SODOMISED WITH A KNIFE!

26th October 2011

What does one say? Nothing? No. We stand with the Libyan People, a burgeoning democracy still undergoing a traumatic birth. But as truly established flourishing democracies we have the right to advise and warn.

I imagine the vast majority of Libyans will today be revolted by the way in which their deposed leader was dealt with in his last minutes.

I was born in 1953, 8 years after the end of the Second World War. And my first 10 years were dominated by the aftermath of war. I played on bomb sites and presumed everyone did. I watched all the TV newsreels, very often in a state of fear, even once or twice, abject horror. No. Actually, quite a few times. The catalogue of cruelty by people on each other was never-ending. To this day I recall the sense of physical shock. The numbness. I'd watched Benito Mussolini in his rise to power, his bellicose speeches, pompous raising of the sword seated on a horse. I watched his defeats. But nothing prepared me for the newsreel of seeing the dead bodies of him and his mistress hanging from lamp posts by their feet. At least they were dead.

The Libyan People must embrace freedom and democracy and not taint it with their own peculiar version. Either one has a democracy or an autocracy. There can be no mix. Attempt to go down that path and the Great Democracies will simply say, "we want no part of this".

The NTC must show its commitment; its resolve; its determination. Start by bringing to justice those who have inflicted these barbarities on Gadaffi and his son Mutassam Gadaffi.

Until they do, they cannot expect to sit easily, and with that sense of welcome, at any international conference table.

Ian Bradley Marshall
LIVERPOOL

26 October 2011