The rise and fall of Colonel Muamar Gadaffi

The rise and fall of Colonel Muamar Gadaffi

France has air-dropped weapons to rebels fighting Col Muammar Gaddafi's troops in Western Libya, the French military has confirmed.

Light arms and ammunition were sent to Berber tribal fighters in the Nafusa mountains in early June, it said.

Earlier, a report in Le Figaro newspaper said the arms included rocket launchers and anti-tank missiles.
BBC News - Libya conflict: France air-dropped arms to rebels
 
Obama: Gaddafi must step down

President Barack Obama said on Wednesday that Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi must step down to satisfy U.S. concerns about the safety of Libya's people.
"He needs to step down. He needs to go," Obama told a news conference.
Obama: Gaddafi must step down | Reuters
 
Kadhafi warrant complicates peace effort: African Union
29 June 2011 20:36

An international arrest warrant for Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi complicates efforts to end the conflict, the African Union head said Wednesday, also warning of a greater conflict and spread of weapons.

"It complicates the situation," African Union Commission chairman Jean Ping told reporters when asked about the warrant. "I am not the only one to say it. Western countries also say it," he said.

"Everyone knows that the ICC always acts at a moment that is not convenient, to put oil on the fire, we are used to that."

The warrant was issued for the long-time Libyan leader, his son Seif al-Islam, and intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi.

Asked if African leaders would act on the warrant, Ping said he could not speak for them. Several have been criticised for acting on an ICC warrant for Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir, wanted on genocide charges.

Meanwhile France said it had air dropped arms to rebels fighting Kadhafi, for whom the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant last week for atrocities in the conflict that erupted mid-February.

Ping said the pan-continent group was concerned about weapons being supplied to the conflict, saying they could "supply terrorism" or drug traffickers and spread through the region.

"What worries us is not who is giving what, it is just what happens to the weapons that are distributed by all the parties to all the parties," Ping said, adding this included those supplied by Kadhafi.

There was a risk of increased conflict as in Somalia, he said. "There is a risk of civil war, the risk of partition of the country, the risk of Somalisation of the country, the risk of having arms everywhere with terrorism."

The African Union stood firmly behind its roadmap to end the conflict drawn up early March, he said. This included an end to fighting, negotiations for a ceasefire and an "inclusive and consensual" transition with reforms to meet "the legitimate aspirations of the Libyan people for democracy".

On the rebels' insistence that they would only negotiate if Kadhafi stepped down, he said: "We are saying: come to the table of negotiation with your preconditions, all conditions ... we will discuss these." Ping said it was normal that there would be differences within the African Union on resolving the conflict but stressed it was committed to a common position.

African Union leaders open a two-day summit on Thursday that is expected to be dominated by the Libyan crisis with the conflict in Sudan also a priority for the grouping.

As the region organisation searches for an "African solution" to the Libyan fighting, it has refused to join calls for Kadhafi to go, although Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade did this month say the sooner he left, the better.

Kadhafi was chairman of the African Union two years ago and has funded conflicts and development on the continent, for which he has long urged to unite as an "United States of Africa".

African leaders have invited the rebel Transitional National Council to the sidelines of a summit in Malabo for talks.

© 2011 AFP

NB: AU kweli vichekesho/vigeugeu/vizabi zabina/waoga/wazandiki/ndumilakuwili...etc, etc!
 
Nonda said:
Doubts surround Gaddafi arrest warrants

The timing and nature of the issuance of arrest warrants against Gaddafi and his allies verifies complex geopolitics.

Doubts surround Gaddafi arrest warrants - Opinion - Al Jazeera English
Click to expand...

There are actually some very bad legal implications of these Security Council resolutions authorizing the International Criminal Court to investigate and prosecute certain people. These sort of resolutions starting from Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Sudan and now Libya are setting up a precedent in favor of countries which are not part to the Rome Statute which establishes the ICC. The problem is very few have noted. I expected the article to address the issue, but it didn't even touch it.
 
Ufaransa imewarushia silaha waasi wanaopigana na majeshi ya Kanali Gaddafi magharibi mwa Libya, jeshi la Ufaransa limethibitisha.
Silaha na risasi zilipelekwa kwa wapiganaji wa kikabila wa Berber katika milima ya Nafusa.
Awali, ripoti iliyotolewa na gazeti la Le Figaro lilisema silaha hizo ni pamoja na roketi na makombora.
Ufaransa, nchi inayoongoza harakati za kijeshi za umoja wa nchi za kujihami za Ulaya Nato, haikuwaeleza washirika wao kuhusu hatua hiyo, limesema gazeti la Le Figaro.
Msemaji wa jeshi la Ufaransa, Kanali Thierry Burkhard alisema, " Tulianza kwa kurusha msaada wa kibanadamu: chakula, maji na vifaa vya matibabu".
Aliliambia shirika la habari la AFP, " Wakatai wa harakati hizi, hali ya raia ilizidi kuwa mbaya. Tuliwarushia silaha na vifaa vya kujilinda, hasa risasi.
 
