Muammar Gaddafi, the Leader of Libya, has been a relatively well-behaving despot the last few years. Gaddafi, who has no formal title in Libya, does go by some lengthy honorifics. There is “Guide of the First of September Great Revolution of the Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya” or if you like a shortened version, “Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution.” We will just stick with Leader, with a big “L.”
Ever since Gaddafi tried to cozy up with the West after his past indiscretions, he has been sending one of his sons throughout Europe. Saif al-Islam, by most accounts, is considered Gaddafi’s heir apparent. Since Gaddafi has no title, that gets a little difficult to pass along. That could also be quite a wait too. At 69, Gaddafi is the fourth-longest reigning head of state with some years to go. He took power in 1969.
Saif is everything Gaddafi is not. He is the “un-Gaddafi.” Educated and articulate, Saif speaks fluent English. He has roamed about the world passing out oil concessions and speaking of reform in Libya. No one has done more to bring Libya into the good graces of the West than Saif. He has brought foreign investment and some reform to Libya.
Gaddafi has allowed economic reforms while publicly abandoning WMD research and production. Political reform is another matter. Nothing has changed. Saif talks about dictatorships in the Middle East, but that discussion does not go into Libya. What little criticism Saif expounds is cautious and directed away from his father.
Now Saif, at 36, is announcing his retirement from politics. That is a bit odd since he never held a formal position. How do you retire from nothing? He sounds suspiciously like his father in that regard. Gaddafi has spoken of retiring himself in the past. All it meant was abolishing one title and assuming another.
So is Saif on the bad with father? Probably not. Perhaps Saif is a reformer of sorts, but the mercurial Gaddafi changes like a doppelganger. It all may be another Gaddafi ploy to make Saif look like a family dissident.
Even if the two are on the outs, it should not be expected to last. Gaddafi forgave one son who plotted a coup against him. Moatessem-Billah Gaddafi now holds the post of national security advisor.
Then there is Hannibal Gaddafi. Hannibal is proof that the Gaddafis do not change. Hannibal likes to live in Europe, but he keeps getting into trouble there. He beat up his girlfriend in France in 2004. Thereafter, he led police in a car chase through Paris.
After that, Hannibal went to Switzerland where he and his wife beat up their servants and threatened to toss one out of the window.
“Being at Hannibal’s service means 22-hour shifts without food, blows from his belt on the smallest pretext, slaps in the face, insults and a lousy wage paid once a year,” said one of the servants now in hiding.
The Swiss police detained Hannibal and his wife for two days. That nearly turned into an international incident before Switzerland released him on bail. Muammar Gaddafi wants the whole matter dropped. Yet just to make sure he has covered all his bases, he has arrested the brother of one of the servants. That brother has now disappeared somewhere in Libya.
The world can expect another 20 years of the same from Gaddafi, and then we get see which of his seven sons comes to center stage.
