Calling it their independence day, Libyans took to the streets Oct.
20 to cheer the demise of the man who had ruled them for 42 turbulent
years. Muammar Gaddafi was reportedly killed when rebel forces finally
captured his hometown, Sirt, where the last remnants of the Gaddafi
regime had held out amid weeks of grueling, grisly fighting. Gaddafi
rose to power in 1969 at age 27 when he led a bloodless coup to
overthrow the ruling monarch. He was then appointed commander in chief
of the armed forces and chairman of Libya's newly instated governing
body, the Revolutionary Command Council. It was then that he began to
slowly assume the entirety of power. He started by removing the U.S. and
British military bases in 1970. In time he would eliminate the
parliament, political parties, unions and nongovernmental organizations.
In Gaddafi's quixotic Jamahiriya, or "state of the masses," he neglected to don a
real political title, preferring to be known simply as Brother Leader.
In reality, Gaddafi allowed only a small group — mostly members of
his family — to participate in the governing of the country, which,
thanks to its oil reserves (the ninth largest known in the world), had
amassed enormous wealth. The riches allowed him to rule relatively
unchecked until February 2011, when his people had had enough. Spurred
by the Arab Spring that had successfully toppled the governments of
Tunisia and Egypt, Libyans took to the streets. Gaddafi lashed back with
unprecedented violence against his own people while at the same time
telling members of the press, "All my people love me." The resistance
kept pushing forward, winning support from NATO forces, which began air
strikes on March 19. On Aug. 22, after six months of fighting, the rebel
forces claimed the capital city, Tripoli, as their own, formally ending
Gaddafi's regime. But until they captured the man himself, Libyans
could not breathe a sigh of relief. That moment came Oct. 20, when Prime
Minister Mahmoud Jibril told a news conference, "We have been waiting
for this moment for a long time. Muammar Gaddafi has been killed."
