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TRIPOLI, Libya—Pressure mounted on Monday on Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi after rebels overran towns in his traditional western stronghold and the West moved to send its first concrete aid to Libya’s rebellion in the east of the country.
In Geneva, a top United Nations human rights official called on all nations to back the popular revolts shaking the Arab world.
In the rebel-held city of Zawiya, 48 kilometers from Gadhafi’s stronghold in the capital Tripoli, the rebels demonstrated their increasing military coordination and firepower on Sunday, as defecting officers took steps to establish a unified command while their followers displayed tanks, Kalashnikovs and antiaircraft guns.
In a further sign of their strength, the rebels also talked about tapping revenue from the vast Libyan oil resources now under their control—estimated by some oil company officials to be about 80 percent of the country’s total.
But the Gadhafi regime clamped down on its redoubt in Tripoli, where food prices have skyrocketed. Militias, plainclothes police and other paramilitary forces kept the deserted streets of the capital under a lockdown.
Prices shoot up
The two sides in Libya’s crisis appeared entrenched, and the direction it takes next could depend on which can hold out longest.
Gadhafi’s opponents, including mutinous Army units, hold nearly the entire eastern half of the country, much of the oil infrastructure and some cities in the West. Gadhafi is dug in in Tripoli and nearby cities, backed by better armed security forces and militiamen.
In the capital, there were attempts to restore aspects of normalcy, residents said. Many stores downtown reopened, and traffic in the streets increased.
Long lines were formed outside banks by Libyans wanting to receive the equivalent of $400 per family that Gadhafi pledged in a bid to shore up public loyalty.
One resident said pro-Gadhafi security forces were manning checkpoints around the city of 2 million. She said the price of rice, a main staple, had gone up 500 percent amid the crisis, reaching the equivalent of $40 for a five-kilogram bag.
‘Help protesters’
But there were signs the strongman’s grip on power was slipping even further.
Referring to the events shaking the Arab world, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said in Geneva on Monday that “the international community bears the great responsibility of extending its support in words and deeds.”
She told the UN’s Human Rights Council the world must help the protesters quickly cement new changes “before former entrenched interests begin to reassert themselves, or new threats emerge.”
Pillay said protesters worried that the international community too often put stability, the status quo and trade in valuable natural resources ahead of essential human rights.
Military options
In recognition of the insurrection’s growing power, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Sunday said the United States was reaching out to the rebels to “offer any kind of assistance,” while Italy suspended a nonaggression treaty with Libya on the grounds that the Libyan state “no longer exists.”
In Paris, Prime Minister Francois Fillon on Monday said that France was sending two planes with humanitarian aid to Benghazi, the opposition stronghold in eastern Libya. The planes were carrying doctors, nurses, medicines and medical equipment.
“It will be the beginning of a massive operation of humanitarian support for the populations of liberated territories,” he said on RTL radio.
Fillon said Paris was studying “all solutions”—including military options—so that “Gadhafi understands that he should go, that he should leave power.”
Rebel-held city
The most striking display of the rebels’ strength was seen in Zawiya, one of several cities near the capital controlled by rebels, who have repulsed repeated attempts by Gadhafi’s forces to retake them.
The arsenal the rebels displayed helped to explain how they held Zawiya.
“Army, Army, Army!” excited residents shouted, pointing to a defected soldier standing watch at Zawiya’s entrance as he raised his machine gun in the air and held up two fingers for victory.
A few meters away, a captured antiaircraft gun fired several deafening salutes into the air, and gleeful residents invited newcomers to clamber aboard one of several Army tanks now in rebel hands.
Scores of residents armed with machine guns and rifles joined in a chant that has become the slogan of prodemocracy uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen and across the Arab world: “The people want to bring down the regime!”
Family assets: $32B
The maneuverings by both sides suggested they were girding for a confrontation that could influence the shape of other protest movements and the responses of other rulers who feel threatened by insurrections.
The unrest that erupted in Libya nearly two weeks ago has killed at least 1,000 people.
At the weekend, the UN Security Council imposed a travel and assets ban on Gadhafi’s regime and ordered a probe into possible crimes against humanity.
London said it had frozen the Gadhafi family assets in Britain, amid newspaper reports these amounted to about 20 billion pounds ($32 billion) in liquid assets, mostly in London.
Australia is investigating claims Gadhafi’s family has stashed millions of dollars in assets down under, Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd said on Monday.
Towns fall
Gadhafi dismissed as invalid the UN sanctions and said calm had returned to Libya as the territories held by the opposition were “surrounded.”
In his telephone statement to Serbian television, he said: “Libya is completely quiet. There is nothing unusual. There is no unrest.”
Of the territory held by the opposition, Kadhafi said: “There is a small group (of opponents) that is surrounded, but we will sort that out.”
A video posted on the YouTube website showed one of Kadhafi’s sons, Seif al-Islam, armed with an automatic rifle and urging on supporters of his father.
But Gadhafi’s crumbling regime now controls only some western areas around the capital and a few long-time bastions in the arid south, reporters and witnesses say.
A reporter arriving in Nalut, a town of 66,000 people, 235 kilometers west of Tripoli, found Gadhafi loyalists had entirely disappeared.
“The city has been liberated since Feb. 19,” said Shaban Abu Sitta, a local lawyer and member of a revolutionary committee.
“The towns of Rhibat, Kabaw, Jado, Rogban, Zentan, Yefren, Kekla, Gherien and Hawamed have also been free for days. In all these towns, Gadhafi’s forces have gone and a revolutionary committee put in place.”
The crisis drove oil prices up to $113.98 per barrel in Asian trading on Monday.
