Amidst a widening rift among Libyans supportive of the toppled Colonel Muammar Gaddafi regime and dissidents, Gaddafi loyalists are rallying masses to commemorate the eighth memorial on the former regime ruler’s passing next Saturday.
All the more Gaddafi loyalists in cities around the world have been demonstrating in an appeal to the international committee to push for the release of Al-Saadi Gaddafi, the late Gaddafi’s son, from aTripoli prison. It is worth noting that Tripoli is currently under the internationally-recognized Presidential Council headed by Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj.
Both Colonel Gaddafi and his son, Moatassem-Billah Gaddafi, were captured and killed after NATO raided Sirte, the former president's hometown on October 20, 2011. Gaddafi’s death ended a 43-year-old one-man rule.
Pro-Gaddafi members of the Libyan community residing in Paris demonstrated on the anniversary of Gaddafi’s death to denounce NATO raids on Libya.
“We will work this year to voice our opinions before the international community, and we will demand an investigation into the killing of Col.Gaddafi and his son, Moatassem-Billah,” Mohammed Egith, a Libyan engineer working in France, told Asharq Al-Awsat.
“Some European countries aren’t really concerned about the fate of my country, but seek to secure personal gains and oil interests,”Egith added.
On the other hand, anti-Gaddafi revolutionaries believe that Libya’s strife today is “a reflection of the policies Gaddafi instated and the dismantling of state institutions.”
An ex-leader in the deposed regime, Dr. Mustafa al Zaidi, told Asharq Al-Awsat that turmoil bereaving Libya today eight years after toppling the Libyan regime makes the Gaddafi era a longed-for time of prosperity.
Living in exile in Egypt, Zaidi believes that the assassination of Gaddafi and his comrades was “carried out with the direct involvement of military forces and French and Qatari intelligence services based in Libyan territory.”
“We will certainly commemorate Gaddafi’s assassination in Egypt,” Zaidi said.
“It will be a ceremony in which the Holy Qur'an is read and a memorial service held,” he added.
Gaddafi supporters in Cairo have been holding meetings to arrange for the ceremony.
“We will continue to commemorate the assassination of the man we miss, and will not pay attention to his haters,” a local official from Libyan Bani Walid town told Asharq al-Awsat.
