A martyr they do not wish to create of Gaddafi

Libyans resist post-mortem on Muammar Gaddafi

• From: AFP
• October 22, 2011 11:49PM

Libyans queue to view the body of ousted Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi in a cold storage room in Misrata. Picture: AFP Source: AFP

Military commanders in the Libyan city of Misrata have said there will be no post-mortem carried out on the body of Muammar Gaddafi.

It comes as concerns over how the toppled dictator died grow. Interim leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil said an investigation was being conducted into the circumstances of Gaddafi’s killing following his capture, bloodied but still alive, during the fall of his hometown Sirte on Thursday, after several foreign governments and human rights watchdogs posed questions. But the military leadership in Misrata, where Gaddafi’s body had been stored in a vegetable market freezer overnight and was again put on display for hundreds of curious onlookers today, insisted the inquiry would involve no autopsy.

“There will be no post-mortem today, nor any day,” Misrata military council spokesman Fathi al-Bashaagha told AFP. “No one is going to open up his body.” One of the most brutal leaders of our time is dead.  His comments were confirmed by two other Misrata military chiefs. Bashaagha said that the new regime's military commander for the capital, Abdelhakim Belhaj, was expected to travel to Misrata to view the corpse of the man who ruled Libya with an iron rod for 42 years. But he said there were no immediate plans for National Transitional Council (NTC) chief Abdel Jalil to visit. “Abdel Jajil did not come yesterday and is not coming today, and for the moment it is not expected that he will come.”

The interim leader was in the main eastern city of Benghazi visiting some of the wounded from the eight-month uprising that felled Gaddafi. “Yes,” he answered when asked if the circumstances of Kadhafi's death were being investigated. He declined to take any further questions.

US President Barack Obama said that “In Libya, the death of Muammer Gaddafi showed that our role in protecting the Libyan people, and helping them break free from a tyrant, was the right thing to do,” he said. But questions remain over how Gaddafi met his end after NTC fighters hauled him out of a culvert where he was hiding following NATO air strikes on the convoy in which he had been trying to flee his falling hometown.

Mobile phone videos show him still alive at that point. Footage shows the former dictator, his face half-covered in blood, being dragged towards a vehicle by a delirious crowd and forced on to the bonnet. Those at the front push and shake him, pull him by the hair and hit him. At one point he appears to be trying to speak. Subsequent footage shows him being hauled off the vehicle, still alive, and hustled through the screaming crowd, before he disappears in the crush and the crackle of gunfire can be heard.

NTC leaders are adamant he was shot in the head when he was caught “in crossfire” between his supporters and new regime fighters soon after his capture. But in a video circulating on the Internet, a young fighter from Benghazi claims he shot Gaddafi twice after capturing him - once under the arm and once in the head. He says he died half an hour later.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the “way his death happened poses an entire number of questions,” and called for a probe. “The images we saw on television show that he was taken prisoner while wounded, and then later, once already a prisoner, his life was taken away.” US State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the NTC “has already been working to determine the precise cause and circumstances of Gaddafi's death, and we obviously urge them to do so in an open and transparent manner as we move forward.Toner repeated a US call to the NTC to treat prisoners humanely. UN human rights chief Navi Pillay also called for an investigation.“On the issue of Gaddafi's death yesterday, the circumstances are still unclear,” her spokesman Rupert Colville said. “There should be some kind of investigation given what we saw yesterday.”

Claudio Cordone, senior director at Amnesty International, said that if Gaddafi “was killed after his capture, it would constitute a war crime and those responsible should be brought to justice.” He said the “NTC must apply the same standards to all, affording justice even to those who categorically denied it to others.”

And Gaddafi's widow, Safia, who fled to Algeria in August, called on the United Nations to investigate the circumstances of her husband's death, Syria-based Arrai television said. Libya's wanted former intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi, meanwhile, surfaced in neighbouring Niger after apparently fleeing through the desert following the fall of the oasis town of Bani Walid on Monday in the penultimate battle of the conflict. “The presence of Abdullah al-Senussi has been indicated in the far north of Niger,” near the border with Libya, a government source in the capital Niamey said.                                                             

“It's a report that we have but our defence and security forces have not yet intercepted him,” the source said. “So his presence in Niger is not yet officially established.” Senussi was wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of “crimes against humanity,” along with Gaddafi himself and the latter's son and longtime heir apparent Seif al-Islam. Seif al-Islam too remains at large. NTC officials said that he too may have fled to Niger.

At a World Economic Forum in Jordan, Libya's interim prime minister Mahmud Jibril warned on Saturday that rebuilding his war-battered country would amount to a “Mission Impossible” task. “Rebuilding Libya will not be an easy task. It is Mission Impossible of Tom Cruise,” Jibril said, referring to the Hollywood star's movie.

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Sonia Gandhi...India's first lady

The Mystery Deepens, Chocolates Spied

By Paul Beckett

The mystery around Sonia Gandhi’s unexplained absence from India this summer is getting even more bizarre. The Congress party, as has been repeatedly noted, has said only that its President went for treatment abroad.

Now, barely one week after returning to New Delhi, Mrs. Gandhi was well enough to chair a meeting. This was not just any meeting, but a gathering of Congress’s Central Election Committee, which appears to have the unenviable task of wading through reams of candidates to select to run for seats in Uttar Pradesh.

Despite Mrs. Gandhi apparently not being well enough to appear in public, the Business Standard reported that she achieved almost the same level of candidate-selection productivity as the committee’s previous meeting held, in her absence, at the residence of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The Race Course Road meeting “cleared the first list of the names of 73 party candidates for the UP elections,” the article said. “While a total of 98 names were discussed at the meeting on Thursday, only about 70 were finally cleared.” Mrs. Gandhi, to hear her Congress lieutenants tell it, is not just on the mend but actually improved. After greeting the committee “attired in three-inch wedge heels and a bluish grey salwar suit,” the article said, one party functionary gushed that she looked “younger than usual” and was “more than usually cheerful.”

