As rebels are pushed back Libya says it is open to reform

Posted by Newstime World Latest, Middle East Tuesday, April 5th, 2011

TRIPOLI, April 5, 2011 (AFP) – Libya’s government said Tuesday it is ready to negotiate reforms but only provided Moamer Kadhafi is not forced out, as loyalists troops pushed rebel fighters back from the key oil port of Brega. NATO-led air strikes have destroyed 30 percent of the regime’s military capacity since the UN-backed bombing campaign started on March 19, an alliance commander said, even as the rebels suffered their first significant loss of territory in almost a week. A one-million-barrel supertanker was due to dock in the rebel-held port of Tobruk to pick up the first oil cargo for 18 days, the specialist shipping newsletter Lloyd’s List said, in a big boost to the anti-Kadhafi forces’ finances.

Government spokesman Mussa Ibrahim told journalists in Tripoli that everything except the departure of Kadhafi was negotiable, saying he was a unifying figure after ruling the nation for four decades. ”What kind of political system is implemented in the country? This is negotiable, we can talk about it,” Ibrahim said. “We can have anything, elections, referendums.” But Kadhafi’s future was sacrosanct, he stressed, only hours after the rebels flatly rejected a reported peace deal that could see the embattled leader’s son take charge of the North African nation. The “guide of the revolution”, who has always rejected the title of head of state, was “the safety valve” for the unity of the country’s tribes and people, Ibrahim said. “We think he is very important to lead any transition to a democratic and transparent model.” In a show of defiance, Kadhafi greeted supporters late Monday in his first public appearance since March 22 at his Bab el-Aziziya residence in Tripoli, bombed by coalition forces two days earlier, state television said.

Kadhafi’s son Seif al-Islam meanwhile dismissed former foreign minister Mussa Kussa, who defected to the West last week, as just a “sick and old” man who had succumbed to the psychological pressures of war. Long seen as the heir apparent to his father before the wave of protests shook the country, Seif al-Islam briefly showed up at a Tripoli hotel to record an interview with the BBC in which he made dismissive comments about Kussa, once a pillar of the regime. The son, who had not been seen in public since coalition air strikes began on March 19, said Kussa had been allowed to go abroad for medical treatment. ”Regarding Mussa Kussa, he said: ‘I’m on a travel ban list and I’m sick and I have to go every three months to Cromwell hospital, in London, if I can get permission. I want to go there,’ so … and we allow him to go to Djerba, in Tunisia, so there’s nothing against that,” the younger Kadhafi said. He added: “We have been bombed for two weeks, imagine the psychological pressure and you are sick and old, so you resign. It’s a war.” Asked what information Kussa might provide the West, Seif al-Islam said: “He’s sick, he’s sick and old, of course, he would come out with funny stories.”

But he dismissed the idea Kussa might have secrets to share, for instance on the extent of the involvement of the Libyan intelligence services, in which he was long a senior figure, in the December 1988 bombing of a US airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 270 people. ”Like what? The British and Americans know about Lockerbie, there’s no secrets any more,” the son said. Scottish investigators expect to interview Kussa over the bombing within “the next few days”, a spokesman for the nation’s devolved government said after talks with British foreign ministry officials. Kadhafi’s forces pushed back rebels from the oil refinery town of Brega on the central Mediterranean coast despite a NATO air strike on loyalists who launched an intensive artillery barrage at their fleeing foes. Heavy fighting erupted in the morning around Brega, with rebels using rocket launchers to counter the incoming artillery barrage of loyalists.

But by afternoon, the rebels were seen pulling back in hundreds of vehicles in the direction of Ajdabiya, a transport hub about 80 kilometres (50 miles) back towards their stronghold of Benghazi. Two loyalist pick-up trucks heading for rebel positions were destroyed in the morning raid, but the soldiers inside appeared to have escaped unhurt, an AFP correspondent said. Tuesday’s thrust by the loyalists appeared to mark the first real movement in the ground battle since last Thursday, when the two sides hunkered down around Brega after Kadhafi’s forces sent the rebels stampeding out of a string of vital oil terminals. Despite days of intense exchanges, neither side was able to make any headway, with Kadhafi’s men not willing to risk advancing through the open desert, where they are easy targets for NATO air strikes, and the insurgents lacking the necessary weaponry to counter the loyalists’ artillery.

Kadhafi’s heavier weaponry has been hard hit by UN-backed strikes, now under the command of the NATO alliance as Washington has moved to give the lead to its European allies. ”We have taken out 30 percent of military capacity of pro-Kadhafi forces,” said Brigadier General Mark van Uhm, citing an assessment by the Libya operation’s commander, Lieutenant General Charles Bouchard. Meanwhile, a tanker was due to dock in the rebel-port of Tobruk as the opposition sought to take advantage of a pledge to market its oil exports by Gulf state Qatar, one of just three countries with France and Italy, to recognise their ribal administration. ”There is a tanker which is scheduled to arrive later today at the oil terminal near Tobruk, according to Lloyd’s Intelligence checking data,” said Lloyd’s List markets editor Michelle Wiese Bockmann.

 

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