Libya: Gaddafi government accepts peace plan, says Zuma

[EnglishLady]

BBC News

South African President Jacob Zuma says the Libyan government has accepted an African Union peace plan to end the eight-week-old conflict.

Mr Zuma and three other African leaders met Libya's leader, Col Muammar Gaddafi, in Tripoli on Sunday. An AU team is now going on to the eastern rebel stronghold of Benghazi.

In Ajdabiya, pro-Gaddafi forces have pushed back rebels in fierce fighting.

Nato says its planes destroyed 25 government tanks on Sunday alone.

The African Union's road map calls for an immediate cease-fire, opening channels for humanitarian aid and talks between the rebels and the government.

"The brother leader [Col Gaddafi] delegation has accepted the roadmap as presented by us," Mr Zuma declared.

"We have to give the ceasefire a chance," he said, after several hours of talks.

Mr Zuma is now returning to South Africa. His foreign minister and the other AU heads of state will travel to Benghazi on Monday.

The British-based representative of the Libyan opposition leadership, Guma al-Gamaty, has told the BBC that they would look carefully at the AU plan, but that any deal designed to keep Colonel Gaddafi or his sons in place would not be acceptable.

An AU official said the idea of Col Gaddafi stepping down had been discussed, but gave no further details.

"There was some discussion on this but I cannot report on this. It has to remain confidential," said AU Commissioner for Peace and Security Ramtane Lamamra.

"It's up to the Libyan people to chose their leaders democratically."

Tanks destroyed

Nato air strikes have been continuing: the alliance says its planes destroyed 25 government tanks on Sunday alone.

Eleven were reportedly destroyed as they approached Ajdabiya and 14 were destroyed earlier near Misrata, the only city in western Libya still in rebel hands.

Accusing government forces of "brutally shelling" civilian areas, Nato said it was responding to a desperate situation in the two towns, under its UN mandate to protect civilians.

Reuters news agency photos said to have been taken near Ajdabiya after a Nato air strike on Sunday showed a number of charred bodies lying beside burnt-out pick-up trucks, on at least one of which a heavy machine-gun was mounted.

It was one of the biggest series of air strikes since the coalition's initial onslaught, the BBC's Jon Leyne reports from Benghazi.

'Dialogue'

In all, the African Union mission comprisesd representatives from five nations: presidents Jacob Zuma of South Africa, Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz of Mauritania, Amadou Toumani Toure of Mali and Denis Sassou Nguesso of the Republic of Congo, and Uganda's Foreign Minister Henry Oryem Okello.

The mission has called for an "immediate end" to fighting, "diligent conveying of humanitarian aid" and "dialogue between the Libyan parties".

The five-strong panel was approved by the European Union to mediate in Libya.

Our correspondent says that the AU team's plan for the two sides to work together in a transition to democracy looks to be a non-starter.

He says neither side appears ready to make the compromises necessary for a ceasefire.

Col Gaddafi has ignored his own ceasefires in the past, including one announced immediately after the UN authorised a no-fly zone over Libya.

More
BBC News - Libya: Gaddafi government accepts peace plan, says Zuma

 

[layoutshooter]

Let the AU handle it. It is NONE of our business. Get NATO out. Get the U.S. out. Let Africa figure it out. All this so Italy and France can buy oil. GEEZ!

 

[skyraider]

Im sending 20,ooo watermelons and season tickets to Gatlinburg ski lift, u think that would help?

 

[layoutshooter]

Im sending 20,ooo watermelons and season tickets to Gatlinburg ski lift, u think that would help?

It makes more sense that what Obama did!

 

[chefdennis]

From the BBC article:

He says neither side appears ready to make the compromises necessary for a ceasefire.

Col Gaddafi has ignored his own ceasefires in the past, including one announced immediately after the UN authorised a no-fly zone over Libya.

And it seems he is ignoring the current attempts at a peaceful settlement...and on the other note..just a how big of an idiot does barry look for this...he takes forever to get involved (which we should have never gotten involved to begin with, he finally steps up the bs and then starts the bombing...only to pull back and leave Gaddafi in power to continue his bs...

Libya forces shell rebel-held city amid truce push

Gadhafi forces shell only rebel-held city in west as African mediators press Libya cease-fire

Ben Hubbard, Associated Press
Monday April 11, 2011, 10:41 am EDT
Libya forces shell rebel-held city amid truce push - Yahoo! Finance

BENGHAZI, Libya (AP) -- Libyan government forces battered the rebel-held city of Misrata with artillery fire on Monday despite an announcement by African mediators hours earlier that Moammar Gadhafi had accepted their cease-fire proposal. The shelling killed six people, one of them a 3-year-old girl, a doctor said.

The African Union delegation took its proposal to the rebels' eastern stronghold and was met with protests by crowds opposed to any peace until the country's longtime leader gives up power.

More than 1,000 people waved the pre-Gadhafi flags that have come to symbolize the rebel movement and chanted slogans against Gadhafi outside a Benghazi hotel. They said they had little faith in the visiting African Union mediators, most of them allies of Gadhafi who are preaching democracy for Libya but don't practice it at home.

