Oon Yeoh
LIKE Saddam Hussein before him, Muammar Gaddafi badly miscalculated, grossly overestimating his ability to stay in power and underestimating the masses’ disdain of him.
That’s what happens when you rule your country with an iron fist for so long. In Saddam’s case, it was over 20 years and in Gaddafi’s around 40. You start to believe in your own hype. They thought they were invincible and perhaps even well-loved.
Saddam was caught by American forces, stood trial in an Iraqi court and was sentenced to death. In that sense, he had a more dignified death than Gaddafi who was caught by Libyan rebels and – depending on which version of events you believe – either died during a crossfire or was executed.
If you watch the horrific video where a bloodied, dishevelled and disoriented Gaddafi can be seen being manhandled and taunted by rebels, it’s hard to imagine he was not subsequently killed by his captors.
I’m hardly a bleeding heart liberal but I agree with commentators who say that Gaddafi should have been handed over to the International Criminal Court in The Hague to stand trial for crimes against humanity. As despicable as they may be, even brutal dictators deserve their day in court.
However, that Gaddafi would die at the hands of the very people he victimised is not at all surprising. It’s only natural for a brutalised population to want revenge. Retribution might not be a virtue but it is human nature, and we’ve certainly seen hasty executions of totalitarian leaders before.
In 1989, Romania’s Nicolae Ceausescu was not exactly lynched by a mob but he was tried in a two-hour show-trial and sentenced to death by a military court. Apparently, his execution happened so fast, the film crew failed to record it.
In 1945, Italy’s Benito Mussolini was caught trying to flee to Spain and was summarily executed by a communist partisan commander. After that, his body was dumped in Milan where civilians kicked and spat upon it before hanging his cadaver upside down from the roof of a petrol station.
Gaddafi – and even Saddam before him – didn’t have to suffer that kind of outcome. They both could have sought asylum in a third country willing to take them. Uganda’s bloody dictator Idi Amin did just that and lived the rest of his days in relative comfort in Saudi Arabia.
Ironically, it was Gaddafi who helped Amin flee to Libya in 1979, where he stayed until 1980 when he moved to Saudi Arabia, after the Saudi royal family offered him sanctuary and paid him a generous subsidy in return for his staying out of politics. He died in 1983, never having had to pay for his crimes.
Earlier this year, Tunisia’s Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali did the same thing, fleeing to Saudi Arabia where he now lives as a guest of the royal family.
Saddam and Gaddafi could have gotten a deal like that. For sure, neither one would have deserved amnesty – just as Amin and Ben Ali didn’t deserve to go unpunished – but it would have spared their countries a drawn-out, bloody war.
Instead, they chose to fight. And it’s in that context that we should view the Gaddafi killing. It’s not justified but he suffered the consequences of his miscalculation.
If there’s one good thing to emerge out of this, it’s that it serves as a warning to other dictators. I’m sure Libya is not the last we’ve seen of the Arab Spring. Other autocrats facing popular uprisings would now know that their choice is clear: Fight and suffer the fate of Saddam and Gaddafi or spare your country from war and live in exile like Amin and Ben Ali.
Oon Yeoh is a new media consultant. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com
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