Gadhafi's got to go

It is entirely coincidental that a day after the prosecutor for the International Criminal Court asked judges to issue a warrant for the arrest of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi for crimes against humanity, the Rwandan chief of staff during that country's 1994 genocide was jailed for his role in its mass killings.

The symbolism is very powerful. International justice is not just a pipe dream. The wheels may turn slow - it has taken 17 years to bring Augustin Bizimungu to account - but they turn. The fact that the court that brought Bizimungu to account is different from the one now processing a warrant for Gadhafi's arrest is incidental.

The International Tribunal for Rwanda, set up by the UN in 1994 to prosecute crimes during the genocide was based on the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, set up by the UN the year before. The ICC was a natural development and continuation of both. International justice may be taking different guises but the objective is the same.

For his part, Gadhafi boasts of never leaving, of never being captured, that he will die in Libya. Only the latter is a possibility. The reality, however, is that all too often his promises have been shown to mean nothing. He may yet decide, as Hitler did, that "his" people are not worthy of his leadership.

The momentum is building up toward that inevitability. His forces have been beaten in Misrata and his ability to fight is being strangled. There will soon be almost nothing left of his command structure. As if in recognition of the way the wind is blowing, his oil minister apparently defected and Russia, hitherto sympathetic, not only censured Libya but is now making overtures to the opposition. Other ministers, other foreign governments will follow. The regime is doomed.

- Arab News, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia