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What should be done about Colonel Gaddafi?

Ben Sutherland Ben Sutherland | 11:01 UK time, Tuesday, 22 February 2011

Colonel Gaddafi

This topic was discussed on World Have Your Say on 22 February 2011. Listen to the programme.

Colonel Gaddafi is not, it appears, heading to Venezuela. Indeed, after a somewhat bizarre appearance on Libyan state television, in which he sat in a golf kart waving an umbrella around, it seems he is not going anywhere at all.

"I am in Tripoli and not in Venezuela," he said. And so are large numbers the country's army, according to a 91Èȱ¬ correspondent there:

"People are intimidated and staying home. Very limited movement in the streets and the city is closed. After words of bombing the city yesterday, people are cautious. Residents of Tripoli have confirmed that areas around the Green Circle where heavily attacked. No confirmation on number of deaths. Yet people seem to be determined to continue."

And so that's how things stand on the morning of the sixth day of the protest. As wrote on Twitter: "Gaddafi not finished yet - remember how everyone wrote off Saddam after Shiite uprising of March 1991?"

Human rights groups this morning put the total number of protesters killed over the last six days at 519, but the 91Èȱ¬ cannot verify this figure.

Undoubtedly though, people are being killed by the army - which may prove to be the key difference between Libya and the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt. There, the refusal of the army to fire on protesters was one of the key factors in the eventual overthrow of the country's leaders.

As a result, the question being asked by many people on Twitter, blogs and in emails to us here at the 91Èȱ¬ is, what is the world going to do about it?

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