Libya: Gaddafi Wants To Stay As 'Big Father'

Pressure has been mounting on Colonel Muammar Gaddafi as unrest spreads in Libya - but one of his seven sons has revealed in an interview the tyrant intends to stay.

Saadi Gaddafi has told the Financial Times the Colonel expects to be the "big father" advisor to any new regime in the country.

He said his father was prepared to work with a new order despite the fact he is rapidly losing his grip on the country.

Many senior aides have resigned after international condemnation of Gaddafi's violent and bloody crackdown on protesters.

But Saaid Gaddafi told the FT the country's current unrest was like a "positive earthquake" that is paving the way for much-needed reform.

On Wednesday the Libyan publication Quryna reported a Libyan Air Force jet had crashed near Benghazi after crew bailed out because they refused to follow orders to bomb the city.

And a senior aide to one of Gaddafi's other sons - Saif al-Islam Gaddafi - has resigned to be free to protest against the violence sweeping the country.

Youssef Sawani, who was the executive director of the Gaddafi Foundation, said: "I resigned from the Gaddafi Foundation to express dismay against violence."

Meanwhile, a Swedish newspaper alleged Gaddafi had ordered the Lockerbie bombing, and said it had proof from the former Libyan justice minister to back up its claims.

David Cameron said the UN Security Council should send a "very clear warning" to Colonel Gaddafi.

US President Barack Obama has said the bloodshed and suffering is "outrageous and unacceptable".

Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon told a press conference those responsible for the violence "must be held accountable" and said the international community must "remain united and act together".

The UN's top human rights official has said the international community may need to impose a no-fly zone over Libya to protect civilians from attacks by government aircraft.

The High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said: "If unconfirmed reports of aerial attacks against civilians turn out to be true, I think there's an immediate need for that level of protection."

French President Nicholas Sarkozy urged the EU to suspend all economic ties with Libya and to adopt sanctions against the country following violent protests.

In a statement Mr Sarkozy said:"I ask the foreign minister to propose to our European partners the adoption of quick, concrete sanctions so that all those implicated in the violence know that they will have to assume the consequences of their actions."

The Arab League has now barred Libya from attending meetings of the bloc until it ends its crackdown on protesters, which it said was a violation of human rights.

A defiant Mr Gaddafi has refused to step down, however, declaring on state TV last night: "I will die here as a martyr."

The embattled tyrant vowed to fight to his "last drop of blood" and called on supporters to attack protesters he labelled "rats".

Thousands have taken to the streets in recent days to oppose Mr Gaddafi's 41-year rule.

Reports have emerged that 250 died in the Libyan capital Tripoli overnight, as military aircraft fired on crowds.

Nearly 300 people have been killed during the unrest in the oil-rich nation, according to a partial count by Human Rights Watch.

But the Italian foreign minister said he believed as many as 1,000 people have likely to have been killed.

The 68-year-old Libyan leader - shouting loudly and punching the air throughout his tirade - warned that armed protesters and "spies" would face a "death sentence".

He insisted foreign leaders were conspiring against the country.

Celebratory gunfire by Mr Gaddafi's supporters rang out in the capital of Tripoli after the speech.

But in Libya's second-largest city Banghazi, which is in the hands of protesters, people threw shoes at a screen showing his address, venting their contempt.

The Arab world's longest-serving leader has seen his reign come under threat as cracks formed within his government and the army this week.

The foreign office has been accused of being "slow off the mark" in getting help to British nationals stuck in Libya amid violent protests.

Many countries around the world are trying to evacuate thousands of stranded foreign nationals.

:: British citizens who want to book on one of the foreign office charter flights are urged to call 0207 008 0000 or 021 340 3644/45 from Libya.

:: British citizens in Libya who need help or advice are urged to call 00218 21 335 1084. From the UK, the number to call for advice is 020 7008 1500.

:: Airlines BA and BMI each operate daily Tripoli-Heathrow flights. BA, BMI and Emirates have cancelled all flights in and out of Tripoli today.

source: web.orange.co.uk

WikiLeaks Cables Detail Qaddafi Family’s Exploits

By SCOTT SHANE

WASHINGTON — After New Year’s Day 2009, Western media reported that Seif al-Islam el-Qaddafi, a son of the Libyan leader Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, had paid Mariah Carey $1 million to sing just four songs at a bash on the Caribbean island of St. Barts.

