"Zintan is problem"

One of the rare times when I heard "mushkila" (problem) without the "mafish" (not) as a prefix, happened when I wanted to go from Wamis (Northwest of Mizdah) towards Zintan. According to my various maps there should be a road, and also the mountains of Zintan could easily be seen. But the people from Wamis (from the tribe of the Mashashias) told us various times "Zintan mushkila",  and explaining later on that they had just, a couple of days ago, exchanged some bullets, rockets and alike.
So it was not very wise to use the road from Wamis to Zintan, as the people from Zintan could take our car as belonging to Wamis. They would not hesitate shooting at it.
I believed the people from Wamis and thanked them for their friendly advise. Before leaving they still showed  us the highlight of their town, namely a collection of recent leftovers...

Stadtporträt Tripolis - Ö1

Nach über zwei Jahren kommt der Ö1 Journalist Michael Schrott wieder nach Tripolis. Und vergleicht so was sich geändert hat. Dass er beispielsweise in der Nacht Schüsse hört, oder wie das jetzt mit der Demokratie so ist.
Ein Überblick über Geschichte, Politik, Wirtschaft und Alltag eines Landes im Neustart-Modus.
Hörenswert !
Wer es verpasst hat, kann es eine Woche lang unter

http://oe1.orf.at/artikel/333909

und

http://oe1.orf.at/konsole?show=ondemand&track_id=331424&load_day=/programm/konsole/tag/20130316 
nachhören.

What really happened, Part 2

Truth is a daughter of time, and the time has come to continue the story of
"What really happened".
If this does not ring a bell immediately, I recommend you first read my Blog entry about my abduction in November last year:

http://wdintripolis.blogspot.com/2012/12/what-really-happened.html

So, after I flew to Vienna, we informed the Libyan authorities that I had been abducted, mistreated, beaten and finally handed over to a nearby militia.
It was quite easy for one of my colleagues to find out the identity of the aggressors. After my colleague (through the help of a militia) came into contact with the two attackers he found out they were a middle class Libyan family who even own a not so small business. They then came to our office and tried to start negotiating how the case could be settled. At the same time they apologized and said they were extremely sorry, but several circumstances led to their acts.

After I came back to Tripoli we first met the two brothers of the attackers (in total they are four brothers) and then the two other brothers in person at the headquarter of the militia that had originally taken care of me. They are stationed in a nice villa of a former regime person (see first photo).
They apologized at first instance, started kissing and hugging me and stating that if they knew me from the beginning they would never have done that again.
"Mr.David, you are such a nice person. You know Manner Schnitten? I always buy them for my kids."
After that, we still made it clear to them that taking me for an Israeli spy, looking for positions to bomb in Tripoli was a pure stupidity. However they argued, that I was wearing a GPS watch and it was clear to them that I was marking bombing positions for Israel, who had just the day before attacked Gaza.
They then went on admitting that they had drunken "a bit" of alcohol, and then, especially one of the brothers would become a wild beast.

In the end we hugged and one of the brothers revealed that they had a car washing station.
Whenever i felt like, I could come to wash my car at their place in the future.
If I had any problems with people from my neighbourhood, I should even contact them.

Sicherheit für Unternehmen in Nordafrika

Das Thema Sicherheit ist momentan in aller Munde. Speziell bei Unternehmen die in Krisenregionen unterwegs sind oder gar dort eine Niederlassung haben. Dabei stellt die Regierung Sicherheitskräfte in ausreichender Menge zur Verfügung. Diese sind nicht immer als solche erkennbar, oder sehen selbst furchterregend aus.
Dem Thema widmet heute "Die Presse" in ihrer Sonntagsausgabe eine ganze Seite. Einige Details wie Unternehmen mit ihrer Sicherheit in riskanten Ländern umgeht sind zu erfahren,
Unter dem passenden Titel:
"Wenn die Geiselnahme Berufsrisiko ist"
zu finden unter:
http://diepresse.com/home/wirtschaft/international/1337285/Krisengebiete_Wenn-die-Geiselnahme-Berufsrisiko-ist?from=gl.home_wirtschaft
Ach ja, für Libyen.
Bitte nicht vergessen, dass das Aussenministerium weiterhin eine aufrechte Reisewarnung für Libyen erlassen hat !

Have a rest on the long road

It is a long road from dictatorship to democracy. In a conference about the Arab spring (see one of my previous entries) I learned today about the phenomenon of "Elections without Democracy", which happened in all the revolutionary countries.
In Libya tensions were quite high during the last few days. And a big disappointment followed, after the decision of many governments to advise their citizens to move out from Benghazi.
I can understand the disappointment, especially as no further explanation was given, which kind of imminent threat was prevailing. It is not important anymore, as the harm is done already. And we will never find out if it was wrong or right, because obviously, now, there is hardly any foreigner left in the Benghazi area. In a couple of weeks security experts might say that they prevented a majour disaster like in Algeria. It could also be that this threat was never real, but based on rumours. However, after the security incidents that happened already in Benghazi it is better to pull out one time too often than to late.
Companies are used to that sort of game already and so far, have always come back. Similar "evacuations" happened already around the anniversary of the revolution, before the elections and before the swearing in of the government.
I like especially one tweeting Libyan, who has put as his avatar on Twitter the words."
"Don´t panic, Libya is a democracy now"