South African President Jacob Zuma flew into Tripoli Monday to try to broker a peace deal with Muammar Gaddafi, just hours after Nato secretary-general said the Libyan leader’s “reign of terror” was coming to an end.
Zuma was met by a host of dignitaries, not including Gaddafi himself, who has not been seen since May 11 when he was shown by Libyan state television meeting what it said were tribal leaders.
Zuma’s walk down the red carpet at Tripoli airport was accompanied by a band and children chanting “We want Gaddafi!” in English while waving Libyan flags and pictures of the leader.
Zuma’s visit is his second since the conflict began. His previous trip made little progress because Gaddafi has refused to relinquish power, while rebel leaders say that is a pre-condition for any truce.
Nato warplanes have been raising the pace of their air strikes on Tripoli, with Gaddafi’s Bab al-Aziziyah compound in the centre of the city being hit repeatedly. Britain said on Sunday it was to add “bunker-busting” bombs to the arsenal its warplanes are using over Libya, a weapon it said would send a message to Gaddafi that it was time to quit.
“Our operation in Libya is achieving its objectives . . . We have seriously degraded Gaddafi’s ability to kill his own people,” Nato Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told a Nato forum in Varna, Bulgaria.
“Gaddafi’s reign of terror is coming to an end. He is increasingly isolated at home and abroad. Even those closest to him are departing, defecting or deserting.”
Gaddafi denies attacking civilians, saying his forces were obliged to act to contain armed criminal gangs and al-Qaeda militants.
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He says the Nato intervention is an act of colonial aggression aimed at grabbing Libya’s plentiful oil reserves.
Britain and other Nato powers are ratcheting up the military intervention to try to break a deadlock that has seen Gaddafi hold on to power despite a rebel uprising against his four-decade rule and weeks of air strikes.
Rebels control the east of Libya around the city of Benghazi, Libya’s third-biggest city Misrata, and a mountain range stretching from the town of Zintan, 150km south of Tripoli, toward the border with Tunisia. — Reuters
