Rome: World leaders greeted the death of former Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi on Thursday as the end of despotism, tyranny, dictatorship and ultimately war in the north African country.
As Libyans on the streets of Tripoli and Sirte fired automatic weapons into the air and danced for joy, the death of the man who had ruled the oil-rich north African nation for 42 years was widely welcomed.
British Prime Minister David Cameron said Gaddafi death was an occasion to remember his victims, while hailing it as a chance for a “democratic future” for Libya.
“I think today is a day to remember all of Colonel Gaddafi’s victims” including those who died in the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jet over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, Cameron said in a statement outside his office.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy hailed the death of Gaddafi as a major step forward for the people of Libya and urged the country to pursue democratic reforms.
“The disappearance of Moamer Kadhafi is a major step forward in the battle fought for more than eight months by the Libyan people to liberate themselves from the dictatorial and violent regime imposed on them for more than 40 years,” Sarkozy said in a statement in Paris.
In Rome, Libya’s former colonial ruler, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said after the death of his onetime ally: “Now the war is over.” “Sic transit gloria mundi (Thus passes the glory of the world),” Berlusconi said, quoting a Latin tag.
In Brussels, the European Union said Gaddafi’s death “marks the end of an era of despotism”.
The news means an end also to the “repression from which the Libyan people have suffered for too long”, EU president Herman Van Rompuy said in a joint statement with European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso.
European Parliament president Jerzy Buzek will visit Libya from Saturday. “I am happy I will be visiting a country fully liberated from a dictator who has imposed his iron fist for more than 40 years. Now Libya can truly turn the page,” he said.
EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said Libyans “can now look to the future”. In a statement, Ashton said that the death of Gaddafi “brings closure to a tragic period in the lives of so many Libyans”.
“After 10 months of extraordinary sacrifices, the Libyan people can say with pride and confidence that they have shaken off a regime that terrorised and oppressed for more than 40 years.”
She urged the new leadership to build a democratic future in full respect for human rights, saying that “while the crimes of the past must be addressed, the leadership must also seek a path of national reconciliation.”
The EU will remain “a strong and committed” partner in the future, Ashton said. The current holder of the EU’s rotating presidency, Poland, warned Gaddafi’s fate “should be a warning to other dictators in the region and in the world”.
The Polish foreign ministry said Warsaw would have liked to have Gaddafi “tried for his crimes before a court in Libya or in The Hague”.
“We hope that his collaborators, wanted for crimes, will soon be brought before the courts,” it added.
“We congratulate the Libyan people on bringing to an ultimate end the dictatorship of many years’ standing.”
In Washington, senior US Senator John McCain said the death marked the end of the first phase of the Libyan revolution. (AFP)