THE US SECRETARY of State Hillary Rodham Clinton pressed some of the world’s last remaining friends of Muammar Gaddafi to abandon Libya’s strongman and join the growing international demand for him to cede power. She told African nations that their solidarity with the Libyan people could make the difference for a peaceful future.
Culminating a volcano-shortened trip to the Gulf and three African nations, Clinton told diplomats at the African Union headquarters in Ethiopia’s capital that they needed to recognise that Gaddafi forfeited his legitimacy to rule by attacking his own citizens.
It represented a difficult call for unity. Gaddafi still has many friends in Africa after providing decades of military training and patronage for groups fighting apartheid and colonialism.
“Your words and actions could make the difference in bringing this situation to a close and allowing the people of Libya to get to work rebuilding their country,” Clinton told African officials in Addis Ababa. She said the world needed African leadership to end the standoff between opposition forces and Gaddafi’s troops.
For Clinton, the emphasis on the Libyan leader provided a full circle for a one-week voyage that began in the United Arab Emirates, where she prodded NATO countries and Arab governments participating in the UN-mandated military mission against Gaddafi to increase the pressure on him to leave power and increase their contacts with the Transitional National Council.
After stops in Zambia and Tanzania, she was to have spent Monday night in Addis Ababa.
In Ethiopia, Clinton acknowledged that Gaddafi’s “major role in providing financial support for many African nations and institutions, including the African Union.” But she said it has become clear in light of his abuses that he cannot remain in power.
All African leaders should demand that Gaddafi accept a ceasefire and then leave Libya, she said. They should expel pro-Gadhafi Libyan diplomats from their countries, suspend the operations of Libyan embassies and work with the Libyan opposition.
Since seizing power in Libya in 1969, Gaddafi has offered training, funding and other support for African rebel groups, including the African National Congress as it fought white minority rule in South Africa. Buoyed by oil money, he also paid the membership dues of many smaller, poorer countries at the United Nations, African Union and other international bodies — winning himself a cast of supporters even as he fancied himself the continent’s “king of kings.”
Meanwhile, Britain has said that its part in the military campaign to support the Libyan rebels may not be sustainable for longer than a total of six months, as a result of cuts to the country’s defence budget. The Telegraph reports that the head of the Royal Navy, Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope, said that recent cuts had left Britain without a working aircraft carrier.
He said that the roll-out of Harrier jets, now mothballed, would have been used for ground support operations.
Stanhope said that Britain’s Navy would be unable to continue operations in Libya for a further three months without making additional cuts to the national budget: “We might have to request the government to make some challenging decisions about priorities,” he said. “There are different ways of doing this. It’s not simply about giving up standing commitments, we will have to rebalance”.
Additional reporting by the AP
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