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Thursday, March 17, 2011

Head or tail, Gaddafi still loses


PAUL ARHEWE 15/03/2011 05:21:00


Muammar Gaddafi’s continuous slaughtering of his people to remain in power, even though he has spent the last 42 years as a sole leader for this North Africa country, no doubt has again illustrated how power can intoxicate and his show of abundant recklessness and inconsideration for the many lives and public infrastructure that are destroyed daily.
Since penultimate Sunday, the aggressive anti-counter attacks against rebels, who are pursuing his ouster made this tyrannical ruler regain some lost grounds. Gaddafi’s forces attacked the areas where rebels had taken control of; bombarding them through airstrikes, tanks, and rocket launchers making death toll mounts. One fact is clear whether Gaddafi eventually regains all rebels captured areas in eastern and other parts of Libya, he will still be a loser. Winning or not, his people will continue to despise him and he won’t be able to rule majestically and have the free reign to command total control as he flamboyantly flaunt before this self attracted predicament.
 It is one thing to force people and coerce them to obey, it is another thing to make them totally submit their legitimate consent to continue to be subjected to a leader many have shown disapproval for.
There are reactions from the Gaddafi’s camp that the western media has concentrated and portrayed a picture showing that a greater percentage of the Libyan population are opposing Gaddafi’s rule, even though this may be seen as a strategy for the insubordinate leader to win sympathy to his defective course, the obvious is that he is killing his people in hundreds. The Libyan revolution has taken a different twist from that which was witnessed in Tunisia and Egypt that led to the ouster of Zine El bidine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak. The situation in Libya is akin to a civil war. Human Rights Watch said "Gaddafi and his security forces are brutally suppressing all opposition in Tripoli -- including peaceful protests -- with lethal force, arbitrary arrests, and forced disappearances."Gaddafi has seven sons and a daugther.
His sons are equally displaying the high level of power drunkenness that is now a symbol of their father. Libya to them is now a kingdom where their ancestral lineage is only authorised to rule. One shouldn’t blame them as they were born, bred and grew in Gaddafi’s palace, where they can neither differentiate what people’s sovereignty is in regards to state issues nor can they fathom the true feelings of what the Libyan people wants. The arrogance in their reaction to the happenings in Libya tells it all. Recently, one of them, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi spoke in an interview with CNN Christiane Amanpour. "Listen, nobody is leaving this country. We live here, we die here," he insisted. "This is our country. The Libyans are our people. And for myself, I believe I am doing the right thing." He went further to ask Amanpour to show him a single attack or single bomb that has been fired on civilians. Today, the whole world is seeing the continuous airstrikes and tank assault on areas where oppositions have taken over.The repeated announcement by his sons that there will be civil war in Libya if Gaddafi should step down, shows they are desperately protecting their supposedly ‘inherited throne’, and urging their father to continue the war to slaughter the people he has been ruling, even to the extent of destroying the last man standing.
More revolts are bound to occur even if Gaddafi successfully crushes the rebels and regain the eastern region and other parts. Already his army is divided; a faction is in solidarity with the rebels’ course, there may be coup to eventually overthrow him. Having western backings and France openly recognised the government of the rebels to the consternation of the European, Gaddafi can never be the ‘old lion of Africa,’ the posture he proudly exhibited prior to this massive revolt. This proponent for a United Africa tate would only end up aggravating this revolt into a full scale civil war that would tear Libya and destroy the development he had built for over four decades. The United State government is treading with great caution not to unilaterally back the rebelsin flashing out Gaddafi. The option to arm rebels and fortify them to match Gaddafi’s forces would have been adopted by the Americans; they are only waiting for consensus from other world powers, consisting of the UN Security Council. As the rebels call for a declaration of no-fly zone on Libya grows louder to obstruct Gaddafi’s air bombardments, the Libyan war lord is gaining upper hand these few days.
His forces have reclaimed parts of oil facilities and towns, including Brega, hitherto occupied by rebels. U.S is currently soliciting the consensus of other world powers to help rebels against the anti-Gaddafi struggle. In Hillary Clinton’s tour to seek support for the Libyan rebels U.S is initially meeting with President Nicolas Sarkozy; whose government was the first to identify with the rebel regime. Gaddafi stand no chance of having a free reign within Libya and outside his country, as only few country’s leaders would be prepared to welcome him with open hands, even if he wins the ongoing war.

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