One might ask, looking across the political landscape, what she has to be cheerful about unless it is the prospect of Narendra Modi going for a weekend without food, but that is beside the point. In comparison, the normally outlandish Digvijay Singh verged on the morose when he noted only that “nobody could make out that she has undergone any operation.” But even he couldn’t refrain from slipping in an upbeat coda: “Touch wood, she was looking quite good!”

None of this is to belittle what Mrs. Gandhi underwent, whatever it was. We don’t know, because of the official silence. But how her absence – and her return – have been treated, especially by her Congress underlings, speaks volumes about the culture within the party. If you actually believed all these comments and quotes and had to guess where she had been, you’d think she’d spent a few weeks at Canyon Ranch and had brought back some nice gifts for her admirers. “She accepted our bouquet of flowers and greetings,” the unnamed functionary gushed. “We were delighted with the milk chocolates with nuts that she served us apart from the coffee.” What? He sounds like a schoolboy who has just met the Queen circa 1955.

On reading it, I was reminded of Margaret Thatcher. Not that the two women have much in common politically. But during Mrs. Thatcher’s time, her reputation as the Alpha Male among her Cabinet was legendary. Next to her, grown men  — tough men with decades of experience in political combat — were said to go wobbly.

One of the most famous sketches on the British satirical puppet show “Spitting Image” shows the Iron Lady, as Mrs. T was known, taking her Cabinet out to dinner. “Would you like to order sir?” the waitress asks the prime minister. “Yes, I will have the steak,” she says. “How’d you like it?” the waitress asks “Oh, raw please,” Mrs. Thatcher responds. “And what about the vegetables?” the waitress asks. “Oh,” says Mrs. Thatcher. “They’ll have the same as me.”

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Toto - Africa (From "Live In Amsterdam")

Toto - Rosanna (From "Live In Amsterdam")

Procol Harum - Homburg -2006

I Would Do Anything For Love - Meat Loaf

Cairns' historical buildings disappearing

Andrée Stephens

Saturday, October 22, 2011

© The Cairns Post

Colourful past: The Rex Theatre has been used as a cinema, then by a church and a motor bike club. Picture: ANNA ROGERS

We are without a dedicated heritage officer, we have rules which recommend a building be preserved, but with no financial or legal back-up for doing so. What can be done to save our historical buildings?

Much of our remarkable, historic and tropical architecture has disappeared from the landscape, and other classics have been left to rot until there is little to be done but bring in the wrecking ball. But the fate of the Rex Theatre on Sheridan St, which some may label an eyesore, is galvanising the community. The call is out for more, much more, to be done to preserve "old Cairns".

This week we learned the Rex developers may avoid a fine for stripping the old theatre because a demolition application has now been lodged with the council. Two weeks ago we saw the sad images of the glorious Mossman Royal Hotel being burned to the ground.The Herries Hospital on McLeod St, wrapped in plastic, is a modern shroud, its fate almost sealed. And the signs warning us all to get used to not seeing Frangipani House on the Esplanade in the near future will make the hearts of lovers of old Queenslanders creak.

Progress and growth are necessary for any city. The Cairns Regional Council’s 20-year community plan, released this week, makes that clear. But it also reveals "protecting our heritage" and "protecting our green environment" are the other top two major concerns drawn from the community consultations. In the list of iconic characteristics, the community said "heritage" was in the top eight as key attributes to living in the Far North.

"People really value heritage and the environment, it’s among the most important features of Cairns," Suzanne Gibson of the Cairns Historical Society said yesterday. "They are saying it matters, it’s who we are."One of the key issues for the council is having a dedicated officer, Ms Gibson said. She compared us to Townsville, where this role has been established for some time. Townsville also dedicates funds to its historical society. The Cairns society relies on donations.

"I think council is interested in trying to find the right mechanism for preserving heritage, but they haven’t arrived there yet." Working in the History Museum, Ms Gibson said the feedback was clear – a great deal of the community really value our tropical and heritage architecture, and resent and lament the disappearance of some parts of the old town. "I mean, imagine what could have been done with the Barbary Coast stretch now that the cultural precinct is happening and the cruise liner terminal was remodelled."But it’s all gone."

Ms Gibson believes that stretch of old pubs, depicting our rakish past, along with the demolition of the Cairns Yacht Club and the disappearance of the Burns Philp building, are among some of our greatest losses.  The latter was effectively a "glorified shed" for one of the biggest international marine traders in the pacific. "But the front was so grand. It was a beautiful neo-colonial facade."

For Dawn May, Secretary of the Cairns Historical Society and of the Far Northern branch of the National Trust, there have been many great tragedies over the years. She can reel them off in an instant. The loss of the Cairns Yacht Club from the Cairns waterfront (it was relocated to JCU) was a social tragedy more than anything.

"The Cairns Yacht Club operated out of an old rice mill on the waterfront from 1917. However, the building was washed out to sea in the 1920 cyclone. It was quickly rebuilt using mostly volunteer labour," she said.  "It was the major social hub. Dances, balls, weddings, etc, were all held there. It was renowned for its wonderful sprung dance floor." One of the most important buildings in Mossman, the hotel of the same name, was also iconic.

"It was largely unchanged from when it was built. There are not many wooden 1930s hotels left. It was the most important building in the streetscape." The Samuel Allen Warehouse on the corner of Lake and Hartley streets was a wonderful reinforced concrete building from the 1920s built near the wharves. It was demolished in 2001. "It’s significance was as one of the buildings that contributed to Cairns’ history as a port city," she said.

The 1907 timber building of the original ambulance station on the corner of Spence and Sheridan streets is another blow to history. Demolished, again in about 2001, it was one of the oldest buildings in the city and marked the development of transport from hand-drawn, to horse drawn to motorised vehicles during it uses as an ambulance depot. Now Ms May is watching the state of play with the Rex Theatre.

Built about the 1930s as a cinema, then used by a church, then a motor bike club, it has held within its walls a colourful past. The building was on the CRC heritage list but not on the Queensland Heritage Register – an issue that Ms May said can often water down any real protection of the site. "It was the most intact theatre of many that were in Cairns," she said. "Others included the Palace, Lyric, The Tropical, Gaiety and the Plaza – all now demolished or substantially altered."

