Muammar Monitor: Colonel arrives in Minsk, sets up shop…err, tent

Do many of you know where Belarus is? Libya’s hide-and-seek champion Muammar Gaddafi does. He knows it so well, in fact, that he’s just relocated there, wife and national gold in tow.

It’s an understandable choice of location. First of all, friend and ideological ally Aleksandr Lukashenko (more often referred to as Europe’s Last Dictator) is guaranteed to give Gaddafi a warm welcome. In fact, he’s already set aside a chunk of prime real estate right by the country’s huge National Library, where Gaddafi has pitched his tent up. He’s there right now, polishing his bullion, while the wife makes some tea (it does get cold at night in Belarus).According to an unnamed diplomat in Minsk, despite the no-fly zone (and the bomb-a-lot-shoot-at-unsanctioned-planes zone) over Libya, Gaddafi managed to sneak three aircraft out of his shot-up country. The first carried him and the missus, and the other two brought all the gold Gaddafi’s been hiding in tunnels, under rocks and buried in desert sands. The same unnamed Belarusian source said negotiations are already underway (in the tent by the library) to invest the gold in village towns in the country. It’s as yet unclear whether “invest in” is being seen by Gaddafi as “hide in – until the dust over Libya settles.” This is, of course, a hoax – an appropriately jokey reaction by a diplomat in Minsk to yet another Gaddafi sighting (of which there have been hundreds). In the months since he was last seen in public, Libya’s former leader has been sighted anywhere and everywhere, including Algeria, Chad, Venezuela, Tunisia, South Africa and Niger. Libya’s National Transitional Council and various NATO officials on the ground constantly claim to be “very close” to Gaddafi or having finally uncovered his actual whereabouts. But despite those reports, the Colonel remains at large, sporadically communicating with local TV and radio channels, denying the fact he has – or ever will – left the country.Recent reports have unearthed another potential blunder. It seems that Gaddafi’s ability to evade capture may be due to none other than President Sarkozy. Back in 2008, Sarkozy (who was prime minister at the time) apparently sold an armoured Mercedes 4x4 to the Libyan leader. The car reportedly has an in-built command system which allows Gaddafi to communicate with his troops and serious anti-tracking equipment which prevents NATO from locating the man.There are thousands of articles claiming that yet another “source” has said Gaddafi is being helped by a Tuareg tribe somewhere on the Libya-Algeria border. Google has also joined in the “where in the world is Muammar Gaddafi?” game and in response to a “Gaddafi location” search states that the “best guess for Muammar Gaddafi location is Libya”. But until the man is captured, all those rumors remain just that – and considering the Colonel’s evasive techniques, a Google best guess is all the world is going to get.

Katerina Azarova, RT