Colonel Muammar Gaddafi is known in popular memory as the long-time dictator of Libya who was deposed and killed in 2012. His legacy is checkered with both progress and brutality.
Colonel Muammar Gaddafi cuts the figure of a stereotypical dictator, but the truth of this human being is, of course, far more complex. He ruled over Libya for more than four decades, and while reviled in the Western media, Gaddafi serves as a figure both loved and hated in his home country throughout history.
Muammar Mohammed Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi was born into poverty in the Libyan desert, around 1942. His family were Bedouins, nomadic, desert-dwelling Arabs: his father made his living as a goat and camel herder.
Unlike his illiterate family, Gaddafi was educated. He was first taught by a local Islamic teacher, and later in the elementary school in the Libyan town of Sirte. His family scraped together the tuition fees and Gaddafi used to walk to and from Sirte every weekend (a distance of 20 miles), sleeping in the mosque in the week.
Muammar Gaddafi became the leader of Libya on 1 September 1969 after leading a group of young Libyan Army officers against King Idris I in a bloodless coup d’état. After the king had fled the country, the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) headed by Gaddafi abolished the monarchy and the old constitution and established the Libyan Arab Republic, with the motto “freedom, socialism and unity.
When protests against the rule of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi broke out in Libya in February 2011, the government’s security forces responded by opening fire on the protesters. As an initially peaceful protest movement transformed into a fully-fledged armed uprising against his 42-year rule, Gaddafi pledged to chase down the “cockroaches” and “rats” who had taken up arms against him “inch by inch, room by room, home by home, alleyway by alleyway, person by person.
Qaddafi’s first order of business was to shut down the American and British military bases in Libya. He also demanded that foreign oil companies in Libya share a bigger portion of revenue with the country. Qaddafi replaced the Gregorian calendar with the Islamic one, and forbade the sale of alcohol.
Feeling threatened by a failed coup attempt by his fellow officers in December 1969, Qaddafi put in laws criminalizing political dissent. In 1970, he expelled the remaining Italians from Libya and emphasized what he saw as the battle between Arab nationalism and Western imperialism.
His rule saw him go from revolutionary hero to international pariah, to valued strategic partner and back to pariah again.
Gaddafi developed his own political philosophy, writing a book so influential – in the eyes of its author, at least – that it eclipsed anything dreamt up by Plato, Locke or Marx.
He made countless show-stopping appearances at Arab and international gatherings, standing out not just with his outlandish clothing, but also his blunt speeches and unconventional behaviour.
Gaddafi’s death came on a day of intense military activity in Sirte, the last loyalist holdout in Libya, where his supporters had fended off better-armed revolutionaries for weeks. Before his capture, a U.S. drone and French fighter jets fired on a large, disorganized convoy leaving the city that he appears to have been in. It was not clear whether the airstrikes hit Gaddafi’s vehicles, NATO officials said.
Gaddafi was shot in the head during an exchange of gunfire between his supporters and revolutionaries as he was being whisked away from the tunnel in a truck, according to Mahmoud Jibril, the interim prime minister.
Gaddafi’s last words
He is reported to have asked his captors, “What did I do to you?” while he was bleeding profusely from wounds to his arm, neck, and torso in addition to a large gash on the left side of his skull.
Tuesday marked the secret desert burial of Muammar Gaddafi and his son Mo’tassim, five days after the overthrown Libyan leader was apprehended, executed, and displayed in graphic fashion.
Gaddafi’s cleric, Khaled Tantoush, who was apprehended with him, offered prayers over the decaying corpses prior to their removal from the Misrata beachfront complex, where they had been on display.
“Don’t shoot, don’t shoot” were the last words of slain Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi who was known for savage killing of dissidents during his reign of 42 years in the North African country.
Sixty-nine-year-old Gaddafi pleaded for mercy when rebels captured him while he was trying to flee from a drain where he was hiding in Sirte, the last major bastion of resistance two months after the regime fell in August..……..See More
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