35 PINOYS LEAVE TRIPOLI; KADHAFI HOMETOWN BOMBED / EMBASSIES DEFECT
MANILA, AUGUST 27, 2011 (TRIBUNE) Some 35 Libya-based Filipinos boarded a ship that will take them out of strife-torn Tripoli, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) yesterday said.
It added the Filipinos, along with other foreigners, will have a 38-hour trip from Tripoli to Benghazi.
"The boat was expected to make the journey in 38 hours," DFA spokesman Raul Hernandez said.
The vessel taking foreigners out of Tripoli was chartered by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), he added.
Hernandez said the Filipinos will proceed by land to Egypt for repatriation to Manila.
But he said some overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) could not be brought to the port where the IOM-chartered ship is waiting due to heavy fighting in Tripoli.
An embassy team will attempt to fetch them for another boat trip possibly on Saturday, he said.
In Tripoli, British warplanes have bombed a bunker in Moammar Kadhafi's hometown of Sirte, as rebel fighters grouped on Friday for another push on one of the last major regime holdouts east of Tripoli.
As insurgent leaders moved into Tripoli to begin a political transition, the African Union called for that process to
be "inclusive," while the UN human rights chief warned against assassinating strongman Kadhafi, whose whereabouts is unknown and who has a $1.7 million rebel price on his head.
"At around midnight, a formation of Tornado GR4s ... fired a salvo of Storm Shadow precision-guided missiles against a large headquarters bunker in Kadhafi's home town of Sirte," the Defense ministry said in London.
Speculation that Kadhafi might have found refuge in the town, which lies 360 kilometers east of Tripoli, has not been confirmed.
Nato yesterday said its planes had hit 29 armed vehicles and a "command and control node" in the vicinity of Sirte.
On Thursday, the National Transitional Council (NTC) moved many of its top people from their Benghazi base, just days after rebel fighters overran Tripoli, going on to capture Kadhafi's headquarters and vast swathes of the capital.
Ali Tarhuni, a NTC official, said their leader, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, would arrive as soon as the security situation permitted.
"I declare the beginning and assumption of the executive committee's work in Tripoli," Tarhuni, the executive committee's vice chairman and minister of oil and economics, said in the capital.
"Long live democratic and constitutional Libya and glory to our martyrs," he said, announcing the holders of key posts in a new provisional government.
He called on forces loyal to Kadhafi to lay down their arms, and promised they would be treated lawfully.
"Put your weapons down and go home. We will not take revenge. Between us and between you is the law. I promise you will be safe."
In Geneva, the UN human rights chief warned against bounty hunters who may be seeking to kill Kadhafi, saying assassinations are "not within the rule of law."
"That applies to Kadhafi as well as everybody else," said spokesman Rupert Colville in a response to a question about the reward for Khadafi, dead or alive.
Colville said the "best solution" would be to capture Kadhafi alive and follow through on an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant for crimes against humanity.
He also called on "all people in positions of authority, including field commanders in Libya, to take action to ensure that no crimes or acts of revenge are committed."
In that vein, a senior African Union official said that with the conflict about to end, the body should support efforts for an inclusive transition in Libya.
"Now more than ever, we have to make efforts to ensure an inclusive and consensual transition to lead us to elections that will allow the Libyan people to freely choose their leaders," AU Commission chief Jean Ping said at the start of a meeting in Addis Ababa.
On Thursday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called on the rebels to guard weapons stockpiles and take a hard line against "extremism."
"There can be no place in the new Libya for revenge attacks and reprisals ... Libya's future will be peaceful only if the leaders and people of Libya reach out to each other in a spirit of peace."
She pledged support for the "new Libya," urging the triumphant rebels to turn the page on Kadhafi's rule and build a secure, democratic state.
Amid all these concerns, Amnesty International claimed that abuses were being committed on both sides, reporting that a jailed boy had been raped by Kadhafi guards and that rebels were mistreating African migrant workers accused of being mercenaries.
The whereabouts of Kadhafi remain unknown despite an intensive search by rebel forces, and on Thursday he broadcast a new audio message calling on the populace to take up arms.
"We must resist these enemy rats, who will be defeated thanks to the armed struggle," he said.
The rebels are intent on finding Kadhafi so they can proclaim final victory in an uprising that began six months ago and was all but crushed by government forces before Nato warplanes gave crucial air support.
They say they want to put Kadhafi on trial, regardless of the ICC charges against him, his son Seif al-Islam and spy master Abdullah al-Senussi.
As the rebels worked to consolidate their gains politically, there were still desperately in need of funding.
NTC number two Mahmud Jibril said in Istanbul Friday that it was essential that the West release all of Libya's frozen assets.
"There will be high expectations after the collapse of the regime. The frozen assets must be released for the success of the new government to be established after the Kadhafi regime," he told a news conference.
"Salaries of civil servants need to be paid. The life needs to continue on its normal course," Jibril said, a day after senior diplomats of the Libya Contact Group met in Istanbul and agreed to speed up release of some $2.5 billion in frozen Libyan assets by the middle of next week.
At the same time, the UN Security Council released $1.5 billion of seized Libyan assets to be used for emergency aid.
"The money will be moving within days," a US diplomat said.
Washington said Thursday the money would pay for UN programs, energy bills, health, education and food, and would not be used for any "military purposes."
Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said Rome would next week release 350 million euros ($504 million) frozen in Italian banks. PNA and AFP
FROM YAHOO NEWS
'Die, Gadhafi': Libya's embassies abroad defect By JIM GOMEZ - Associated Press | AP – Thu, Aug 25, 2011
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Libyan diplomats and students smashed portraits of Moammar Gadhafi, shouted "Game over!" and raised the rebel flag at their Manila embassy Wednesday as part of defections at missions worldwide underscoring the leader's rapid fall.
As rebels stormed the Libyan capital and Gadhafi's power and influence abroad crumbled, Libyan Consul Faraj Zarroug in the Philippine capital said about 85 percent of his country's 165 diplomatic missions now recognized the interim rebel government, the National Transitional Council.
"It's game over for Mr. Gadhafi!" Zarroug told The Associated Press. "Probably in a few days, everything will be over, hopefully. I'm very happy."
In London, opposition Libyan officials rolled out a new doormat Wednesday bearing Gadhafi's image so that visitors to his rebel-held embassy could trample over his portrait as they entered the building.
Libyan diplomats abroad have been pledging allegiance to the rebels gradually after the rebellion erupted nearly six months ago, but defections surged this week as rebels entered Tripoli in a stunning breakthrough. While missions to Switzerland and Bangladesh, for example, switched early on, Libyan embassy officials in Japan and Ethiopia replaced the government flag with the rebel's tricolor on Monday.
A spokesman for the rebels in Dubai, Edward Marques, said Wednesday the defections had turned into a "cascade," but declined to list the locations of rebel supporters. The Libyan government could no longer be reached for comment.
"The situation is very, very fluid," Marques said.
At the Manila mission, diplomats in business suits pulled down Gadhafi's green flag and raised the rebel one, while young expatriates rampaged through the compound.
AP journalists were invited in to watch and film them smashing glass portraits and ripping up copies of Gadhafi's slogan-filled Green Book outlining his political philosophy.
Students spat on the ripped pages, and shouted "Die, Gadhafi, Die!" or "Leave, Ghadafi, Leave!" or "Game over!"
"We can say what we want. No one can stop us!" said Mahmoud Binhafa, a 29-year-old student who was nearly breathless with excitement. "We want like, you know, freedom to be happy, to say whatever we want."
Asked how they wanted Gadhafi to be punished, Libyan Elyosa Fathi Elgadag said each family that suffered during the Libyan leader's long oppressive rule should be allowed to "do to him" what his regime did to many victims of human rights violations.
For decades, the world has only equated Libya with Gadhafi and not known anything about its people because his regime "didn't let any Libyan to open his mouth," Elgadag said. Now, he said, all Libyans can speak out and proudly tell their nation's story to the world.
Libya's deputy U.N. ambassador Ibrahim Dabbashi was among the first diplomats to renounce Gadhafi and support the rebels on Feb. 21 and four days later Ambassador Mohamed Shalgham also denounced the Libyan leader, a longtime friend. Gadhafi tried unsuccessfully to send supporters to replace them, and this week the red, green and black flag adopted by the opposition was prominently displayed next to the U.N. flag in the lobby of Libya's U.N. Mission in New York.
Libya's embassy in Argentina switched to the rebel side on Tuesday and replaced its flag. Ambassador Abdulkadir Eljer said embassy staff also burned pictures of Gadafi along with his famous Green Book. "We'd like to know where he's hiding," Eljer added.
In Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the Libyan ambassador to the African Union, Ali Awidan, said he raised the new rebel flag Monday. "I was not serving Gadhafi, I have been serving Libya," he said.
In the Zimbabwean capital Harare, singing and chanting Libyan protesters dragged down the green flag of Gadhafi's regime hanging from an office building housing the embassy and replaced it with the rebel banner. The embassy in the southern African country has been closed for weeks.
Some impatient Libyans opposed to Gadhafi moved to force their embassies to switch sides.
A group of Libyans briefly took over their embassy in the Bosnian capital on Monday, raising the rebel flag and demanding that the ambassador resign before police removed them peacefully. On Wednesday, Ambassador Salem Finnir told The AP that his embassy has gone to the rebel side.
"I ... put myself and the embassy at their disposal," he said, referring to the interim rebel leadership.
"I hope that soon the bloodshed will be over and that peace, democracy and prosperity will rule our beloved country Libya," he said, as his two sons raised the new flag on the embassy roof.
Rebel supporters barged into a Libyan consulate and adjoining school earlier this week in Athens, ripping up hundreds of posters of Gadhafi and hanging rebel flags. Police stood guard at the nearby Libyan Embassy, which had no flags and shuttered windows.
Britain, which had already expelled a number of Gadhafi diplomats suspected of intimidating dissidents, ordered the entire staff of Libya's embassy to leave last month, turning the swank downtown building over to opposition officials. Protesters have demonstrated outside the building for several weeks, heckling pro-regime diplomats and waving rebel flags.
The Libyan ambassador to Turkey, Ziad Muntasser, told the country's Cumhuriyet newspaper he had backed the rebels for six months but did not publicly reveal his defection because he feared for his family's safety in Tripoli.
"I reject accusations that I am Gadhafi's man," he said. "I had a private reason: A large section of my family was living in Tripoli which was under Gadhafi's control." ___
Associated Press writers Brian Murphy in Dubai, Frank Jordans in Geneva, Luc Van Kemenade in Addis Ababa, Susan Fraser in Ankara, Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations, Aida Cerkez in Sarajevo and David Stringer in London contributed to this report.
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