She wonders what fate awaits the water-logged shell facing the road with its graceful, shabby facade. She also believes the whole precinct of Shields St should be safeguarded, particularly between McLeod and Grafton streets. "Most of the buildings in this section are individually not highly significant. However, as a precinct, with its wide street and verandahed buildings, it is a wonderful example of a tropical city of the 1920s and 30s,’’ she said.

"It is really important to retain this character given the destruction of so many other buildings that contributed to the city’s tropical ambience." Another one to watch is the Herries Hospital on McLeod St. "Matron Herries operated a private hospital in this building from 1921 to 1938. It was the only remaining hospital of its type in Cairns … Prior to WWII it was common for nurses to run hospitals of this type. Indeed, many older residents were born in this hospital."

The building has been vacant since 1996, sold in 2005 and the owner was given permission to remove some of the cladding to check for termites.  "In fact, almost all the external cladding was removed before a stop work order was issued," she said. The building has subsequently been sold again.

The Rex was stripped for "asbestos removal", was stopped by council, is now on the market and awaiting demolition approval by the CRC. So what can be done to sharpen our heritage protection skills? Ms May said the history of heritage protection in Queensland has come about slowly, in starts. While the National Trust was set up in the 1970s it "has no teeth". "It can’t stop a building being destroyed, it can simply say it is a valuable or important building."

Similarly, although the State Heritage Register was developed in the 1990s and does have a bit more bite, it doesn’t stop developers from bringing the buildings down.  "The key is to find uses for these old buildings, we can use them, preserve them and conserve them."

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Freebody, freeloads on LNP and others

Ex-Cairns LNP candidate Paul Freebody says: Please leave me alone

Daniel Strudwick

Saturday, October 22, 2011

© The Cairns Post

CAIRNS' sacked LNP candidate Paul Freebody insists he released secret recordings of a meeting with party bosses to stop rumours he says were being spread by the party. 

Mr Freebody said he still backed LNP leader Campbell Newman to win the state election in March, but said the LNP was being run behind closed doors "by old school guys who have free reign over the party".

In March, when he was the LNP candidate for Cairns, Mr Freebody was called to Brisbane for a two-hour grilling by party Treasurer Barry O’Sullivan over a soured business deal. Mr Freebody secretly taped the meeting after seeing another candidate came out of the interview room in tears.

On the tapes, which Mr Freebody made public this week, Mr O’Sullivan can be heard repeatedly swearing at Mr Freebody.

The Cairns businessman was told he was like "lifting a dead body" and was ordered to hold his hand in the air and repeat statements that Mr O’Sullivan feeds him. Mr Freebody, who runs a carwash in Cairns, was dropped as the LNP candidate in August over an unrelated email scandal.

But he said the party had not left him alone since he was axed and continued to spread rumours about him in LNP circles. "I wouldn’t have released those tapes had they kept that meeting confidential," Mr Freebody said.

"They’ve broken the confidentiality of that meeting by telling people, who have reported back to me, that (allegedly) I had two sets of books at the car wash. "And they couldn’t have repeated that unless they’d heard it from the people who were in that meeting." Mr Freebody said his ongoing troubles with the party were causing stress on his family and livelihood. "If they leave me alone, I’ll leave them alone," he said.

The party’s Queensland president Bruce McIver yesterday said the party had conducted more than 200 interviews with candidates and "some are more robust than others"Mr Newman, who was in Cairns yesterday, said the interview had "appeared to go a little too far". Former leader John-Paul Langbroek has denied any knowledge of the tone of the interview.

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MY VIEW

One of the first matters attended to by Campbell Newman when he became leader of the LNP was to purge itself of dud candidates, the likes of Paul Freebody in Cairns. Freebody was selected when the LNP was devoid of direction and purpose, as popular as Gavin King would be at a Women Electoral Lobby monthly meeting and therefore grabbed any reed in sight to cobble together a candidate for Cairns.

It is a credit to the LNP that following representations to the organisation by Cairns Blog and aggrieved individuals about his business dealings in particular, the Car Wash business in Reservoir Rd Manoora, his litany of broken promises about his Adventure Park development in the flood prone Barron River delta and other less than savoury instances including 'taped intimidating and threating telephone calls' to Cairns Blog's Mike Moore that the LNP moved to rid itself of what appeared to be a self serving candidate.

I had the opportunity to personally be briefed following approaches made to me by the previous owners of the Car Wash about the dubious purchasing process at the time when they acquired the business. I was shocked by the allegations levelled at Freebody by the traumatised and intimated owners and could not believe what I was hearing. For the record, I believe this matter notwitstanding restraining conditions is yet to be finalised and may indeed be referred to investigating authorities for any possible criminal breach.

To top off Freebody's erratic behavior was his alleged reference to Gillard and the assassination of John F. Kennedy and beseeching the same fate on Gillard and then when caught out Freebody as a loving family man and born again christian  attempts to implicate his children on the miss deed, was obviously more than enough for Campbell Newman to digest.

Typical of Paul Freedody previous public utterances, this latest self defeating episode is confirming evidence that the LNP did the right thing when it  rid itself of a dubious candidate.  

Ross Parisi
22nd October 2011

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Labor lacks a story: Paul Keating

• by: Paul Kelly, Editor-at-large
• From: The Australian
• October 22, 2011 12:00AM 

Keating says the Rudd and Gillard governments have failed to devise an "overarching and compelling" story and that Labor has failed to represent the new economic class that was brought into existence by the party's earlier reforms.

In an exclusive interview with The Weekend Australian to mark the serialisation of his new book, After Words, Mr Keating declares his faith in Labor's future but identifies the strategic defects behind its voting collapse.

"Labor must recognise what it has created," the former prime minister said. "It has created a new society and it has to be the party of the new society. "It can't be the party of part of the old society. Labor must be the party of those people who gained from the pro-market growth economy that we created" -- a reference to the Hawke-Keating-era reforms. He added: "Labor must be open to the influences of this middle class, to people on  Keating's guide to help people see the unifying philosophy of his life, public and private.

