Nickerie.Net, maandag 24 oktober 2011

Gadaffi's einde - 20 oktober 2011

GADDAFI'S LAST DAY

8.30am - French Aircraft attack the convoy in which Gaddafi is travelling at a roundabout two miles west of Sirte. 15 armed pick-up trucks are destroyed in the attack. A wounded Gaddafi, accompanied by a handful of loyal men seeks refuge in a nearby storm drain. NTC forces initially fire anti-airctraft guns before moving in on foot.

11.05am - NTC forces announce that the last remaining areas of Sirte have been captured and that fighters are searching homes and buildings looking for any remaning Gadhafi loyalists.

2.00pm - After a fire fight Gaddafi is discovered cowering in the storm drain.

2.30pm - A local man tells Reuters news agency he saw Gaddafi shot in the abdomen with a 9mm pistol

2.45pm - A pro-Gaddafi TV website denies that the former Libyan leader has been captured

2.56pm - Reuters report Gaddafi has died of wounds sustained during his capture

3.00pm - Celebrations across Libya at the news of Gaddafi's capture

3.44pm : Mobile phone image is released of a man who appears to be Gadadfi wearing blood soaked clothing with blood on his face

4:02pm - Al-Jazeera TV is airing shaky footage of a man resembling Gaddafi lying dead or badly wounded, bleeding from the head and stripped to the waist as fighters roll him over on the pavement.

4.31pm - AFP reports that Gaddafi's son Mutassim has been found dead in Sirte.

4.30pm - Libya's acting Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril appears on television to confirm the news that Gaddafi is dead.

4.56pm - Video appears of fighters brandishing a gold-plated handgun said to have been taken from Gaddafi

4.59pm - Al-Jazeera shows video of Gaddafi's body being dragged along the ground

5.25pm - Reports come in that Gaddafi's body has arrived in Misrata.

6.00pm - Reuters reports that according to an NTC commander Gaddafi's son has been killed

7.50 pm - Al Jazeera announces it has received unconfirmed reports that Gaddafi's son Saif is dead

Eccentric style: Gaddafi was known for his love of over-the-top military-style uniforms and a cadre of young female bodyguards who were supposedly trained to kill

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2051361/GADDAFI-DEAD-VIDEO-Dictator-begs-life-summary-execution.html#ixzz1bYUJQzGy

In tandem with his eccentricity, Gaddafi had a charisma which initially at least won him support among many ordinary Libyans. His readiness to take on Western powers and Israel, both with rhetoric and action, earned him a certain cachet with some in other Arab states who felt their own leaders were too supine.

While leaders of neighbouring Arab states folded quickly in the face of popular uprisings, Gaddafi put up a bloody fight, taking on NATO as well as local insurgents who quickly seized half the country.

For most of his 42-year rule, he held a prominent position in the West's gallery of international rogues, while maintaining tight control at home by eliminating dissidents and refusing to anoint a successor.

Gaddafi effected a successful rapprochement with the West by renouncing his weapons of mass destruction programme in return for an end to sanctions. But he could not avoid the tide of popular revolution sweeping through the Arab world.

THE RISE OF A TYRANT

Muammar Gaddafi

Gaddafi was born in 1942, the son of a Bedouin herdsman, in a tent near Sirte on the Mediterranean coast. He abandoned a geography course at university for a military career that included a short spell at a British army signals school.

He took power in a bloodless military coup in 1969 when he toppled King Idriss, and in the 1970s he formulated his 'Third Universal Theory', a middle road between communism and capitalism, as laid out in his Green Book.

He oversaw the rapid development of Libya, which was previously known for little more than oil wells and deserts where huge tank battles took place in World War Two. The economy is now paying the price of war and sanctions.

One of his first tasks on taking power was to build up the armed forces, but he also spent billions of dollars of oil income on improving living standards, making him popular with the low-paid.

Gaddafi poured money into giant projects such as a steel plant in the town of Misrata - the scene of bitter fighting - and the Great Man-Made River, a scheme to pipe water from desert wells to coastal communities.

Gaddafi embraced the pan-Arabism of the late Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser and tried without success to merge Libya, Egypt and Syria into a federation. A similar attempt to join Libya and Tunisia ended in acrimony.

In 1977 he changed the country's name to the Great Socialist Popular Libyan Arab Jamahiriyah (State of the Masses).

For much of his rule he was shunned by the West, which accused him of links to terrorism and revolutionary movements. He was particularly reviled after the 1988 Pan Am airliner bombing over Lockerbie, by Libyan agents in which 270 people were killed.

In retrospect, his time had come when he turned his guns on protesters and sent his army to cleanse Benghazi, prompting Western powers and NATO to open up a campaign of aerial bombing that allowed rebel forces eventually to oust him.

