Honour democratic hope of better future

Newspapers around the world yesterday celebrated Libya's imminent liberation from Muammar Gaddafi's decades-old yoke but all warned the rebels of their responsibility to deliver a better future.
Six months after rising up against one of the world's most feared regimes, Libya's rebels were on the brink of victory yesterday, having brought most of Tripoli under their control and secured broad international recognition.
"We urge them to now show restraint in these final hours and respect for all Libyans in the days and months to come," the New York Times said in an editorial, as fighting still raged around Gaddafi's Tripoli residence.
"They have promised to build a democratic Libya. They must keep that promise," the newspaper said.
London papers also revelled in the downfall of one the planet's most reviled autocrats but urged restraint and guarded against a wave of reprisals targeting the crumbling regime's former apparatchiks and hangers-on.
"Some of the young men who have fought on the rebel side will want retribution.
They may also feel they have a right to the jobs and the perks their opponents enjoyed," The Guardian said.
"All in Libya must be wary of exploiting an inevitable period of chaos in order to settle old scores, win tribal advantage or wreak revenge on former instruments of the regime," said The Times newspaper.
In countries that backed the Nato intervention in Libya, there was a sense the initially controversial decision by Western leaders to commit to yet another uncertain military operation had been vindicated.
In China, where the authorities maintained a strict policy of non-interference, newspapers argued the onus was on the West to help Libya rebuild.
"Overthrowing Gaddafi is entertainment for the media, but talk of rebuilding is not," The Global Times, a conservative English-language daily, said in an editorial.
"There are too many places in the world that need to be rebuilt right now," it said. "The West is going through economic hardship now, and it is doubtful whether it can stand the Libyan burden."
The wind of popular discontent blowing on the region has sent Tunisia's Zine el Abidine Ben Ali scurrying into exile, forced Egypt's Hosni Mubarak to step down and rattled deeply entrenched regimes in Yemen and Syria.
In a conclusion echoed by many other newspapers around the globe, the New York Times stressed it was likely that Kadhafi was the latest but not the last domino to tumble.
"The rebels' victory -- if followed by the democracy they promise -- should inspire others to believe that the battle is worth fighting. And no autocrat, no matter how brutal, is invincible," it said.