While praising Labor for its management of the 2008 financial crisis, Mr Keating said the Rudd and Gillard governments were not "in the business of teaching". "The failure of the Rudd and Gillard administrations is the lack of an overarching story, the lack of a compelling story," he said. "Our Labor governments have failed to conceptualise the changes." He complained that the "great curse" of modern political life was incrementalism by leaders. But Mr Keating argued that Labor still had a "great role" as a moderate party of the Left. He was dismissive of the Greens and critical of Labor's handling of the Greens.

"I would not be at all concerned about an attack from the Left by the Greens," he said. "You can run off, one after another, Labor environmental achievements. It was only when the Labor government walked away from climate change that the Greens filled the void. "They have to be pushed back into their crack, pushed back into their box, which I think is relatively easy to do. I'm not certain that a formal alliance between the Greens and Labor is beneficial to Labor any more than it is beneficial to the Greens."

Mr Keating said he had had little contact with Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, as prime ministers in office. "I noticed in the ABC mini-series on the Prime Minister they had me been calling her and urging something," he said. "But I don't do that. It's inaccurate. I have spoken to her but only at her request. "The most important consultation I had with Kevin Rudd was when the financial system was about to collapse in 2008. I urged him without further ado to guarantee all the deposits and to underwrite the international term funding of our banks. We know the history."

Mr Keating's 628-page book covers a landscape of speeches, reflections and articles. It includes a personalised view of his leadership philosophy that the former prime minister has not previously revealed. "When I was listening to music I would always have the pad out to write the ideas down," he said. "You listen to a great work, something that was created afresh, you hear the majesty of these works and your head and soul gets caught up in them."This is not to say that rationalism isn't important and good. It is. But left to itself without the guidance of higher meaning and a higher concept rationalism can be mean and incomplete."

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Muammar Gaddafi | OBITUARY

Muammar Gaddafi was a tyrant and comic figure but few were laughing

• by: Graeme Leech
• From: The Australian
• October 22, 2011 12:00AM

Former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi had been described by Western commentators as deranged, eccentric and a caricature of an African dictator. Picture: AP Source: AP

OBITUARY: Muammar Gaddafi. Libyan dictator. Born near Sirte, June 7, 1942. Died Sirte, October 20, aged 69.

MUAMMAR Gaddafi cut a music-hall figure in his gaudy military uniform, but behind the comical facade lurked a brutal cynic who repressed Libya for 42 years. His barbarous instincts have been on display since February, when he unleashed his military to attack rebellious civilians inspired by regime-changing uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt.

Described by Western commentators as deranged, eccentric and a caricature of an African dictator, there was nevertheless a certain method in Gaddafi's madness. It was a method that kept his enemies in check, or worse, and allowed him to rule, more or less by whim, for more than four decades. Gaddafi was born to a tribe of herders in a tent near Sirte, the town where he met his death. He attended primary school but completed his secondary education by private tutor in Misrata, the city he almost destroyed earlier this year.
Gaddafi entered the country's military academy at Benghazi in 1961 and graduated in 1966. It was there that he linked up with the Free Officers Movement, a group motivated to avenge Arab humiliation at the hands of Israel and determined to overthrow the Libyan monarchy.

On September 1, 1969, a group of young officers led by Gaddafi staged a bloodless coup against King Idris, who had gone to Turkey for medical treatment. The monarchy was abolished and Libya declared a republic. A British mercenary plan to restore the monarchy was shelved when the US decided Gaddafi was not a communist and therefore not a threat to US interests. He established extensive surveillance networks to spy on citizens. Political and social dissent were made illegal. Indeed, people were threatened with execution if they dared to form a political party. Dissidents were given public executions.

International goodwill towards Gaddafi quickly dissipated as he cultivated an anti-Western manner, a persona that found nationalist support among many Libyans. Isolated internationally, he became a rogue leader and sought to cause mischief and mayhem wherever possible. In the late 1970s he published his so-called political philosophy in The Green Book, a work that attracted mirth in the West but was required reading in Libya. He recast himself as the "Brother Leader" of the Libyan revolution and set about establishing himself as the world's most unpredictable dictator, at a time when there was a plentiful supply of them.

His behaviour throughout the 1970s and 80s was outrageous. He tried to get his hands on nuclear weapons from China, Pakistan and India. He tried to obtain chemical weapons and was reputed to have stockpiles of mustard gas. He used his diplomats to help assassinate opponents. Amnesty International has listed 25 such murders in the 80s. His assassins were particularly active in Britain, where many Libyan dissidents had sought refuge. In April 1984 shots were fired from the Libyan embassy in London, killing a policewoman, Yvonne Fletcher, and wounding several anti-Gaddafi protesters. In retaliation, Britain cut off diplomatic relations. Relations were restored in 1999 after the Libyans accepted responsibility and paid Fletcher's family more than pound stg. 100,000 compensation.

Meanwhile Gaddafi was strutting the African stage with grandiose plans, including one for a united states of Africa. He pitched for a merger with Sudan, which prompted president Gaafar Nimeiry to say of the Libyan leader: "He has a split personality, both parts evil." He wanted a pan-Arab state; he wanted a pan-Islamic state; he wanted a federation of Arab states; he wanted to merge with Tunisia; he signed a treaty with Morocco that fell apart; and he created the Islamic Legion, which recruited widely and interfered in Chad and Darfur, where thousands died.

Gaddafi was a supporter of brutal Ugandan president Idi Amin and sent troops to help Amin fight against Tanzania. About 600 Libyan soldiers died in that episode, which ended when Amin's regime collapsed in 1979. Amin then found sanctuary in Libya. Gaddafi was a terrorist by proxy; he financed or encouraged terrorist activities in other countries through most of the 70s and 80s. He was a generous financier of the Black September Movement, responsible for the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics, and was accused by the US of being behind the 1986 bombing of a Berlin disco that killed three and wounded more than 220, including many US military personnel.

During Ronald Reagan's presidency in 1981-89, tensions between Washington and Tripoli grew to breaking point. Reagan called Gaddafi the "mad dog of the Middle East" and regarded Libya as a rogue state because of its support for Palestinian independence and for Iran in its long war against Iraq. But Gaddafi's attitude to Palestine varied. In 1972, he said that Arabs wanting to fight with Palestinian terrorist groups could register their names with Libyan consular officials and would be given combat training. He also funded Palestinian terrorists.