Huko ni kuchanganyikiwa kwa Ufaransa baada ya kujihisi vibaya kushindwa kumpiga Ghadafi kwa muda waliojipangia.
Mtu aliyechanganyikiwa mara nyingi hufanya maamuzi yenye madhara kwake mwenyewe.
 
It was supposed to have been over in a few days. World powers would go in with fighter jets and the world's most sophisticated precision-guided weapons to render Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi powerless.But that's not the way things happened.

SOMA HABARI YOTE HAPA
 
Ami said:
It was supposed to have been over in a few days. World powers would go in with fighter jets and the world's most sophisticated precision-guided weapons to render Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi powerless.But that's not the way things happened.

SOMA HABARI YOTE HAPA
Click to expand...
it will be over soon-man hunt is still on
 
Russia decries French arms drop to Libya rebels

Russia has strongly criticised France for dropping weapons to Libyan rebels and demanded an explanation from Paris.

"If this is confirmed, it is a very crude violation of UN Security Council resolution 1970," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

The African Union has also criticised the move, saying it risks causing a "Somalia-sation" of Libya.

The French military says it has dropped arms to Berber tribal fighters in the mountains south-west of the capital.

Mr Lavrov said Russia had formally requested information from France about the move, to check that it "corresponds with reality".

BBC News - Libya: Russia decries French arms drop to Libya rebels
 
US Senate wagawanyika kuhusu "uvamizi wa NATO"nchini Libya


BY ALEX LEARY,WASHINGTON 30-06-2011 -- Like Congress, the Republican candidates for U.S. Senate in Florida are split over the military mission in Libya.
George LeMieux and Mike McCalister support involvement, in different ways, while Adam Hasner and Mike Haridopolos do not.
The engagement has triggered tense debate in Washington over President Barack Obama's refusal to seek Congressional approval, the U.S. reach in foreign affairs and the cost, at least $800 million so far.
LeMieux: "I support our efforts in Libya to prevent Moammar Gadhafi from massacring his own people. Gadhafi is a terrorist who has the blood of his people on his hands as well as that of Americans. However, President Obama is acting in violation of our Constitution by falling to seek Congressional authority for this war; he should obtain authorization immediately."
McCalister: "We should have covertly eliminated the threat and avoided the current entangled mess under NATO treaty commitments. The U.S. has already committed force. At this point, we need to eliminate the threat, fulfill our commitment to our allies, and then get out."
Haridopolos: "Sen. Haridopolos does not believe that we should have gone into Libya because it did not pose a direct threat to the U.S. and we are already stretched thin in Afghanistan and Iraq," spokesman Tim Baker said. "Additionally, he believes that we are not in an economic position to launch into a third war."
Hasner: "I'm opposed to the way in which this president took us to war in Libya, and the fact he is keeping us there without Congressional authorization and support. But now that the President has committed American troops and put them in harm's way, he must clearly define victory and achieve it with certainty. ... If President Obama isn't willing to define the mission, what victory looks like, or how we are going to achieve it, then he needs to pull our military out as soon as possible."
Incumbent Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, who the Republicans are vying to challenge in 2012, has supported the operation in Libya, as has Republican Sen. Marco Rubio.



Read more: Senate candidate splits on Libya conflict - Florida - MiamiHerald.com
 
Interesting editorial

AU must clean house before accusing the West
The Editor, The Times Newspaper| 30 June, 2011 21:56
802845_689374.jpg

At the AU media briefing on developments in the Libyan conflict in Pretoria yesterday, President Amadou Toumanri Toure, of Mali, President Yoweri Museveni, of Uganda, President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, of Mauritania, and President Jacob Zuma Picture: SYDNEY SESHIBEDI

The Times Editorial:
France's admission this week that it has covertly been supplying arms to rebels fighting Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi will add grist to the colonel's propaganda mill. The Nato bombing campaign targeting Gaddafi's forces is already deeply controversial. Even some countries that supported the UN Security Council resolution authorising the use of "all necessary measures" to protect civilians during Gaddafi's counter-offensive against the popular uprising have baulked at the extent and ferocity of the air raids.

Regime change in Tripoli might not have been the intention of the resolution but it is clear that this has become the goal of the Western powers driving the fractious Nato response to the Libyan violence.

The International Criminal Court's decision to issue arrest warrants, on war crimes charges, for Gaddafi, his most prominent son and his intelligence minister, has stymied efforts by the African Union to broker a truce in Libya.

