I notice a soldier approaching our taxi driver and taking down the old boy’s mobile phone number. We leave shortly afterwards. We have some material for a report, but we’re all thinking the same thing. Are we missing something? Where are the rebel protests? Are they too scared to come out? We want to carry on looking. If there are none, then there are none. They can’t be invented. But we don’t want to be embarrassed by simply not finding them.
‘Why don’t we check out Zawiya?’ says Tim, out of nowhere. Zawiya is fundamentally important to the regime because it’s not only home to one of the two most important oil refineries in the country, but it also straddles the road between the capital and the Tunisian border to the west. It is right on a vital supply route – so retaining control of Zawiya is imperative. (The city has been in the news recently because the media group at the Rixos had been taken there on a chaperoned trip about a week earlier.)
Zawiya was supposed to be an example of a city which had been ‘retaken’ by the Gaddafi loyalists; where a small group of rebels had fought but lost. But when the media bus arrived in the centre they were met by flag-waving, protesting rebels. It was a bit of an embarrassment for the Gaddafi PR team. I agree with Tim. Let’s go to Zawiya. I haven’t got a better plan. We’ve now been in Libya and working on this story for about eighteen hours and got precisely diddly squat from the Opposition. So far we haven’t seen a single rebel or anyone who will call themselves an Opposition fighter or supporter in public.
Zawiya is only about thirty miles away – a relatively short distance if it wasn’t for the many checkpoints, which become more and more frequent the closer we get. At one stage we get a call from the foreign desk saying there’s been tear-gassing of rebel protesters back in Tjoura. Damn. How did we miss that? We were only just there. Should we go back? The taxi driver sighs. ‘We’re nearly there now,’ he says, rolling his eyes. So we carry on.
We breeze through the first few checkpoints. The taxi driver cannily puts all over his dashboard a huge Gaddafi poster which he’d been handed by the green-flag-waving people in Green Square. Tim pulls out his photocopied permission at each enforced stop and the driver indicates he is our minder. He has a natural authority which comes with age and living life, and the soldiers believe him. We get waved through. The driver gets a call on his mobile. I hear him saying, ‘Zawiya.’ When he puts the phone down, I ask: ‘That was the soldier from Green Square, wasn’t it?’ He laughs slightly nervously and nods but carries on regardless. The soldier is checking where the foreigners are going.
Then, as we get to the town’s perimeter, the atmosphere and mood at the checkpoints change. The checkpoints are much more heavy-duty, there are many more military personnel and there’s much more military hardware on show around the outskirts of the city. ‘No problem, no problem,’ says our driver. ‘Everything good.’ He takes us a circuitous route round the back, round the west, then the south. I like this man. He reminds me of my grandfather. He is gentle and wise and always charmingly polite, but he’s not going to be pushed around.
We’re stopped each time and asked several questions by the soldiers guarding the checkpoints. We explain we are guests of the government and the driver is questioned over and over again. Each time we have our hearts in our mouths, trying not to look anxious but desperately trying to work out the body language and the nuance of the conversations. I can hear the driver saying ‘Sky News’ a lot and ‘British’ and waving the permission letter. Whatever he says, he is convincing and we are allowed through. Martin notices we are one of the few vehicles