- Moammar Gadhafi; Image by Francois Mori, AP
The leader of Libya has likely fled his country and is in hiding. No one knows where he is, but many people are looking for him.
Earlier this year, the people of Libya demanded that Colonel Gadhafi step down as leader of the country because, since the 1960s, he has used bullying and violence to make the people do what he wanted. The United Nations International Criminal Court has charged him with “crimes against humanity.”
A war broke out in Libya between the people who support Gadhafi and the people who want him out – the “rebels.” The war continues to this day, although the rebels have taken over most of the country including Tripoli, the capital city, and they are creating a government of their own.
Gadhafi and his supporters are not giving up.
The former leader has released videos of himself saying that he is still the head of Libya. His supporters consider him a hero.
A group of businesspeople in Libya is offering a reward of $1.2-million for the capture of Gadhafi. The rebels, with the help of other countries, have a special unit designed to hunt down Gadhafi and his senior officials, according to Mohamed Benrasali, one of the leaders in the newly created Libyan government.
The rebels have arrested thousands of Gadhafi’s supporters. Libya’s prisons are “full to bursting,” according to a report in the Globe and Mail newspaper. The rebels are now using empty apartments and even schools to hold their prisoners.
However, the one person everyone wants to find and put in jail is Gadhafi himself. They want him to go on trial for the crimes he has committed against the people of Libya.
*Believe it or not, there are 112 different ways to spell the former Libyan leader’s name! TKN uses the spelling that he used on a letter he signed to some children in a Grade 2 class. But his name is normally written in Arabic. Depending on who is doing the translating to English and what part of the country they are from, his last name can be spelled Qadhafi or Gaddafi or many other ways.
CURRICULUM CONNECTIONS
By Kathleen Tilly
Writing/Discussion Prompt
Do you think Libya can move forward as a country with Gadhafi still in hiding? How does his disappearance impact the Libyan people?
Reading Prompt
TKN has covered the situation in Libya since it became a headline all over the world.
Read the other articles about Gadhafi on the TKN site by putting Gadhafi in the Search box. How does the most recent article about Libya compare with the previous articles? How has the situation changed? Has it remained the same in any way?
Junior
Extend understanding of texts by connecting the ideas in them to their own knowledge, experience, and insights, to other familiar texts, and to the world around them (OME, Reading: 1.6).
Intermediate
Extend understanding of texts, including increasingly complex or difficult texts, by connecting the ideas in them to their own knowledge, experience, and insights, to other familiar texts, and to the world around them (OME, Reading: 1.6).
Grammar Feature: Commas
One way that commas are used is to separate words or explanations that interrupt a sentence. An example in the article is: “Earlier this year, the people of Libya demanded that Colonel Gadhafi step down as leader of the country because, since the 1960s, he has used bullying and violence to make the people do what he wanted.”
Find and underline the two other sentences in this article where commas are used in this way.
