Jubilation in Libya as liberation declared

LIBYA declared itself liberated yesterday after 42 years of rule by Muammar Gaddafi ended with his capture and death last week, getting the North African state ready for a transition towards democracy.

Tens of thousands who before this year’s revolt had known nothing but Gaddafi’s all-powerful police state packed a square in the second city Benghazi to hear the interim National Transitional Council (NTC) announce the country had freed itself completely from his rule.

Some fear NTC chief Mustafa Abdel Jalil will struggle to impose his will on his well-armed but fragmenting revolutionary alliance, pointing to the insistence by Misrata on displaying Gaddafi’s body three days after his death, in apparent breach of Islamic practice.

And there is international disquiet about increasingly graphic and disturbing images on the Internet of abuse of a body that appears to be Gaddafi’s following his capture and the fall of his hometown of Sirte on Thursday.

But the reaction to yesterday’s announcement was jubilation.

“We declare to the whole world that we have liberated our beloved country, with its cities, villages, hilltops, mountains, deserts and skies,” said an official who opened the ceremony in Benghazi, the place where the uprising erupted in February and which has been the headquarters for the NTC.

Crowds listening to Libyan music and waving the tricolour flag cheered. Another NTC official, Salah el-Ghazal, paid tributes to the dead, and referred to the “humiliating” death of Gaddafi.

Gaddafi, who vowed to fight to the end, was found hiding in a drainpipe after fleeing Sirte, the last bastion of his loyalists. He died in chaotic circumstances after video footage showed him bloodied and struggling at the hands of his captors.

With oil and gas resources and a small population of six million, Libya has the potential to become very prosperous, but regional rivalries fostered by Gaddafi could erupt into violence that would undermine the NTC’s authority.

“There is a yawning security and political vacuum in which brewing political disputes, factionalism and security problems pose a serious risk of derailing or prolonging transition,” said Henry Wilkinson of Janusian security consultants in London.

In Misrata, the people queuing for a chance to see Gaddafi’s body saw no reason for a rapid burial, apparently heedless of concern in Tripoli about how the NTC is perceived overseas.

“This guy is not a Muslim. If he was a Muslim we would have treated him in an Islamic way,” a man who gave his name as Suleiman told Reuters.

“We brought our children to see him today because this is a chance to see history,” another visitor, Mohammed, said.

“We want to see this arrogant person as a lifeless body. Let all the people see him.”

Jalil’s speech is intended to set the clock ticking on setting up a multiparty democracy, a system Gaddafi railed against for most of his 42 years in power.

In 2007 Gaddafi, whose “state of the masses” was seen by many Libyans as despotism, said democracy was a sham in which people were “ridden like donkeys” by powerful interests.

Some analysts fear that, without leadership, the revolution could collapse into armed infighting, preventing the country from ever attempting the novelty of the ballot box.

The lack of a clear plan for Gaddafi’s burial suggests to some analysts that there is justification for fears of a descent into leaderless turmoil.

But an autopsy has been performed, and a medical source told Reuters that Gaddafi’s body had a bullet in the head and a bullet in the abdomen.

“There are multiple injuries. There is a bullet in the abdomen and in the brain,” the source said.

The autopsy was carried out at a morgue in Misrata, about 200km east of Tripoli. Officials said that Gaddafi’s body would now be brought back to the cold store at an old market in Misrata where it has been on public display.

The disputes within the NTC have delayed the announcement of an end to the war several times, but such worries are unlikely to be in the minds of many Libyans as they celebrate the beginning of a new era in their country’s history.