Saudi network Alarabiya reports that the Libyan rulers (NTC) have decided to bury the corpse of Mu’ammar Qaddafi in an unmarked grace in an unknown location. This is (at least) the second public atrocity committed by the new rulers. The first one, as I wrote here yesterday, was to allow the wounded and captive dictator to be tortured and killed. I wrote that he should have been tried, as Saddam was tried in Iraq for three years. I also speculated that killing Qaddafi was convenient escape for some of Libya’s current leaders and for many Western leaders who dealt with him, for a price.
Now making Qaddafi’s body vanish is another atrocity, another unnecessary act. Saddam Hussein’s grave is known and marked, and it has not caused him to come back to life. A dead body, no matter who had occupied it, deserves some dignity, one of many things the new rulers of Libya apparently need to learn after 40 years of dictatorship.
All this is a worrisome sign for the “New” Libya: it resembles what happened in Iraq when the Ba’athists (and their allies) first took over.
Cheers
mhg
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