Flamboyant Gadhafi

The death of Gadhafi, flamboyant, self proclaimed king of kings of Africa brings the end of a brutal 42 year regime. But how come he was able to hold a football crazy nation into his grips for 42 years, exploiting and destroying its immense oil reserves, simultaneously killing and torturing the innocent citizens.

The answer is same, as in the cases of most of the brutal dictators in the past and in the present, living and flourishing in Middle East. Without the support of western governments for a long period of time he would not have been able to hold his fort for so long. His death is a welcome relief for the western governments, which supported him as long as it suited there concerns and causes. Now gadhafi gone, the road is clear for the oil companies, who were eyeing and lining for the libya’s immense oil reserves.

With NATO and western backed government seated at the heart of the oil rich nation, its easier now for companies which govern and regulate the crude oil businesses around the world, to loot and exploit the oil reserve for their benefits and that too on their own terms.

Classic Example Of Exploitation

As long as gadhafi was alive, he tried to unite whole of Africa under one umbrella and because of his immense lobbying African union acquire a new meaning and was somewhat coming to picture. He was a leader who always took stand sometimes against its own people. As long as he was serving the purpose of western governments, they put a blind eye to the plight of the Libyan people. If he would have been captured, his trial would have surely reveal the fraudulent and murky deals of some of the biggest oil companies, mainly from USA and Europe.

Gadhafi was a maniac, as we all know, but he was a brave colonel who overthrew the Libyan King’s regime and took control of the power 42 years ago. He was revolutionary in nature, he tried to bring many changes in the Libyan economy and in the process got succumbed to the luring power and raining money. He was a strong defiant character, making mockery of USA and its policies by openly supporting Hamas and by working towards united Palestinian goal. once famously he tore down the manual of UN security council and named it as a terrorist council while addressing the UN annual assembly. Lately,  He was becoming a thorn for the west with his backing of IRA Palestinians and other causes throughout the world. The west has finally got what it wanted.

His reign was marked by sudden and brave policy changes, which according to the conditions were designed to protect his regime from foreign as well as internal conflicts. In early 2000 he did a U turn by announcing that libya will comply by the rules of IAEA and will cooperate with security council for nuclear proliferation in Libya.

During one of his recent televised video he said he will fight till the end, will never leave Libya until he died. He will die or he will burn his rivals under Tripoli. True to his words, he stayed and faught until the end and died in Libya. Covering behind their forces would Obama, sarkozy or Cameroon would have remained in their respective cities , if those cities were about to yield to the overwhelming military might of foreign backed forces? These are people who kill with unmanned drones from far away bases in the US and UK and label civilian deaths as collateral damage.

With gadhafi gone so is the threat of the leader who wanted to cement African unity, challenge the hegemony of dollar and assert control over africa’s resources. For too long, western imperialism has gorged itsef on plundering africa’s abundance of natural resources. If western powers can stop Libya disintegrating under the yoke of factionalism, as a result of conflict among the forces that it helped put together in order to oust gadhafi, then its business as usual for US and its allies once again.