Libyans from all walks of life gathered at Tripoli main square to celebrate this decade-old anniversary amid tight security. The celebrations began Tuesday night not only in Tripoli but also in other cities all over Libya.
Local media reported that celebrations in the city of Sabha were brought to a halt after fireworks killed a child and injured 15 other peoples. Investigations have been launched into the cause of the incident. This is happening as Libya is under a newly appointed government tasked with leading the country through the national election by the end of the year. The delegates chose a list of candidates in a U. This is such a great blog. Thank you for sharing your talent with everyone.
You are an inspiration. Gaddafi was the ruthless dictator of a country with few people and a lot of oil. Black gold pouring out of the ground. His people did not share in this wealth. He played the fool sometimes but make no mistake, if you lived in Libya and tried to oppose him, even a comment or offhand remark - and you and your family would pay dearly.
People seriously underestimate the lengths to which the West goes to maintain its supremacy. African leaders are vilified and the public in the West buys it all. Very depressing. Are there any plans for this to be revived? Institution would have challenged the power of the dollar and finally allowed Africa! Issue 95, 19th February Ellen Brown American author, attorney, public speaker and advocate of public banking reform. She is the founder and president of the Public Banking Institute.
Mission accomplished? One of these emails, dated April 2, , read in part: "Qaddafi's government holds tons of gold, and a similar amount in silver According to these individuals Sarkozy's plans are driven by the following issues: 1.
A desire to gain a greater share of Libya oil production, 2. Increase French influence in North Africa, 3. Improve his internal political situation in France, 4.
Provide the French military with an opportunity to reassert its position in the world, 5. Toppling the global financial scheme Gaddafi's threatened attempt to establish an independent African currency was not taken lightly by Western interests. As these developments were detailed by blogger Denise Rhyne : "For decades, Libya and other African countries had been attempting to create a pan-African gold standard… a pan-African, 'hard currency'.
What was possible for Africa Gaddafi had done more than organize an African monetary coup. Rather, as Canadian Professor Maximilian Forte put it in his heavily researched book Slouching Towards Sirte: NATO's War on Libya and Africa , "the goal of US military intervention was to disrupt an emerging pattern of independence and a network of collaboration within Africa that would facilitate increased African self-reliance.
At the time, Robert Wenzel wrote in The Economic Policy Journal in "This suggests we have a bit more than a rag tag bunch of rebels running around and that there are some pretty sophisticated influences.
Love the iai? Sign up to get exclusive access. Rebels killed Gaddafi in his hometown of Sirte on October 20, , months into the NATO-backed rebellion that ended his four-decade rule. Residents of Bani Walid, a stronghold of the Warfala tribe -- the country's biggest and a key pillar of Gaddafi's rule -- had backed him to the bitter end. Many fighters from the town were killed, with more dying in further battles when rival militia groups attacked.
Today, dusty wind whips through the town centre, where a decommissioned tank overlooks a dried-up fountain and a board bearing pictures of "martyrs" hangs above a pile of mortar shells. Bani Walid lies in an oasis some kilometres miles southeast of Libya's capital Tripoli.
The red, black and green flag of the pre-Gaddafi years, adopted again by rebels in , is nowhere to be seen. At the General Assembly, he gave a rambling speech more than an hour-and-a-quarter longer than his allocated minute time slot, tearing out and screwing up pages from the UN Charter as he spoke. When the winds of revolt started to blow through the Arab world from Tunisia in December , Libya was not at the top of most people's list of "who's next".
Gaddafi fitted the bill as an authoritarian ruler who had endured for more years than the vast majority of his citizens could remember. But he was not so widely perceived as a western lackey as other Arab leaders, accused of putting outside interests before the interests of their own people.
He had redistributed wealth - although the enrichment of his own family from oil revenues and other deals was hard to ignore and redistribution was undertaken more in the spirit of buying loyalty than promoting equality. He sponsored grand public works, such as the improbable Great Man-Made River project , a massive endeavour inspired, perhaps, by ancient Bedouin water procurement techniques, that brought sweet, fresh water from aquifers in the south to the arid north of his country.
There was even something of a Tripoli Spring, with long-term exiles given to understand that they could return without facing persecution or jail. When the first calls for a Libyan "day of rage" were circulated, Gaddafi pledged - apparently in all seriousness - to protest with the people, in keeping with his myth of being the "brother leader of the revolution" who had long ago relinquished power to the people.
As it turned out, the scent of freedom and the draw of possibly toppling the colonel, just as Egypt's Mubarak and Tunisia's Ben Ali had been toppled, was too strong to resist among parts of the Libyan population, especially in the east. Some of the first footage of rebellion to come out of Benghazi showed incensed young Libyans outside an official building smashing up a green monolith representing the spurious liberation doctrine that had kept them enslaved since the s - the Green Book.
As the uprising spread, and the seriousness of the threat to his rule became apparent, Gaddafi showed he had lost none of the ruthlessness directed against dissidents and exiles in the s and s.
This time it was turned on whole towns and cities where people had dared to tear down his posters and call for his downfall. Regular troops and mercenaries nearly overwhelmed the rag-tag rebels, consisting of military deserters and ill-trained militiamen brought together under the banner of the National Transitional Council NTC. The colonel could afford to dismiss them as wayward year-olds, "given pills at night, hallucinatory pills in their drinks, their milk, their coffee, their Nescafe".
The intervention of Nato on the rebels' side in March, authorised by a UN resolution calling for the protection of civilians, prevented their seemingly imminent annihilation - but it was months before they could turn the situation to their advantage.
Then came the fall of Tripoli and Gaddafi went into hiding, still claiming his people were behind him and promising success against the "occupiers" and "collaborators". His dictatorial regime had finally crumbled, but many feared that he might remain at large to orchestrate an insurgency.
He met his ignominious and grisly end, when NTC forces found him hiding in a tunnel following a Nato air strike on his convoy as he tried to make a break from his last stronghold, the city of Sirte, where it had all begun. The exact circumstances of his death remain in dispute, either "killed in crossfire", summarily executed, or lynched and dragged through the streets by jubilant, battle-hardened fighters.
Though it meant the Libyan people - and other victims around the world - were robbed of proper justice, the news sparked wild celebrations across his former domain that nearly 42 years of rule and misrule had truly come to a close.
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