COL QADHAFI has been killed by an angry Libyan or died in a ‘cross-fire’ as claimed by the TNC. This ends an era of what has been termed a despotic rule by a tyrant.

His body was placed in a meat-house and was being visited by people wearing masks, apparently because of the stench.

I hold no brief for the slain. One report says that he was very generous in doling out money to his people, but it is true that he did little for his country. With the wealth from oil he had, he could have made Libya an ideal place.

Irrespective of what he was, he deserved at least a kangaroo court like Saddam Hussein while he was alive, and a better treatment now that he was dead.

Another thought that comes to mind is what appears as a new sanction of international law called ‘R2P’, i.e., responsibility to protect people. This means that any so-called civilised country can attack or ask an obedient organisation like Nato to attack a sovereign state to save its people from the real or perceived hardship that they might be suffering at the hands of an unkind ruler, but in reality to take undue benefit from that country’s natural wealth: a new exposition of ‘white man’s burden’. We should be wary of what is likely to happen in Balochistan.

S.M. ANWAR Karachi