The Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ move to deport him on the grounds that he no longer represents the Libyan government is weird in that it implies the Libyan government is the person of Gaddafi. But even if this were true, Gaddafi is on the run and Libya is effectively in the hands of other people whose beck and call El Magrahi has to obey.
El Magrahi has done what anyone in his shoes would do. His erstwhile leader has fallen to a popular uprising which most Libyans now support. The Libyan community in Zimbabwe has also rallied behind the uprising back home. For all intents and purposes, Libya has changed. The Arab League and dozens of countries in Africa have recognised the legitimacy of the National Transitional Council. There are even indications that the African Union will recognise the NTC.
Faced with this, El Magrahi is right to say that he represents the Libyan people rather than Gaddafi as an individual.Two reasons motivate the Zimbabwe government’s bizarre move; personal alliances between some in Zimbabwe’s leadership and Gaddafi as an individual, and the fear of a similar popular revolt in Zimbabwe. Government is wary of being seen as supportive of a change of government through popular rebellion.
It fears that by endorsing the revolt in Libya it might encourage similar developments in Zimbabwe, a country painfully suffering under a regime as oppressive as Gaddafi’s ever was.Most Zimbabweans seem to support the rebellion in Libya; they have read and understood how the Gaddafi regime and its acolytes corruptly enriched itself and how megalomaniac and kleptocratic its leadership had become. The similarities between the systems of government under Gaddafi and the one here send a chill through anyone’s spine. But the Zimbabwe government must wake up to reality and do what every other government in the world is doing: recognise the new dispensation in Libya.
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“I represent all Libyans. I follow what they want. When they are like this, I follow them. I follow what they chose,” Libyan ambassador Taher El Magrahi on threats by the Zimbabwe government to deport him after he lead the Libyan community in joining the rebels.