In the 1973 Yom Kippur war, Gaddafi sent an armoured brigade and money to Egypt. But in 1995 he expelled 30,000 Palestinians because of peace negotiations between Israel and the PLO. In 1982, the US banned imports of Libyan oil and exports of US technology. It made no difference to Gaddafi, who continued his brazen anti-West policies. The US attacked Libyan patrol boats in 1986 and in April that year Reagan ordered bombing raids on Tripoli and Benghazi in retaliation for the Berlin disco bombing.

In 1987 a cargo ship was intercepted on its way to delivering arms and explosives to the Irish Republican Army. The British intelligence services believed it wasn't the first Libyan shipment to the IRA. Gaddafi also supported European terror groups the Red Army Faction and the Red Brigades. Adding to his eccentric ways, he began surrounding himself with female bodyguards, a group of armed women in combat uniform who were supposed to be prepared to die for their leader.

Because of Gaddafi's taste for funding terrorism, Libya suffered sanctions and diplomatic isolation for most of the 90s. High on the list of crimes sheeted home to Libya was the bombing of Pan-Am Flight 103, which exploded over the Scottish village of Lockerbie killing 243 passengers, 16 crew and 11 on the ground.

Following efforts by UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, in 1999 Gaddafi agreed to hand over Abdelbaset al-Megrahi and Lamin Khalifah Fhimah to stand trial in The Netherlands under Scottish law. In 2003, Libya accepted responsibility for the bombing and agreed to pay compensation to the families of the 270 victims. In February this year Libya's former justice minister, Mustafa Abdul Jalil, said Gaddafi had personally ordered the Lockerbie bombing.

Al-Megrahi was convicted of murder in 2001 and was sentenced to life imprisonment in Scotland. Fhimah was found not guilty. Al-Megrahi was released on compassionate grounds in August 2009 when doctors diagnosed terminal cancer and said he had three months to live. It was a public relations coup for Gaddafi, and he and his son Saif al-Islam milked it. But Al-Megrahi is still alive two years later, a source of anger among the US relatives of the Lockerbie dead, and in Britain, where people think they were tricked into releasing him.

Whether it was a change of heart or by economic necessity, in the 90s Gaddafi began to co-operate with the West. He discontinued his nuclear weapons program, resulting in the lifting of UN sanctions in 2003. In Africa, he was widely regarded as a statesman who had pursued the interests of Africans, particularly for his generosity in helping poor sub-Saharan states. And he was among the first African or Muslim leaders to condemn al-Qa'ida, even before the September 11 atrocity. But his new approach of co-operating with the West on nuclear weapons was examined for ulterior motives.

It puzzled Westerners accustomed to his double-dealing. One explanation was that in the 90s Gaddafi realised he might be obliged to accept Western aid when oil prices dropped. Libya's wealth declined in that period. Indeed, Gaddafi squandered the nation's oil wealth throughout his dictatorship. Sanctions had taken their toll and Libya had become more and more isolated. An alternative explanation is that Gaddafi had experienced an epiphany: after all his years of ranting and persecution of opponents, he realised he had been misguided and that support among Arab nations was virtually nonexistent.

In 2003 Gaddafi said he would allow weapons inspectors to witness the dismantling of his nuclear weapons program. US president George W. Bush responded by saying Gaddafi was reacting to the US invasion of Iraq and the downfall of Saddam Hussein and wished to avoid the same fate. In March 2004, British prime minister Tony Blair visited Libya and was photographed embracing Gaddafi, a picture that came back to haunt Blair this year when it was clear Gaddafi was prepared to use extreme violence against civilians.

British ambassador Anthony Layden argued that 35 years of state control of the economy had "left them in a situation where they're simply not generating enough economic activity to give employment to the young people who are streaming through their successful education system. I think this dilemma goes to the heart of Colonel Gaddafi's decision that he needed a radical change of direction."

The US resumed diplomatic relations in 2006. On the rare occasions Australia came on to Gaddafi's radar it was for some cock-eyed plan such as his attempt to radicalise Aborigines and offer them paramilitary training. Left-wing unions were given Libyan money and Labor left-wing Victorian state secretary Bill Hartley was a loyal supporter. In 1987, Australia broke diplomatic relations because of Libyan activities in the South Pacific.The past nine months have seen Gaddafi under siege as rebels gained the ascendancy, with help from NATO airstrikes. He became gradually more demented in his denunciations of the "gangs" of "terrorists" who were battling to topple him.

But as Gaddafi's supporters deserted him, the rebels began to get on top, taking the capital, Tripoli, in August; they were beginning the reconstruction of the country as Gaddafi took refuge in his last stronghold.

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Gaddafi the final curtain

How they found the mad dog of Libya Muammar Gaddafi trapped like a rat up a drainpipe

• by: John Lyons, Middle East correspondent
• From: The Australian
• October 22, 2011 12:00AM

A Libyan National Transitional Council fighter stands outside the drain in Sirte where Muammar Gaddafi was captured. Picture: AFP Source: AFP

Several times over the past eight months, Muammar Gaddafi called those rising up against his Libyan dictatorship "rats". In the end, the 69-year-old tyrant, who amassed enormous wealth during his 42-year rule, died a rodent's death, a rat caught up a drainpipe.

Libyans were jubilant yesterday following confirmation that Gaddafi's place of birth, his key stronghold, had become his place of death. World leaders hailed his killing in Sirte, shortly before the death of his feared son Mutassim and the apparent capture of his most prominent son, Saif al-Islam. But Libya's interim rulers in the National Transitional Council were last night resisting calls to announce the liberation and move towards democracy.

Gaddafi's body was on display yesterday in the city of Misratah as the story of his death after the eight-month Arab Spring-inspired revolt emerged from a range of sources. After rebel fighters stormed Sirte on Thursday night they fanned out across the town.While his regime had collapsed, Sirte was always going to be Gaddafi's last stand. For all the bluster of Gaddafi and Saif, two things they said they obviously meant. Gaddafi always said he would fight to the end and never leave Libya. Saif said he, too, would fight to the death and blood would flow. At least one was right.

