Day 4 March 14
The communications sector was not doing well in Libya unless we were talking satellite. Clive, principal camera man from South Africa Broadcasting, based at my hotel in Benghazi had a satellite transceiver and Clive was in big demand. He had been up on the roof of the hotel until 1am he recounted and then discovered he could do everything from a sofa in the mezzanine cafe. Clive was one of those great techie guys you find in TV without a hint of conceit and happy to dispense small timely doses of technical advice. He looked nostalgically at my capricious camcorder and said he wished he had one rather than his none-too-small TV camera. In fact he said he had one at home. And indeed he put very well the fact that I needed a smarter and more professional camcorder. Clive was part of a group of 16 from South Africa, a contingent of journalists accompanying, I recall 8? doctors, or were the doctors accompanying the more numerous journalists. Actually I am not even sure if the 8 doctors were part of the 16 or in addition. I asked one who appeared to be a doctor; he told me he was a journalist. One journalist called him a liar. I decided at least they must be from South Africa: the strap on water bottles, and insect repellant and sunblock secured with tiny karabiners, was proof enough.

A Japanese anaethetist had attached himself to them. They called him Mr Bean on account of his unselfconscious way of wandering about looking perpetually disoriented and asking all along his way for information and advice. He even dropped by my table and asked about travelling overland to Tripoli. I was loath to dissuade him given how many times I had been warned off travelling places by the ignorant. I advised against anyway. It did occur however that with his air of bumbling apparent ineptitude and disarming willingness to seek advice he was the sort of guy who could probably go just about anywhere and would have made a great spy. I was told he had been seen on the job at the hospital competently putting people to sleep.

But back to communications: I was having problems buying a reasonably-priced SIM card. People here kept a variety of SIM cards to hedge their bets and right now demand was high pushing their prices up to 2 or 3 times the norm. And should you bite the bullet and buy one chances were the network would be down.

Qaddafi's son Muhammad switches off, at least some of the time, the two mobile network he owns, and the Internet Service Provider which, almost needless to say, he also owns...The fixed line phones are cut by Qaddafi forces who also shimmy up the poles to figure out where to target their shelling.

When things die down looters from East Libya and apparently Egyptian people extract the valuable copper wiring with their cars, roll it into bundles and sell it in Egypt. Given that there were no prisoners left in the prison there was a ready pool of labour for such enterprise and as they no longer needed the phones in the tumble weed prison why not remove the wire there too.

When I arrived at Benghazi criminal prison the looters were still at work but not so keen on being filmed so I filmed Ali instead, my host and a former political prisoner, though in Tripoli. As the looters clinked away to provide an ambient soundtrack Ali explained the prison history and we roamed around with Ali expressing his dismay at the self service. I was introduced to an old friend of Ali who I took to be the helpless custodian but no he was just taking time out from his own looting.

Ali was impressed by the relative luxury to be found in this criminal prison in comparison with what he remembered in Tripoli. In addition to the numerous satellite dishes, not yet looted, he noted the barber shop, convenience store, gym, some farmland with a flock of sheep and large youth hostel style cells.

He roamed along the large sports courts looking for a water mains in order to turn off the water that was gushing from a pipe probably broken while trucks backed up to remove the courtside benches. I roamed with him taking surreptitious zooms of the looters who took it in turns to glance surreptitiously in my direction. I got my footage but later lost it anyway.

That evening I set off on a foot tour of Benghazi. Government buildings were easy to recognize by their ease of access and blackness inside and out as well as their lack of doors, windows, light-fittings or any other fittings. I did a large uneventful loop past deserted buildings and yards fronting on the inner city lake and and was returning to my hotel round the quiet back way just before midnight when I narrowly missed an opportunity to hear the viewpoints of some pro-Qaddafi elements, possibly even members of the revolutionary committees.

Behind me a parked van abruptly switched on its headlights and accelerated in my direction. I leapt onto the pavement and it shot around the corner and into the night. The intention seemed to be to scare rather than maim me. A warning swipe from the hidden paw of Qaddafi whose forces were now getting closer to Benghazi, which seemed to be emboldening the pro-Qaddafi remnants. I ran pointlessly after them more out of anger than journalistic commitment.

Parked before the entrance of the hotel was a technical on defensive duty for the first time that I had observed. About as comforting as having a room over the petrol storage tank.

Just down an articulated truck from Egypt was bring in supplies. It had a large banner draped across the front and I set my camera rolling. A man behind a large belly officiously called out...
"Qu'est ce que c'est". I ignored him.
"What is this?" He opted for the English version.
A camera.
What are you doing?
Filming
Why?
I'm a journalist.
Then the inevitable..."Passport"
Who are you?
Security Council.
"Me too. I'll show you my passport if you show me yours.
"There's a curfew now.
Then what are you doing here?
Laughter from his colleague.

I confirmed at the hotel that there was no curfew. But I also heard that several journalists had been robbed at knife or gunpoint of their equipment "in front of their hotels". This was firming up my hypothesis that the most dangerous place to be here was with other journalists.

But this was a city with no police or any law enforcement, which probably made it safer for that reason alone, and also a city which all prisoners had been released into just a few weeks earlier. A few mugged journalists was not too bad if you compared it to what would likely happen in many other cities. Since writing that I read in Nicholas Pelham's, New York Review of Books article that a local and one foreign journalist in Benghazi were killed on March 21.