In the newspaper he controlled, Seif indignantly denied the report — the big spender, he said, was his brother, Muatassim, Libya’s national security adviser, according to an American diplomatic cable from the capital, Tripoli.

It was Muatassim, too, the cable said, who had demanded $1.2 billion in 2008 from the chairman of Libya’s national oil corporation, reportedly to establish his own militia. That would let him keep up with yet another brother, Khamis, commander of a special-forces group that “effectively serves as a regime protection unit.”

As the Qaddafi clan conducts a bloody struggle to hold onto power in Libya, cables obtained by WikiLeaks offer a vivid account of the lavish spending, rampant nepotism and bitter rivalries that have defined what a 2006 cable called “Qadhafi Incorporated,” using the State Department’s preference from the multiple spellings for Libya’s troubled first family.

The glimpses of the clan’s antics in recent years that have reached Libyans despite Col. Qaddafi’s tight control of the media have added to the public anger now boiling over. And the tensions between siblings could emerge as a factor in the chaos in the oil-rich African country.

Though the Qaddafi children are described as jockeying for position as their father ages — three sons fought to profit from a new Coca-Cola franchise — they have been well taken care of, cables say. “All of the Qaddafi children and favorites are supposed to have income streams from the National Oil Company and oil service subsidiaries,” one cable from 2006 says.

A year ago, a cable reported that proliferating scandals had sent the clan into a “tailspin” and “provided local observers with enough dirt for a Libyan soap opera.” Muatassim had repeated his St. Barts New Year’s fest, this time hiring the pop singers Beyoncé and Usher. An unnamed “local political observer” in Tripoli told American diplomats that Muatassim’s “carousing and extravagance angered some locals, who viewed his activities as impious and embarrassing to the nation.”

Another brother, Hannibal, meanwhile, had fled London after being accused of physically abusing his wife, Aline, and after the intervention of a Qaddafi daughter, Ayesha, who traveled to London despite being “many months pregnant,” the cable reported. Ayesha, along with Col. Qaddafi’s second wife, Safiya, the mother of six of his eight children, “advised Aline to report to the police that she had been hurt in an ‘accident,’ and not to mention anything about abuse,” the cable said.

Amid his siblings’ shenanigans, Seif, the president’s second-eldest son, had been “opportunely disengaged from local affairs,” spending the holidays hunting in New Zealand. His philanthropy, the Qaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation, had sent hundreds of tons of aid to earthquake-ravaged Haiti, and he was seen as a reasonable prospect to succeed his father.

The same 2010 cable said young Libyan contacts had reported that Seif al-Islam is the ‘hope’ of ‘Libya al-Ghad’ (Libya of tomorrow), with men in their twenties saying that they aspire to be like Seif and think he is the right person to run the country. They describe him as educated, cultured, and someone who wants a better future for Libya,” by contrast with his brothers, the cable said.

That was then. Today the young protesters on the streets are demanding the ouster of the entire family, and it was Seif el-Qaddafi who declared on television at 1 a.m. Monday that Libya faced civil war and “rivers of blood” if the people did not rally around his father.

As for the 68-year-old Colonel Qaddafi, the cables provide an arresting portrait, describing him as a hypochondriac who fears flying over water and often fasts on Mondays and Thursdays. The cables said he was an avid fan of horse racing and flamenco dancing who once added “King of Culture” to the long list of titles he had awarded himself. The memos also said he was accompanied everywhere by a “voluptuous blonde,” the senior member of his posse of Ukrainian nurses.

After Colonel Qaddafi abandoned his pursuit of weapons of mass destruction in 2003, many American officials praised his cooperation. Visiting with a congressional delegation in 2009, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Independent of Connecticut told the leader and his party-loving national security adviser, Muatassim, that Libya was “an important ally in the war on terrorism, noting that common enemies sometimes make better friends.”

Before Condoleezza Rice visited Libya in 2008 — the first secretary of state to do so since 1953 — the embassy in Tripoli sought to accentuate the positive. True, Colonel Qaddafi was “notoriously mercurial” and “avoids making eye contact,” the cable warned Ms. Rice, and “there may be long, uncomfortable periods of silence.” But he was “a voracious consumer of news,” the cable added, who had such distinctive ideas as resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with a single new state called “Isratine.”

“A self-styled intellectual and philosopher,” the cable told Ms. Rice, “he has been eagerly anticipating for several years the opportunity to share with you his views on global affairs.”

Andrew W. Lehren contributed reporting from New York.

source: nytimes.com