Latest update: 24/10/2011 

- civil war - Libya - Muammar Gaddafi


Libya's new leaders under fire over claims of rights abuses

Libya's transitional government is facing pressure to provide answers about the circumstances of Muammar Gaddafi's death and assurances that human rights will be respected in the newly liberated country.

By Luke SHRAGO (video)
Joseph BAMAT (text)
 

A nagging controversy over the manner of Muammar Gaddafi's death, and new reports of alleged executions of Gaddafi loyalists, have cast a disquieting image of the newly “liberated” Libya.

International rights groups, including Human Right Watch and Amnesty International, have asked for a full investigation into Gaddafi’s final hours after videos posted on the Internet showed that the former strongman was still alive at the time of his capture near Sirte on Thursday.

Senior members of Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC), including outgoing prime minister Mahmoud Jibril, have insisted that Gaddafi was shot in the head during “crossfire” between his supporters and opposing fighters, shortly after his capture.

But international observers have said they are sceptical of the NTC’s version of events. “That simply does not stand up to the information we have been able to collect,” said Peter Bourchaert, Emergencies Director for Human Rights Watch in Libya. “It’s a dark stain on Libya’s future,” Bourchaert added in a video posted on YouTube on Saturday.

On Monday, Libya's interim leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil told reporters that the NTC had  "started to put in place a commission tasked with investigating the circumstances of Muammar Gaddafi’s death".

Meanwhile, as wrangling continues over what to do with Gaddafi's remains, thousands of onlookers, including children, have been ushered into a chill room in the coastal city of Misrata where his body lay on the floor, alongside those of his son Mutassim and his former army chief.

Gaddafi requested to be buried in his hometown of Sirte in his will, and his tribesmen have asked for the body. But the country's new leaders are said to be mulling a secret burial so that the grave does not become a shrine.

France remains ‘vigilant’

The possible lynching of Libya's former long-time leader has joined a long list of allegations of atrocities committed by both sides during the fighting that followed the popular uprising in February.

The country’s new leadership has repeatedly pledged to respect international rules on human rights and provide transparency during the transition period.

But concerns over lawlessness and extra-judicial killings intensified on Monday as Human Rights Watch reported it had documented what appeared to be the execution of 53 Gaddafi supporters at an abandoned hotel in Sirte last week. The group said it found the decomposing bodies on Sunday, some with their hands tied behind their backs.

“The main problem is how to make the distinction between those who died during the very violent fighting over the last few weeks, that included street fighting and bombings, and those who have been executed either by lawless fighters or NTC forces,” said FRANCE 24’s Marine Olives reporting from the capital, Tripoli.

France on Monday said that it trusted the NTC to build a new government based on the rule of law, but that it would remain vigilant regarding the protection of human rights and democratic principles.

A spokesman for France’s foreign ministry said the country would keep a close watch on the recently liberated Libya, “especially regarding cultural and religious diversity, and the equality between men and women, which France is indissolubly attached to.”

France, along with Britain, led the international effort to provide NATO military cover to the rebel forces who fought Gaddafi’s regime.

Comments (2)

the rebels are not muslim but

the rebels are not muslim but just RATS!!!!

Gaddafi

OCTOBER 20, 2011 GADDAFI'S CRIME: FAILURE TO USE HIS WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION AGAINST WASHINGTON & NEW YORK BEFORE THE U. S. OR EUROPEAN COUNTRIES DID ANY THING AGAINST LIBYA//

The crimes of successive U. S. presidents are millions of times greater than any crimes Gaddafi may have committed. His only crime was failure to use his weapons of mass destruction against Washington & New York, with a warning that additional U. S. and European cities such as London & Paris will be destroyed if there is any retaliation, BEFORE the U. S. or other western countries did any thing against Libya.//

October 22, 2011: I hope Pakistan realizes that it is not enough to say that Pakistan is a nuclear weapons state and the United States will have to think ten times before attacking Pakistan; through the drone attacks and in numerous other ways the United States is already attacking Pakistan; if Pakistan waits for the United States to escalate its attacks, it will be a grievous mistake; the key to victory over the United States is in destroying Washington and New York WITHOUT WAITING, with the warning that additional U. S. cities will be destroyed if there is any retaliation. //

October 24, 2011: Before the U. S. attack on Libya, including special operations and air war, Gaddafi in recent years was working with the CIA to eliminate Al Qaeda in North Africa and in 2009 published an Op-Ed article in the New York Times saying that the jews' violence against Palestinians, driving millions of them out of their homes and into refugee camps where they remain, "never happened" and that the Palestinians left their homes due to "rumors" of violence; let him try saying that the jews' 'holocaust' during World War II "never happened". In a letter dated December 22, 1982 to Indira Gandhi as prime minister I wrote "There was sudden, terminal, overwhelming violence against me in a seminar at Harvard University ... India can expect sudden, annihilatory violence ... with nuclear weapons ... ." This violence occurred after the great man of the field, at Harvard -- whose worldwide reputation according to a survey exceeded the combined reputation of over 30 Nobel Prize winners in the Boston area -- wrote to me "How much I admire what you have done ... with breath-taking results. ... Seldom have I read a paper that seemed to me to contain so much that was new and forward moving", etc. Military men know the importance of surprise. When the U. S. Secretary of State made conciliatory noises toward Pakistan yesterday because of the above paragraph of mine, that will make a surprise attack by the United States all the more effective unless Pakistan destroys Washington and New York first, BEFORE the United States does any thing, with a warning that additional U. S. cities will be destroyed, with nuclear warheads already emplaced in them by its special forces, if there is any retaliation. //

The following are posts I made on September 26 '11 on the Pakistan Defence Forum:-//

Re: how to defend against a possible US invasion of Pakistan ?//

------------START OF POST------------------//
Pakistan can do what India has done; see [my] thread titled 'How India Will Win a Nuclear War With the United States Starting Now' in the India Defence forum. Briefly, India has said that its nuclear warheads have been emplaced -- by its special forces -- in various cities/countries including Washington and New York. The nuclear destruction of these two cities, with a warning that additional U.S. cities will be destroyed if there is any retaliation, is the first step in the implementation of India's National Security Doctrine. The only way the United States will be able to keep several additional cities from being destroyed is by doing nothing in return. Five years later India can finish the job with its coast-to-coast destruction. India's victory in this depends on destroying Washington and New York, with its nuclear warheads already emplaced in these cities, BEFORE the United States does any thing, with a warning that additional U. S. cities will be destroyed, with nuclear warheads already emplaced in them, if there is any retaliation. Note that only one nuclear warhead of about twenty kiloton per city is needed to do the job.// ...

The point is that India's nuclear forces obey Satish Chandra; he does not need India's conventional forces or the rest of the government or citizenry to defend India. India's prime minister Manmohan Singh, an American boot-licker until now, avoided meeting the American president Obama while in New York to attend the U. N. General Assembly session last week and met Iran's president instead -- because of the fear of Satish Chandra. The point so far as this thread is concerned is that Pakistan does not need its conventional forces -- which in fact will be worthless against the United States -- to defend against the United States; it needs only its nuclear warheads -- it does not even need missiles -- emplaced by its special forces in Washington, New York and other U. S. cities, used in the manner I have prescribed in my earlier posts in this thread, for victory over the United States.//
-----------------END OF POST----------------------//

I am India's expert in stategic defence, the father of India's strategic program including the Integrated Guided Missile Development Program, the world's greatest scientist (my biography can be found in Marquis' Who's Who in the World, 2011 and earlier editions) and India's legitimate ruler.//
For more, see GaddafiCrimeDOTblogspotDOTcom or my blog titled 'Nuclear Supremacy For India Over U. S.' which can be found by a Google/Yahoo search with the title. //

Satish Chandra

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