Nearly 100,000 people, most of them Egyptian and Tunisian workers, have already left Libya, while China said it had evacuated nearly 29,000 of its citizens. Reports from Agence France-Presse, New York Times News Service and Associated Press
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In Geneva, a top United Nations human rights official called on all nations to back the popular revolts shaking the Arab world.
In the rebel-held city of Zawiya, 48 kilometers from Gadhafi’s stronghold in the capital Tripoli, the rebels demonstrated their increasing military coordination and firepower on Sunday, as defecting officers took steps to establish a unified command while their followers displayed tanks, Kalashnikovs and antiaircraft guns.
In a further sign of their strength, the rebels also talked about tapping revenue from the vast Libyan oil resources now under their control—estimated by some oil company officials to be about 80 percent of the country’s total.
But the Gadhafi regime clamped down on its redoubt in Tripoli, where food prices have skyrocketed. Militias, plainclothes police and other paramilitary forces kept the deserted streets of the capital under a lockdown.
Prices shoot up
The two sides in Libya’s crisis appeared entrenched, and the direction it takes next could depend on which can hold out longest.
Gadhafi’s opponents, including mutinous Army units, hold nearly the entire eastern half of the country, much of the oil infrastructure and some cities in the West. Gadhafi is dug in in Tripoli and nearby cities, backed by better armed security forces and militiamen.
In the capital, there were attempts to restore aspects of normalcy, residents said. Many stores downtown reopened, and traffic in the streets increased.
Long lines were formed outside banks by Libyans wanting to receive the equivalent of $400 per family that Gadhafi pledged in a bid to shore up public loyalty.
One resident said pro-Gadhafi security forces were manning checkpoints around the city of 2 million. She said the price of rice, a main staple, had gone up 500 percent amid the crisis, reaching the equivalent of $40 for a five-kilogram bag.
‘Help protesters’
But there were signs the strongman’s grip on power was slipping even further.
Referring to the events shaking the Arab world, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said in Geneva on Monday that “the international community bears the great responsibility of extending its support in words and deeds.”
She told the UN’s Human Rights Council the world must help the protesters quickly cement new changes “before former entrenched interests begin to reassert themselves, or new threats emerge.”
Pillay said protesters worried that the international community too often put stability, the status quo and trade in valuable natural resources ahead of essential human rights.
Military options
In recognition of the insurrection’s growing power, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Sunday said the United States was reaching out to the rebels to “offer any kind of assistance,” while Italy suspended a nonaggression treaty with Libya on the grounds that the Libyan state “no longer exists.”
In Paris, Prime Minister Francois Fillon on Monday said that France was sending two planes with humanitarian aid to Benghazi, the opposition stronghold in eastern Libya. The planes were carrying doctors, nurses, medicines and medical equipment.
“It will be the beginning of a massive operation of humanitarian support for the populations of liberated territories,” he said on RTL radio.
Fillon said Paris was studying “all solutions”—including military options—so that “Gadhafi understands that he should go, that he should leave power.”
Rebel-held city
The most striking display of the rebels’ strength was seen in Zawiya, one of several cities near the capital controlled by rebels, who have repulsed repeated attempts by Gadhafi’s forces to retake them.
The arsenal the rebels displayed helped to explain how they held Zawiya.
“Army, Army, Army!” excited residents shouted, pointing to a defected soldier standing watch at Zawiya’s entrance as he raised his machine gun in the air and held up two fingers for victory.
A few meters away, a captured antiaircraft gun fired several deafening salutes into the air, and gleeful residents invited newcomers to clamber aboard one of several Army tanks now in rebel hands.
Scores of residents armed with machine guns and rifles joined in a chant that has become the slogan of prodemocracy uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen and across the Arab world: “The people want to bring down the regime!”
Family assets: $32B
The maneuverings by both sides suggested they were girding for a confrontation that could influence the shape of other protest movements and the responses of other rulers who feel threatened by insurrections.
The unrest that erupted in Libya nearly two weeks ago has killed at least 1,000 people.
At the weekend, the UN Security Council imposed a travel and assets ban on Gadhafi’s regime and ordered a probe into possible crimes against humanity.
London said it had frozen the Gadhafi family assets in Britain, amid newspaper reports these amounted to about 20 billion pounds ($32 billion) in liquid assets, mostly in London.
Australia is investigating claims Gadhafi’s family has stashed millions of dollars in assets down under, Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd said on Monday.
Towns fall
Gadhafi dismissed as invalid the UN sanctions and said calm had returned to Libya as the territories held by the opposition were “surrounded.”
In his telephone statement to Serbian television, he said: “Libya is completely quiet. There is nothing unusual. There is no unrest.”
Of the territory held by the opposition, Kadhafi said: “There is a small group (of opponents) that is surrounded, but we will sort that out.”
A video posted on the YouTube website showed one of Kadhafi’s sons, Seif al-Islam, armed with an automatic rifle and urging on supporters of his father.
But Gadhafi’s crumbling regime now controls only some western areas around the capital and a few long-time bastions in the arid south, reporters and witnesses say.
A reporter arriving in Nalut, a town of 66,000 people, 235 kilometers west of Tripoli, found Gadhafi loyalists had entirely disappeared.
“The city has been liberated since Feb. 19,” said Shaban Abu Sitta, a local lawyer and member of a revolutionary committee.
“The towns of Rhibat, Kabaw, Jado, Rogban, Zentan, Yefren, Kekla, Gherien and Hawamed have also been free for days. In all these towns, Gadhafi’s forces have gone and a revolutionary committee put in place.”
The crisis drove oil prices up to $113.98 per barrel in Asian trading on Monday.
Nearly 100,000 people, most of them Egyptian and Tunisian workers, have already left Libya, while China said it had evacuated nearly 29,000 of its citizens. Reports from Agence France-Presse, New York Times News Service and Associated Press
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