The ousted strongman's wife and two of his children had seen the writing on the wall weeks ago and fled to Algeria. Other members of the inner circle had escaped by convoy into Niger. But Gaddafi and Saif bunkered down. About 8.30am (5.30pm AEST) in Sirte, even Gaddafi had realised his time was up. With rebel fighters only four blocks away, he and his remaining 20 or so loyalists fled in a convoy of cars. It was the ultimate humiliation to have to run from his stronghold, but self-preservation took over.

NATO, however, had other ideas. In recent months, NATO jets have had an uncanny ability to strike key Gaddafi targets and personnel. Drawing on electronic and human intelligence provided by the US, Britain, France and Libyans on the ground, NATO has been tracking Gaddafi. In May NATO forces even knew he had gone to one of his son's houses in Tripoli - and bombed it while he was there. On Thursday, it appears they knew this sudden convoy was the big prize. They struck. A French jet locked on to the convoy and fired. It did not kill Gaddafi, but its missiles obviously hit close enough for the former leader and his loyalists to panic.

They stopped and ran, apparently in different directions. Gaddafi ran for a drain. What happened next replicated a pattern over recent months - a NATO strike followed by rebel ground forces. Rebel fighters often move in after a NATO bombing - it means Gaddafi forces are probably dead or fleeing. The rebels headed towards the scene of the airstrike. They detained four Gaddafi men, who, it seems to save themselves, pointed to their leader's drainpipe. They pulled Gaddafi out. Word went out quickly and a frenzy developed. The horrible scenes that followed have been captured by mobile phones.

The pictures show him being rushed through the streets - bloodied, distressed, terrified, but alive. He can be seen wiping blood from his face. You can hear shouting. It's a frenzy. Then you see a gun put to his head. One moment he is alive, the next he is dead. What Gaddafi had done to thousands of others over the past 42 years had been done to him. Justice, Gaddafi-style. But the rebels who have become the new government in the form of the National Transitional Council always argued they were better than Gaddafi. They came to power criticising Gaddafi for brutality and lying. Now it seems they have done both. The NTC's Mahmoud Jibril claimed Gaddafi "was shot in the head in crossfire".

It appears the truth is different: he was executed by a lynch mob of rebels. The rebels' military spokesman, Ahmed Bani, says the most important thing is that Gaddafi was killed. "How is not important," he said. UN human rights chief Navi Pillay called for an investigation."On the issue of Gaddafi's death yesterday, the circumstances are still unclear," her spokesman Rupert Colville said. "There should be some kind of investigation, given what we saw yesterday."

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Britain did not approve of "extrajudicial killing", but the country would not mourn Gaddafi, whom it held responsible for ordering the 1988 Lockerbie bombing as well as arming the Irish Republican Army. Meanwhile, Mutassim was also captured in Sirte. He was photographed lying in a prison - alive.Then he was dead. The NTC says Mutassim "was found dead in Sirte".That sounds better than being shot in cold blood. The place where Gaddafi was found became a shrine of sorts. "This is the place where the rat was hiding," someone wrote. The revolution was complete.

