“There are very few instances of revenge,” said Abdulmajeed el-Dursi, the former chief of the Qaddafi-era foreign media operation, sipping coffee at a cafe full of rebels and talking about opening a media services company.
“It is legitimate, all these things they are doing — freedom of the press, the rule of law,” Mr. Dursi added. “We always thought it was the right thing to do.”
Officials at the rebels’ detention centers around the city say they have sent scores of Colonel Qaddafi’s former soldiers and supporters back to their homes after they have turned in their weapons, and even some of the former soldiers now insist that they are revolutionaries at heart.
Ahmed el-Naeli was a soldier from Tripoli captured and jailed weeks ago by rebels in the Nafusah Mountains, where a reporter for The New York Times gave him a business card. On Tuesday, he called to say that he, too, had changed sides. After his capture, Mr. Naeli said, “I turned around and joined the revolution.”
Officials at local police stations say hundreds of officers are returning to work, usually in their home neighborhoods without incident.
They are “well accepted” because local residents understand they were only part of the system, said Abdou Shafi Hassan, 34, a former officer who began working with the rebels months ago, smuggling weapons and plastic explosives for them until he was caught and sent to jail.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/08/world/africa/08tripoli.html
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