She was my sister's friend. She was the American Ambassador's daughter. She was spending the night at our house. We were in the living room watching some Australian sitcom on Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation. Mother was upstairs in bed; father in the bar reading a book and sipping brandy he purchased in India during a state visit. There was a knock on the main door. It startled everyone because of its sternness and the time, around 11 pm. Who could it be now? I opened the main door and found several men in suits standing on and near the doorstep. Several huge American cars were in the driveway. One of the men asked to see the daughter of the American Ambassador. She appeared and was told to go with them immediately. There was no time to waste, no time to get her stuff. The next moment, she and the cars were gone. The next day our confusion cleared when we read the newspaper: The United States attacked Libya with jet planes.

A quarter of a century later, Huffington Post makes this report about the current turmoil in Tripoli and the defiant dictator:

Gadhafi, swathed in brown robes and turban, spoke from a podium set up in the entrance of a bombed out building that appeared to be his Tripoli residence hit by U.S. airstrikes in the 1980s and left unrepaired as a monument of defiance. The speech, which appeared to have been taped earlier, was aired on a screen to hundreds of supporters massed in Tripoli's central Green Square.

A quarter of a century later, the dictator is attacking his own people with jet planes.

A quarter of a century later, there is even talk about turning Zimbabwe into a retirement home for yet another dictator:

Gaddafi could end up in Zimbabwe like Mengistu... After four decades ruling with vicious, unpredictable, brutality Colonel Gadhafi may have no where to go and his chances of a quiet retirement inside Libya seem remote... If Col. Gadhafi manages to find a safe haven — and some suggest Zimbabwe’s equally megalomaniac President Robert Mugabe might offer one — the nation he flees will be in chaos.