Cairo. The head of the Arab League called for an end to violence in Libya on Monday, saying the demands of Arab people for change are legitimate.
Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa said the bloodshed in Libya, where violent unrest has spread to the capital Tripoli, must stop, Egyptian state news agency MENA reported.
“The demands of the Arab peoples for reform, development and change are legitimate and the feelings of all the Arab nations are joined in this decisive moment in history,” MENA cited Moussa as saying.
Meanwhile, protesters stormed Libya’s state broadcaster and torched police stations in Tripoli as Muammar el-Qaddafi’s son warned on Monday that the Arab world’s longest ruling leader would fight to the death to retain power.
Barely a week after Hosni Mubarak was forced out of the presidency in Cairo, the challenge to Qaddafi’s 41-year rule reached the Libyan capital with witnesses reporting several mainstays of the regime had been overrun.
The president of Yemen, another ruler who has chalked up more than three decades in power, faced growing calls to quit despite his insistence that he would only exit via the ballot box.
And a top exiled opposition figure said he planned to return to Bahrain, providing fresh impetus to the pressure for the island’s ruling family to implement wide-ranging reform.
While there was fresh violence in several Arab cities, the most dramatic events were in Tripoli where the sound of heavy gunfire broke out in downtown areas for the first time since the uprising began in eastern Libya last week.
Although government restrictions have complicated the task of counting casualties, Human Rights Watch said the death toll was at least 233 since Thursday.
Libya’s Al-Jamahiriya Two television and Al-Shababia radio were both forced to halt broadcasts on Sunday evening after their offices were ransacked and looted, according to witnesses.
Although they did manage to resume broadcasts on Monday, a number of witnesses said protesters had torched other public buildings in the capital overnight, including police stations and offices of the governing People’s Committee.
The People’s Conference Center in Tripoli’s residential neighbourhood of Hay Al-Andalous — which regularly hosts pro-regime demonstrations and official meetings — was also set alight, a resident who lives nearby said.
Al-Jamahiriya 2, the second state television channel, and Al-Shababia were launched by the Libyan leader’s influential son Saif al-Islam in 2008 and later nationalized when broadcasting was declared a state monopoly.
While his 68-year-old father has yet to address the nation since the unrest erupted, Saif al-Islam took to the airwaves on Monday to condemn the uprising as a foreign plot that would be crushed.
“Libya is at a crossroads. If we do not agree today on reforms … rivers of blood will run through Libya,” he said in a fiery but rambling speech.
“We will take up arms. We will fight to the last bullet. We will destroy seditious elements. If everybody is armed, it is civil war, we will kill each other. Libya is not Egypt, it is not Tunisia.”
But his insistence that the regime would not be the next in north Africa to crumble in the face of a popular revolt did not convince those in Tripoli.
“We can hear gunfire outside. It hasn’t stopped all day,” a resident of a suburb east of Tripoli said.
“When we heard the unrest was approaching, we stocked up on flour and tomatoes. It’s definitely the end of the regime. This has never happened in Libya before. We are praying that it ends quickly,” the resident added.
Foreigners were taking flight from the unrest, with Norwegian energy giant Statoil saying it had begun evacuating non-Libyan staff working in the country.
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, head of the region’s second longest-running regime, also struck a note of defiance in a press conference which was held against a backdrop of a growing clamor for his departure.
“If they want me to quit, I will only leave through the ballot box,” Saleh said as protesters, including opposition MPs, gathered outside Sanaa University.
Reuters, AFP
Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa said the bloodshed in Libya, where violent unrest has spread to the capital Tripoli, must stop, Egyptian state news agency MENA reported.
“The demands of the Arab peoples for reform, development and change are legitimate and the feelings of all the Arab nations are joined in this decisive moment in history,” MENA cited Moussa as saying.
Meanwhile, protesters stormed Libya’s state broadcaster and torched police stations in Tripoli as Muammar el-Qaddafi’s son warned on Monday that the Arab world’s longest ruling leader would fight to the death to retain power.
Barely a week after Hosni Mubarak was forced out of the presidency in Cairo, the challenge to Qaddafi’s 41-year rule reached the Libyan capital with witnesses reporting several mainstays of the regime had been overrun.
The president of Yemen, another ruler who has chalked up more than three decades in power, faced growing calls to quit despite his insistence that he would only exit via the ballot box.
And a top exiled opposition figure said he planned to return to Bahrain, providing fresh impetus to the pressure for the island’s ruling family to implement wide-ranging reform.
While there was fresh violence in several Arab cities, the most dramatic events were in Tripoli where the sound of heavy gunfire broke out in downtown areas for the first time since the uprising began in eastern Libya last week.
Although government restrictions have complicated the task of counting casualties, Human Rights Watch said the death toll was at least 233 since Thursday.
Libya’s Al-Jamahiriya Two television and Al-Shababia radio were both forced to halt broadcasts on Sunday evening after their offices were ransacked and looted, according to witnesses.
Although they did manage to resume broadcasts on Monday, a number of witnesses said protesters had torched other public buildings in the capital overnight, including police stations and offices of the governing People’s Committee.
The People’s Conference Center in Tripoli’s residential neighbourhood of Hay Al-Andalous — which regularly hosts pro-regime demonstrations and official meetings — was also set alight, a resident who lives nearby said.
Al-Jamahiriya 2, the second state television channel, and Al-Shababia were launched by the Libyan leader’s influential son Saif al-Islam in 2008 and later nationalized when broadcasting was declared a state monopoly.
While his 68-year-old father has yet to address the nation since the unrest erupted, Saif al-Islam took to the airwaves on Monday to condemn the uprising as a foreign plot that would be crushed.
“Libya is at a crossroads. If we do not agree today on reforms … rivers of blood will run through Libya,” he said in a fiery but rambling speech.
“We will take up arms. We will fight to the last bullet. We will destroy seditious elements. If everybody is armed, it is civil war, we will kill each other. Libya is not Egypt, it is not Tunisia.”
But his insistence that the regime would not be the next in north Africa to crumble in the face of a popular revolt did not convince those in Tripoli.
“We can hear gunfire outside. It hasn’t stopped all day,” a resident of a suburb east of Tripoli said.
“When we heard the unrest was approaching, we stocked up on flour and tomatoes. It’s definitely the end of the regime. This has never happened in Libya before. We are praying that it ends quickly,” the resident added.
Foreigners were taking flight from the unrest, with Norwegian energy giant Statoil saying it had begun evacuating non-Libyan staff working in the country.
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, head of the region’s second longest-running regime, also struck a note of defiance in a press conference which was held against a backdrop of a growing clamor for his departure.
“If they want me to quit, I will only leave through the ballot box,” Saleh said as protesters, including opposition MPs, gathered outside Sanaa University.
Reuters, AFP
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