As reported by Reuters:
* Libyans take to streets after protesters killed
*
Bahrain opposition bloc snubs
king's offer of talks
* Rights group says death toll in
Libya now 84
(Updates
Bahrain,
Libya, adds
Yemen,
Algeria, UK's Hague)
By
Cynthia Johnston and Frederik Richter
MANAMA, Feb 19 (
Reuters) - Two of the
Middle East's most
entrenched rulers were battling to quell unrest on Saturday
after security forces killed dozens of protesters in
Libya and
police fired teargas at demonstrators in the Bahraini capital.
Unrest has spread from
Tunisia and
Egypt to
Bahrain,
Libya,
Yemen and
Djibouti, as people of one country after another shed
their fear of oppressive, autocratic rulers and took to the
streets demanding democratic change and economic opportunity. Protesters in
Algiers on Saturday were surrounded by police
and corralled into a courtyard, pro- and anti-government crowds
in the Yemeni capital
Sanaa hurled stones at each other, and
protesters clashed with security forces in
Djibouti.
Libyan security forces killed 35 people in the eastern city
of
Benghazi late on Friday,
Human Rights Watch cited witnesses
and hospital sources as saying, in the worst violence of Muammar
Gaddafi's four decades in power. Protests against Gaddafi's rule this week, inspired by the
uprisings in
Tunisia and
Egypt, were met with a fierce security
crackdown, especially in the restive east around
Benghazi. A security source said clashes were still under way on
Saturday in the region between
Benghazi and Al Bayda, 200 km
away, where local people said security forces had killed dozens
of people in the past 72 hours.
The area is "80 percent under control ... a lot of police
stations have been set on fire or damaged," the source said.
New York-based
Human Rights Watch said Friday's killings
took to 84 its estimate for the death toll in three days of
protests, mostly around
Benghazi, against a ruling elite accused
of hoarding
Libya's
oil wealth and denying political freedoms. It said the deaths in the city, 1,000 km (600 miles) east of
Tripoli, happened when security forces opened fire on people
protesting after funeral processions for people killed in
earlier violence. There was no official word on the death toll.
British
Foreign Secretary William Hague urged
Libya to stop
using force against protesters and asked
Middle East governments
to respond to the "legitimate aspirations" of their people.
"I condemn the violence in
Libya, including reports of the
use of heavy weapons fire and a unit of snipers against
demonstrators," Hague said in a statement. "This is clearly
unacceptable and horrifying."
In
Bahrain, a key U.S. ally and home to the U.S. Fifth
Fleet, troops and armoured vehicles left a
Manama square that
had been a base for anti-government protesters, hours after
opposition groups rejected a royal call for dialogue unless the
military stood down.
Police firing teargas beat back the few demonstrators who
tried to move back into their former stronghold in
Pearl Square
after the
army pullout. The
crown prince, charged by
King Hamad on Friday with
opening a dialogue with the protesters, announced that all
troops had been ordered off the streets and that police would
maintain order. The announcement met one of the conditions for talks spelt
out by a Shi'ite ex-lawmer of the main Shi'ite opposition bloc,
Wefax, which quit parliament on Thursday.
Ibrahim Mattar told
Reuters the authorities must "accept the
concept of constitutional monarchy" and pull troops off the
streets before a dialogue could begin. "Then we can go for a
temporary government of new faces that would not include the
current interior or defence ministers," he said.
The government is led by the Sunni Muslim
Al Khalifa
dynasty, but the majority Shi'ite population has long complained
about what it sees as discrimination in access to state jobs,
housing and
healthcare, a charge the government denies. The
United States and top
oil producer Saudi Arabia see
Bahrain as a Sunni bulwark against neighbouring Shi'ite regional
power Iran.
The spreading unrest -- particularly worries about its
possible effects on the world No. 1
oil producer,
Saudi Arabia
-- helped drive Brent crude prices higher this week before other
factors caused them to slip on Friday.
It was also a factor in gold prices posting their best
weekly performance since December.
Analysts say a key difference between
Libya and
Egypt is
that Gaddafi has
oil cash to smooth over social problems. He is
also respected in much of the country, though less so in the
Cyrenaica region around
Benghazi.
"There is no national uprising," said
Noman Benotman, a
former opposition Libyan Islamist based in Britain but currently
in
Tripoli. "I don't think
Libya is comparable to
Egypt or
Tunisia. Gaddafi would fight to the very last moment," he said
by telephone from the Libyan capital.
In
Yemen, supporters and opponents of the government threw
stones at each other and fired shots in the air in
Sanaa, a day
after five people were killed and dozens wounded in clashes in
several towns between security forces and crowds demanding an
end to
President Ali Abdullah Saleh's 32-year rule. Saleh, a U.S. ally against a
Yemen-based al Qaeda wing that
has launched attacks at home and abroad, is struggling to end
month-old protests flaring across his impoverished country. In
Algiers, police in riot gear crammed some 500 protesters
into the courtyard of a residential block before they could
reach May 1 Square in the city centre.
The main opposition parties did not take part in the banned
protest, which was organised by human rights groups, some trade
unionists and a small opposition party.
This, like other recent demonstrations in
Algeria for
democratic change and better economic conditions, was too small
to rattle the authorities, but there have been signs that
pressure is building within the ruling group for substantial
change, including a new government line-up.
The political uprising sweeping through the
Middle East has
also reached the tiny Horn of
Africa state of
Djibouti, where
anti-government protesters clashed with security forces on
Saturday for the second day running.
On Friday, thousands of protesters called for the removal of
President Ismail Omar Guelleh, whose family has held sway in
Djibouti since independence in 1977. Guelleh took office in 1999
and is expected to run for a third term in April 2011.
Djibouti, a former French colony between
Eritrea and
Somalia, hosts
France's largest military base in
Africa and a
major U.S. base. Its port is used by foreign navies patrolling
busy shipping lanes off the coast of
Somalia to fight piracy.
Unemployment runs at about 60 percent.
(Additional reporting by
Hamid Ould Ahmed in
Algiers, William
Maclean in
London and
Saleh Al-Shaibany in
Muscat; Writing by
Tim Pearce, )
