Defiant Gadhafi's TV vow of martyrdom
Source: Agencies |
February 23, 2011, Wednesday
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Print Edition
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LIBYAN leader Moammar Gadhafi vows to fight on and die a "martyr," calling on his supporters to take back the streets from protesters demanding his ouster, shouting and pounding his fist in a furious speech last night on state TV.
Gadhafi, swathed in brown robes and turban, spoke from a podium set up in the entrance of a bombed out building that appeared to be his Tripoli residence hit by US airstrikes in the 1980s and left unrepaired as a monument of defiance.
The speech, which appeared to have been taped earlier, was aired on a screen to hundreds of supporters massed in Tripoli's central Green Square.
Shouting in the speech, he declared himself "a warrior" and proclaimed, "Libya wants glory, Libya wants to be at the pinnacle, at the pinnacle of the world."
"I am a fighter, a revolutionary from tents ... I will die as a martyr at the end," he said. "I have not yet ordered the use of force, not yet ordered one bullet to be fired ... when I do, everything will burn."
Gadhafi depicted the protesters as misguided youths, who had been given drugs and money by a "small, sick group" to attack police and government buildings.
He called on supporters to take to the streets immediately to reimpose control and to attack the protest leaders.
"You men and women who love Gadhafi ... get out of your homes and fill the streets," he said. "Leave your homes and attack them in their lairs. They are taking your children and getting them drunk and sending them to death. For what? To destroy Libya, burn Libya."
"The police cordons will be lifted, go out and fight them," he said, urging youth to form local committees across the country "for the defense of the revolution and the defense of Gadhafi," even asking them to wear green armbands.
"Let us show them what the popular revolution is like," he said. "Go out from your homes starting now."
Tripoli has been torn by two nights of bloodshed as pro-Gadhafi militiamen cracked down on protesters. Across the country, at least 250 people have been killed in a week of unrest.
Foreign governments scrambled by air and sea yesterday to pick up their citizens stranded by Libya's bloody unrest, with thousands of Turks crowding into a stadium to await evacuation and Egyptians gathering at the border to escape the chaos.
At least two airlines, British Airways and Emirates, the Middle East's largest, said they were canceling flights to Tripoli, as reports spread that bodies of protesters littered the streets of neighborhoods in the capital.
Two civilian ferries from Turkey and one military ship were expected to arrive in the hard-hit eastern city of Benghazi yesterday to evacuate about 3,000 Turkish citizens after the country was unable to get permission to land at the city's airport.
Gadhafi, swathed in brown robes and turban, spoke from a podium set up in the entrance of a bombed out building that appeared to be his Tripoli residence hit by US airstrikes in the 1980s and left unrepaired as a monument of defiance.
The speech, which appeared to have been taped earlier, was aired on a screen to hundreds of supporters massed in Tripoli's central Green Square.
Shouting in the speech, he declared himself "a warrior" and proclaimed, "Libya wants glory, Libya wants to be at the pinnacle, at the pinnacle of the world."
"I am a fighter, a revolutionary from tents ... I will die as a martyr at the end," he said. "I have not yet ordered the use of force, not yet ordered one bullet to be fired ... when I do, everything will burn."
Gadhafi depicted the protesters as misguided youths, who had been given drugs and money by a "small, sick group" to attack police and government buildings.
He called on supporters to take to the streets immediately to reimpose control and to attack the protest leaders.
"You men and women who love Gadhafi ... get out of your homes and fill the streets," he said. "Leave your homes and attack them in their lairs. They are taking your children and getting them drunk and sending them to death. For what? To destroy Libya, burn Libya."
"The police cordons will be lifted, go out and fight them," he said, urging youth to form local committees across the country "for the defense of the revolution and the defense of Gadhafi," even asking them to wear green armbands.
"Let us show them what the popular revolution is like," he said. "Go out from your homes starting now."
Tripoli has been torn by two nights of bloodshed as pro-Gadhafi militiamen cracked down on protesters. Across the country, at least 250 people have been killed in a week of unrest.
Foreign governments scrambled by air and sea yesterday to pick up their citizens stranded by Libya's bloody unrest, with thousands of Turks crowding into a stadium to await evacuation and Egyptians gathering at the border to escape the chaos.
At least two airlines, British Airways and Emirates, the Middle East's largest, said they were canceling flights to Tripoli, as reports spread that bodies of protesters littered the streets of neighborhoods in the capital.
Two civilian ferries from Turkey and one military ship were expected to arrive in the hard-hit eastern city of Benghazi yesterday to evacuate about 3,000 Turkish citizens after the country was unable to get permission to land at the city's airport.
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