Libyan strongman,
Col. Muammar al Quadaffi lives in a world all his own. He is not delusional, he is not a "mad dog" like President Ronald Reagan labeled him, he is just a relic from the past, a dinosaur, thrust in the full headlights of a bright and shiny new century. His main failing is not noticing change and riding the bandwagon when it came into town a long time ago.
There was a time when
Africa was known as the "dark continent". Its peoples, were dark skinned, and depictions of what it looked like were done in black and white hand drawings by explorers. Owing to its rugged terrain, and difficult access, Africa still seems to trail the rest of the world in many respects, even though most of the continent gained independence from colonial powers roughly half a century ago.
Administering the affairs of an impoverished African village is difficult enough on any given day. When the colonial powers left, administrative units that went further than most tribesmen had ever been were left to be administered by the newly minted local authorities. This was too much for them, and so, to survive, they needed the technical expertise of those who had lived under such structured societies -the technical advisers were also known as "Cooperants" in Francophone Sub Saharan Africa.
Some early African administrators tried to break loose from this noose around their neck, and paid dearly.
Patrice Lumumba of the Congo comes to mind. Others quickly understood the game and played along. These w
ere the Idi Amins. So, it is in this context, with no clear indication of what side will be left standing at the end of the day that Col. Muamar al Qaddafi seized power in 1969. A quick learner, he scoured the history books on ways to make his reign a dynasty, much in the same way as other like minded despots such as Idi Amin of Uganda, or
Hastings Kamuzu Banda of Malawi who proclaimed themselves "President for Life", or the Central African Republics megalomaniac and alleged
cannibal, Jean Bedel Bokassa. Qaddafi's unique flavor of eternal power was to make the people think he had given them power, he split up Libya in small councils to make them manageable. None of those could get too strong, none of those could give birth to any one individual who may be allowed to grow in stature, and influence to get to the point where they may rival the leader. He termed his new creation th
e Jamahiriya - a "State of the Masses". Officially, he holds no office, so cannot be challenged in democratic elections. Using a combination of oil money, a keen eye for trends and seeing opportunity by understanding and mastering how Sub-Saharan Africans think, he was able to extend his influence first, in the Arab World, where he met reasonable fellows with their feet on the ground, which made him quickly leave their company to forage South of Libya, where the word "accountability" only exists in dictionaries.
In Africa, South of the Sahara, Libya's Qaddafi found that he could influence officials, right up to Presidents with liquid cash, guns and vehicles. Many of the coups and wars that were fought in Africa from the 70s until as recently as the
buffoon Dadis Camara of Guinea who had a short stint as president of his country, but escaped to Morocco with a bullet lodged in this head after an uprising. Charles Taylor, currently on trial for war crimes in the Hague had the Col. as his benefactor, and so did many others. With his growing influence, he increasingly saw himself able to rally votes on important issues not only in the African Union, but increasingly in the United Nations. This was a cause for alarm, for as votes in the U.N. go, Mali as a sovereign state had the same power as Norway, a much wealthier and powerful nation. Col. Qaddafi was playing with fire by influencing the leaders of poor nations.
So when protests broke out in Tunisia, then Egypt, he was quick to engage the Libyans in rhetoric. Saying things of no real consequence, trying to assuage impatient Libyan youths. What had transpired from those heady days, 41 years ago when he took over power to the present day is the nightmare of any despot. The people had found a way to get information about the outside world. They had seen a person that Qaddafi proclaimed was their brother - Barack Obama, become president of the United States. They knew there was a better world out there, now, they wanted out.
Qaddafi's sons knew it is too late also. The cat had bolted from the bag.
Saif al-Islam, the heir apparent scrambled to the TV station in Tripoli and in a rambling video that looks like what a used car salesman would make in his bedroom to paste on YOUTUBE, half begged, and threatened the people to leave the streets. Needless to say, his call was not heeded and once more, Qaddafi the father had to step in to try his hand at the rhetoric that had proven so successful with his sub Saharan puppets. He made a surreal 23 second s
peech under an umbrella in dark alley. Not reassuring. With every new development, he tried to put the spin on it. That is easy when you are painting pictures in the minds of some hungry tribal warlord who just wants an SUV and some guns to return to his fiefdom and kill or amputate the limbs of those who dare question him. Such people do not have the resources to verify the Colonel's claims, and even egg him on, provided he supplies them with cash and guns.
Now, with the full glare of the world's media scrutinizing his every move, his every utterance, down to the tiniest detail, Libya's Muammar al Qaddafi seems to be at his Alamo, his last stand and he is prepared to have those around him die for his selfish purposes. But this is where there is some misunderstanding. Autocratic African despots like him don't like to die. They would rather see others go to their certain deaths, and then cowardly seek to preserve their lives. That is what needs to be told to those around him.
Idi Amin escaped Uganda in 1979 to live a life of relative luxury in Saudi Arabia, feeding on bananas until he died in 2003. His first stop as he fled his country was naturally Libya.
Charles Taylor funded his 1997 presidential campaign with
money from Libya, and survived the civil war in Liberia even though he sent so many of his countrymen, including child soldiers to their premature deaths.
Dadis Camara of Guinea gave the world a
brief lesson in buffoonery before being retired with a bullet in his head. Ben Ali wisely fled Tunisia, and
Hosni Mubarak of Egypt just disappeared from public life. But Col Qaddafi is more than just a pariah, he is radioactive, and no country will accept him in their jail. What to do with him is an enigma that will surely keep many diplomats and Think-Tanks sleepless at night.
After this rather lengthy look at this megalomaniac who is a relic of a time long forgotten, I may have sounded at times incoherent but I hope that if you take anything away, it is that Qaddafi WILL seek to preserve his life, and the only thing that made him tick, was his corrupt use of oil money on less enlightened but no less brutal tribal warlords who are slowly coming to the realization that the world is still a village, just a bigger one where people demand the same basic rights as they do in the dusty jigger filled streets in some forgotten part of Africa, and most importantly, that "accountability" is actually more than just a random word in a book they never bothered to read.