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 LIBYA  |  History

The Barbary coast: 16th - 20th century AD
With the decline of the local Berber dynasties in the 15th and 16th centuries, the valuable coastal strip of north Africa (known because of the Berbers as the Barbary coast) attracts the attention of the two most powerful Mediterranean states of the time - Spain in the west, Turkey in the east. The Spanish-Turkish rivalry lasts for much of the 16th century, but it is gradually won - in a somewhat unorthodox manner - by the Turks. Their successful device is to allow Turkish pirates, or corsairs, to establish themselves along the coast. The territories seized by the corsairs are then given a formal status as protectorates of the Ottoman empire.
The first such pirate establishes himself on the coast of Algeria in 1512. Two others are firmly based in Libya by 1551. Tunisia is briefly taken in 1534 by the most famous corsair of them all, Khair ed-Din (known to the Europeans as Barbarossa). Recovered for Spain in 1535, Tunisia is finally brought under Ottoman control in 1574. Piracy remains the chief purpose and main source of income of all these Turkish settlements along the Barbary coast. And the depredations of piracy, after three centuries, at last prompt French intervention in Algeria. This, at any rate, is stated by the French at the time to be the cause of their intervention. The reality is somewhat less glorious.
Algiers is occupied by the French in 1830, but it is not until 1847 that the French conquest of Algeria is complete - after prolonged resistance from the Berber hinterland, which has never been effectively controlled by the Turks on the coast. It is in the European interest to police this entire troublesome Barbary region. Tunisia becomes a French protectorate in 1881, and Morocco (which has maintained a shaky independence, under its own local sultans, since the end of the Marinid dynasty) follows in 1912. Italy takes Libya from the Turks in 1912. The regions of the Barbary coast thus enter their last colonial phase before independence.
Italo-Turkish War: AD 1911-1912
Turkish control over over the region of modern Libya has been little more than nominal during much of the Ottoman period. In the western region, Tripolitania, the descendants of an Ottoman governor, Ahmad Karamanli, win hereditary rights as pashas in 1711 and retain them until 1832. In the eastern district of Cyrenaica real power resides with the Senussi, followers of a 19th-century religious reformer (al-Senussi al-Kabir), whose creed of a strict and simple Sunni life proves popular with the Bedouin tribesmen. But the eventual removal of the Turks from the region is not the result of local antagonism. It derives from the wish of Italy, a latecomer in the imperial scramble, to increase her stake in Africa while there is time.
By the first decade of the 20th century Algeria and Tunisia are French. Egypt is British. Libya, situated between these French and British regions, is a part of north Africa in which Italy has been developing extensive commercial interests. In 1900 the French and Italian governments come to a cool-headed secret agreement. France has designs on Morocco, Italy on Libya. Each will allow the other a free hand. In 1911 Italy finds a trumped-up reason to send a 24-hour-ultimatum to Istanbul, demanding the presence of Italian troops in Tripolitania and Cyrenaica to protect the local Italian population. This is followed a day later by a declaration of war and almost immediate invasion of north Africa.
The Italians make relatively little headway, partly because of a spirited resistance by the Sennusi tribesmen on behalf of their imperial masters, who at least are fellow Muslims. But by the autumn of 1912 Turkey, beset by troubles elsewhere, is ready to concede. Under the terms of a treaty signed in October at Ouchy (the lakeside district of Lausanne), Tripolitania and Cyrenaica are ceded to Italy. The new imperial power soon also occupies Fezzan, a region to the southwest under Sennusi control. With the annexation of Fezzan, modern Libya takes shape - though as yet only as a broad area suffering and greatly resenting Italian occupation.
World Wars and Fascism: AD 1914-1945
In its short span of existence the Italian colony of Libya sees two world wars and the rise of fascism. These events have profound and differing effects in the region. The demands of World War I cause Italian troops to be withdrawn until only the coastal towns of Libya are safely held. Elsewhere control returns to the network of local Senussi zawiya (fortified outposts around a mosque). After the war the Senussi leader, Mohammed Idris, attempts to achieve a compromise with the Italians. In 1920 he acknowledges their sovereignty over coastal Cyrenaica. In return he is granted the title of emir. But this uneasy relationship crumbles with the onset of fascism.
Idris flees in 1923 to Egypt, while fascist governors in Libya take strong measures - including the use of concentration camps - to subdue resistance in Tripolitania and Cyrenaica. (The two provinces are united in 1934 to form the colony of Libya.) World War II at last brings the Senussi into a winning team. As enemies of Italy, they are natural allies of Britain and the USA. They play their part in the all-important campaign of 1942-3 which drives the Italian and German armies out of north Africa.
During the later stages of the war and in the immediate postwar years Tripolitania and Cyrenaica are adminstered by the British, while Fezzan is under the control of the French. But it is agreed that the future of Libya shall be referred to the United Nations. The result is a resolution for Libyan independence. In December 1950 a national assembly representing all three provinces elects Mohammed Idris to be Libya's king. As Idris I, he formally declares the independence of the new state on 24 December 1951.
Royal Libya: AD 1951-1969
Idris rules as an old-fashioned monarch, with scant regard for any democratic ideals. For the first eight years his realm is similarly backward, an impoverished region in which a subsistence economy is boosted only by revenues from British and US airbases and by international aid. This situation is transformed in 1959 by the discovery of major oil reserves. Idris, with the luxury now of a massive national revenue, begins to assert Libya's new independence. Negotiations are begun to secure the withdrawal of foreign troops from Libyan soil. But the king's leisurely pace is suddenly trumped. In 1969, when absent on a visit to Turkey, he is deposed in a bloodless coup led by a 27-year old captain, Moamar al-Gaddafi.
The Gaddafi regime: from AD 1969
Gaddafi immediately becomes commander-in-chief of the armed forces and chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council which now governs Libya. From 1979 he is known simply as Leader of the Revolution, ruling with a firm grip which means that Libya's policies are entirely his own. Gaddafi soon acquires a reputation as one of the world's more eccentric and unpredicable dictators. The various roots of his political philosophy - Islam, Arab nationalism, socialism - are combined in his personal manifesto The Green Book (published in two volumes, in 1976 and 1980).
An extra element is added in a new name of the country, introduced in 1977. It is now to be known as the People's Socialist Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. The phrase Jamahiriya ('government through the masses') implies that power is transferred to some 1500 local committees. But the reality remains very much a personal rule by one man. Gaddafi's unpopularity on the international stage derives from his use of Libya's oil wealth to meddle in the affairs of other nations. Locally this means often tense relationships with Egypt and Chad. Further afield it brings international condemnation, as assassination squads eliminate Libyan opponents living abroad and Libyan funds support terrorist activities in far-flung parts of the world.
In 1972 Gaddafi announces that he is supporting the IRA in northern Ireland. Libyan cash is also believed to lie behind Black Panther and Nation of Islam activities in the USA, as well as funding terrorist acts by extremist Palestinian groups. To demonstrate US commitment against international terrorism, President Reagan launches in April 1986 an air strike (in bombers flying from Britain) against what are said to be terrorist targets in Tripoli and Benghazi. Various members of Gaddafi's family are killed or wounded, and he himself narrowly escapes.
A new escalation in Libya's status as an international pariah follows the Lockerbie air disaster of 1988. A Pan Am airliner explodes over Lockerbie in Scotland, killing all 259 people on board and another eleven on the ground. Evidence later suggests that two Libyans may have been responsible for planting a bomb on board in Paris. But Gaddafi resolutely refuses to hand over the two suspects for trial. This refusal leads to UN-approved sanctions from 1993. An embargo is placed on trade and air contact with Libya, followed by a ban on the sale of equipment needed for Gaddafi's oil industry.
Libya in the 1990s is a place increasingly isolated by the vagaries of one man (by now one of the world's longest established rulers). Almost immediately after taking power, Gaddafi expels in 1970 nearly all the Italians and Jews living in Libya. In 1995 he even throws Palestinians out of his Muslim state, along with citizens of neighbouring north African nations. He doubts their loyalty to Libya. Thus Libyans, at the end of the century, are in a very real sense on their own in a hostile world. However isolation begins to end early in the new milliennium after Gaddafi allows the Lockerbie suspects to stand trial in the Netherlands. The UN sanctions are suspended, and Libya starts trying to attract tourists to its famous archaeological sites.               _____________   |   ___________

How I told the Queen we did not need her anymore

• by: Paul Keating
• From: The Australian
• October 21, 2011 12:00AM

Former prime minister Paul Keating, in his Sydney offices yesterday. Picture: Renee Nowytarger Source: The Australian

I met the Queen at Balmoral at 6pm on Saturday, September 18, 1993, in the Victoria and Albert Room, the drawing room of the house, known to be have been Queen Victoria's favourite.


The Queen told me the room was as Victoria had left it. Furnished in the manner of William IV, the last remnant of its classicism fallen prey to its decoration; the looming romanticism that would define itself by appropriating Victoria's name.Interestingly, the furniture was not of the age of mahogany, nor the second age of walnut. It had the colour of a woody lemon reminiscent of amboyna or Kurelian birchwood, somewhat in the manner of Charles X and faded. Dry, its parched complexion gave the sense the room's earthly moistures had long since vapourised.

