Thousands in Benghazi took to the streets Sunday to celebrate two years since the start of Libya&#8217;s revolution that toppled Moammar Khadafy.
Thousands in Benghazi took to the streets Sunday to celebrate two years since the start of Libya's revolution that toppled Moammar Khadafy. (Esam Omran al-Fetori, Reuters)

BENGHAZI, libya — Col. Faraj el-Dersi, who defected to the rebel side from Moammar Khadafy's police force, was gunned down late last year on the streets of Ben-ghazi, and he bled to death in the arms of his teenage daughter.

As Libya on Sunday marked the second anniversary of the start of the uprising that toppled Khadafy, the death of el-Dersi and nearly 40 other similar slayings are seen as evidence that some in the country are too impatient for a political system that has yet to deliver justice and national reconciliation.

Suspicion in many of the killings of senior security and military officials has fallen on Islamists who were brutally suppressed under Khadafy. Now, they have become among the most powerful groups in the new Libya, particularly in the east, with heavily armed militias at their command.


Mustafa al-Kufi, 59, a former prisoner and political activist, said the various post-Khadafy governments and the current parliament are all fearful that if they head down the path of transitional justice, many members of the ruling class would be among those punished for past wrongdoing.

"This is a very pressing issue and a core demand in the street," said al-Kufi, who spent 12 years in prison under Khadafy. "We need to know who did what and then ask families of the victims for forgiveness. But since this didn't take place, violence will continue because there is no justice."

Like other Arab countries that ousted authoritarian leaders, Libya is mired in a chaotic and violent transition to a new society. It is plagued by unruly and heavily armed militias that have slowly come under a unified command but remain filled with hard-liners who were in the front line in the war against Khadafy.


The civil war swept Kha-dafy from power, but the bitterness and rage lingers in a country where the authoritarian government imprisoned, tortured and killed its opponents.


"Those whose sons were killed, their dreams shattered by the Khadafy regime, will seek revenge when they see them back in power," she said. "The result is assassinations."

Some of the anger is directed at those who were in the old government — from low-level police officials to former ministers who are now police chiefs and lawmakers.
