Gadhafi's Divisive Policies Still Haunt Libya Rebels from the western town of Zintan were seen as heroes after playing a key role in toppling Moammar Gadhafi. Empowered and flush with weapons from Libya's civil war, the militiamen now are fighting again - settling scores with a rival tribe in clashes that have killed dozens of people. The bloodshed last month between the rebels and the Mashashia tribe reflects the simmering divisions left over from Gadhafi's practice of consolidating his power by pitting communities against each other. Some fear that transition to democracy in this oil-rich North African nation - already suffering after the civil war that led to Gadhafi's downfall in 2011 - will be further derailed. That transition began July 7 with Libya's first parliamentary elections in a half-century. The new legislature will appoint a government that faces a web of unsettled conflicts in a society left crippled and wounded by four decades of repression, simmering ethnic hatred and no real judicial system under Gadhafi. Many Libyans identify with their own tribe, their city or their regional affiliation. With a relatively small population of about 6 million people, residents can easily recognize each other by their dialect, the way they dress and sometimes even their facial features. Libya's unresolved conflicts include: In this Wednesday, March 7, 2012 photo, a displaced Libyan Tawargha woman is seen in a refugee camp in the outskirts of Benghazi, Libya. On the country's Mediterranean coast, Misrata, Libya's third largest city and its business center, local militiamen expelled some 40,000 ethnic Tawargha Africans for allegedly collaborating in the killing and rape of Misratans and for helping Gadhafi's forces in imposing a tight siege on the city during the uprising. The third-largest city of Misrata and the rival Tawargha tribe. Militiamen in Misrata expelled about 40,000 tribesmen, accusing them of killing and raping civilians in Misrata as Gadhafi's forces besieged the coastal town on the Mediterranean in the spring of 2011. Misrata and the town of Bani Walid. The smaller town, a Gadhafi stronghold, was the last to fall to the rebels and is home to Libya's largest tribe, the Warfala. The city of Zawiya, where militias have clashed with the Warshfana tribe. The town of Zawara, populated by ethnic Berbers, which faced off with the Arab towns of Joumail and Ragdaleen. The Arab Zwia tribe and the Tabu, a tribe of African origin, long suppressed under Gadhafi. They are fighting in southern Libya, near the border with Chad. While Gadhafi's policies brought lots of unrest between tribes and communities, residents say the divisions ran deeper during the days of Ottoman rule and later under Italian colonizers in the 20th century. This month's election suggests a possible victory of an alliance led by Mahmoud Jibril, a senior official under Gadhafi until he joined the rebels in the 2011 uprising and became prime minister of the provisional government. His critics warn that national reconciliation and transitional justice might become distorted because of Jibril's ties to his Warfala tribe, which has allies in Zintan but is hated in Misrata. There is a pileup of injustice. The whole nation fought against each other, and for 42 years faced injustice," said longtime anti-Gadhafi opposition leader Mohammed al-Megarif, who is also head of the National Front party. This is what we got from Gadhafi - a desire to take revenge, because after a long series of crimes against his people, he didn't give people a chance to forgive. El-Magarif said Gadhafi turned tribes against each other, and sometimes even encouraged divisions within the same tribe by giving jobs and wealth to low-ranking members while alienating the top leaders. "Bribery was the easiest thing to do," he said.