As his oil-producing North African desert country descended into civil war, Gaddafi's military responded with the deadly force that he had never been afraid to use, despite the showman image that captivated many abroad.

When the insurgency began in mid-February, protesters were gunned down in their hundreds. As his troops advanced on Benghazi he famously warned rebels there would be 'no mercy, no pity' They would be hunted down 'alley by alley, house by house, room by room'.

Those words may have been his undoing. Days later the United Nations passed a resolution clearing the way for a NATO air campaign that knocked out his air force, tanks and heavy guns.

Raids also targeted his own headquarters in Tripoli. One raid killed his youngest son and three grandchildren. It was not the first time that the West had killed a Gaddafi family member.

In televised addresses in response to the rebellion in the east earlier this year, Gaddafi blamed the unrest on rats and mercenaries and said they were brainwashed by Osama bin Laden and under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs used to spike their coffee.

As the weeks passed, there was repeated speculation that Gaddafi has either been killed or wounded in NATO air raids, but he made carefully choreographed television appearances in response to the rumours.

In May, Gaddafi taunted NATO, saying its bombers could not find him, saying: 'I am telling the coward crusaders that I am at a place you cannot reach and kill me.'

One of the world's longest serving national leaders, Gaddafi had no official government function and was known as the 'Brother Leader and Guide of the Revolution'.

He strove for influence in Africa, showering his poorer neighbours with the largesse that Libya's vast oil wealth allowed and styling himself the continent's "King of Kings".

His love of grand gestures was on display on foreign visits when he slept in a Bedouin tent guarded by dozens of female bodyguards.

U.S. diplomatic cables released by the WikiLeaks website shed further light on the Libyan leader's tastes.

One cable posted by The New York Times describes Gaddafi's insistence on staying on the ground floor when he visited New York for a 2009 meeting at the United Nations and his reported refusal or inability to climb more than 35 steps.

Gaddafi was also said to rely heavily on his staff of four Ukrainian nurses, including one woman described as a 'voluptuous blonde'. The cable speculated about a romantic relationship but the nurse, Galyna Kolonytska, 38, fled Libya after the fighting started.

Synonymous with terrorism: A young Gaddafi, right, is seen in an undated photo with notorious Ugandan leader Idi Amin

Synonymous with terrorism: A young Gaddafi, right, is seen in an undated photo with notorious Ugandan leader Idi Amin Shunned by the West: Links to revolutionaries , such as Cuba's Fidel Castro, made Gaddafi many enemies around the world

Shunned by the West: Links to revolutionaries , such as Cuba's Fidel Castro, made Gaddafi many enemies around the world

THE WORLD'S INFAMOUS DICTATORS... AND THEIR VIOLENT FATE

Benito Mussolini Apprehended as he headed for Switzerland with his mistress Clara Petacci on April 27, 1945. He was shot the following day, and his body was taken to Milan and strung up in public.

Adolf Hitler As the Russian army closed in on Berlin, Hitler took to his bunker with Eva Braun and other Nazi leaders. As he realsied his situation was hopeless he shot himself with his 7.65mm Walther PPK pistol on April 30, 1945.

Nicolae Ceaușescu As Communism started to crumble at the end of 1989, Ceaușescu attempted to flee Romania. On Christmas Day 1989, he and his wife were tried in a brief show-trial and sentenced to death by a military court on charges ranging from illegal gathering of wealth to genocide. After the trial they had their hands tied behind their backs and were led outside to be executed by a firing squad consisting of elite paratroop regiment soldiers Suicide: Adolf Hitler

Suicide: Adolf Hitler Shot: Nicolae Ceausescu

Shot: Nicolae Ceausescu Hanged: Saddam Hussein

Hanged: Saddam Hussein

Saddam Hussein In April 2003, after the fall of Baghdad Saddam's whereabouts remained in question. He was eventually captured in December of that year. On November 5, 2006, Saddam Hussein was found guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced to death. On December, 30, 2006, he was hanged.

Ion Antonescu In May 1946, Romania's war-time leader Ion Antonescu was prosecuted at the first in a series of tribunals, on charges of war crimes, crimes against the peace, and treason. Despite two appeals he was executed by a military firing squad on June 1, 1946.

Rafael Trujillo The man who ruled the Dominican Republic with an iron fist from 1930 to 1961. Known as El Jefe (The Boss) he was gunned down in his car on May 30, 1961.

AND THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY...

Joseph Stalin The Russian ruler died in his bed on March 5, 1953, at the age of 74. Through purges, famine and gulags he is estimated to have been responsible for the deaths of 20million.

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