THE BITTER HARVEST: THE COSTLY END OF GADDAFI S LIFE

Mina Monir Finally, the world has witnessed the horrific end of the bloodiest tyrant in the Middle East who ruled his country for more than 40 years. In a similar scenario to the arrest of the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, Colonel Gaddafi was found in a dark hole in Sirt, his home town. However, this time the latter was shot dead. The news were circulated all over the world and his body was carried to Misrata where the Libyan prime minister declared that Gaddafi s corpse will be buried in an unknown place for security reasons. Eccentric figure Since the very beginning of his career Gaddafi never have a fixed political orientation. First he started as an Islamist. He was fascinated by the model of political Islam of the emerging Muslim Brotherhood movement in Egypt. But abruptly he joined the Libyan military and became a big fan of Gamal Abdul Nasser, the prominent Egyptian leader and soldier, and his pan-Arab nationalist ideology. Gaddafi underwent military training in the UK and then returned to overthrow King Idris of Libya in 1969. This dramatic event made him the head of the country while he was only 27 years old. Like any other tyrant, Gaddafi believed that he was a historic leader and that he was more than just a president or a head of a state. He quickly started to wrap himself in an idiosyncratic ideology, a unique, and often strange, Gaddafism. In the late 70 s Gaddafi changed the flag and the name of his country and started his own Reich, if we can say. Under a heavy police system all dissent was met with bloody aggression and concentration camps were opened for any opponent who didn t support him. Then Gaddafi started his aggression against the west, in an attempt to make himself a leader of the Arabs against imperialism. In the 80 s he planned to attack a night club in Berlin where American soldiers used to visit. Then of course was the infamous bombing of the Pan Am flight over Scotland. His domestic oppression and international terrorism, alongside his flamboyant outfits and speech, ensured the Gaddafi was instant recognisable all over the world and that he was feared as well as mocked. Political messages The controversy doesn t end with his death. The whole world knew about Gaddafi s concentration camps and his mess in Libya. Gaddafi himself admitted that he was behind bombing the previously mentioned flight. However, Libya s oil and gigantic projects, such as the Man-Made-Great-River, seemed to be quite enough reason to take serious measures with this tyrant that could have prevented the bloodshed by his hand. The BBC published reports about the former Prime Minister

Tony Blair who restored diplomatic ties with Gaddafi while the latter s hands are still stained with British blood. However, BBC report proceeds, if there were no Arab spring in Libya Gaddafi would still have been a friend. This political pragmatism of the international powers should be reconsidered in the light of the will of people; their own people as well as the people of such countries like Libya. I m not quite sure whether this lesson was properly comprehended and we have the terrible situation in Yemen as a clear example. Another message should be addressed to Arab leaders who are witnessing the Arab spring in their countries. When the rebels broke into Gaddafi s hiding place, they found him with two golden pistols. The Egyptian columnist Galal Amer once said the Arab leaders discovered that there was oil in their lands in the 30 s, and only recently discovered that there are peoples on these lands. The man couldn t escape from his palace in Tripoli without his treasures. Yet he couldn t take anything with him in his next journey. This should be a strong message that using tanks won t turn down the people s will. Actually, it will decide whether the end of the dictator is going to be like Gaddafi or Mubarak, for instance. The latter is receiving medication in a hospital and being tried while the former was executed due to the uncontrollable level of wrath against him. A final urgent message should be taken seriously by Libyans. Libya was left without legal system or a constitution or a culture of democracy. This means Libya is starting from zero and the Transitional Council must not start the new history of Libya with blood. Libyans should not be carried away with emotions in dealing with the thousands of those who were involved in the former regime. At such a crucial moment Libyans must establish a state of law and should never establish a state sunk in the blood of other Libyans. After a day of contradicting reports about the details of Gaddafi s death it turned that he was captured alive, as this video shows: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NwoVdFTWt8&feature=related which means he was executed with a bullet in his head. This is unconditionally a scandal that must not be repeated with the rest of those arrested. Politically speaking, Libya s future is vague and the eclipse of Gaddafi s era is just the beginning of a new challenge of building that country. The Libyan Transitional Council is not fully controlling the fragmented militias which posses tons of fatal weapons. The members of that council itself had divergent political backgrounds. Therefore, a fresh start based on justice will prevent the emergence of a schismatic spirit that might lead Libya into a dark tunnel. Finally, this revolution led to a catastrophic number of deaths, people in Libya should leave a room for love and tolerance. This cost in lives must never be omitted because when they forget that cost Libya will inevitably be swallowed up in a bloody chaos with this huge amount of weapons circulating in the streets. Today was the harvest of the most tragic and bloody 8 months in the history of Libya, but it is a bitter harvest.