Dictators do not easily quite; they have to be thrown out by force. One who rules by sword is subdued by sword. But in this process the net sufferers are the common people, who pay a heavy price and face extensive death and destruction.
Colonel Muammar Gaddafi has been ruling the hapless jamaheer (masses) of Libya for the last 42 years. He captured power in 1969 and has been controlling the fate of six million Libyans using all authoritarian tricks of the game.
In the beginning he won the hearts of his countrymen and appreciation of suppressed people across the world through his anti-west and anti-US rhetoric and also the large amounts he doled out continuously for winning support and even for anti-establishment objectives. He had the benefit of possessing a large reservoir of high quality oil which provides him around 100 billion dollars annually.
Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Gaddafi gradually undermined all democratic and civil society institutions and became a dreaded dictator who was ruthlessly throwing his critics behind bars and killing and massacring his opponents. The then Soviet Union gave solid support to this maverick ruler and the western powers usually tolerated him because of his precious oil wealth. His dictatorial policies forced even his close associates to desert him and intellectual class had to flee the country and take refuge in other countries.
The popular uprising in Tunisia and Egypt encouraged the suppressed people of Libya to demand freedom from oppression. Gaddafi retaliated and his forces killed thousands of demonstrators. Now there is full scale rebellion and war. Libya, bereft of all institutions of civil society, is in a very chaotic situation.
After imposition of No-fly-zone order and open attacks by France, Britain and other allies the situation is getting worse hour by hour.
Gaddafi is not ready to make any amends and is still boasting of taking the war inside European countries. There are all indications that within a few days he either surrenders or is wiped out.
It appears that Libya is going the way Iraq went and soon western powers and the US would install a puppet regime there which would dance to the tunes of the western masters.
All other Arab and Muslim countries who are not ready to read the writing on the wall and refuse to give power back to people will sooner or later have to face people’s anger and even open revolt. Therefore they should learn the Libyan lesson and concede to people what rightly belongs to them. Let them mend their ways before it is too late.