Moves to oust Gaddafi
2005-06-21 21:54
Cairo - With change building in other parts of the Middle East, exiled opposition leaders want to bring some of that same momentum to Libya and find a way to remove from power one of the region's most entrenched leaders, Muammar Gaddafi.
Gaddafi's opponents, battered by political division and weakened by long exile, are gathering for the first time this weekend in London - clearly inspired by other changes that previously seemed unimaginable, like the fall of Iraq's Saddam Hussein and the end of Syria's military domination in Lebanon.
They say they are also seeking help from the United States and others in removing Gaddafi, who is the longest-serving Arab leader, running his country of five million people with an iron fist since a 1969 military coup.
"We want to come out with one clear message that Gaddafi can no longer stay in power," said Fayez Jibril of the Libyan National Salvation Front.
The first step will be to ask the Libyan leader to resign, Jibril said.
"If he won't, then we have to discuss other options," he said. The organisers say they are not envisaging armed action, only political pressure.
The conference, being held on Saturday and Sunday with about 300 participants expected, will propose plans for a political transition to democracy within two year's of Gaddafi's ouster.
First a transitional governing council would be installed, then elections held for an interim national assembly to draft a new constitution.
But first they have to get Gaddafi out. And there is little sign they're any closer than they have been over the past three decades.
The West - including the United States, which long denounced Gaddafi as a pariah - shows little interest in helping push him out, especially as the Libyan leader is coaxing international business in to invest and help revamp the ruined Libyan economy, said Libyan political analyst Mahmoud Shamam.
"Libya is geographically and politically part of this area and it is only natural that the opposition forces will benefit from the blowing wind of change," he said. "But Western vested interests and hypocrisy might make that difficult."
The Salvation Front, the largest and oldest opposition, staged a rebellion against Gaddafi for years from Chad with backing from the CIA and others. But the uprising was crushed when Libya sent troops into the neighbouring nation in the early 1980s.
Since then, there has been little armed threat to his regime. Gaddafi cracked down on Islamic fundamentalists in 1997 after several militant attacks in Libya.
The Muslim Brotherhood, Libya's main opposition Islamic group, was not invited to the London conference.
- AP