Colonel Muammar Gaddafi has urged world powers meeting in London to “stop committing genocide” in his country.
|||Colonel Muammar Gaddafi urged world powers meeting in London on Tuesday to end their “barbaric” offensive against his oil-rich country, as rebels in the east set their sights on the key city of Sirte.
The Libyan strongman likened the Nato-led air strikes targeting his artillery and ground forces to military campaigns launched by Adolf Hitler during World War II.
“Stop your barbaric, unjust offensive on Libya,” Gaddafi said in the letter published by the state news agency Jana.
“Leave Libya for the Libyans. You are committing genocide against a peaceful people and a developing nation,” he said in the letter addressed to the London meeting of more than 35 countries to map out a post-Gaddafi future for the north African country.
“It seems that you in Europe and America don't realise the hellish, barbaric (military) offensive which compares... to Hitler's campaigns when he invaded Europe and bombed Britain,” Gaddafi said.
The air offensive was launched on March 19 by Britain, France and the United States to enforce a UN no-fly zone over Libya and to protect civilians under attack by Gaddafi's forces.
Britain, France, Germany and the United States have agreed that the London talks, due to start at 1400 GMT, should aid “the political transition in Libya,” said a French presidency statement.
British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy said ahead of the meeting that the current regime had lost all legitimacy.
“Gaddafi must therefore go immediately. We call on all his followers to leave him before it is too late,” a joint statement said.
In a pre-meeting video conference with his fellow leaders Monday, Cameron said he hoped the summit would “strengthen and broaden the coalition of countries committed to implementing the UN resolutions”.
On the eve of the London gathering, US President Barack Obama urged the international community to support “a transition to the future that the Libyan people deserve.”
“Even after Gaddafi does leave power, 40 years of tyranny has left Libya fractured and without strong civil institutions,” Obama warned.
“The transition to a legitimate government that is responsive to the Libyan people will be a difficult task,” he added, saying it was a challenge for both the international community and the Libyan people.
Obama staunchly defended his decision to rain missiles on the Libyan leader's troops in a UN-mandated bid to protect civilians.
“As president, I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action,” Obama said, arguing that America had a “responsibility” to intervene to prevent civilian massacres.
But he cautioned the military campaign was not aimed at ousting the veteran Libyan leader by force and forcing regime change.
“To be blunt, we went down that road in Iraq,” Obama said. “If we tried to overthrow Gaddafi by force, our coalition would splinter. We would likely have to put US troops on the ground, or risk killing many civilians from the air.
On the ground, rebels who launched their uprising against Kadhafi's four-decade rule in mid-February, were regrouping Tuesday after being pummeled by loyalist forces at the village of Harawa, 60 kilometres from Sirte, Gaddafi's birthplace.
Emboldened by the Western air strikes that allowed them to overrun the strategic town of Ajdabiya on Saturday, the rebels raced westwards towards Sirte before on Monday coming heavy artillery attack first at Bin Jawad, 140km from Sirte, and then, at nightfall, at Harawa.
Al Jazeera television showed pick-up trucks crowded with fighters toting Kalashnikovs on Tuesday morning heading eastwards towards the front lines.
Coalition warplanes were again in action late on Monday after darkness fell, bombing regime targets on the central coast and in the west, but US officials denied the military action was intended directly to help the rebels.
Libya's deputy foreign minister Khaled Kaim accused the coalition forces of wanting to cut the country in two, in comments broadcast on Italian television late on Monday.
“The tactic of the coalition is to lead to a stalemate to cut the country in two, which means that the civil war is a continuous war, the start of a new Somalia, a very dangerous situation,” he told Rai Uno.
The Pentagon said Monday that the United States had been using low-flying A-10s and AC-130s combat aircraft against Kadhafi's ground troops.
US Vice Admiral Bill Gortney, director of the US military's Joint Staff, said the US operations were only in support of the UN-backed resolutions to protect Libyan civilians.
“We're not in direct support of the opposition, that's not part of our mandate and we're not coordinating with the opposition,” he said.
Nato has finally taken over enforcing a no-fly zone and flew its first enforcement mission over Libya on Sunday in the operation codenamed “Unified Protector”.
“Our goal is to protect civilians and civilian-populated areas under threat of attack from the Gaddafiregime,” said Nato Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen. “Nato will implement all aspects of the UN resolution. Nothing more, nothing less.”
Officials said the transfer of full military command would take 48 to 72 hours before Obama announced it would be completed on Wednesday.
Life, meanwhile, returned to something like normal in the rebel's eastern stronghold of Benghazi after a fierce onslaught last week, but the insurgents say it will not become the capital of a rebel state - their aim is to take Tripoli and rule over a unified, post-Gaddafi Libya. - AFP
Source: http://www.iol.co.za/gaddafi-stop-your-barbaric-offensive-1.1048753
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