The floor was clad in a tartan carpet. Sparse in pattern, its faded blue-and-green grid resisting being subsumed into its background; a spritely biscuit turned grey by time and wear. The rather grand desiccation of it all hosting a not-quite-formally dressed Queen at a most unlikely juncture.

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I had come from Australia on the unpleasant errand to tell her, in all her conscientiousness, that we did not need her any more. I admired the fact she met me alone. Advised but without advisers, she faced what she knew was a conversation about her life's mission: the propagation of the monarchy and its centrality to the states within the realm and to her family. She was to entertain a heretic - delivered to her home by a foreign constituency whose message would call into question all she stood for.

When she looked at me I wondered in the 40 years she had been the monarch how many prime ministers she had met. Indeed, how many heads of state, chief ministers and mayors she had had to deal with, this lone woman who had not chosen this role for herself and who very nearly missed it. All that weight and all that time and now the head of the government of the favourite "dominion" had come to repay the conscientiousness by telling her, as far as Australia was concerned, it was going to come to nought.

I have always had much regard for women in public life, as I had for her. In the poignancy of this moment, the Queen sat with her dignity and the long history of her family and I with the aspirations and live mandate of a people. I wanted her to understand how and why Australia had changed, how it was different now than the way she might have found it in 1954 when she first visited.

I reminded her of our former policy of White Australia, how it had come close to marginalising us in a way that South Africa had been marginalised. That we lived in the east Asian hemisphere and that for 50 years we had had an ambitious migration program which had changed our character; I told her the monoculture was a thing of the past. I reminded her of how we had relied on commodities for our national income and how these were now failing us. Our national income had been cut, yet we still had to pay our way - and pay it other than by borrowing from the world's savings.

I told her Australia had to engage itself meaningfully with the region around it, which already took 60 per cent of its exports. That our position was not unlike the one Britain found itself in; it had had to make its way with Europe out of economic and strategic necessity.I said Australia had to find its security in Asia, not from Asia, just as Britain had to find its security in Europe, not from Europe.

I reminded her that on our doorstep stood 200 million Indonesians - the largest Islamic country in the world. Australia had to be relevant in these places. I told the Queen that task was made more difficult when we appeared uncertain as to who we are; when our head of state was not one of us, when we go to the region as the Australian nation with all of our hopes and aspirations yet go with the monarch of another country. With a monarch whom a great number of Australians, especially of non-Anglo descent, feel no association with, nor any affection for.

I told the Queen as politely and gently as I could that I believed the majority of Australians felt the monarchy was now an anachronism; that it had gently drifted into obsolescence. Not for any reason associated with the Queen personally, but for the simple reason she was not in a position to represent their aspirations.

They were Australian, she was British. I explained how much people appreciated her efforts down the years and that it was not my wish nor the government's to involve her in any way in the current debate - in a way that would be detrimental to her personally or to her position as Queen of Great Britain. I said I would do all that was possible to conduct the debate along lines that removed her from the fray and that the government would be considering proposals for a constitutional change that could be agreed by the major parties.
I made clear to her the matter was not about me. Some people may tell her this, or say this, but this was not so. I said I had been given the rump end of a long government which I had managed to extend by winning another term, but winning six elections consecutively would be difficult.

I told her things had improved from a recent recession, but when change seems costless a fickle public may believe change can be made with little risk to themselves or to the country at large. This was not true, but many people thought it was. I said you may not be dealing with me, but the issue would not go away. The Queen knew I had come to Balmoral to broach this topic with her and she had sat through what must have been a difficult conversation for her. When I finished my remarks, she said, rather plaintively: "You know my family have always tried to do their best by Australia."   I said: "Yes, I know that, Ma'am." She said: "I will, of course, take the advice of Australian ministers and respect the wishes of the Australian people." I said: "We would expect no less of you and ask no more."

It really struck me, by her references to her family, how tenuous the hereditary nature of the position was. There was no allusion to a divine right or position of political superiority.
The occasion reminded me of the remark made by John Adams, the American revolutionary and second president, that there were no queen bees in the human hive, that we all arrive the same and are made the same and that it was belittling that any one of us should be "the subject" of another of us without us having any choice in the matter; the so-called consent of the governed.

The hereditary nature of the Queen's position, her remoteness from any contemporary mandate, struck me, at that moment and at that proximity, as banal; sad, even, and what a continuing fantasy she was forced to play out. Nevertheless, I think in some way the Queen felt relieved by the nature and course of the conversation. She had faced up to it and while her prime minister might be a republican he was not there to score off her. If it was inevitable, better with someone who had the horsepower to steer it through while keeping her well above it.

I said to her that, as these conversations go, the norm or protocol was to say nothing publicly about them. On this occasion this would be a mistake. I said it would be much better in the longer term for Her Majesty to let me say that we discussed the issue and that she said she would take the advice of her Australian ministers and respect the wishes of the Australian people.

I said, once that is said, once that is known, I could elevate her above the battle. But if it is fought out around her and her family as the surrogate for what is good and not good about Australia and its constitutional arrangements, she must be at a disadvantage and maybe not only in Australia. I said: "Sir Robert Fellowes (her private secretary) will probably advise you to say nothing and not authorise me to say anything on your behalf. I think this will be wrong advice for you."

She looked at me, wanting to believe what I said was correct. In her own way, I think she knew I would do my best by her, which subsequently I did. Later, she talked with Fellowes and it was quickly agreed that I should say something. Things lightened up when I got on to the other business; the "Waleses" and the timing of their next visit to Australia and for her agreement and an announcement to extend the term of governor-general Bill Hayden.

The Queen then offered me a whisky - which we were both glad of. Later, dressed down to tweeds, she drove me in a Land Rover to a barbecue in a remote hut Victoria had built for Albert; lest while hunting he was caught unawares in inclement weather.

As she steered her way into the night along the rough road and rocky outcrops, I reflected on the singularity of her mission, hoping that she might regard our conversation somewhat philosophically, without otherwise feeling too hurt.

Extracted from After Words: The Post-Prime Ministerial Speeches by P.J. Keating, to be launched by Allen & Unwin on October 30. $59.99
                                         
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