Gaddafi 'lives on in our hearts'

Residents of the Libyan oasis town of Bani Walid, long a bastion of Muammar Gaddafi's regime, are resigned to the country's new leadership but say the slain dictator lives on in their hearts.
The town, which was one of the last towns to fall to the rebels last year and was the scene of new violence earlier this week, fared well during the Gaddafi era when it was a major recruitment ground for his regime's elite troops.
"Muammar is in our hearts. If someone here tells you otherwise, he is lying," said Salahuddin al-Werfelli, 19.
"A revolution, what revolution? The new authorities represent (French President Nicolas) Sarkozy and some European countries, not Libyans," he said with clear contempt for the UN-mandated Western military support the rebels received during last year's uprising.
In public, residents insisted they were supporters of the "February 17 Revolution" that overthrew Gaddafi but in private they expressed nostalgia for his ousted regime.
"We are forced to adapt but 99 percent of Bani Walid's population still loves Muammar," said Boubakr, a 24-year-old law student.
"Our house was given to my father by Muammar," said Boubakr, who lives near the former rebel militia base which was at the centre of Monday's fighting and which still bears the scars of the ferocious exchanges. Burnt-out cars and empty bullet cases lie all around.
The details of the clashes in the sprawling oasis, 170 kilometres southeast of Tripoli, which killed seven people and wounded 12, remain the subject of some dispute.
Residents said the fighting pitted the May 28 Brigade of former rebel fighters against a group of heavily armed residents who had come to the base to seek the release of a relative from custody.
There is widespread resentment in Bani Walid towards the former rebels whose roadblocks criss-cross the town. Members of the brigade are accused of thefts and arbitrary arrests as well as other abuses.
A resident, who did not give his name, complained: "They talk about freedom and democracy, but these are only words.
Gaddafi's legacy is too deep rooted in Bani Walid to fade out.