Adversaries in South Africa on Friday united in their condemnation of the killing of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi this week.
Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, President Jacob Zuma and the ANC Youth League all spoke out against his brutal end.
The youth league saluted him as an anti-imperialist martyr and wanted to know who would be next.
Tutu said mob justice and violence should always be deplored.
“The manner of the killing of Muammar Gaddafi on Thursday totally detracts from the noble enterprise of instilling a culture of human rights and democracy in Libya,” he said. “The people of Libya should have demonstrated better values than those of their erstwhile oppressor.”
Tutu said the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, could not be proud of calling for Gaddafi’s killing.
“Nor is killing a human being something to be celebrated,” he said.
Zuma said while it was difficult to judge what had happened, Gaddafi should have been taken to The Hague to stand trial for his crimes. But Zuma also noted that it was “becoming a common occurrence…that people who are leading countries, in the end they are killed rather than them to be able to stand trial to explain their positions”.
It was also not a complete surprise that Gaddafi had been killed “because of the anger of those who were fighting and looking for him. Their cry has been ‘Kill Gaddafi.’ He himself had made statements that he would die in his country.
“I think we should put this behind us and say, what then do we do? Because the manner in which we do things, could entrench hatred. And I think we should be doing things which promote reconciliation and peace.”
He urged Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC) government to start building national unity and reconciliation and to disarm combatants. South Africa was ready to work with the rest of the international community to support the NTC and the Libyan people.
ANCYL spokesman Floyd Shivambu said last night: “Brother Leader was ruthlessly killed by rebels armed by Nato forces, who invaded Libya because of its natural resources.”
Shivambu said Gaddafi had resisted imperialist domination of the African continent and never agreed to the draining of natural resources from Africa, appreciating that they should be used to benefit the people of Africa.
The fact that he was killed in combat was an “inspiration to many freedom fighters across the continent and the world”.
“Like Colonel Gaddafi, as economic freedom fighters we will fight to the bitter end and are ready to pay the highest price for the retaining of South Africa and Africa’s natural resources to the rightful owners,” he said.
The only appropriate send-off for Gaddafi was to recommit to the struggle for total economic freedom “in our lifetime” said Shivambu.
“The question we should ask is who is next? Rest in Peace Brother Leader!”
Meanwhile, Gaddafi’s widow Safia has urged the UN to find out who executed her husband.
The Libyan dictator was killed on Thursday, after being taken alive from a storm drain where he had been cowering in Sirte, the city of his birth. Two hours later his dead body was being paraded through the streets as soldiers of the National Transitional Council shot their weapons into the air in celebration.
In an extraordinary twist, TV reports in Dubai and Jordan claimed Gaddafi’s daughter Aisha had called her father’s cellphone after seeing reports in Algeria that he had been captured. The phone had been answered by fighters, who she screamed at and called “rats”.
Russia said Gaddafi should have been treated as a prisoner of war according to the Geneva Convention, while the US urged Libyan’s interim leaders to provide “a transparent account”.
The UN believes Gadaffi was executed, while Amnesty International wants the man who pulled the trigger tried for war crimes. - The Independent on Saturday