By Libya Herald reporter.
Tripoli 9 July 2015:
Unlike previous years, the 2015 anniversary of the liberation of Tripoli has come and gone without any . . .[restrict]interest on the part of ordinary Tripiolitans. The event, which is marked according to the Islamic calendar, on 20 Ramadan, which was yesterday, saw no one apart from a few kids and a miniscule handful of Libya Dawn fighters turn up for the military parade in Tripoli’s Martyrs’ Square.
GNC president Nuri Abu Sahmain took the salute from those taking part in the one-and-a-half-hour event, and he and his “prime minister” gave speeches to a phantom audience. “Ghwell was talking to himself,” said one observer outside the square.
No one had not been prevent from going; “on the contrary beforehand, they were trying to get people to turn up,” he added.
“People in Tripoli don’t care any more about the revolution or those in power. They just want to get on with their lives. And that is getting more difficult at the moment,” he claimed.
Two years ago, Liberation Day drew large crowds to the square. Even last year, after Libya Dawn had taken over the capital, there was still something of a party mood on the day.
In his speech, Abu Sahmain, insisted that the UN-brokered Dialogue had to be “based on respect for the constitutional declaration and the ruling of the constitutional Court” – in other words, had to accept that his GNC was the sole legitimate parliament, not the House of Representative. However, he nonetheless took a conciliatory tone: “The GNC welcomes anyone like the parliament – the House of Representatives or anybody else – but through a harmonious solution,” he said, stressing that “the country can accommodate everyone and that no one claims a monopoly of power, the capital, or any Libyan city.
“The war that took place last year in Tripoli did not aim at reviving the GNC as has been claimed by the media, but was for peace and security”.
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