Libyan Cities Continue Anti-Gaddafi Trend

This map was posted by Libyan anti-Gaddafi Protesters to show the free city versus Gaddafi-controlled city situation (as of yesterday) in Libya. Since the source is the Protesters, we can assume that the data is in their favor, although the map from the UK's Guardian is substantially similar.

Some citizens report the use--or at least talk of the use--of chemical weapons by Gaddafi as well as continual efforts to clean the neighborhoods of Tripoli to remove all evidence of conflict and bloodshed.

The citizens of free eastern city Benghazi have taken to the streets, looking proud and jubilant, wearing small pre-Ghaddafi flags of Libya on their faces as sports fans do at games, doubtless delighted for the newly-rediscovered right for citizens to peaceably assemble in groups. There are Youtube videos of newly constituted town councils still untranslated, giving their  pronouncements looking properly dressed and very serious. In a country well known to be divided into tribes which are then divided in to clans, everyone is talking that the Libyan people are united, more united than ever before, and that the people are one.

Libyans have been clear that they do not want military interference by the USA or Europe in their country, so the words of the UN's Ban Ki-Moon are perhaps the best to quote: “As the Libyan people take their destiny into their hands, as is their right, I hope that the new future for which they yearn, peaceful, prosperous and democratic, will soon be theirs,”