February
22, 2011 5:52:51 AM
* Libya's U.N. diplomats say they serving the
people
* Statement urges army to turn
against Gaddafi
* Security Council to hold closed-door meeting
(Adds Ban Ki-moon
comments, Libyan ambassadors
to India, Malaysia)
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 21 (Reuters) -
Diplomats at Libya's
mission to the United
Nations sided on Monday with the revolt against their country's leader and called
on the Libyan army
to help overthrow "the tyrant Muammar Gaddafi."
In a statement issued as protests
erupted across Libya,
the mission's deputy
chief and other staff said they were serving the Libyan people,
demanded "the removal of the regime immediately" and urged other
Libyan embassies to follow suit.
Diplomats said the U.N. Security Council
at the request of the Libyan deputy ambassador, Ibrahim Dabbashi, would hold a
closed-door meeting on Tuesday at 9 a.m. (1400 GMT) to discuss the crisis.
Gaddafi was waging a bloody battle
to hang on to power as the revolt against his 41-year rule reached the capital,
Tripoli. The Libyan mission
statement released in New
York said hundreds had died in the first five days of the uprising.
The statement was issued by Dabbashi
and other staff. Dabbashi told Reuters he did not know the whereabouts of Ambassador
Abdurrahman Shalgham, a former Libyan foreign minister, but believed he was not
in New York.
Shalgham was not associated with the statement, Dabbashi said.
Spokesman Dia al-Hotmani said that at a meeting on Monday at
the mission's New York
offices, staff "expressed our sense of concern about the genocide going on
in Libya."
"We are not seeing any reaction
from the international community," he added.
"The tyrant Muammar Gaddafi
has asserted clearly, through his sons the level of ignorance he and his
children have, and how much he despises Libya and the Libyan people," the mission's
Arabic language statement said.
It condemned Gaddafi's use of
"African mercenaries" to try to put down the rebellion and said it
expected "an unprecedented massacre in Tripoli."
Libya's ambassador to the United States told the BBC in Washington on
Monday he was also withdrawing support for Gaddafi, but stopped short of
resigning.
Libya's ambassador to India, who resigned earlier this week, told Reuters he expected more diplomats to quit if
Gaddafi's government continued its crackdown.
"I call on the five permanent
members of the (United Nations) Security Council. Now is the time to be fair and
honest to protect the Libyan people," Libyan envoy Ali al-Essawi told Reuters in the Indian capital New Delhi.
The Libyan embassy in Malaysia, in a
statement, condemned what it called the "barbaric, criminal massacre"
of protesters
The statement by the Libyan mission to
the United Nations
called on "the officers and soldiers of the Libyan army wherever they are and whatever their
rank is ... to organize themselves and move towards Tripoli and cut the snake's head."
It appealed to the United Nations to
impose a no-fly zone over Libyan cities to prevent mercenaries and weapons
being shipped in.
It also urged guards at Libya's oil installations
to protect them from any sabotage "by the coward tyrant," and urged
countries to prevent Gaddafi from fleeing there and to be on the lookout for
any money smuggling.
Asked if the Libyan government
had reacted to the statement, Dabbashi told reporters, "I don't care that
much about the reaction of the government, I think practically there is no
government."
"I think it is a one-man show.
It is a kind of end of the game, and he (Gaddafi) is trying to kill as much as
he can from the Libyan people and try to destroy as much as he can from the
Libyan country."
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he held an extensive telephone discussion
with Gaddafi on Monday.
"I forcefully urged him to stop
violence against demonstrators," Ban told reporters in Los Angeles. He said he stressed to Gaddafi the
importance of respecting human rights, freedom of speech and freedom of
assembly.
"I have seen very disturbing
and shocking scenes, where Libyan authorities have been firing at demonstrators
from warplanes and helicopters. This is unacceptable. This must stop
immediately," he said. Ban was Los Angeles to attend talks on climate change.
Dabbashi and his colleagues called
on The Hague-based
International Criminal Court to start an
immediate inquiry into war crimes and crimes against humanity they said Gaddafi
and his sons and followers had committed.
They called on employees of Libyan
embassies all over the world to "stand with their people," especially
the mission at the U.N. European
headquarters in Geneva, which they said should seek action by the U.N. Human
Rights Council there.
Gaddafi visited the United Nations in September 2009, delivering a
rambling address of more than 90 minutes to the annual General Assembly
gathering of world leaders. (Additional reporting by Saif Eldin Hamdan in Cairo and Lindsay Claiborn in Los Angeles;
Editing by Peter Cooney,
Jackie Frank and Miral Fahmy)
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