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| Libya’s Gadaffi faces challenge to four-decade rule Posted: 18 Feb 2011 07:25 PM PST  Gaddafi attends a ceremony marking the birth of Prophet Mohammed, in Tripoli February 13, 2011. — Reuters pic The demonstrations yesterday against his four decades in power were unprecedented with Amnesty International saying 46 people had been killed in a three-day police crackdown. Any new funerals of dead protesters would likely act as further flashpoints for demonstrators emboldened by uprisings in neighbouring Tunisia and Egypt that toppled long-ruling presidents. While the unrest has not previously been seen before in the oil exporter, Libya-watchers say the situation is different from Egypt, because Gaddafi has oil cash to smooth over social problems. Gaddafi is also respected in much of the country, though less so in the Cyrenaica region around Benghazi. "For sure there is no national uprising," said Noman Benotman, a former opposition Libyan Islamist who is based in Britain but is currently in Tripoli. "I don't think Libya is comparable to Egypt or Tunisia. Gaddafi would fight to the very last moment," he said by telephone from the Libyan capital. Tight government control and media restrictions have limited the amount of information emerging about the unrest. Qatar-based news channel Al Jazeera said its signal was being jammed on several frequencies and its website had been blocked in Libya. Amnesty quoted sources at a hospital in Benghazi, the focus for the violence, as saying the most common injuries were gunshot wounds to the head, chest and neck. Officials have given no death toll, or commented directly on the unrest. "This alarming rise in the death toll, and the reported nature of the victims' injuries, strongly suggests that security forces are permitted lethal use of force against unarmed protesters calling for political change," Amnesty said. The privately owned Quryna newspaper said that in Benghazi thousands of residents had gathered yesterday for the funeral processions of 14 protesters killed in clashes there. Thousands more had demonstrated in front of Benghazi court building. Opposition activists said protesters fought troops for control of the nearby town of Al Bayda, scene of some of the worst violence over the past two days, where townspeople said they were burying 14 people who were killed in earlier clashes. Residents said that by yesterday evening the streets were calm but there were conflicting accounts about whether opposition activists or security forces were in control of the town. Ashour Shamis, a London-based Libyan journalist, said protesters had stormed Benghazi's Kuwafiyah prison and freed dozens of political prisoners. Quryna said 1,000 prisoners had escaped and 150 had been recaptured. The unrest though was not on a national scale with most protests confined to the east around Benghazi, where support for Gaddafi has traditionally been weak. There were no reliable reports of major protests elsewhere, and state media said there had been pro-Gaddafi rallies in the capital. Quryna newspaper quoted unnamed sources as saying the General People's Congress, or parliament, would adopt a "major shift" in government policy including appointing new people to senior positions. It gave no details and the sources could not be clarified. A sermon at Friday prayers in Tripoli, broadcast on state television, urged people to ignore reports in foreign media "which doesn't want our country to be peaceful, which ... is the aim of Zionism and imperialism, to divide our country". Text messages sent to mobile phone subscribers thanked people who ignored calls to join protests. "We congratulate our towns which understood that interfering with national unity threatens the future of generations," it said. Two people in Benghazi, about 1,000km east of Tripoli, told Reuters early in the day that Saadi Gaddafi, a son of the Libyan leader and ex-professional soccer player in Italy, had taken over command of the city. — Reuters |
| Bahrain king offers talks to resolve crisis Posted: 18 Feb 2011 06:23 PM PST  A family member of a protester, who was killed by riot-police, grieves during a funeral procession in Manama, February 18, 2011. — Reuters pic More than 60 people were in hospital today undergoing treatment for wounds sustained when Bahraini security forces fired on protesters as they headed to Pearl Square yesterday. The shootings occurred on a day of mass mourning when Shi'ites buried the four people killed a day earlier in the police raid on the Pearl Square traffic circle. In response to protests against his government that have drawn thousands of people on to the streets, King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa announced late yesterday the crown price had been granted "all the powers to fulfil the hopes and aspirations of all gracious citizens from all sections" in the national dialogue. US President Barack Obama spoke with the king yesterday evening, condemning the violence and urging the government to show restraint. Obama said the stability of Bahrain, home to the US Middle East fleet, depended upon respect for the rights of its people, according to the White House. The unrest has presented the United States with a now familiar dilemma in the region. It is torn between its desire for stability in a long-standing Arab ally and a need to uphold its own principles about the right of people to demonstrate for democratic change. The crown prince of the non-OPEC minor oil producer, Sheikh Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa, appealed for calm on TV. "Today is the time to sit down and hold a dialogue, not to fight," he said. The unrest in the regional banking hub has shaken foreign confidence in the economy. In 1999, King Hamad enacted a constitution allowing elections for a parliament with some powers, but royals still dominate a cabinet led by the king's uncle — premier for 40 years. Bahrain's Shi'ite Muslims account for about 70 per cent of the population which is governed by the Sunni Al Khalifa dynasty. Shi'ites feel cut out of decision-making, as well as from jobs in the army and security forces. Both the United States and Saudi Arabia see Bahrain as a bulwark against Shi'ite Iran. Saudi Arabia especially fears unrest spreading to its own Shi'ite community, a minority concentrated in the eastern oil-producing area of the world's biggest crude exporter. Ali Ibrahim, deputy chief of medical staff at Salmaniya hospital, said 66 wounded had been admitted from the clash and that four were in a critical condition. About 1,000 people gathered outside one hospital, some spilling into the corridors as casualties were brought in, including one with a bloody sheet over his head. Some men wept. Fakhri Abdullah Rashed said he had seen soldiers shooting at protesters in Pearl Square. "I saw people shot in several parts of their body. It was live bullets," the protester added. Jalal Firooz, an MP for Wefaq, the main Shi'ite bloc whose 17 members resigned from the 40-seat assembly on Thursday, said demonstrators had been holding a memorial for a protester killed earlier this week when riot police fired tear gas at them. Police had no comment. The crowd then made for Pearl Square, where army troops opened fire, Firooz said. Four people were killed and 231 wounded when riot police raided the protest camp in the early hours of Thursday. Soldiers in tanks and armoured vehicles later took control of the square, which the mainly Shi'ite protesters had hoped to use as a base like Cairo's Tahrir Square, the heart of protests that toppled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on February 11. Several thousand mourners turned out yesterday to bury those killed in what Bahrain's top Shi'ite cleric called a "massacre" ordered by the island's Sunni ruling family to crush protests. — Reuters |
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