Michael Roberts

The reports and images attending the killing of Colonel Gaddafi  in the Libyan battlefront brings to mind the killing of Pirapāharan in  the swamplands of Nandikadal Lagoon during the final stages of Eelam War IV and, in between these events the US assassination-raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. There are both similarities and differences in these operations and contexts; and more differences will emerge in the way in which the western media organises its presentation of the latest event.

Pic from Daily News

What I wish to mark here is the manner in which the corpse is likely to be displayed …or not displayed. So please note the previous thuppahi items on this topic [click on name]: namely, Death and Eternal Life: contrasting sensibilities in the face of corpses by Michael Roberts, 29 June 2011

…. and Poetic Musings on the Fate of the Pirapāharan Family by Shelagh Goonewardene, 24 July 2011Extract from report in Daily News, 21 October 2011:  “Muammar Gaddafi is dead,Libya’s new leaders said, killed by fighters who overran his home town and final bastion on Thursday. His bloodied body was stripped and displayed around the world from cellphone video…..”