By Gregory Viscusi and Helene Fouquet
September 01, 2011 12:03 EDT
Leaders of the coalition that helped push out Muammar Qaddafi gathered in Paris as the Libyan strongman called on his loyalists to reject surrender and exhorted them to fight until the country is “engulfed in flames.”
The “Friends of Libya meeting” is being jointly chaired by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister David Cameron, who pushed for the United Nations Security Council resolution that authorized the military campaign, which began March 19 when French jets destroyed a loyalist armored column about to attack the rebel stronghold of Benghazi.
Qaddafi, in comments on an audio tape released by Syrian- based Arrai television today, said his remaining loyalists in Bani Walid and Sirte won’t surrender, following an ultimatum by the National Transitional Council that they lay down their arms or face attacks.
“We will not give up. We are not women,” Qaddafi said in the recording. “Let the fight be long, let Libya be engulfed in flames.”
The National Transitional Council extended by a week a Sept. 3 deadline for Qaddafi loyalists in his hometown of Sirte to surrender, the council’s U.K. coordinator, Guma Al Gumaty, said today in a telephone interview.
“The negotiations are going well, and we believe that this will end peacefully before the new deadline expires,” he said.
Paris Talks
The 60 delegations attending the one-day Paris meeting at the presidential Elysee Palace will mark a shift from backing rebel aspirations to supporting the new leaders of Libya as they try to establish order and restore their economy.
The nations taking part include those that participated in providing air cover for the rebels — such as the U.S., France, Britain, Italy and Qatar — as well as Germany and others that refused to commit military forces.
“With the countries present, with the UN, with the Arab League, with the African Union, we will turn the page on dictatorship and combat to open a new era of cooperation with a democratic Libya,” Sarkozy told France’s ambassadors yesterday at their annual gathering in Paris.
The U.S. is represented by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the UN by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Other attendees include German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheik Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani. China sent vice foreign minister Zhai Jun, while Russia sent Mikhail Margelov, special envoy for Africa and the Middle East. Tunisia and Morocco dispatched their prime ministers, and Egypt its foreign minister.
Alliance to Government
The transitional council needs to convert from an anti- Qaddafi military alliance into a caretaker government able to unite regional and political factions, restart the country’s oil exports and organize elections.
Already, the Financial Times reported that council members have fallen into dispute over the $65 billion Libyan Investment Authority sovereign wealth fund, and Amnesty International has accused some rebel forces of targeting black Libyans and sub- Saharan Africans they suspect supported Qaddafi. Amnesty said that it was told during visits to detention centers in Zawiya and Tripoli that between a third and a half of those detained were from Sub-Saharan Africa.
The NTC leaders “have said the right things, but their ability to enforce those lofty ideals on those with the guns in the streets is a lot more difficult,” Shashank Joshi, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London, said yesterday in an interview.
Rebel Control
While the capital is under rebel control, Qaddafi himself has not been found. The coastal city of Sirte and the southern town of Sabha are the key remaining bastions of Qaddafi loyalists, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, the NTC chairman, said earlier this week.
A man identified as the fallen leader’s son, Saif al-Islam, said yesterday that he has 20,000 armed loyalists in Sirte and that “no one is going to surrender,” according to an audio statement broadcast on Arrai satellite television.
Another of Qaddafi’s sons, Saadi, has been in negotiations to turn himself in, according to rebel statements. “We are ready to do anything to stop the bloodshed,” he said yesterday in a telephone call to Al Arabiya television, asserting that he was speaking on behalf of his father.
Clinton Meets Jalil
Clinton met today with Jalil and NTC Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril as well as Sarkozy and Cameron.
A large part of Paris meeting is about what the NTC and the Friends of New Libya would like to see in a UN mission in Libya, including what they’d like to see immediately versus what sort of longer-term mandate the UN should have, said a U.S. official who was not authorized to speak publicly on the issue.
The goal, the official said, was to put a little more shape to the idea of a UN mission. He also said that getting a UN peacekeeping team on the ground quickly could be helpful for technical assistance as the new leadership works to stabilize the country.
In a separate meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, Clinton discussed the Middle East peace process, events in the Middle East, including Syria, and the Balkans, among other issues.
Syria Focus
While focused on Libya, Clinton has used the meeting to press home to European allies the importance of following through on energy-related sanctions against Syria, said a U.S. official who was not authorized to speak on the record.
Russia recognized the transitional council as the North African country’s legitimate government, the Foreign Ministry said today on its website.
Algeria will also recognize Libya’s new government when it is formed, Foreign Minister Mourad Medelci said today on France’s Europe1 radio station.
Qaddafi’s wife, Safia, daughter Aisha and two sons, Hannibal and Mohammed, with their wives and children, crossed the border from Libya into Algeria on Aug. 29, where they were granted exile. The Libyan rebels said the Algerian government committed “an act of aggression” and demanded their return.
France is pushing for the UN to unfreeze Libyan assets to allow Libya’s new leaders to restore essential services and pay civil servants. France wants 1.5 billion euros ($2.1 billion) released by the end of the week, said a French official who briefed reporters on the condition he not be named.
EU Lifts Sanctions
The European Union lifted sanctions on 28 Libyan entities because anti-Qaddafi forces control them, the 27-nation bloc said today in an e-mailed statement in Brussels.
The Libyan entities will be disclosed tomorrow, when the decision is published in the EU Official Journal. Among the businesses are six port authorities, a person familiar with the matter said yesterday.
Britain’s Royal Air Force flew 280 million dinars ($233 million) to Benghazi yesterday to help end a shortage of cash, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said in an e-mailed statement.
Libya’s oil exports have been shuttered since the start of the fighting six months ago, with output slumping to 60,000 barrels a day in July compared with 1.7 million barrels in January, according to the Paris-based International Energy Agency. Libya holds Africa’s largest oil reserves.
Eni SpA (ENI) will seek to restart its Greenstream natural gas pipeline linking Libya to Europe by Oct. 15, Chief Executive Officer Paolo Scaroni told the Italian news agency ANSA yesterday.
