It was getting smelly”. With these words, used to explain the removal of the body of the recently deceased Muammar Gaddafi from the refrigerator where it was being stored, Abdul-Mohammed Elshami, a Libyan fighter, encapsulated the complete loss of status undergone by the once revered dictator of 42 years.
The death of Gaddafi, who was killed after being discovered hiding in a drainage pipe in his home town of Sirte, is still shrouded in mystery. Whether he was executed or died of his wounds, that he didn’t live to be trialled and brought to justice could prove to be either a blessing or a curse for the fledgling Libyan democracy. Gaddafi’s death is not something that too many will mourn. But the question remains whether what may turn out to have been the summary execution of the Colonel will haunt Libya as it tries to establish itself as a democratic nation based on principles of justice.
The first thing to say is that no-one is sure yet whether the rebels did murder Gaddafi. The National Transitional Council (NTC) has reluctantly agreed to hold an inquest into the death, but the official line is that the ex-Libyan leader was wounded by gunfire in an exchange that followed the bombing of his fleeing convoy, and died later in an ambulance. However, video footage that portrays the rebels jostling Gaddafi after his capture has been accompanied by the suggestion that he was murdered by those same captors. Libya’s leading pathologist confirmed in the post-mortem that the death was due to a gunshot wound to the head.
Whether or not Gaddafi was executed, there is now no chance of justice being seen to be done. But while reconciliation has often proved integral for the recovery process in stricken states, one feels that if the NTC can say the right things, and begin the building of Libyan democracy in the spirit of the principles which condemn the murder of anyone, maniacal dictator or no, then the gory beginning to that process may prove unimportant. What’s more, even though a new Libyan government’s legitimacy might be knocked by this incident, it could be worth it. There is a fear that if Gaddafi had hung around in the Courts, resolute and defiant, the pockets of subdued loyalists that surely still exist would have been gradually emboldened, and Libya’s healing process impeded. The revolutionaries feared this power of Gaddafi’s to unite, even in death. Initially hoping to draw a line under the Colonel’s bloody regime by exhibiting his corpse for all to see, they have changed tack amid concerns over his martyrdom. Under pressure from the NTC, and alarmed by the crowds turning up to observe the former dictator’s lifeless body, he was given over to his family to be buried in a furtive service away from a cemetery. Whether Libya as a whole will be able to bury the memory of Gaddafi quite so easily remains to be seen.
