Nation of Islam leader slams Gadhafi’s
‘assassination,’ says rejoicing will turn to sorrow
("Associated Press," October 25, 2011)
Chicago, USA - Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan on
Tuesday said the killing of ousted Libyan leader Moammar
Gadhafi was “an assassination” and predicted the U.S. was
unprepared for the looming backlash from his overthrow.
During an interview with a Chicago radio station, Farrakhan
laid Gadhafi’s death at the feet of the U.S., Great Britain
and France. Gadhafi was killed last week, two months after
being ousted following a 42-year reign that turned his
oil-rich country into an international pariah and his own
personal fiefdom.
Farrakhan, who considered Gadhafi a friend, said those
nations’ establishment of a no-fly zone to stop Gadhafi’s
planes and offers of humanitarian relief to the Libyan
people were intended to help oust Gadhafi from power and
gain access to Libya’s oil wealth.
“They succeeded in being the authors of the successful
assassination of a sitting president,” Farrakhan told
WVON-AM in Chicago, adding that it placed America’s
interests in danger. “No one can trust the United Nations
because it is a pawn of the Western world. No nation will
give up their weapons of mass destruction like Gadhafi did,
because it is the only protection they have against the
wicked witches of the West.”
Farrakhan also noted that the people now claiming
leadership of Libya are advocating Islamic Sharia law,
something that he contends the U.S. has opposed.
Farrakhan earlier this year portrayed Gadhafi as a fellow
revolutionary who has lent millions of dollars to the Nation
of Islam over the years. The group used $3 million it
borrowed from Libya in the 1970s to acquire its opulent
headquarters on Chicago’s South Side. A $5 million loan was
used years later to pay back taxes and costs for the home of
the movement’s former leader Elijah Muhammad.
“It wasn’t the money, but the principles that made me his
brother,” Farrakhan said Tuesday.
Farrakhan, who became acquainted with Gadhafi in the 1970s
and 1980s, also said Libyan oil revenue was used to build
schools and universities that increased literacy, and he
credited Gadhafi with establishing a health care system that
he said was the best in the Third World.
Gadhafi, 69, was buried Tuesday along with his son,
Muatassim, and former Defense Minister Abu Bakr Younis after
the military council in the city of Misrata ordered a
reluctant Muslim cleric to say the required prayers. The
National Transitional Council is under international
pressure to investigate the circumstances of Gadhafi’s
death.
Farrakhan said America “doesn’t know what it’s gotten
itself” into with the Gadhafi overthrow. He said he didn’t
believe Gadhafi when he said al-Qaida was involved in
efforts to oust him, but now Farrakhan believes that was
true.
The Chicago-based Nation of Islam has espoused black
nationalism and self-reliance since it was founded in the
1930s, though in recent years has made efforts to recruit
other ethnic groups
