Anas Asswaie waved a Libyan flag and wore a smile just as expressive this afternoon on the steps of the Colorado state Capitol.
“We are so, so happy for this day,” said the 29-year-old Libyan on the death of dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
About a half-dozen expatriates and their supporters celebrated at the Capitol for the hardfought freedom of Libyans, capped by the death of the brutal 42-year dictator announced earlier in the day.
Asswaie left his home in Misrata two years to ago study English at Denver’s New America School, and won’t go home again for another two years, he said.
“I talked to my sister today, and she said I would not believe what’s been going on there today,” he said.
Asswaie said his father left the Libyan army in 1979, because of Gadhafi.
“He always said, ‘Gadhafi is an evil man,'” Asswaie said of his father, before mentioning the friends and family who had died because of Gadhafi and the rebellion to overthrow him.
“Everyone has lost someone.”
Rush-hour traffic barreled by on Lincoln Street, and a small group of Occupy Denver activists protested in the shade across the park to the west, but did not join in the international celebration.
James Cunningham, a Denver resident, parked his car and joined the Libyans. He called himself as a “conservative American patriot.”
“We’ve got screwed-up priorities in this country,” he said. “We take for granted all that we have and whine and whine and whine about what we don’t. Libya is a free democracy because of the blood, sweat and tears of its people, and we make bad guys and scapegoats for everything.”
Denver native Ahmed Abuzaid, 19, said he has never been to the home his late father fled in 1985.
“Now there’s hope I will,” he said. “I want to Libya to be the free country my father wished for. Everything will be better now.”
Joey Bunch: 303-954-1174 or jbunch@denverpost.com
