CAIRO — Thousands of euphoric Libyans filled Tripoli's main square in August to hear Mustafa Abdul-Jalil's first speech since rebel forces chased Moammar Gadhafi from the Libyan capital.
Then the most visible opposition leader — and now Libya's de facto president — Abdul-Jalil seemed to embody the country's promise of democratic change. A former justice minister, he had defected early to the rebel cause and came with a reputation for dissent and honesty despite his role in the Gadhafi regime. If anyone could corral the competing factions in the aftermath of Gadhafi's ouster, surely he could, Libyans said at the time.
"We need unity, rejecting fear and envy with no retaliation or injustice," Abdul-Jalil proclaimed to cheers so thunderous they drowned out parts of his speech.
Six months later, however, fear, retaliation and injustice are hallmarks of the new Libya. Vigilante justice reigns, human rights abuses are rampant and loose weapons float around the country — and across the border into Egypt — with little hindrance, according to human rights groups and analysts who've monitored the country's transition.
It's been a year this week since Libya joined the Arab Spring uprisings, six months since the regime collapsed and four months since Gadhafi's execution by rebel captors. The reviews of Abdul-Jalil's fragile state are downbeat.
Rival militias, powerful tribes, well-organized Islamists and semi-autonomous cities such as Misrata openly defy his weak administration. Ordinary Libyans are fed up with the car thefts and the carousing of the militiamen they once hailed as heroic warriors, and they blame Abdul-Jalil for not standing up to the paramilitary commanders.
The interim government has failed to intervene in the forced displacement of some 30,000 people from Tawergha, a community of black Libyans adjacent to Misrata whom Misratans accuse of siding with Gadhafi during the fighting.
The Misratans razed and looted homes, torched shops and renamed the town New Misrata. Tawergha's former residents were forced into makeshift camps where aid groups have documented rapes; many men were tortured or killed in the cleansing. Yet "no action has been taken to hold the perpetrators accountable or to allow the displaced communities to return home," Amnesty International said in a scathing report this week.
Abdul-Jalil's sinking popularity became evident last month when protesters, reportedly demanding more transparency from their new leaders, stormed the headquarters of his National Transitional Council in the eastern city of Benghazi.
News photos of the incident showed a besieged Abdul-Jalil surrounded by protesters pointing angrily at him. He asked them for patience, news reports said, but people in the crowd hurled bottles and he was forced to flee out a back exit. It was an ignominious escape for a man who was the international face of Libya's NATO-backed revolution.
"He's a good person, kind, but not political enough and that was the problem," said Khalifa al Daghari, a science professor from Bayda who was among Abdul-Jalil's earliest advisers and is chairman of a new liberal party. "He lost control a long time ago. The Islamists and the Misratans won't let him do anything."
At the top of the laundry list of Abdul-Jalil's problems are the militias, which Amnesty International described in its report as "out of control." Human rights groups say the militias are guilty of torturing and killing prisoners in their custody, both Libyans and sub-Saharan Africans.