Cornered Like Rat …Sour End Of Gaddafi, The Despot

Perceived by loyalists as almighty and foes as invincible, even after he had been chased out of Tripoli, the seat of Libyan political power in the heat of that country’s, civil war, not many believed that one of the world’s most wanted men and for 42 long years, maximum ruler of Libya, Col Moammar Gaddafi could fall, the way he did; that he would be cornered like a frightened little rat in a stinking drainage pipe, full of rubbish and filth.

Prior to that, for more than two months, Gaddafi talked tough, threatened his assailants with mass murders and vowed to resist any real or apparent threat to his 42 year-old maximum rule which he started 1942 with the last drop of his blood and die, if need  be, standing. A martyr. Instead, he was found in a drainage pipe, afraid for his life, the same life he denied many, through countless terror attacks, battle against descent with brute force and hateful religious cleansing. Even in that state of shame, many were not quick to believe that the strongman of Libya could fall so easily.

Infact, when news of Gaddafi’s death was brought to the attention of US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton in Washington, Thursday, last week, her first reaction was that of disbelief since similar rumours turned out to be hoax. Frankly, for most part of his last 20 of the 42 years in power, several attempts had been made on Gaddafi’s life without success.

For instance, agency reports recalled, soon after taking office as US President, Ronald Reagan ordered US warplanes to bomb Gaddafi’s compound, in retaliation for orchestrating the West Berlin Disco bombing of 1986, in which, two American servicemen were killed. But the Libyan strong man escaped unhurt.

Apparently, angered by that attempt, Gaddafi targeted Pan Am Flight 103, killing all 270 passengers on board and which painted the despot as champion of a rogue state. That singular conduct also put him on a collision course with the US which engineered far-reaching economic sanctions on the maximum ruler and his government, with minimal impact.

Feared and loathed by many, Gaddafi was for many years, what Osama bin Laden became in recent years. For years, he was branded as public enemy No One in the US, for, among other things, bankrolling terrorism and revolution around the world. A Newsweek cover story in 1981 even described him as “ the most dangerous man in the world”, while US President Reagan called him; the  mad dog of the Middle East”.

Strangely, after the September 11 2001 terror attacks on the Twin Towers that once housed the World Trade Centre in New York City, in which nearly 3,000 people from various nations were killed, Gaddafi became one of the first Arab leaders to condemn the attacks and  two years later also rennounced Libya’s readiness to pursue its weapons of mass destruction programme; assumed responsibility for the Pan Am bombing and offered to pay families of the Lockerbie mishap victims $2.7billion dollars in restitution.

Born 1942 in a Bedouin tent to illiterate parents in a Libya and into a country that was very poor, young Moammar showed promise as he became the first member of his family to attend secondary school.

Libyan historians recall, “he harboured outsized ambitions even as a teenager. Enamoured of Gen Gamel Abel Nasser’s rise to power in neighbouring Egypt, Gaddafi began conspiring with high school classmates to stage a similar revolution in Libya.

“In September 1969, Gaddafi led a small band of junior military officers in a bloodless coup, toppling Libya’s pro-western ruler, King Idris. It was an audacious move since, Gaddafi was a mere , army lieutenant, just 27 years old, recalls a Reuters feature.

At the beginning, young Gaddafi was popular among his people and enjoyed tremendous support. With no formal title, he, at various times, went by various self-adorning appendages, including, Supreme Guide and Brotherly Leader.

With that popularity, Gaddafi created a system of government known as Jamahirirya meaning, state of the masses, a system which sought to place government in the hands of local councils without a collective rule. But that was in the beginning.

Soon after, Gaddafi transformed Libya into a dictatorship which criminalised discent and created a network of informers that randomly engineered execution of opponents. His hunt for opponents who he called, “stray dogs” went beyond Libya into Europe and the US.

To secure his hold on to power, Gaddafi reasoned that he required economic power and so forced foreign oil companies operating in his country to pay to his regime a whooping 80 per cent of the  revenue from Libya’s vast oil fields, a model that would be duplicated by other oil-producing states. An American Cable News Network (CNN), documentary on Gaddafi, said, funds accumulated in that process “ provided Gaddafi with the resources he needed to cause havoc  around the world. Harbouring a deep resentment of the West, Gaddafi financed revolutionary movements in Africa, Asia and Europe-from the I.R.A in Northern Ireland to Islamic radicals in the Philippines. He supported Palestinian terrorism, including the Black September Movement blamed for the killing of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.”

Armed with such power, Gaddafi was feared abroad and worshipped at home. With that pedigree, it was unthinkable that anyone or  group of people could venture organised protest against his maximum rule, not to talk of being killed by anyone in Libya.

But shortly before dawn prayers last Thursday, Gaddafi surrounded by a few dozen loyal body guards and accompanied by the head of his once dreaded army, Abu Bakr Younis Jabr, according to Agency reports, broke out of the two-month siege of Sirte, his hometown and attempted an escape to the west; but did not go far.

“NATO said its aircraft struck military vehicles belonging to the pro-Gaddafi forces near Sirte about 8.30am (06.30GMT) Thursday, but the alliance said it was unsure whether the strikes had killed Gaddafi or not.

Although the rest about how Gaddafi wept and begged those he once referred to as rats, not to shoot and how he was  later disgraced and killed are all history, it still makes sense to those, to whom, the caution, “No Man is good enough  to govern another man without that other’s consent,” makes no sense. Those are the living tyrants of our world.

The Gaddafi example is indeed a lesson to other despots and sit-tight rulers to whom human life means nothing. Gaddafi’s is surely a shameful path, same path, followed earlier by Iraqi strongman, Saddam Hussein, himself also cornered like a wounded rat in a dingy tunnel with appeals to negotiate his freedom, a luxury, he denied many. And there was  the public enemy No.1 and terror Kingpin Osama bin Laden, who was killed in a US raid on his home in Pakistan and ending up without a grave.

More importantly, the air of freedom breezing through the Middle-East should, by now, be enough warning signal to other despots in Iran and Syria. It should also highlight the sad and unpredictable climax of evil power, which from all indices, has proven to be good only for leaders willing and ready at all times to do good.

Now also is the right time to urge the Libyan people particulary, the ruling class to unite in rebuilding  a stronger, stable and democratic country where, human freedom will be guided jealously by the state. The ruling class must at all  times eschew greed, avarice and selfishness in the allocation of resources, to avoid early resentment that often blossom into huge cracks in the art of governance.

My Agony is that Gaddafi was denied the punishment of  facing trial for his crimes against humanity and went the easy way, he did.

Soye Wilson Jamabo