More than 30 coffins were carried to Martyrs Cemetery here Thursday,escorted by hundreds of flag-waving supporters of Muammar Gaddafi chanting condemnation of what the state media said were civilian casualties of American and European airstrikes. But after two hours of noisy pro-Gaddafi,anti-Western cheers and very little grief for what state television called victims of the crusader colonialist aggression, most of the coffins were taken away. Only about a dozen were actually buried,and Western photographers said some smelled of corpses dead for days. There was no way to know who or what was in the others,or what was going through the minds of those who turned up to cheer. At the pro-Gaddafi rallies in the citys Green Square and the colonels compound,Western journalists have run into at least three Libyans who had previously attended protests or made anonymous statements against Gaddafi. A participant in an anti-Gaddafi protest in Tajoura cheerfully reintroduced himself days later to a photographer for The New York Times in the middle of Green Square. Sad, he said of the events in Libya,without specifying if he was referring to the protests or crackdown. For some,political camouflage is just part of business. Delphine Minoui,a correspondent for Le Figaro,reported visiting a hair salon whose owner praised or criticised Gaddafi depending on the client and then turned up as a human shield at a rally in the Gaddafi compound. And it extends into the Gaddafi family. A week after the uprising began,the official Egyptian news agency reported Ahmed Gaddaf al-Dam,the colonels cousin and aide,had flown to Egypt and resigned. He had turned against the government to protest against the handling of the Libyan crisis, the agency reported,and his associates issued a statement calling for a halt to the bloodbath and a return to reason to preserve unity and future of Libya. Recently,however,rebel supporters working in Cairo have asserted that the cousins defection was some sort of ruse. That was a lie, said Hany Soufrakis,a rebel organiser in Cairo. He is very active in supporting Gaddafi in Cairo and the region. Al-Dam could not be reached but Ali Maria,Libyan ambassador to Egypt and a Gaddafi loyalist,said he believed Dam had resigned but continued to support Gaddafis cause. DAVID D KIRKPATRICK & KAREEM FAHIM