The African negotiators met with Gadhafi late Sunday in the capital, Tripoli, and said he accepted their proposal for a cease-fire with the rebels that would also include a halt to the three-week-old international campaign of airstrikes. However, an Algerian representative of the delegation was vague on whether the proposal includes a demand for Gadhafi to give up power and would only say that the option was discussed.

The protesters in Benghazi and the opposition leadership based in the city are demanding that Gadhafi step down immediately.

"On the issue of Gadhafi and his sons, there is no negotiation," said Ahmed al-Adbor, a member of the opposition's transitional ruling council.

Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini supported that position.

"The sons and the family of Gadhafi cannot participate in the political future of Libya," he said Monday on France's Europe-1 radio. He said Gadhafi's departure would have to happen "in parallel" with any cease-fire.

He said he was lobbying allies to arm the rebels but that he was against expanding the international operation to include ground forces.

A few hours after the AU announcement in Tripoli, Gadhafi's forces began bombarding the port in the Mediterranean city of Misrata, the only major city in the western half of Libya that remains under partial rebel control. Fierce fighting has raged there for weeks.

A doctor who lives in the city said the shelling began overnight and continued intermittently throughout the day Monday. He said six people were killed by missiles that slammed into residential areas. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared retaliation if he was discovered by Gadhafi's forces.

Gadhafi hasn't abided by a cease-fire he immediately declared after international airstrikes were authorized last month. He has also rejected demands from the rebels, the United States and its European allies that he relinquish power immediately.

After the talks with Gadhafi late Sunday, the AU delegation said he accepted their "road map" for a cease-fire.

The secretary general of NATO, which took over control of the air operation from the U.S., said Monday that any cease-fire must be credible and verifiable.

"There can be no solely military solution to the crisis in Libya," Anders Fogh Rasmussen said. "NATO welcomes all contributions to the broad international effort to stop the violence against the civilian population."

British Prime Minister David Cameron's spokesman Steve Field told reporters Monday that NATO's action would not be halted without proof of a genuine cease-fire.

"Whether or not there is a cease-fire, that is in Gadhafi's hands. We have to judge him by what he does, not what he says," Field said.

NATO airstrikes on Sunday battered Gadhafi tanks, helping the rebels push back government troops who had been advancing toward Benghazi on an east-west highway along the country's northern Mediterranean coast.

The airstrikes largely stopped heavy shelling by government forces of the eastern city of Ajdabiya -- a critical gateway to Benghazi, the opposition's de facto capital and Libya's second largest city.

On Monday, rebels held positions at the western gates of the city, on the fringes of desert littered with bullet casings, scraps of metal and more than a dozen blackened or overturned vehicles, including tanks and pickup trucks outfitted with anti-aircraft guns.

The area was also scattered with twisted cooking pots, torn blankets and a shredded green helmet smeared with blood.

A rebel scout sent down the highway to the west said he encountered Gadhafi forces and was drawn into a brief gunbattle before falling back to Ajdabiya, but there were no major battles on that front Monday.

With some breathing room around Ajdabiya, the rebels could mount another attempt to retake and hold the oil ports of Ras Lanouf and Brega farther west, which have changed hands repeatedly throughout the fighting.

That would bring them a step closer to the key city of Sirte, a Gadhafi stronghold and home to the Libyan leader's tribe. Several rebel advances toward the city have been driven back.

NATO is operating under a U.N. resolution authorizing a no-fly zone and airstrikes to protect Libyan civilians.

The AU's draft calls for an immediate cease-fire, cooperation in opening channels for humanitarian aid, protection of foreign nationals and the start of a dialogue between rebels and the government. AU officials, however, made no mention of any requirement for Gadhafi to pull his troops out of cities as rebels have demanded.

"We have completed our mission with the brother leader, and the brother leader's delegation has accepted the road map as presented by us," South African President Jacob Zuma said Sunday, referring to Gadhafi by his preferred title. He traveled to Tripoli with the heads of Mali and Mauritania to meet with Gadhafi, whose more than 40-year rule has been threatened by the uprising that began nearly two months ago.

Zuma called on NATO to end airstrikes to "give the cease-fire a chance."

Gadhafi enjoys substantial support from countries of the AU, an organization that he chaired two years ago and helped transform using Libya's oil wealth.

Though the AU has condemned attacks on civilians, last week its current leader, Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, decried foreign intervention in Libya's nearly two-month-old uprising, which he declared to be an internal problem.

Concern about civilian casualties is centered on the city of Misrata. Residents of the city say Gadhafi's forces have shelled the city from its outskirts for weeks and lined a main street with snipers.

In Geneva, the U.N. children's agency said Monday that at least 20 children have been killed and many more have been injured in the city over the past three weeks. Children as young as 9 months were among the victims and the majority were under 10 years of age, UNICEF said.

They died of shrapnel from mortar shells and tank fire, and bullet wounds, it said.

Last week, the agency said children there were among those being targeted by snipers.

Associated Press writers Sebastian Abbot in Ajdabiya, Libya, Diaa Hadid in Cairo, Angela Charlton in Paris, Don Melvin in Brussels, and David Stringer in London contributed to this report.

 

[Poorboy]

We didn't create the mess over there and should stay out of the problems of other Countries and worry more about what is going on here.
If they would concentrate on the United States then we wouldn't have all the problems we have now!

 

[jpalmer]

lol, Obama really is a ******........