At the same time, there were new reports of fighting with the rebels claiming that they had shot down a military aircraft on Monday as they repulsed a government bid to take back Libya’s third city, Misurata, 125 miles east of Tripoli. There, as in Zawiyah, 30 miles to the west, government forces seem to have encircled rebels but have been unable to dislodge them.
At a news conference for foreign journalists invited to Tripoli, a government spokesman, Musa Ibrahim, denied reports that Colonel Qaddafi’s loyalists had turned their guns on hundreds of civilians. “No massacres, no bombardments, no reckless violence against civilians,” he said, comparing Libya’s situation to that of Iraq before the American-led invasion in 2003.
But his words seemed unlikely to stem a growing chorus of international voices calling for Colonel Qaddafi’s ouster. The French prime minister, François Fillon, told the RTL broadcaster that the French government was studying “all solutions to make it so that Colonel Qaddafi understands that he should go, that he should leave power.”
British Prime Minister David Cameron also declared: “It’s time for Colonel Qaddafi to go”
Libya had brought 130 foreign journalists to Tripoli to show that the loyalists had nothing to hide, the spokesman said, a day after defecting officers in the east of the vast, desert nation took steps to establish a unified command while their followers in the rebel-held city of Zawiyah, just outside the leader’s stronghold in the capital, displayed tanks, Kalashnikovs and antiaircraft guns.
Mr. Ibrahim said reports of massacres by government troops were analogous to those suggesting that Saddam Hussein had developed unconventional weapons in Iraq, suggesting that they were designed as a reason for military attack.
“The Islamists want chaos; the West also wants chaos,” he said, maintaining the West wanted access to Libya’s oil and the Islamists wanted to establish a bridgehead for international terrorism. “The Iraq example is not a legend — we all lived through it. Doesn’t this remind you of the whole Iraq scenario?” he said.
The Libyan arguments have become familiar as Colonel Qaddafi’s opponents seem to gain ground, and world powers, meeting on Monday in Geneva, seek to increase pressure to force him from power. The focus of the diplomacy is a meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Council, to be attended by leaders including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Referring to Libya, the head of the human rights body, Navi Pillay, demanded in a speech on Monday that: “The rights of the protesters must be upheld and asylum seekers, migrants and other foreign nationals fleeing the violence must be protected,” news agencies reported.
But Mr. Ibrahim insisted that Libya still sought some kind of gradual political opening as suggested by the colonel’s son, Seif al-Islam el-Qaddafi.
“We are not like Egypt or Tunisia,” the spokesman said. “We are a very Bedouin tribal society. People know that and want gradual change.”
Reporters told him that, on Sunday, they had visited Zawiyah, 30 miles from Tripoli, and saw no evidence of Islamist forces. “They knew you were coming,” the spokesman said. “They were hiding those with an obvious Al Qaeda look.”
The news conference came after a day of increasing self-confidence among the rebels, who spoke of tapping revenue from the vast Libyan oil resources now under their control — estimated by some oil company officials to be about 80 percent of the country’s total. And in recognition of the insurrection’s growing power, Italy’s foreign minister on Sunday suspended a nonaggression treaty with Libya on the grounds that the Libyan state “no longer exists,” while Secretary of State Clinton said the United States was reaching out to the rebels to “offer any kind of assistance.”
On Sunday, the most striking display of strength was seen in Zawiyah, one of several cities near the capital controlled by rebels, who have repulsed repeated attempts by Colonel Qaddafi’s forces to retake them. And the arsenal they displayed helped to explain how the rebels held Zawiyah.
“Army, army, army!” excited residents shouted, pointing to a defected soldier standing watch at Zawiyah’s entrance as he raised his machine gun in the air and held up two fingers for victory.
A few yards away a captured antiaircraft gun fired several deafening salutes into the air, and gleeful residents invited newcomers to clamber aboard one of several army tanks now in rebel hands. Residents said that when Colonel Qaddafi’s forces mounted a deadly assault to retake the city last Thursday — shell holes were visible in the central mosque and ammunition littered the central square - local army units switched sides to join the rebels, as about 2,000 police officers had done the week before.
Source From : Newyork Times.
2 comments:
A few yards away a captured antiaircraft gun fired several deafening salutes into the air, and gleeful residents invited newcomers to clamber aboard one of several army tanks now in rebel hands. Residents said that when Colonel Qaddafi’s forces mounted a deadly assault to retake the city last Thursday — shell holes were visible in the central mosque and ammunition littered the central square - local army units switched sides to join the rebels, as about 2,000 police officers had done the week before.
On Sunday, the most striking display of strength was seen in Zawiyah, one of several cities near the capital controlled by rebels, who have repulsed repeated attempts by Colonel Qaddafi’s forces to retake them. And the arsenal they displayed helped to explain how the rebels held Zawiyah.
Post a Comment