As was recently heard in the press, Namibia officially supports the initiative of the AU to support Gadhafi. And there is widespread popular support for that in democratic Namibia.<br><br>I hope you, dear Namibian comrades, think twice about that attitude after reading this article in Spiegel Online, the leading independant web news portal in Germany. Africans must value solidarity with common people above admiring self-pleasing achievements of omni-(im)-potent African leader in mid-life crises.

Gadhafi and Sons' Paranoid relationship with soccer: The opposing team was being awarded one penalty kick after another. Saadi Gadhafi was a laughing stock in Italy, but in Libya omnipotent

• Spiegel Online, 15.7.2011

"I will destroy your club," Saadi Gadhafi reportedly threatened. "I will turn it into an owl's nest." Moammar Gadhafi and his son Saadi seeked to destroy one of the oldest football clubs in the country, founded in 1947. They had dozens of fans tortured, 32 were sentenced to prison terms, three were sentenced to death, the club was banned and its headquarters were demolished.

With that theiy waited until Sept. 1, 2000, the 31st anniversary of the father's revolution. On that day, soldiers razed the hated club's headquarters as a gift to their revered leader. "They destroyed the club emblem and the gate, and then they sent in three bulldozers to mow everything down," a witness recounts. "It took three or four hours. They forced people to watch and cheer. That evening, the official Libyan television stations broadcast the destruction on TV."

That is what rigged soccer game caused in Libya. In the summer of 2000, thousands of Libyans in Benghazi launched a spontaneous revolt against the Gadhafi regime after their hometown soccer team suffered one insult too many. According to the witness, there were more than 30,000 fans in the stadium. "It was the typical story," he says. "The opposing team was being awarded one penalty kick after another." In their everyday lives, the people of Benghazi were used to putting up with injustices. But now they had had enough.

Only now can the survivors tell the story of this little-known revolt -- and how it became the opening salvo of the current revolution. The Gadhafis had always had an ambivalent and somewhat paranoid relationship with soccer. They used it, and yet they were deeply suspicious of it. Soccer matches served as a backdrop for Gadhafi's public appearances, but he also used the stadiums to strike fear into the hearts of Libyans by having real and suspected regime opponents hanged in them. Stadium announcers and sports commentators were only allowed to refer to players by their jersey numbers; no one could be more popular than the dictator.

Gadhafi's son Saadi made himself king of the Libyan soccer world. In the late 1990s, he was appointed president of the Libyan Football Federation. He also became captain of the national team and the owner, manager and captain of the Al-Ahly Tripoli SC. Later, when Libya became too small for him, he bought his way onto the Italian first-division teams Perugia, Udinese and Sampdoria. Over the four years he was with these clubs, he spent a total of 25 minutes on the field.

Saadi was a laughing stock in Italy. But, in Libya, he was omnipotent. As long as he ruled over Al-Ahly Tripoli SC, he was determined to make sure it was the best club in Libya and even all of Africa. He had also made up his mind that it would be the only club to bear the traditional name Ahly.

It is this decision that led to Saadi's campaign against the club in Benghazi with a similar name. He bought its best players and bribed referees. On a hot July day in 2000, it appeared that his efforts were about to pay off when Benghazi was on the verge of being relegated to the second division.

On that day, the witness interviewed by DER SPIEGEL in Libya, Mr Binsraiti, was sitting with his team in the stadium while Saadi was sitting in the stands. Read the whole story in SPON - 07/15/2011: - Libya's Soccer Rebellion: A Revolution Foreshadowed on the Pitch of Benghazi