All my people love me, says Qaddafi

By ARAB NEWS

JEDDAH: A defiant Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi on Monday rejected growing global pressure to step down, insisting that he was still beloved in his country and denied there were demonstrations against him.

"All my people love me. They would die to protect me," Qaddafi said in an interview with ABC and BBC on Monday in Tripoli.

Qaddafi claimed that nobody was protesting against him and that all those demonstrating are in fact expressing their support for him.

Asked by BBC Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen what he thinks of those people in Benghazi and elsewhere who have replaced the Libyan flag with the old one, Qaddafi said, "those are not my people."

He said they belong to the Al-Qaeda network of Osama Bin Laden, repeating his previous assertion that foreign Islamic militants were behind the chaos in Libya.

A report on the interview on the BBC's news site said Qaddafi laughed at the suggestion he would leave Libya and said that he felt betrayed by the world leaders who had urged him to quit. He said he could not step down since he did not have an official position, insisting that the power was with the people.

The report said Qaddafi challenged those who have accused him of having money abroad, among them

UK Prime Minister David Cameron, to produce evidence. He said he would "put two fingers in their eye."

ABC's Christiane Amanpour said on ABC's website that the interview, conducted at a restaurant on a road on Tripoli's Mediterranean coast, was granted because Qaddafi wanted to get the truth out.

Amanpour observed that Qaddafi seemed in denial about the strength of the uprising against his 41-year rule that has ended his control over eastern Libya and is closing in on Tripoli.

She said she asked him several times about reports of air bombing against protesters. "But Qaddafi said they did not happen and that they had only bombed military and ammunition depots," she wrote on the ABC website.

The 68-year-old leader urged the United Nations or any other organization to conduct a "fact finding mission" in Libya and questioned how nations could freeze assets, impose sanctions and implement a travel ban based on media reports alone.

Qaddafi said true Libyans had not demonstrated but those who had come on to the streets were under the influence of drugs supplied by al-Qaeda.

 

'Delusional'

US ambassador to the UN Susan Rice said the interview showed Qaddafi was "delusional" and "unfit to lead."

Qaddafi, who vowed to survive the uprising, blamed Al-Qaeda for encouraging young people to seize military arms.

He also accused Western countries of abandoning his government in its fight against "terrorists" and said he felt betrayed by the United States.

"I'm surprised that we have an alliance with the West to fight al Qaeda, and now that we are fighting terrorists they have abandoned us," Qaddafi said. "Perhaps they want to occupy Libya."

Qaddafi called President Barack Obama a "good man" but said he appeared misinformed about the situation in Libya.

"The statements I have heard from him must have come from someone else," Qaddafi said. "America is not the international police of the world."

— With input from Reuters

Comments

FLUTTER

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the only thing people love about him is the fact that his rediculous outfit will make for some wonderful halloween costumes in the future and masks.. Mark my words, you'll see in the future kids wearing "Gaddafi"costumes to poke fun at him....

also along the same note.. world cartoonists are making it rich... I wish I were a cartoonist now.. Id be rolling in the dough

HAJI MBWANA

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i love gaddafi, he is my man
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