Colonel Gaddafi’s Hat. Alex Crawford
heir apparent). They are very pleased with their journalistic coup. Lorna tells us: ‘You know, I’m almost beginning to believe them [the regime]. He got a very good reception out on the streets whenever we stopped.’ It sounds like quite a story and they have done well to persuade Gaddafi’s son to be filmed and interviewed in this way. It gives us all an insight into just how deluded and controlling the regime is. But this is a country where Saif and his father have outlawed all political opposition, where there is no freedom of speech or media, where people ‘disappear’ and are routinely tortured during interrogation or as a punishment.
I am extremely doubtful that Saif is really that popular and conclude – as all the journalists at the Rixos have already worked out – that this regime is bent on attempting to manipulate journalists and, for that matter, politicians too.
The hotel is extremely comfy and the food excellent. You wouldn’t find much better in many other cities around the world. It’s far superior to the fare offered at our Paris airport hotel the night before. It’s all very cleverly aimed at making the recipients feel well looked after and catered for. It is, unfortunately, a necessary evil for the journalistic fraternity to stay here. It’s the only way to get any access at all to the regime. I am certain it must take an especially strong type of person to remain untainted or unaffected by the twenty-four-hour-a-day brainwashing which must be going on around here. But many of the journalists present are the most senior from all the international channels around the world. If they can’t remain immune, then no one can.
Martin and I are desperate not to fall into the regime’s clutches in the first place. By staying at the Rixos we might find out how the mind of the regime operates (but our colleagues are doing that already). We want to find out for ourselves what ordinary Libyan people are thinking and what life is like for those outside these walls. We’re not going to be able to do that if we are escorted by Gaddafi minders, that’s for sure. Martin and I quickly adjourn to the Corinthia. We don’t want to be spotted by too many of the minders who are also staying at the Rixos. Tim will stay with the Sky team in the Rixos and we arrange to meet him first thing the next morning to work out a plan.
The Corinthia is a large, five-star hotel with two huge sky-scraping towers set just a little back from the Mediterranean coast. It has three impressive arches contained under a giant one at its entrance and looks incredibly plush – perhaps even more so than the Rixos. We step into a large, open-plan lobby with gold or gold-coloured furnishings and decoration everywhere. There are gold-coloured pillars, gold-coloured walls, wood floors with a sort of dark-gold sheen about them and a gold-coloured dome where the reception is. Set to the left of the reception is an odd-looking large silver bowl with water pouring out of it down some ornamental steps. Plush indeed, but there’s a big difference from the Rixos. The Corinthia seems to be deserted, with only about six guests in it – and they are all journalists. We see them sitting round a table the next morning. We go over to say hello. One of them is Richard Spencer from the Daily Telegraph, who is also based in Dubai but with whom I have spoken only on the telephone until now. There’s a guy from the Guardian and Anita McNaught from Al Jazeera. They are all very friendly and they give us a quick briefing about how difficult it is to get out without the minders. But occasionally they have managed to escape, mainly because they are away from the main media gang in the Rixos. I exchange telephone numbers with them and say we will try to keep in touch.
We go over to the Rixos and walk into the breakfast room, which is packed with journalists from around the world. Bill Neely from ITN comes up and says hello, friendly as ever. He is a fierce competitor but that doesn’t stop him from being approachable and good company. Then Paul Danahar, the BBC’s Middle East Bureau Chief, greets us. ‘They’re trying to get everyone to go to Sirte,’ he says. ‘They’re expecting trouble in Tripoli after Friday prayers today, so they’re doing their best to get as many of us out of the capital as possible.’ It’s generous information from a rival given to the new guys in town. There are different rules among competitors in a hostile environment, and he is being very helpful.
We have travelled light, carrying just two rucksacks with ‘day’ equipment. We’ve been told there’s a trip somewhere – by helicopter maybe, or by bus – and so we are just taking what we need for a day’s filming. After breakfast the journalists are causing a bit of a rumpus outside the front of the hotel. The minders are trying to persuade them to board a bus and no one much wants to go. There’s a row developing. Martin starts filming as a few of the journalists – led by Paul Danahar – start remonstrating with the officials, primarily Moussa Ibrahim, who is the Gaddafi regime’s spokesperson at the Rixos.
Ibrahim has a body language which reeks of hostility. He has prematurely thinning hair and a fairly stout figure which is clothed in the European ‘uniform’ of open-necked shirt and jacket. He is also staying at the Rixos – a fellow ‘prisoner’ – and we’ve seen him earlier having breakfast with his young German wife and very young child. He speaks impeccable English, having studied in Britain at Exeter University and afterwards taken a PhD at Royal Holloway College, London. He’s a very well-educated and adept arguer of the Gaddafi point of view. Right now he is walking in large circles in the hotel car park, trying to avoid answering Paul’s rather persistent points about leaving the hotel. Ibrahim is insisting he cannot let any of us out because our presence could trigger violence among what he calls the ‘affiliates of Al Qaeda’ who are on the streets outside. In the confusion, Bill Neely and his crew make a break for the hotel car park’s gate, which has armed men guarding it. The three of us just happen to be watching this all unfold. Yep, good idea, Bill, I think. We follow in their wake. We manage to get out before the guards are alerted and try to stop any more of us. Most of the other journalists are prevented from leaving.
Outside the Rixos is strange, uncharted territory for the foreign journalists. Few have been able to leave the five-star luxury of the hotel without a government chaperone. The regime has been insisting Tripoli is a city packed with Gaddafi supporters, any number of whom could turn us in or report us to the authorities, not necessarily out of loyalty but maybe out of fear. We’re not expecting to meet many friends out here.
Now some of us are outside the confines of the Rixos and out of the control of minders. We have escaped their gilded cage. We run straight away into a traffic roundabout which seems fairly busy with cars. There don’t seem to be many, if any, people walking around here. It is a built-up area and I can’t see much above the walls which have been erected around what look like residential properties next to the hotel. It’s just an intersection with about three or four roads leading off the circle and we’re all anxious to get as far away as possible from the Rixos as quickly as possible before the minders come out and find us.
Bill tries to jump into a taxi but the driver refuses to take him and his team. We head off in another direction, leaving them behind, and flag down a man who has his family in the car. The three of us cram ourselves in, apologizing and thanking him in equal measure. He has a Gaddafi poster on the front of his dashboard.
We ask if he can take us to Tjoura, where we have heard there has been some protesting by anti-regime people the evening before. He raises his eyebrows. ‘No, no, it’s dangerous. Too dangerous.’ OK, then maybe just to catch a taxi? He drops us off a few streets away and we manage to find a taxi. The man in control of the wheels appears to be the most grumpy cab driver in all of Libya but, crucially, he agrees to take us to Tjoura. Tim has photocopied a piece of paper written in Arabic which has been given to him by the Sky team in the Rixos. It is a letter-headed document from the regime saying we are journalists and should be looked after as we are travelling with the government’s permission and are accompanied by a Libyan representative (minder). This will be our get-out-of-jail card many times over.
We pass army tanks positioned at the entrance to Tjoura, a city on the south-east flank of Tripoli. But they don’t stop us. Tjoura is important to us for two reasons: it is the site of a nuclear research facility (Gaddafi has long harboured ambitions to build a nuclear weapon) and it is home to a considerable body of the Opposition, known to be the most anti-Gaddafi district in Tripoli. We are expecting there will be a large turnout today after Friday prayers to express this discontent once again. But it’s very quiet. Too quiet. The streets are empty. There are some smouldering piles of ash outside the mosque, but, even