Death of a tyrant: How the Libyan people responded to the end of Gaddafi

Alex Hern writes a short round up of some of the reaction to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s death on the local Libyan blogs and twitter.

The death of Colonel Gaddafi has sparked reactions from around the world. The most common sentiment currently seems to be that, although questions must be answered as to how he died when he was apparently captured alive, this news must still be welcomed as the potential end to a bloody saga.

Al-Jazeera has an interview with some of the Libyan fighters who were there at the battle, which you can watch below:

Al-Arabiya managed to speak to someone from the other side of the battle: Gaddafi’s internal security chief, Mansour Daw.

They report:

During the final days of the battle of Sirte, Qaddafi and his aides holed up in “area two” of the city and stayed in different apartments of Qaddafi’s relatives who had abandoned the city, Daw said.

The former internal security chief said Qaddafi and everyone around him tried to flee Sirte on foot and in different groups after all their vehicles were destroyed by NTC fighters. He said he was hit by a shell fragment and fainted as he tried to escape and did not know whether it was at this point that Qaddafi tried to hide in a sewage pipe.

The reaction from independent Libyan voices has been overwhelmingly positive. The (self-styled) Libyan Youth Movement wrote:

Let’s face it, Gaddafi’s fate was the best possible outcome. Trial could have taken years and caused disagreements amongst the Libyan people.

Now that he is dead even his loyalists will want to flee or ‘switch sides’ With him alive his supporters would have continued to fight.

Also, I think it is safe to say Gaddafi brought this end to himself? #Libya

Iyad El-Baghdadi, a Libyan exile who has been tweeting and blogging throughout the uprising from his home in Dubai, had much to say:

Sorry but I won’t consider the way Gaddafi was treated as info on the future rule of law in #Libya. Only about how much he was hated.

And while I must say he had the right to a trial, my heart rests easier knowing that Libyans got bigtime closure in one day. #Libya

Justice is blind, and should be. But we aren’t. Gaddafi is not morally equal to his captors. Let’s get that straight.

It’s silly to think that just coz some Libyan put a bullet in a captured tyrant’s head, Libyans are going to choose to live without laws.

Anyone afraid of a “new Iraq” in Libya is only betraying his gross ignorance of both Iraq and Libya.

El-Baghdadi talks as well of celebrations of Gaddafi’s death in Syria and Yemen, although the former had it’s own problems to deal with last night, as AFP reports:

One woman was shot dead Thursday in the district of Deir Baalaba in Homs when her home came under heavy fire and a 25-year-old man was killed when he was hit by a stray bullet in Damir outside Damascus, the [Syrian Observatory for Human Rights] said.

A third civilian was killed and five others wounded in the central Hama region when security forces opened fire on a crowd which gathered outside a military camp to demand the release of villagers detained by the army.

And two young people were killed in the southern province of Daraa, cradle of the anti-regime protests that erupted in mid-March, when security forces opened fire to disperse a protest by students, it said.

Finally, it is not just the usual suspects commemorating Gaddafi’s death. Al-Jazeera covers the Iranian government’s response:

“The inevitable fate of all dictators and oppressors who do not respect the rights of their people is destruction,” the official IRNA news agency quoted foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast as saying.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran welcomes this great victory and congratulates the Muslim Libyan people and the National Transitional Council,” Mehmanparast said.

Following Gaddafi’s death, “there is no longer any pretext for foreign military intervention in Libya and it is vital that foreign forces withdraw immediately to allow the Libyan people to determine its own future,” he added.

6 Responses to “Death of a tyrant: How the Libyan people responded to the end of Gaddafi”

Look Left – Cameron’s Euroscepticism comes home to roost | Left Foot Forward
October 28, 2011
[…] the events that followed have yet to be clarified it is clear Gadaffi was shot dead by what appear to be rebel forces, despite conspiracy theories to the contrary. As NATO draws […]

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6 Responses to “Death of a tyrant: How the Libyan people responded to the end of Gaddafi”

Look Left – Cameron’s Euroscepticism comes home to roost | Left Foot Forward