Someone, I cannot recollect who said that Gaddafi retains the support of the majority of his people.

Well if was left to Gaddafi that sentence would definitely be true as by the time he had finished the "opposition" and their families, second cousins and their pet tortoises would all be dead, most certainly leaving the majority support claimed.

This conflict has got nothing whatsoever to do with "democracy" the people of Libya want an end to a tribal kleptocracy that has been running the country for the last 40 years. What may well happen is that Libya will fragment and split in the three former "states" - Tripolitania (North-West); Cyrenaica (East); Fezzan (South-West). If that happened each would be independently wealthy as the oil & gas fields seem fairly evenly distributed with:

- Tripolitania having both onshore and offshore fields

- Fezzan obviously only onshore but it would have to export it's product through the two existing pipeline systems that run to the coast through Tripolitania

- Cyrenaica onshore fields, but with its own export facilities

The Libyan population consist of members of the following tribes:

Berbers (north-western Tripolitania)
Touaregs (south-western Fezzan)
Tebou (South Cyrenaica)
Arabs & Arab-Berbers (western and eastern across Tripolitania and Cyrenaica)

The latter group consists of the following tribes:
Siann (Tripolitania)
El Magarha (Tripolitania)
El Hasauna (Fezzan)

The above Arab-Berber tribes could be viewed as being in Gaddafi's camp.

Mugharbah (Cyrenaica)
Zuwayah (Cyrenaica)
Awaqir (Cyrenaica)
Abid (Cyrenaica)
Fawakhir (Cyrenaica)
Barasa (Cyrenaica)
Arafah (Cyrenaica)
Darsa (Cyrenaica)
Abaydat (Cyrenaica)
Majabrah (Cyrenaica)
Awajilah (Cyrenaica)
Minifah (Cyrenaica)

The above mentioned "eastern" Arab-Berber tribes mainly constitute the revolt.

The whole thing is further complicated by the aforementioned tribes being split even further into a collective number of some 140 "clans" with all ot those tribes