The AU deal included an unspoken ''exit plan'' for Gaddafi and his acolytes. But the colonel, who has ruled Libya with an iron fist for more than four decades, has made it plain, in several choreographed TV appearances, that he is going nowhere.

It's a bit rich for the AU's rotating chairman, Equatorial Guinea president Teodoro Obiang Nguema, to castigate Nato for its intervention "under the cover" of protecting human rights. The wave of popular protest that has swept across north Africa, toppling two dictators, has rattled many of Africa's entrenched rulers, including Obiang Nguema, who has trampled on his own people's human rights for decades.

If the AU does not want outsiders to intervene in Africa's conflicts, it must exert real pressure on the dictators in its ranks to embrace democracy or step down.
 
Kitendo wanachokifanya Ufaransa na UK kuwapa "wahuni wa Bengharz silaha" kina kanganya malengo ya US,UK,na France kwenda Libya. Maana huwezi kwenda kulinda raia huku unasaidia wahuni kuiangusha serikali ya waLibya huku ukiruhusu vitendo vya ubakaji wa raia wema viendelee kufanywa na wahuni hao. Kwa tukio hili sasa wamempa njia Comredi Gaddaf kuwa tandika wote(Wahuni na wasaidizi wao) kihalali na huru. Kichapo cha kwanza atakachowapa ni kuzamisha manoari za kivita mbili zinazozengea karibu na mipaka ya nchi ya Libya. Subiri muone Comredi anavyoushangaza ulimwengu.

The UN resolution allowing use of force against Gaddafi is meant to protect civilians. Armed rebels are clearly not civilians; so France's airlifting of weapons to Libya goes against the whole case for the war, says British journalist John Laughland.

Laughland, who is now the director of the Paris-based Institute of Democracy and Co-operation, says the UK, France and the US argued for the military intervention in Libya under assumptions which are now obviously wrong.

"The argument, as we know, was predicated on the accusation that the Libyan government was attacking civilians. The admission that France was arming the rebels is very obviously an admission that what's going on in Libya is a fight between the government and armed rebels, and armed rebels are not civilians. So any attack on the armed rebels in Libya is therefore not necessarily a war crime. In other words, this news is not only incompatible with the case that's being made for the war in Libya, it completely contradicts it," he told RT.

The news is bound to increase the tension between NATO members, many of which are skeptical about the war, the author believes.

"We must be careful about the word ‘NATO'. This war is being fought by Britain, France and America. They use NATO as a fig leaf. But NATO itself is, of course, much bigger and there is no unanimity in NATO. Only a few days ago the Italian foreign minister said that there should be a ceasefire in order to allow the humanitarian aid through. So I think that this latest news from France will possibly increase the tension within the coalition," Laughland said.

Another example of such a politically-motivated attack on Libya by the coalition members is the arrest warrant for Gaddafi and two of his close allies issued by the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Laughland believes.

"This indictment and its confirmation by the judges is one more proof that this organization is nothing but a judicial wing of NATO. It's a political court that issues indictments according to political imperatives. And of course by doing so it brings the whole notion of international justice into very obvious disrepute…I don't think anybody outside London, Paris and Washington give the slightest bit of credence now to anything that comes out of The Hague," he said


Arming Libyan rebels contradicts case for war — RT
 
Gaddafi's departure dominates AU summit
By Bronwen Roberts, AAP July 1, 2011, 12:40 pm

African Union talks on a plan to end the Libyan conflict have been suspended with no agreement as the rebels insist that Muammar Gaddafi had to quit for any attempt at a political solution. African leaders sought backing for their roadmap at closed door talks on the first day of their summit on Thursday in the Equatorial Guinea capital, where delegations from the rebels and Gaddafi's regime were present.

The meeting broke up at about 1.00am on Friday and was due to convene again at 10.00am (1900 AEST), officials said.

The plan envisages a ceasefire, humanitarian aid, a transition period, reforms towards democracy and elections, but the details and the position of Gaddafi have not been made clear. The rebels insisted outside of the talks that Gaddafi had to quit after more than 30 years in power. "He must leave," National Transitional Council representative Mansour Safy Al-Nasr told journalists.

Asked if he thought the conflict would be ended through a political or a military means, he said: "We are ready for anything." The rebels were prepared to end hostilities if Gaddafi left, he said. "If we see that Gaddafi withdraws, we are ready to stop and negotiate with our brothers who are around Gaddafi," he said. But the rebels would not retreat, "not this time", he said.

"If military operations advance to surround Tripoli, he will accept (to leave). Gaddafi is isolated. He is in his bunker. He cannot move, he does not have a life," Al-Nasr said.

"The troops are advancing," he added, referring to Libyan rebel forces.

Source
 
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