The Rise and Fall of an Arab Leader
Power corrupts. Libyan leader Mommar Qadaffi fights till the very end, blinded by his rule and his position. He did not fathom his fall from grace in spite of the fact Libyan revolutionaries swept Tripoli the Libya capital, on 22nd August 2011, slightly more than six months after the bid started to remove him from power. He was finally wounded, and died ungraciously in his home-town Sirte on 22 October, 2011 at the hands of revolutionaries.
It was a long road since 17 February, and inspite of the Nato-imposed no fly zone. There was the sense of the Kamikaze theatrical played to the blood spilled in different parts of the country. The daily killings and bludgeoning of civilians had become a travesty in a one man's land who refused to step down from power but maintained he was Libya and Libya is him! But no more. Today it the begining of a post-Qadaffi age.
But like all dictators before him, he thought he could over-ride the storm, and like Saddam Hussein before, kept his cards close to his chest. Qadaffi was blindfolded to his fate was sealed. Instead of making the best of a bad situation, and wave good bye, he like the brave hero decided to stick till the dire end and die in his hometown Sirte, fighting along his men.
The international allies hammer and bombard Libya, giving air cover to the revolutionaries on the ground who in the final days claimed victory when they found Gaddafi in drain pipe hiding after his convey had been hit by a French fighter jet and set him on the run, gun shot wounded in the face and legs.
Past friends become for a cause. The United States, Britain, France, Spain, Denamark and many others lead the international military alliance now congratulating themselves for the end of a dictator they befriended for a long time. Now, the time is to help the new government with western companies standing in thrall for economic contracts to rebuild a post-war, post-revolutionary Libya.
A tragi-comedy was played out in the past eight months or so of murder, chaos, bombardment by a dictatorship based on one man rule governing Libya since 1969 controlling oil coffers going in pockets and places anywhere but the country.
Brother/Leader Colonel Moammar Gadaffi should have left when the going was good rather than being hunted down. He lived his life till the end, akin a Hollywood movie, the brave fighter who retreated from Tripoli as the revolutionaries too over, and was finally captured in Sirte where bloody fighting continued since late August to conquer the city.
His whereabout was not really known till the final ending. He was thought to be in different places untill the Sirte military saga made it known that fierce fighting continued to protect the last stronghold of Gaggafi rule simply because he was in the vicinity.
No more Grren Book left to heels, no more rantings of a man who styled himself as a chrismatic personality, as leader of the Africans who lived in a five-star tent protected by lots of beautiful women.
Gadaffi, the ever-man of flamboyance and whose flowing cut made-to-measure robes by top designers in Europe, had amassed a mass fortune of $130 billion, that will now go to the new government in Tripoli.
The rapid protests against his regime, the organized opposition, the steady stream of soldiers and high-ranking officers who joined the new transitional government was rattling. The regime started quickly to collapse with the whole of the eastern region of the country, falling in the hands of the opposition, who systematically, started the road to Tripoli; inspite of the hired African mercanaries to shore up a tin-pot dictator!
In the first week of the revolution many soldiers, military officers, and diplomats joined the protestors, believing the end is near. The regime was collapsing from the inside. Yet Gaddafi continued to stand in a shabless wear more fit for a luntic than a statesmen almost oblivious to what is happening on the ground.
The meek shall inherit the earth, people rose up, the opposition won the day. Gaddafi was delusionary, he was sure about his role and destiny with power going to his head, unable to fathom the opposition against him, while keeping the country in abjact poverty with people living on $2 per day.
He will be remembered as a wild figure, a beast in drabs, a picture of embarrassment, not a man to respect. Usually politics, and staying in power teaches, in this case it didn't.
He will be rembered for his theaterics on satellites, a man possibly to study and compare of past leaders, or should I say dictators as he castingated Islamists as "rats" and "vermin's". In the end it was he who was caught hiding in a drain pipe, begging not to be harmed.
It would appear we have seen as the last of the Gaddafi dynasty. His son Mutassim, a military officer who saught to defend the city was also killed by revolutionaries. He other son Sief Al Islam is nowhere to be found yet but no doubt he will be caught.
